The Battle Renewed—Repeal of the Missouri Compromise Proposed—The
Struggle in Congress—Mr. Beecher’s Appeals—The Battle lost in
Congress is Transferred to the Territories—Forces Engaged—Kansas
War—Dred Scott Decision—Mr. Beecher’s Defence of Kansas—“Beecher’s
Bibles”—Charles Sumner Attacked in the Senate—The Fremont
Campaign—The Dog Noble.
“Henry, the battle is coming on. When it will end I know not. I only
hope that every one feels as alert as I do” (extract from a letter of
Mrs. Stowe to Henry Ward Beecher). It was dated November 1, 1852, but
expresses the feeling of some of the more sagacious ones during the
whole of this era of apparent peace. They were not deceived by the
surface calm. They felt that, beneath all party platforms, and the
compromises of party politics, and the make-shifts of a commercial
spirit, the great conscience of the North was being stirred. Deep was
calling unto deep, and the moanings of the sea that presaged the coming
tempest had reached their ears. The storm, not a new one but the violent
rising of the same old elements, began in Congress in the early part of
1854, upon the question of the organization of the territory of “The
Platte,” afterwards divided into two Territories called “Kansas and
Nebraska.” The star of empire was moving Westward, but of what kind
should this empire be, of liberty or slavery? If matters continued as
they then were it must be the former. California, stretching along the
Pacific coast for two hundred and fifty miles below Mason and Dixon’s
line, had declared for freedom through all her borders. The Territories
of New Mexico and Utah were not favorable to any great growth of slavery
nor capable of rendering it much assistance. Texas, although intensely
pro-slavery, yet, by reason of State pride, would not divide her
imperial domain into quarters for the benefit of that institution. Only
in one direction was expansion and growth possible, and that was in this
broad domain which was now asking to be organized into Territories and
would soon demand admission as States. Why should not this magnificent
country be opened to the slave-owner and his property as well as to the
settler from the North? Was not this his right? Other factors than
property interests have entered into the question. Conscience has been
enlisted upon the one side as on the other. The South has come to look
upon slavery as having equal rights, under the Constitution, with
liberty, and she feels aggrieved that she is not given all the
privileges of her fellow-citizens of the North. The only thing that
apparently prevented this natural and, as it seemed to her, just
expansion, was the Missouri Compromise, which had solemnly guaranteed
this whole territory to freedom. Why not repeal this obnoxious measure?
The proposition to do this sprang from Kentucky. The same State which,
through its senator. Henry Clay, had been foremost in originally
securing the act, now through its senator, Mr. Dixon, his successor, was
the first to ask for its repeal. Unlike as the movement seems, and
disowned as it undoubtedly would have been by Mr. Clay, the great
projector of the Missouri Compromise, yet in reality the substance of
each is the same. In both there is but one design—to placate the
slave-power and save the country by attempting to compromise, not
diverse interests, but antagonistic principles. They were but separate
steps in one path, and that a road towards national perversion,
disgrace, and ruin. The guiding star which once shone in the heavens had
been lost, and our statesmen were taking up with a will-o’-the-wisp,
born of swamp and miasma, in its place.
Although the project was conceived by the South, it could not have been
brought to the birth, much less nourished into baneful strength, had it
not been adopted by the North in the person of Stephen A. Douglas, one
of the ablest leaders of the Democratic party, a member of the United
States Senate, and chairman of the Committee upon Territories. Into the
bill for organizing the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, which he
reported to the Senate in January of 1854, he introduced the proposition
to repeal the old Missouri Compromise. The mere proposal was regarded as
little less than sacrilege. For thirty years that compromise had been
looked upon as a sacred pledge, to be held in the same reverence as the
Constitution itself. Scarcely four years before, the mover of the
proposition for its repeal had described it as “canonized in the hearts
of the American people as a sacred thing which no ruthless hand would
ever be reckless enough to disturb.” An attempt to set it aside roused
the most intense excitement throughout the whole land, the South in
favor, the North opposed. The readiness with which the flame sprang up
proved that through these past years of apparent quiet the fire had been
covered but not put out. Now that fresh fuel was added and the draught
opened, it blazed up more fiercely than ever. It was not confined to any
class or condition.
