is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual
presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow
it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these
Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our
duty, fearlessly and effectively.
Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us,
nor frightened from it by menaces either of destruction to the government
or of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND
IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.
A. Lincoln.
CCLXXXVII.
THE PRETEXT OF REBELLION.
If war must come--if the bayonet must be used to maintain the
Constitution--I can say, before God, my conscience is clear. I have
struggled long for a peaceful solution of the difficulty. I have not only
tendered those States what was theirs of right, but I have gone to the very
extreme off magnanimity, The return we receive is war, armies marched upon
our Capital obstructions and danger to our navigation, letters of marque
to invite pirates to prey upon our commerce, a concerted movement to blot
out the United States of America from the map of the globe. The question
is, Are we to be stricken down by those who, when they can no longer
govern, threaten to destroy? What cause, what excuse do disunionists give
us for breaking up the best government on which the sun of heaven ever shed
its rays? They are dissatisfied with the result of a Presidential
election. Did they never get beaten before? Are we to resort to the sword
when we get defeated at the ballot-box? I understand that the voice of the
people expressed in the mode appointed by the Constitution must command the
obedience of every citizen. They assume, on the election of a particular
candidate, that their rights are not safe in the Union. What evidence do
they present of this? I defy any man to show any act on which it is based.
What act has been omitted or been done? I appeal to these assembled
thousands, that so far as the constitutional rights of the Southern
States--I will say the constitutional rights of slaveholders--are
concerned, nothing has been done, and nothing omitted, of which they can
complain.
There has never been a time, from the day that Washington was inaugurated
first President of these United States, when the rights of the Southern
States stood firmer under the laws of the land than they do now; there
never was a time when they had not as good a cause for disunion as they
have to-day. What good cause have they now that has not existed under every
administration? If they say the Territorial question--now, for the first
time, there is no act of Congress prohibiting slavery anywhere. If it be
the non-enforcement of the laws, the only complaints that I have heard have
been of the too vigorous and faithful fulfillment of the Fugitive Slave
Law. Then what reason have they? The slavery question is a mere excuse. The
election of Lincoln is a mere pretext. The present secession movement is
the result of an enormous conspiracy formed more than a year since--foraged
by leaders in the Southern Confederacy more than twelve months ago. They
use the slavery question as a means to aid the accomplishment of their
ends. They desired the election of a Northern candidate, by a sectional
vote, in order to show that the two sections cannot live together. When the
history of the two years from the Lecompton charter down to the
Presidential election shall be written, it will be shown that the scheme
was deliberately made to break up this Union. They desired a Northern
Republican to be elected by a purely Northern vote, and now assign this
fact as a reason why the sections may not longer live together. If the
disunion candidate in the late Presidential contest had carried the united
South, their scheme was, the Northern candidate successful, to seize the
Capital last spring, and, by a united South and divided North, hold it.
That scheme was defeated in the defeat of the disunion candidate in several
of the Southern states. The conspiracy is now known. Armies have been
raised, war is levied to accomplish it. There are only two sides to the
question. Every man must be for the United States or against them. There
can be no neutrals in this war; only patriots or traitors.
S. A. Douglass.
CCLXXXVIII.
NO NEUTRALS; ONLY PATRIOTS OR TRAITORS.
But this is no time for a detail of causes. The conspiracy is now known.
Armies have been raised, war is levied to accomplish it. There are only two
sides to the question. Every man must be for the United States or against
them. There can be no neutrals in this war; only patriots or tractors. We
cannot close our eyes to the sad and solemn fact that war does exist. The
government must be maintained, its enemies overthrown; and the more
stupendous our preparations the less the bloodshed, and the shorter the
struggle will be. But we must remember certain restraints on our action
even in time of war. We are a Christian people, and the war must be
prosecuted in a manner recognized by Christian nations. We must not invade
constitutional rights. The innocent must not suffer, nor women or children
be the victims. Savages must not be let loose. But while I sanction no war
on the rights of others, I will implore my countrymen not to lay down their
arms until our own rights are recognized. The Constitution and its
guarantees are our birth right, and I am ready to enforce that inalienable
right to the last extent. We cannot recognize secession. Recognize it once,
and you have not only dissolved government, but you have destroyed social
order, and upturned the foundations of society You have inaugurated anarchy
in its worst form, and will shortly experience all the horrors of the
French Revolution.
Then we have a solemn duty,--to maintain the government. The greater our
unanimity, the speedier the day of peace. We have prejudices to overcome
from a fierce party contest waged a few short months since. Yet these must
be allayed. Let us lay aside all criminations and recriminations as to the
origin of these difficulties. When we shall have again a country, with the
United States flag floating over it, and respected on every inch of
American soil, it will then be time enough to ask who and what brought all
this upon us. I have said more than I intended to say. It is a sad task to
discuss questions so fearful as civil war; but sad as it is, bloody and
disastrous as I expect the war will be, I express it as my conviction,
before God, that it is the duty of every American citizen to rally round
the flag of his country.
