sentiments of peace, the ideas of peace, among the people in schools,
churches--everywhere. At length we can diminish the power of the
national Government, so that the people alone shall have the power to
declare war, by a direct vote, the Congress only to recommend it. We can
take from the Government the means of war by raising only revenue enough
for the nation's actual wants, and raising that directly, so that each
man knows what he pays, and when he pays it, and then he will take care
that it is not paid to make him poor and keep him so. We can diffuse a
real practical Christianity among the people, till the mass of men have
courage enough to overcome evil with good, and look at aggressive war as
the worst of treason and the foulest infidelity!
Now is the time to push and be active. War itself gives weight to words
of peace. There will never be a better time till we make the times
better. It is not a day for cowardice, but for heroism. Fear not that
the "honor of the nation" will suffer from Christian movements for
peace. What if your men of low degree are a vanity, and your men of high
degree are a lie? That is no new thing. Let true men do their duty, and
the lie and the vanity will pass each to its reward. Wait not for the
churches to move, or the State to become Christian. Let us bear our
testimony like men, not fearing to be called traitors, infidels; fearing
only to be such.
I would call on Americans, by their love of our country, its great
ideas, its real grandeur, its hopes, and the memory of its fathers--to
come and help save that country from infamy and ruin. I would call on
Christians, who believe that Christianity is a truth, to lift up their
voice, public and private, against the foulest violation of God's law,
this blasphemy of the Holy Spirit of Christ, this worst form of
infidelity to man and God. I would call on all men, by the one nature
that is in you, by the great human heart beating alike in all your
bosoms, to protest manfully against this desecration of the earth, this
high treason against both man and God. Teach your rulers that you are
Americans, not slaves; Christians, not heathen; men, not murderers, to
kill for hire! You may effect little in this generation, for its head
seems crazed and its heart rotten. But there will be a day after to-day.
It is for you and me to make it better; a day of peace, when nation
shall no longer lift up sword against nation; when all shall indeed be
brothers, and all blest. Do this, you shall be worthy to dwell in this
beautiful land; Christ will be near you; God work with you, and bless
you for ever!
This present trouble with Mexico may be very brief; surely it might be
even now brought to an end with no unusual manhood in your rulers. Can
we say we have not deserved it? Let it end, but let us remember that
war, horrid as it is, is not the worst calamity which ever befalls a
people. It is far worse for a people to lose all reverence for right,
for truth, all respect for man and God; to care more for the freedom of
trade than the freedom of men; more for a tariff than millions of souls.
This calamity came upon us gradually, long before the present war, and
will last long after that has died away. Like people like ruler, is a
true word. Look at your rulers, representatives, and see our own
likeness! We reverence force, and have forgot there is any right beyond
the vote of a Congress or a people; any good beside dollars; any God but
majorities and force, I think the present war, though it should cost
50,000 men and $50,000,000, the smallest part of our misfortune. Abroad
we are looked on as a nation of swindlers and men-stealers! What can we
say in our defence? Alas, the nation is a traitor to its great
idea,--that all men are born equal, each with the same unalienable
rights. We are infidels to Christianity. We have paid the price of our
shame.
There have been dark days in this nation before now. It was gloomy when
Washington with his little army fled through the Jerseys. It was a long
dark day from '83 to '89. It was not so dark as now; the nation never so
false. There was never a time when resistance to tyrants was so rare a
virtue; when the people so tamely submitted to a wrong. Now you can feel
the darkness. The sack of this city and the butchery of its people were
a far less evil than the moral deadness of the nation. Men spring up
again like the mown grass; but to raise up saints and heroes in a dead
nation corrupting beside its golden tomb, what shall do that for us? We
must look not to the many for that, but to the few who are faithful unto
God and man.
I know the hardy vigor of our men, the stalwart intellect of this
people. Would to God they could learn to love the right and true. Then
what a people should we be, spreading from the Madawaska to the
Sacramento, diffusing our great idea, and living our religion, the
Christianity of Christ! Oh, Lord! make the vision true; waken thy
prophets and stir thy people till righteousness exalt us! No wonders
will be wrought for that. But the voice of conscience speaks to you and
me, and all of us: The right shall prosper; the wicked States shall die,
and History responds her long amen.