All of anti-slavery tendencies saw in it an evidence of the settled
purpose of the South to nationalize the institution of slavery, and a
testimony that it would not scruple to use any means to attain its end.
Moralists saw in it a disregard of most sacred promises, and felt the
ground of constitutional fidelity shaking under their feet. More than
three thousand clergymen in New England signed a protest against the
action proposed.
“We protest against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise as a great
moral wrong; as a breach of faith, eminently unjust to the moral
principles of the community and subversive of all confidence in national
engagements; as a measure full of danger to the peace and even the
existence of our beloved Union, and exposing us to the righteous
judgments of the Almighty.”
Even the mere politician was angry that an issue so repugnant to a
majority of the people had been so unwisely precipitated. Nor were his
anger and apprehension unwarranted. The storm of popular indignation
swept down like a tempest upon the forests, scattering dead leaves,
breaking off dead branches, and throwing down trees that had become
rotten in trunk or root. Before the end of the year the Democratic party
had lost its magnificent majority in Congress, and the Whig party had
practically ceased to exist, dishevelled, torn up by the roots, buried
by the storm.
During this preliminary contest Mr. Beecher is neither indifferent nor
silent. In lectures, in special sermons, and in numerous Star Papers he
makes his influence felt. In one of the latter upon “The Crisis” his
appeals and reproaches go out to all classes:
“The virtue, the morals, the prosperity of a domain large enough to be
an empire has no safeguard about it. Those future States, silent and
unpopulous, are like so many lambs huddled in a thicket by crowds of
wolves, that only wait for some single taste of blood to plunge in and
tear the whole! Unless there is a storm from the people that shall roll
like thunder in the mountains; unless the recreant and graceless herd in
Congress shall hear the coming down of many waters, like roaring
freshets from mountains on whose tops clouds have burst, there will soon
be no more ground to fight for. If anything is to be done it must be
done by the North. It must be quickly, loudly, and impetuously done!
There must be an outcry coming up from the bosom of the people, like
that which rent the midnight of Egypt when all its first-born were
stricken. Let no man wait for his fellow. Let children and women lead
and teach sluggish manhood with what energy and soul a voice should be
heard for liberty, upon half a continent, like the voice of God when He
speaks in storms!
“Let every single man write, ‘I solemnly protest against the perfidy and
the outrage of abolishing the Missouri Compromise’; and as he bears it
to the post-office, if he find a fellow to sign it, let him sign; but if
not, let it go as his single protest.
“Let families send solemn protests—the father and mother, the children
and hired laborers. Let there be ten thousand petitions from single
families within a week at Washington.
“Let churches and congregations unite and send instant petitions.
“In this solemn hour of peril, when all men’s hearts sink within them,
we have an appeal to those citizens who rebuked us for our fears in
1850.
“Did you not declare that that should be a finality? Did you not say
that, by a concession of conscience, we should thereafter have peace?
“Is this the peace? Is this the fulfilment of your promise? Is not this
the very sequence which we told you would come? That compromise was a
ball of frozen rattlesnakes. You turned them in your hands then with
impunity. We warned and besought. We protested and adjured. You
persisted in bringing them into the dwelling. You laid them down before
the fire. Now where are they? They are crawling all around. Their fangs
are striking death into every precious interest of liberty! It is your
work!
“In this emergency where are those ministers of the Gospel who have
always refused to infuse into the public mind a sound and instructed
moral sentiment upon the subject of slavery? Hitherto you have been
silent, because it did not concern the _North_. We earnestly protested
that so deep and dreadful a disease could not prey upon any limb of this
nation and not strike its taint and danger through and through the whole
body politic. We implored men not to let the first principles of human
rights die out of the popular mind; not to let a gigantic engine of
despotism, through its selfish remunerations of commerce, deaden every
quick sensibility to justice and bribe to sleep the vigilance of
humanity, though every palm should have thrice as many pieces of silver
as did he of old.