S. A. Douglass.
CCLXXXIX.
ON THE ORDINANCE OF SECESSION IN THE GEORGIA CONVENTION.
This step, once taken, can never be recalled; and all the baleful and
withering consequences that follow will rest on the convention for all
coming time. When we and our posterity shall see our lovely South desolated
by the demon of war, which this act of yours will inevitably invite and
call forth; when your green fields of waving harvests shall be trodden down
by the murderous soldiery and the very car of war sweeping over our land;
our temples of justice laid in ashes; all the horrors and desolation of war
upon us, who but this convention will be held responsible for it? and who
but him who shall have given his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure
shall be held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present
generation, and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming
time, for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act
you now propose to perpetrate?
Pause, I entreat you, and consider for a moment what reasons you can give
that will ever satisfy yourselves in calmer moments,--what reasons you can
give to your fellow-sufferers in the calamity that it will bring upon us?
What reason can you give the nations of the earth to justify it? They will
be the calm and deliberate judges in the case, and to what cause, or one
overt act can you point, on which to rest the plea of justification? What
right has the North assailed? What interest of the South has been invaded?
What justice has been denied? and what claim founded in justice and right
has been withheld? can either of you to-day name one governmental act of
wrong deliberately and purposely done by the government at Washington of
which the South has a right to complain? I challenge the answer! While, on
the other hand, let me show the facts (and believe me, gentlemen, I am not
here the advocate of the North, but am here the firm friend and lover of
the South and her institutions, and for this reason I speak thus plainly
and faithfully for yours, mine, and every other man's interest, the words
of truth and soberness,) let me show the facts, I say, of which I wish you
to judge, and I will only state facts which are clear and undeniable, and
which now stand as records authentic in the history of our country.
When we of the South demanded the slave-trade, or the importation of
Africans for the cultivation of our lands, did they not yield the right for
twenty years? When we asked a three-fifths representation in Congress for
our slaves, was it not granted? When we asked and demanded the return of
any fugitive from justice, or the recovery of those persons owing labor or
allegiance, was it not incorporated in the constitution? and again ratified
and strengthened in the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850? Do you reply that in
many instances they have violated this compact, and have not been faithful
to their engagements? As individuals and local communities they may have
done so; but not by the sanction of government; for that has always been
true to Southern interests.
Leaving out of the view, for the present, the countless millions of dollars
you must expend in a war with the North, there will be thousands and tens
of thousands of your sons and brothers slain in battle, and opened up as
sacrifices upon the altar of ambition,--and for what, we ask again? It is
for the overthrow of the American government, established by our common
ancestry cemented and built up by their sweat and blood, and founded on the
broad principles of Right, Justice, and Humanity? And, as such, I must
declare here, as I have often done before, and which has been repeated by
the greatest and wisest of statesman and patriots in this and other lands,
that it is the best and freest government,--the most equal in its
rights,--the most just in its decisions--the most lenient in its measures:
and the most inspiring in its principles to elevate the race of men, that
the sun in heaven ever shone upon.
Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a government as this, under which
we have lived for more than three quarters of a century, in which we have
gained our wealth, our standing as a nation, our domestic safety while the
elements of peril are round us with peace and tranquility accompanied with
unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed--is the height of madness, folly
and wickedness, to which I can neither lend my sanction nor my vote.
A. H. Stephens.
CCXC.
"THE HIRELING LABORERS" OF THE NORTH.
The Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Hammond] exclaims: "The man who lives
by daily labor, your whole hireling class of manual laborers, are
essentially slaves; and they feel galled by their degradation." What a
sentiment is this to hear uttered in the councils of this democratic
republic! This language of scorn and contempt is addressed to senators who
were not nursed by a slave; whose lot it was to toil with their own
hands,--to eat bread, earned, not by the sweat of another's brow, but by
their own.
Sir, should the Senator and his agitators and lecturers come to
Massachusetts, on a mission to teach our "hireling class of manual
laborers," our "slaves," the "tremendous secret of the ballot-box," and to
help "combine and lead them," these stigmatized "hirelings" would reply to
the Senator and his associates: "we are freemen; we are the peers of the
gifted and the wealthy; we know 'the tremendous secret of the ballot-box;'
and we mould and fashion these institutions that bless and adorn our free
Commonwealth! These public schools are ours, for the education of our
children; these libraries, with their accumulated treasures, are ours;
these multitudinous and varied pursuits of life, where intelligence and
skill find their reward, are ours. Labor is here honored and respected, and
great examples incite us to action.