What lessons come to us from the past! The Genius of the old
civilization, solemn and sad, sits there on the Alps, his classic beard
descending o'er his breast. Behind him arise the new nations, bustling
with romantic life. He bends down over the midland sea, and counts up
his children--Assyria, Egypt, Tyre, Carthage, Troy, Etruria, Corinth,
Athens, Rome--once so renowned, now gathered with the dead, their giant
ghosts still lingering pensive o'er the spot. He turns westward his
face, too sad to weep, and raising from his palsied knee his trembling
hand, looks on his brother genius of the new civilization. That young
giant, strong and mocking, sits there on the Alleghanies. Before him lie
the waters, covered with ships; behind him he hears the roar of the
Mississippi and the far distant Oregon--rolling their riches to the sea.
He bends down, and that far ocean murmurs pacific in his ear. On his
left, are the harbors, shops and mills of the East, and a five-fold
gleam of light goes up from Northern lakes. On his right, spread out the
broad savannahs of the South, waiting to be blessed; and far off that
Mexique bay bends round her tropic shores. A crown of stars is on that
giant's head, some glorious with flashing, many-colored light; some
bloody red; some pale and faint, of most uncertain hue. His right hand
lies folded in his robe; the left rests on the Bible's opened page, and
holds these sacred words--All men are equal, born with equal rights from
God. The old says to the young: "Brother, beware!" and Alps and Rocky
Mountains say "Beware!" That stripling giant, ill-bred and scoffing,
shouts amain: "My feet are red with the Indians' blood; my hand has
forged the negro's chain. I am strong; who dares assail me? I will drink
his blood, for I have made my covenant of lies, and leagued with hell
for my support. There is no right, no truth; Christianity is false, and
God a name." His left hand rends those sacred scrolls, casting his
Bibles underneath his feet, and in his right he brandishes the
negro-driver's whip, crying again--"Say, who is God, and what is Right."
And all his mountains echo--Right. But the old genius sadly says again:
"Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not prosper." The hollow
tomb of Egypt, Athens, Rome, of every ancient State, with all their
wandering ghosts, replies, "AMEN."
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Isaiah lxiii. 1-6. _Noyes's_ Version.
_The People._
1. Who is this that cometh from Edom?
In scarlet garments from Bozrah?
This, that is glorious in his apparel,
Proud in the greatness of his strength?
_Jehovah._
I, that proclaim deliverance,
And am mighty to save.
_The People._
2. Wherefore is thine apparel red,
And thy garments like those of one that treadeth the wine-vat?
_Jehovah._
3. I have trodden the wine-vat alone,
And of the nations there was none with me.
And I trod them in mine anger,
And I trampled them in my fury,
So that their life-blood was sprinkled upon my garments,
And I have stained all my apparel.
4. For the day of vengeance was in my heart,
And the year of my deliverance was come.
5. And I looked, and there was none to help,
And I wondered, that there was none to uphold,
Therefore my own arm wrought salvation for me,
And my fury, it sustained me.
6. I trod down the nations in my anger;
I crushed them in my fury,
And spilled their blood upon the ground.
[4] To show the differences between the Old and New Testament, and to
serve as introduction to this discourse, the following passages were
read as the morning lesson: Exodus, xv. 1-6; 2 Sam. xxii. 32, 35-43, 48;
xlv. 3-5; Isa. lxvi. 15, 16; Joel, iii. 9-17, and Matt. v. 3-11, 38-39,
43-45.
[5] Such was the price offered, and such the number of soldiers then
called for.
[6] See the appropriate forms of prayer for that service by the present
Bishop of Oxford, in Jay's Address before the American Peace Society, in
1845.
[7] _Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving to Almighty God._
"O Lord God of Hosts, in whose hand is power and might irresistible, we,
thine unworthy servants, most humbly acknowledge thy goodness in the
victories lately vouchsafed to the armies of our Sovereign over a host
of barbarous invaders, who sought to spread desolation over fruitful and
populous provinces, enjoying the blessings of peace, under the
protection of the British Crown. We bless Thee, O merciful Lord, for
having brought to a speedy and prosperous issue a war to which no
occasion had been given by injustice on our part, or apprehension of
injury at our hands! To Thee, O Lord, we ascribe the glory! It was Thy
wisdom which guided the counsel! Thy power which strengthened the hands
of those whom it pleased Thee to use as Thy instruments in the
discomfiture of the lawless aggressor, and the frustration of his
ambitious designs! From Thee, alone, cometh the victory, and the spirit
of moderation and mercy in the day of success. Continue, we beseech
Thee, to go forth with our armies, whensoever they are called into
battle in a righteous cause; and dispose the hearts of their leaders to
exact nothing more from the vanquished than is necessary for the
maintenance of peace and security against violence and rapine.