“The North is both bound and asleep. It is bound with bonds of unlawful
compromise! You, ministers of Christ, held her limbs, while the gaunt
and worthy minions of oppression moved about, twisting inextricable
cords about her hands and feet; or, like Saul, stood by, holding the
garments of those that slew the martyr! The poor Northern conscience has
been like a fly upon a spider’s web. Her statesmen, and not a few of her
ministers, have rolled up the struggling insect, singing fainter and
fainter, with webs of sophistry, till it now lies a miserable, helpless
victim, and Slavery is crawling up to suck its vital blood!
“What, then, do you owe to God, to heaven, and to your country, in an
effort to regain conscience, liberty, and duty? God, who searches the
heart, knows that it is not in our heart to say these things for the
sake of aspersion. We would lie down before you, and let your steps
tread our very neck, if you were only marching toward the high ends of
our country’s good. But we cannot endure to see noble and venerable
ministers of the Gospel first duped and deceived, and made to serve the
ends of oppression, and then, when the mighty juggle is detected, stand
silent and aghast, as unwilling now to repair as before to prevent the
utter misery and evil.
“But let us not be deceived. Let every man be prepared for a future! If
this bill shall be defeated the North will be like a man just dragged
out of the rapids above Niagara! If this bill pass, the North will be
like a man whirled in the very wildest rage of the infuriate rapids and
making headlong haste toward the awful plunge.
“Does any man believe that there can be _peace_ if this iniquity goes
forward? Will the South, with such advantage gained, easily relinquish
her grip? Will the North, betrayed, wounded, and religiously aroused
from the very bottom, let slave States come to the door of the Union,
from the very territory of which she has been cheated, and bid them
enter? Such struggles are before us as we have never seen. The next time
the masses, the religious-minded men of the then undivided North, are
aroused, standing on no flimsy base of compromise but on the solid
foundations of humanity, of natural feeling, of a Northern national
feeling springing from a love of liberty, they will not be put to sleep
again by any mere pretences of peace. The finality which the South gave
was a hollow truce but to give them time to forge their arms and grind
their swords. They bribed the North with a lie. The next time the North
reaches forth her hand it will scarcely be for gold or silver. There is
more danger now of wild collisions than of lying finalities. It will
come to that if the foolish counsels of timid men prevail. If civil wars
are to be prevented, now is the time; courage to-day or carnage
to-morrow. Firmness will give peace; trembling will bring war. *”
Another one follows upon “The Christian’s Duty to Liberty”:
“_Mar. 23, 1854._—At length God seems to have caught the wicked in their
own craft. It was not in the power of all the men of the North to
develop so earnest a feeling against slavery and for liberty as is now
finding tongue and giving itself forth all over the North. All that for
which we have been counted uncharitable by men anxious to be honorable
toward the South has come to pass.
“Let the _conscience_ of the North settle this question, not her
_fears_. God calls us to a religious duty. Long has our talent lain in a
napkin. Our testimony for liberty has been waived; our assertion of
freedom has been timid and without enthusiasm. We have refused to accept
at God’s hands the true mission of the North, to preach liberty to the
captives and elevation to the whole human family. At length let the
banner flow out to the wind, let the battle begin. There will never be
another day of grace if this goes past. Retreat now and the North will
never retreat again. We beseech Christian men and ministers to put this
question where it belongs, upon a religious basis. Let them feel their
duty in their own land as they feel their duty of preaching the truth of
Christ, _whether men will hear or whether they will forbear_.
“Oh! that God, by breathing a spirit of prayer upon His people and of
unflinching fidelity, would give us token that He has appeared at length
for our salvation!”