"All around us, in the professions, in the marts of commerce, on the
exchange where merchant princes and capitalists do congregate, in these
manufactories and workshops where the products of every clime are fashioned
into a thousand forms of utility and beauty, on these smiling farms
fertilized by the sweat of free labor, in every position of private and of
public life,--are our associates, who were but yesterday what you call
'hireling laborers,' and therefore, 'essentially slaves!' In every
department of human effort are noble men who sprang from our ranks,-men
whose good deeds will be felt, and will live in the grateful memories of
men, when the stones reared by the hands of affection to their honored
names shall crumble into dust. Our eyes glisten and our hearts throb over
the bright, glowing, and radiant pages of our history that record the deeds
of patriotism of the sons of New England who sprang from our ranks, and
wore the badges of toil. While the names of Benjamin Franklin, Roger
Sherman, Nathaniel Greene, and Paul Revere, live on the brightest pages of
our history, the mechanics of Massachusetts and New England will never want
illustrious examples to incite us to noble aspirations and noble deeds.
"Go home, sir, and say to your privileged class, which you vauntingly say
leads progress, civilization, and refinement, that in the opinion of the
'hireling laborers' of Massachusetts, if you have no sympathy for your
African bondsmen, you should, at least, sympathize with the millions of
your own race, whose labor your have dishonored and degraded by slavery!
You should teach your millions of poor and ignorant white men, so long
oppressed by your policy, the 'tremendous secret that the ballot-box is
stronger than an army with banners!' You should 'combine' and lead them to
the adoption of a policy which shall secure their own emancipation from a
degrading thraldom!"
H. Wilson.
CCXCI.
THE DEATH OF SLAVERY THE LIFE OF THE NATION.
We of America have been accustomed to contemplate, with something of
gratified and patriotic pride, the wondrous progress of our country, and
the strength and stability of our Government. Gazing with beaming eye and
throbbing heart upon the grandeur and beauty of this splendid edifice of
constitutional government in America, we came to believe that it was as
imperishable as the memory of its illustrious builders. We dreamed for our
native land a glorious destiny--a magnificent career among the nations
during the coming ages. But our firm, confident faith is now shaken--our
bright hopes are now dimmed--our lofty pride is now humbled--our gorgeous
visions of the future glories of the Republic are now obscured by the storm
of battle. Our country, the land of so much of affection, of pride and of
hope, now presents to the startled and astonished gaze of mankind an
appalling, humiliating, and saddening spectacle. Treasonable menaces of
other days have now ripened into treasonable deeds. Civil war holds its
carnival, and reaps its bloody harvest. The nation is grappling with a
gigantic conspiracy--struggling for existence--for the preservation of its
menaced life--against a rebellion that finds no parallel in the annals of
the world.
Why is it that the land resounds with the measured tread of a million of
armed men? Why is it that our bright waters all stained and our green
fields reddened with fraternal blood? Why is it that the young men of
America, in the pride and bloom of early manhood, are summoned from homes,
from the mothers who bore them, from the wives and sisters who love them,
to the fields of bloody strife--there to do soldiers' duties, bear
soldiers' burdens, and fill soldiers' graves? Why is it that thousands of
the men and the women of Christian America are sorrowing, with aching
hearts and tearful eyes, for the absent, the loved, and the lost? Why is it
that the heart of loyal America throbs, heavily oppressed with anxiety and
gloom, for the future of the country?
These crimes against the peace of the country and the life of the nation
are all, all to eternize the hateful dominion of man over the souls and
bodies of his fellow-men--to make slavery perpetual and its power forever
dominant in Christian and Republican America. These sacrifices of property
of health, of life--these appalling sorrows and agonies now upon us, are
all the inflictions of slavery, in its gigantic effort to found a
slaveholding empire in America. Yes, slavery is the "architect of ruin"
who organized this mighty conspiracy against the unity and existence of the
Republic. Slavery is the traitor that plunged the Nation into the fire, and
blood, and darkness of civil war. Slavery is the criminal whose hands are
dripping with the blood of our murdered sons. Before the tribunal of
mankind, of the present and of coming ages--before the bar of the
ever-living God--the loyal heart of America holds slavery responsible for
every dollar sacrificed, for every drop of blood shed, for every pang of
toil, of agony, and of death for every tear wrung from suffering or
affection, in this godless rebellion now upon us. For these treasonable
deeds, these crimes against freedom, humanity, and the life of the Nation,
slavery should be doomed by the loyal people of America to a swift, utter,
and ignominious annihilation.