"Above all, give Thy grace to those who preside in the councils of our
Sovereign, and administer the concerns of her widely extended dominions,
that they may apply all their endeavors to the purposes designed by Thy
good Providence, in committing such power to their hands, the temporal
and spiritual benefit of the nations intrusted to their care.
"And whilst Thou preservest our distant possessions from the horrors of
war, give us peace and plenty at home, that the earth may yield her
increase, and that we, Thy servants, receiving Thy blessings with
thankfulness and gladness of heart, may dwell together in unity, and
faithfully serve Thee, to Thy honor and glory, through Jesus Christ our
Lord, to whom, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, belong all dominion and
power, both in heaven and earth, now and for ever. Amen."--See a defence
of this prayer, in the London "Christian Observer" for May, p. 319, _et
seq._, and for June, p. 346, _et seq._
Would you know what he gave thanks for on Easter Sunday? Here is the
history of the battle:
"This battle had begun at six, and was over at eleven o'clock; the
hand-to-hand combat commenced at nine, and lasted scarcely two hours.
The river was full of sinking men. For two hours, volley after volley
was poured in upon the human mass--the stream being literally red with
blood, and covered with the bodies of the slain. At last, the musket
ammunition becoming exhausted, the infantry fell to the rear, the horse
artillery plying grape till not a man was visible within range. No
compassion was felt or mercy shown." But "'twas a famous victory!"
[8] Mr. Charles Sumner.
IV.
SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE ANTI-WAR MEETING IN FANEUIL HALL, FEBRUARY 4,
1847.
Mr. Chairman,--We have come here to consult for the honor of our
country. The honor and dignity of the United States are in danger. I
love my country; I love her honor. It is dear to me almost as my own. I
have seen stormy meetings in Faneuil Hall before now, and am not easily
disturbed by a popular tumult. But never before did I see a body of
armed soldiers attempting to overawe the majesty of the people, when met
to deliberate on the people's affairs. Yet the meetings of the people of
Boston have been disturbed by soldiers before now, by British bayonets;
but never since the Boston massacre on the 5th of March, 1770! Our
fathers hated a standing army. This is a new one, but behold the effect!
Here are soldiers with bayonets to overawe the majesty of the people!
They went to our meeting last Monday night, the hireling soldiers of
President Polk, to overawe and disturb the meetings of honest men. Here
they are now, and in arms!
We are in a war; the signs of war are seen here in Boston. Men, needed
to hew wood and honestly serve society, are marching about your streets;
they are learning to kill men, men who never harmed us, nor them;
learning to kill their brothers. It is a mean and infamous war we are
fighting. It is a great boy fighting a little one, and that little one
feeble and sick. What makes it worse is, the little boy is in the right,
and the big boy is in the wrong, and tells solemn lies to make his side
seem right. He wants, besides, to make the small boy pay the expenses of
the quarrel.
The friends of the war say "Mexico has invaded our territory!" When it
is shown that it is we who have invaded hers, then it is said, "Ay, but
she owes us money." Better say outright, "Mexico has land, and we want
to steal it!"
This war is waged for a mean and infamous purpose, for the extension of
slavery. It is not enough that there are fifteen Slave States, and
3,000,000 men here who have no legal rights--not so much as the horse
and the ox have in Boston: it is not enough that the slaveholders
annexed Texas, and made slavery perpetual therein, extending even north
of Mason and Dixon's line, covering a territory forty-five times as
large as the State of Massachusetts. Oh, no; we must have yet more land
to whip negroes in!
The war had a mean and infamous beginning. It began illegally,
unconstitutionally. The Whigs say, "the President made the war." Mr.