In spite of all efforts to the contrary, the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise was effected in September of 1854, and the battle which had
been fought in Congress and lost by the free States was at once
transferred to the newly-admitted Territory, and was there waged with a
fierceness and persistence that cannot be understood or appreciated,
unless it be remembered that Kansas had become the strategic point of
the whole great conflict. Given Kansas, slavery would have not only
additional territory, but, what was even more important to its purposes,
a majority in the United States Senate that should for ever, as it
hoped, prevent the admission of more free than slave States, or the
following of any course which should be prejudicial to its interests. In
this new field the North at first labored under great disadvantage. The
peculiar institution had already been planted and had taken root. The
eastern border of Kansas was upon Missouri, a slave State which was
fully aware of the advantage that broader fields would furnish the labor
of her increasing slave population, and containing enough of a rough and
wild frontier element to carry through any plan that desperation or
villany might devise. The President of the United States Senate and
acting Vice-President of the United States, David R. Atchison, was on
the ground, and for months had been organizing Blue Lodges and other
secret bodies, with the intent to take possession of the Territory, or
at least of its polling-places, and secure it for slavery. The officers
appointed by the President—a governor, three judges, a secretary, a
marshal, and an attorney—were, of course, all favorable to the policy of
the Administration, a policy which was all that the most radical
pro-slavery advocate could desire.
The party thus happily situated did not hesitate to avail itself of its
advantages. Its members swarmed across the borders at the election of a
delegate to Congress, took possession of the ballot-boxes, appointed
judges of election from their own number, elected their man by an
overwhelming majority, and then for the most part returned to their
homes in Missouri.
This was in October, 1854. In the following spring a Legislature was
elected by the same illegal process, and proceeded at once to form a
constitution most rabidly pro-slavery. It prescribed the death-penalty
for any who should entice or decoy away a slave or assist him to escape,
and ten years’ imprisonment for harboring or concealing a fugitive
slave. To deny the right of holding slaves in the Territory, either by
speaking, writing, printing or circulating books or papers, was declared
to be felony, punishable with two years’ imprisonment. Having formed an
elaborate constitution of the above character, and made ample provision
for enforcing its requirements, they selected a site for the new State
capital, called it Lecompton—after the attorney of the State, whose
legal acquirements had assisted them greatly in their villany—and
adjourned.
Looking upon affairs as they then appeared, and seeing that the
Legislature, however elected, had been officially recognized, and that
its enactments were in form legal, that the whole machinery of courts,
marshals, and militia were in its hands and could be used to enforce its
statutes, that it was favored by the Administration and the dominant
faction at Washington, which could employ the United States army for its
support, it would seem as if the battle had already been lost to the
Free-State men, and that Kansas could be counted upon to give that
majority in the United States Senate which the slave-power so greatly
coveted. But other forces were at work. In the first place, the very
enormity of these slave-laws compelled all the decent residents of
Kansas, whether Free-Soil, Whig, or Democrat, to combine for their own
defence against the possible outrages to which they were exposed by
these enactments. In the second place, the party which had brought about
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise had, by this very act, lost the
control of the Lower House in Congress, and could not be relied upon to
admit the Territory with its present infamous code. Besides these near
and more immediate advantages, there were forces enlisted on this side
that were working slowly but with great certainty toward the result
aimed at by the Free-State men. The old migratory instinct which had
throbbed in the veins of this race from the first, which had brought
them from the steppes of Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, pushed the
stronger and abler ones across the seas, moved them from the sea-coast
to the foot of the Alleghanies, then drove them across this barrier to
take possession of the great valley of the Ohio and the Mississippi, was
still as active as ever and readily responded to the enticements of the
new and fertile lands just opened in Kansas for settlement. No sooner
was it known that the broad plains of this Territory could be occupied
than the tide began to flow in this direction. Principle also came in to
strengthen and ennoble this instinct.
“Then arose a majesty of self-sacrifice that had no parallel before.
Instead of merely protesting, young men and maidens, laboring men,
farmers, mechanics, sped with a sacred desire to rescue free territory
from the toils of slavery, and emigrated in thousands, not to better
their own condition, but in order that when this Territory should vote
it should vote for freedom.”
Lest both instinct and principle should move too slowly or with
insufficient equipment, emigrant societies were formed at the North to
assist those who would offer themselves for the redemption of Kansas.