Slavery, bold, proud, domineering with hate in its heart, scorn in its eye,
defiance in its mien, has pronounced against the existence of republican
institutions in America, against the supremacy of the Government, the unity
and life of the Nation. Slavery, hating the cherished institutions that
tend to secure the rights and enlarge the privileges of mankind, despising
the toiling masses, as "mudsills" and "white slaves," defying the
Government, its Constitution and its laws, has openly pronounced itself the
mortal and unappeasable enemy of the Republic. Slavery stands now the only
clearly pronounced foe our country has on the globe. Therefore, every word
spoken, every line written, every act performed, that keeps the breath of
life, for a moment, in slavery, is against the existence and perpetuity of
democratic institutions against the dignity of the toiling millions of
America--against the liberty, the peace, the honor, the renown, and the
life of the Nation. In the lights of to-day that flash upon us from camp
and battle-field, the loyal eye, heart, and brain of America sees and feels
and realizes that THE DEATH OF SLAVERY IS THE LIFE OF THE NATION! The loyal
voice of patriotism throughout all the land pronounces, in clear accents,
that AMERICAN SLAVERY MUST DIE THAT THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC MAY LIVE!
H. Wilson.
CCXCII.
THE FANATICISM OF MASSACHUSETTS.
This, sir, is not the first time in her history that Massachusetts has
drawn upon herself reproach and rebuke for unbending adherence to the
rights of human nature. In the days of her colonial existence, her
unshrinking devotion to the rights of mankind often drew upon her the
censure of the pliant supporters of the British Crown; but the world now
quotes and commends her inspiring example. Now her abhorrence of human
slavery brings upon her the condemnation of its advocates and apologists,
but the hour will yet come, in the march of time, when her unwavering
fidelity to an unpopular cause in spite of obloquy and reproach, will be a
source of inspiration to men struggling to recover lost rights.
Massachusetts clings with the tenacity of profound conviction to the
teachings of her own illustrious sons. She was taught by Benjamin Franklin
that "slavery is an atrocious debasement of human nature;" by John Adams
that "consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust;" by John
Quincy Adams that "slavery taints the very sources of moral
principle"--"establishes false estimates of virtue and vice;" by Daniel
Webster that "it is a continual and permanent violation of human
rights"--"opposed to the whole spirit of the Gospels and to the teachings
of Jesus Christ;" by William Ellery Channing that "to extend and perpetuate
the evil, we cut ourselves off from the communion of nations; we sink below
the civilization of our age; we invite the scorn, indignation and
abhorrence of the world." Massachusetts cannot forget or repudiate these
words of her immortal sons.
The distinguishing opinion of Massachusetts concerning slavery in America
is often flippantly branded in these Halls, as wild, passionate,
unreasoning fanaticism. Senators of the South! tell me, I pray you tell me,
if it be fanaticism for Massachusetts to see in this age, what your
peerless Washington saw in his age "the direful effects of slavery?" Is it
fanaticism for Massachusetts to believe as your Henry believed, that
"slavery is as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible,
and destructive to liberty?" Is it fanaticism for her to believe as your
Madison believed, that "slavery is a dreadful calamity?" Is it fanaticism
for her to believe with your Monroe, that "slavery has preyed upon the
vitals of the union and has been prejudicial to all the States in which it
has existed?" Is it fanaticism for her to believe with your Martin that
"slavery lessens the sense of the equal rights of mankind, and habituates
us to tyranny and oppression?" Is it fanaticism for her to believe with
your Pinckney that "it will one day destroy the reverence for liberty,
which is the vital principle of a Republic?" Is it fanaticism for her to
believe with your Henry Clay, that "slavery is a wrong, a grievous wrong,
and no contingency can make it right?" Surely, Senators who are wont to
accuse Massachusetts of being drunk with fanaticism, should not forget that
the noblest men the South has given to the service of the Republic, in
peace and in war, were her teachers.
H. Wilson.
CCXCIII.
DEFENCE OF MASSACHUSETTS.
Massachusetts, in her heart of hearts, loves liberty--loathes slavery. I
glory in her sentiments; for the heart of our common humanity is throbbing
in sympathy with her opinions. But she is not unmindful of her
constitutional duties, of her obligations to the Union and to her sister
States. Up to the verge of constitutional power she will go in maintenance
of her cherished convictions; but she has not shrunk, and she does not mean
to shrink, from the performance of her obligations as a member of this
Confederation of constellated States. She has never sought, she does not
seek, to encroach, by her own acts or by the action of the Federal
Government, upon the constitutional rights of her sister States. Jealous of
her own rights, she will respect the rights of others. Claiming the power
to control her own domestic policy, she freely accords that power to her
sister States. Concealing the rights of others, she demands her own. Loyal
to the Union, she demands loyalty in others. Here, and now, I demand of her
accusers that they file their bill of specifications, and produce the
proofs of their allegations, or forever hold their peace.