Webster says so! It went on meanly and infamously. Your Congress lied
about it. Do not lay the blame on the democrats; the whigs lied just as
badly. Your Congress has seldom been so single-mouthed before. Why, only
sixteen voted against the war, or the lie. I say this war is mean and
infamous all the more, because waged by a people calling itself
democratic and Christian. I know but one war so bad in modern times,
between civilized nations, and that was the war for the partition of
Poland. Even for that there was more excuse.
We have come to Faneuil Hall to talk about the war; to work against the
war. It is rather late, but "better late than never." We have let two
opportunities for work pass unemployed. One came while the annexation of
Texas was pending. Then was the time to push and be active. Then was the
time for Massachusetts and all the North, to protest as one man against
the extension of slavery. Everybody knew all about the matter, the
democrats and the whigs. But how few worked against that gross mischief!
One noble man lifted up his warning voice;[9] a man noble in his
father,--and there he stands in marble; noble in himself--and there he
stands yet higher up--and I hope time will show him yet nobler in his
son, and there he stands, not in marble, but in man! He talked against
it, worked against it, fought against it. But Massachusetts did little.
Her tonguey men said little; her handymen did little. Too little could
not be done or said. True, we came here to Faneuil Hall and passed
resolutions; good resolutions they were, too. Daniel Webster wrote them,
it is said. They did the same in the State House; but nothing came of
them. They say "Hell is paved with resolutions;" these were of that sort
of resolutions; which resolve nothing because they are of words, not
works!
Well, we passed the resolutions; you know who opposed them; who hung
back and did nothing, nothing good I mean; quite enough not good. Then
we thought all the danger was over; that the resolutions settled the
matter. But then was the time to confound at once the enemies of your
country; to show an even front hostile to slavery.
But the chosen time passed over, and nothing was done. Do not lay the
blame on the democrats; a whig Senate annexed Texas, and so annexed a
war. We ought to have told our delegation in Congress, if Texas were
annexed, to come home, and we would breathe upon it and sleep upon it,
and then see what to do next. Had our resolutions, taken so warmly here
in Faneuil Hall in 1845, been but as warmly worked out, we had now been
as terrible to the slave power as the slave power, since extended, now
is to us!
Why was it that we did nothing? That is a public secret. Perhaps I ought
not to tell it to the people. (Cries of "Tell it.")
The annexation of Texas, a slave territory big as the kingdom of France,
would not furl a sail on the ocean; would not stop a mill-wheel at
Lowell! Men thought so.
That time passed by, and there came another. The Government had made
war; the Congress voted the dollars, voted the men, voted a lie. Your
representative, men of Boston, voted for all three; the lie, the
dollars, and the men; all three, in obedience to the slave power! Let
him excuse that to the conscience of his party; it is an easy matter. I
do not believe he can excuse it to his own conscience. To the conscience
of the world it admits of no excuse. Your President called for
volunteers, 50,000 of them. Then came an opportunity such as offers not
once in one hundred years, an opportunity to speak for freedom and the
rights of mankind! Then was the time for Massachusetts to stand up in
the spirit of '76, and say, "We won't send a man, from Cape Ann to
Williamstown--not one Yankee man, for this wicked war." Then was the
time for your Governor to say, "Not a volunteer for this wicked war."
Then was the time for your merchants to say, "Not a ship, not a dollar
for this wicked war;" for your manufacturers to say, "We will not make
you a cannon, nor a sword, nor a kernel of powder, nor a soldier's
shirt, for this wicked war." Then was the time for all good men to say,
"This is a war for slavery, a mean and infamous war; an aristocratic
war, a war against the best interests of mankind. If God please, we will
die a thousand times, but never draw blade in this wicked war." (Cries
of "Throw him over," etc.) Throw him over, what good would that do? What
would you do next, after you have thrown him over? ("Drag you out of the
hall!") What good would that do? It would not wipe off the infamy of
this war! would not make it less wicked!
That is what a democratic nation, a Christian people ought to have said,
ought to have done. But we did not say so; the Bay State did not say so,
nor your Governor, nor your merchants, nor your manufacturers, nor your
good men; the Governor accepted the President's decree, issued his
proclamation calling for soldiers, recommended men to enlist, appealing
to their "patriotism" and "humanity."