One of the earliest of these to be on the ground was the “Massachusetts
Emigrant Aid Company,” headed by the Hon. Eli Thayer. This organization
sent out a body of some thirty persons, who, in July of this year, had
founded the town of Lawrence. With this company, organized, mutually
acquainted, and trained in the orderly methods of New England, for a
centre, there rapidly gathered a strong body, and one that well
represented the bona-fide settlers of Kansas. They proceeded at once to
call a mass convention and elect delegates. In due time a Constitutional
Convention was called at Topeka, October 23, 1855, which formed a
constitution, submitted it to the people, from whom it met with a hearty
endorsement. It was then transmitted to Congress for approval.
These, Lecompton and Topeka, were the storm-centres around which surged
the principal events of those turbulent times in Kansas which have been
designated as “The Kansas War.” It was a wild, irregular, barbarous, and
bloody strife, made up of night-attacks, house-burnings, secret murders,
skirmishes between armed bodies sometimes rising to the proportions of a
battle, Lawrence twice burned, Leavenworth sacked, and acts of that
description, filling up four years or more of most eventful history.
Kansas at that time was the skirmish-line of two great hosts that were
already settling down to a life-and-death struggle. On the one side a
Legislature, as we have seen, elected largely by the votes of marauders
from an adjoining State; a reckless population just over the line, whose
historic name, Border Ruffians, seems to have been fully deserved,
organized into secret bands ready to march at a moment’s warning,
equipped either to vote or fight as should be required; a regiment of
United States troops placed at their disposal; the whole South awake to
the work they have undertaken, and forwarding supplies of men and money
for the support of those already on the field; and the Administration at
Washington, through portions of two presidential terms, alternately
scheming and commanding for its success.
On the other hand was a Legislature, illegally convened, but elected by
a large majority of the resident population of the Territory, with a
constituency, some of them doubtless adventurers, some fanatics, and
others possibly villains, but for the most part honest homesteaders,
living, it may be, in sod huts or dug-outs, but living upon land which
they had pre-empted and could call their own; the great North behind
them, slowly but surely moving down to their rescue; the throb of the
world’s progress beating towards them; the consciousness that they are
fulfilling the purposes of God in saving this land to liberty animating
them; and the great natural elements of soil, air, and sunshine, that
are always on the side of liberty, working for them. These were the
forces on the other side.
Each section came to the support of its skirmish-line in characteristic
fashion: the South by military companies and the incursions of armed
bands of raiders aiming to conquer the country, if necessary, by force
of arms and overawe it into accepting its bogus State constitution. The
North came in emigrant-wagons, with family, stock, house-furniture, and
farm utensils, prepared to remain and occupy the land.
The general trend of the government at an early period in the strife, as
seen in various acts at home and abroad, must also be taken into the
account. The Ostend Manifesto, issued under the inspiration of President
Pierce by our three ministers, Buchanan, Mason, and Soulé, at the courts
respectively of London, Paris, and Madrid, recommended the purchase of
Cuba, if possible; if not that we obtain it by force. “If Spain,” they
said, “should refuse to sell Cuba to the United States, then by every
law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from her, if
we possess the power.” Slavery at this period had a foreign as well as a
home policy. It was that of the old buccaneer, a policy of unscrupulous
aggression, that would not hesitate to embroil the nation in war, if
necessary for the carrying out of its designs. Filibustering
expeditions, which were continually being planned and attempted at this
time against Cuba and Central America, were rightly looked upon not only
as additional proof of the purpose but as the initial steps in the
proposed plan of foreign conquest.
As if the forces arrayed against liberty were not enough, as the
conflict advanced the Supreme Court of the United States added its
influence to the side of the antagonist. In the historic Dred Scott
decision, given in the spring of 1857, the ground is taken that the
negro slave is so completely and exclusively property, under the
Constitution, that the owner can take him, as any other property, into
any and all territory belonging to the United States government. In
effect “the negro has no rights which the white man is bound to
respect.”
After the lapse of many years, upon a calm review of that decision it is
difficult to say whether the historical errors, the feeble reasoning, or
the immoral sentiments most awaken our surprise and contempt. It is
sufficient for our purpose at this time to know that this decision threw
a vast influence against the Free-State men. If it were final, then
their struggle was all in vain. Strive as much as they would, and suffer
as much as they might, they could never make Kansas a free State. And
yet, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, the hostility of the
Administration, and all other adverse forces and circumstances, they
held on. To this result had our country come through the compromises and
surrenders of three-quarters of a century: slavery in possession of the
machinery of government, nationalized by the highest tribunal in the
land, declared to have equal rights with freedom in all the public
domain, and, in logical sequence, not to be shut out from even the free
States. Every institution of thirty millions of freemen was to be judged
and graded, encouraged or restrained, with supreme reference to the
interests of this institution. Dominant at home, it was already taking
steps preparatory to foreign conquest, and the only effective obstacle
in the way of the consummation of its plans was the life-and-death
tenacity with which the free settlers of Kansas held to their
determination that theirs should be a free State.
The contest continued for four years before any substantial advantage
was gained for the Free State party. Four governors, three appointed by
President Pierce and one by President Buchanan, had successively been
sent, and then deposed and disgraced because they could not, or would
not, carry out the unjust measures proposed by the Administration. The
victory in Congress in 1858 was simply a resubmission of the Lecompton
constitution to the people of the State to be voted upon, whether they
would accept it or frame one for themselves. They of course buried it
amid universal execrations. Slight and unmistakably just as was this
concession of Congress, it was nevertheless secured but by a small
majority. The change of five votes would have passed the notorious
Lecompton Bill, admitted the State with slavery into the Union, added
two senators to the slave-power, restored the supremacy of that power in
the Senate of the United States, to be followed by the carrying out the
Dred Scott decision to its logical consequences, slavery supremacy at
home, slavery aggression, annexation, and expansion over Cuba and
Central America, abroad. A vast slave-empire stretching from the lakes
to the southern shores of the Caribbean Sea seemed not an improbable
dream, if there had not been wisdom enough or will enough to fight the
battle out in Kansas. All honor to those brave men and women who in
those days saved this Territory to the North! All honor to those who
stood by them and helped them to win! A more important battle was never
fought in our history, and a more heroic spirit was never shown. What
the château of Hougoumont, held by the British right centre, was to the
battle of Waterloo; what the “Bloody Angle” held by Hancock was to the
battle of Spottsylvania Court-House, such was the Kansas war in the
early and determining era of the great American conflict.
Call this four years of struggle one battle, and it will take rank with
the “fifteen great battles” of the world’s history, second in importance
to none.
We have thus given an outline of this great preliminary struggle of the
war, that Mr. Beecher’s position and labors, which were much criticised
at the time, may be seen in their true light. As is well known, he threw
himself into this work with all the enthusiasm which such an emergency
might be supposed to awaken. He felt the importance of the struggle and
the need of instant action. Since, under the doctrine of “squatter
sovereignty,” which had taken the place of the former restriction, the
question of freedom or slavery in Kansas must be decided by the vote of
the actual settlers, these must be aided to emigrate to that Territory
from the North, and at once. Since they were to be the foundation
elements of a Christian State, they should be supplied with Bibles; and
since they would doubtless be called upon to defend themselves against
attack, they _must_ be supplied with firearms. He lectured and took up
collections in Plymouth Church and from the lecture platform for Sharp’s
rifles, an arm then but just come into notice. He preached, lectured,
and bought rifles with the same object in view—to redeem men to liberty;
and with the same spirit—love to God and man. Some of the rifles, it is
said, were sent in boxes marked Bibles, but without his knowledge, and
so passed in safety through Missouri and the enemy’s lines. Hence the
term Beecher’s Bibles came to be applied to these effective weapons.
At this time he published his famous “Defence of Kansas,” that showed
not more clearly the warmth of his spirit than his clear understanding
of the issues at stake and the dangers that were impending:
“A battle is to be fought. If we are wise it will be bloodless. If we
listen to the pusillanimous counsels of men who have never shown one
throb of sympathy for liberty, we shall have blood to the horses’
bridles. If we are firm and prompt to obvious duty, if we stand by the
men of Kansas and give them all the help they need, the flames of war
will be quenched before it bursts forth, and both they of the West and
we of the East shall, after some angry mutterings, rest down in peace.