Governor Briggs is a good man, and so far I honor him. He is a
temperance man, strong and consistent; I honor him for that. He is a
friend of education; a friend of the people. I wish there were more
such. Like many other New England men, he started from humble
beginnings; but unlike many such successful men of New England, he is
not ashamed of the lowest round he ever trod on. I honor him for all
this. But that was a time which tried men's souls, and his soul could
not stand the rack. I am sorry for him. He did as the President told
him.
What was the reason for all this? Massachusetts did not like the war,
even then; yet she gave her consent to it. Why so? There are two words
which can drive the blood out of the cheeks of cowardly men in
Massachusetts any time. They are "Federalism" and "Hartford Convention!"
The fear of those words palsied the conscience of Massachusetts, and so
her Governor did as he was told. I feel no fear of either. The
Federalists did not see all things; who ever did? They had not the ideas
which were destined to rule this nation; they looked back when the age
looked forward. But to their own ideas they were true; and if ever a
nobler body of men held state in any nation, I have yet to learn when or
where. If we had had the shadow of Caleb Strong in the Governor's chair,
not a volunteer for this war had gone out of Massachusetts.
I have not told quite all the reasons why Massachusetts did nothing. Men
knew the war would cost money; that the dollars would in the end be
raised, not by a direct tax, of which the poor man paid according to his
little, and the rich man in proportion to his much, but by a tariff
which presses light on property, and hard on the person; by a tax on the
backs and mouths of the people. Some of the Whigs were glad last Spring,
when the war came, for they hoped thereby to save the child of their old
age, the tariff of '42. There are always some rich men, who say "No
matter what sort of a Government we have, so long as we get our
dividends;" always some poor men, who say "No matter how much the nation
suffers, if we fill our hungry purses thereby." Well, they lost their
virtue, lost their tariff, and gained just nothing; what they deserved
to gain.
Now a third opportunity has come; no, it has not come; we have brought
it. The President wants a war tax on tea and coffee. Is that democratic,
to tax every man's breakfast and supper, for the sake of getting more
territory to whip negroes in? (Numerous cries of "Yes.") Then what do
you think despotism would be? He asks a loan of $28,000,000 for this
war. He wants $3,000,000 to spend privately for this war. In eight
months past, he has asked I am told for $74,000,000. Seventy-four
millions of dollars to conquer slave territory! Is that democratic too?
He wants to increase the standing army, to have ten regiments more! A
pretty business that. Ten regiments to gag the people in Faneuil Hall.
Do you think that is democratic? Some men have just asked Massachusetts
for $20,000 for the volunteers! It is time for the people to rebuke all
this wickedness.
* * * * *
I think there is a good deal to excuse the volunteers. I blame them, for
some of them know what they are about. Yet I pity them more, for most of
them, I am told, are low, ignorant men; some of them drunken and brutal.
From the uproar they make here to-night, arms in their hands, I think
what was told me is true! I say I pity them! They are my brothers; not
the less brothers because low and misguided. If they are so needy that
they are forced to enlist by poverty, surely I pity them. If they are of
good families, and know better, I pity them still more! I blame most the
men that have duped the rank and file! I blame the captains and
colonels, who will have least of the hardships, most of the pay, and all
of the "glory." I blame the men that made the war; the men that make
money out of it. I blame the great party men of the land. Did not Mr.
Clay say he hoped he could slay a Mexican? (Cries, "No, he didn't.")
Yes, he did; said it on Forefather's day! Did not Mr. Webster, in the
streets of Philadelphia, bid the volunteers, misguided young men, go and
uphold the stars of their country? (Voices, "He did right!") No, he
should have said the stripes of his country, for every volunteer to this
wicked war is a stripe on the nation's back! Did not he declare this
war unconstitutional, and threaten to impeach the President who made it,
and then go and invest a son in it? Has it not been said here, "Our
country, howsoever bounded," bounded by robbery or bounded by right
lines! Has it not been said, all round, "Our country, right or wrong!"
I say I blame not so much the volunteers as the famous men who deceive
the nation! (Cries of "Throw him over, kill him, kill him," and a
flourish of bayonets.) Throw him over! you will not throw him over. Kill
him! I shall walk home unarmed and unattended, and not a man of you will
hurt one hair of my head.