But if our ears are poisoned by the advice of men who never rebuke
violence on the side of power, and never fail to inveigh against the
self-defence of wronged liberty, we shall invite aggression and civil
war. And let us know assuredly that civil war will not burst forth in
Kansas without spreading. Now, if bold wisdom prevails, the conflict
will be settled afar off in Kansas, and without blows or blood. But
timidity and indifference will bring down blows there, which will not
only echo in our houses hitherward, but will by and by lay the
foundation for an armed struggle between the whole North and the South.
Shall we let the spark kindle, or shall we quench it now? But, that
intelligent citizens may the better judge, let the facts of this case be
reviewed....
“There was never so strong an appeal to public sympathy as that which is
presented in the case of Kansas free settlers. Their emigration was a
mission of mercy, full of the ripest fruits of Christianity. Their
conduct has been noble. They have borne hardships without faltering,
they have borne outrage and persecution with patience, returning good
for evil. They have suffered wrongs manifold and infinitely provoking,
without retaliation. When aggression on one occasion was pushed so
sorely that their patience failed, some of the men said: ‘We cannot bear
such wrongs.’ The reply made by Pomeroy will become a maxim of Christian
men: ‘Be patient! your wrongs are your very strength.’
“When the armed day came, and their adversaries came out to consume
them, then, and only then, they took up arms and surrounded their homes
with living men, determined not to attack, but never to surrender....
Once when England only asserted the right to tax the colonies without
representation, the colonies rebelled and went to war. But now a foreign
Legislature has been imposed upon Kansas. That Legislature has legalized
slavery against the known wishes of nine-tenths of the actual settlers.
It has decreed that no man shall enter the Territory who will not take
an oath of allegiance to this spurious Legislature. It has made it death
to give liberty to the man escaping from oppression. It has muzzled the
press. It has forbidden discussion. It has made free speech a
penitentiary offence. The rights for which the old colonists fought were
superficial compared with these. These are the rights which lie at the
very heart of personal liberty.
“Indeed, there can be no personal freedom where free speech, a free
press, a free canvass and discussion are penitentiary offences! These
are the laws which the President is determined to enforce! Congress is
to be asked for money to sustain this government in Kansas, or to pay
for an army to cut the throats of every free citizen who will not yield
to this infamy!...
“Peace in Kansas means peace everywhere; war there will be war all over
the land. Now it can be stopped. But fear will not do it. A truculent
peace will not do it. Indolence and presumptuous prayer will but hasten
the mischief. When tyrants are in arms they who cry peace become their
confederates. Manliness, action, courage, and ample preparation for
defence will stop the danger. The Providence that will help us is the
Providence that we help. God works for those who work for Him. When He
answers prayer for harvests He inspires men to work, and petitions for
crops and harvests are answered through ploughs and spades. And God will
answer prayers for peace by inspiring men with justice, with abhorrence
of oppression; by making good men bold and active, and bad men feeble
and cowardly; by stopping the ears of the community to the counsel of
cowards and hypocrites. Let every man in this awful crisis not fail to
_pray_, and, that they may pray without hypocrisy, let them watch and
work! How shall we dare ask God to save us from bloodshed when we will
not use the means He has put into our hands? Faith without works and
prayer without works are dead—stone-dead. Let the emigrants go hither
and thither by hundreds, and pray as they go! Let them that have money
now pour it out, and pray as they give! Let them that have sons in
Kansas send them arms, and pray that they may have no occasion to use
them; but that, if they must be used, that the son may so wield them
that the mother be not ashamed of the son whom she bore! Let them that
have influence speak out! Let ministers and Christian free men now, if
ever, speak against barbarism and uphold the whole retinue of Christian
institutions! Let those whose tongue has been hitherto palsied by evil
advisers now loose their tongue and speak! _Of whom will the land take
counsel?_ There have been two sorts of counsellors hitherto. One has
pointed out for twenty years the nature of slavery, its tendencies, the
dangers which it threatened; and all the prophecies have come true. The
other kind of counsellors have predicted peace, dissuaded from action,
urged compromise, and at each reluctant step have promised the country
peace. In not a single instance have they been right. Events have
overthrown every one of their promises. They have led us down deeper
into trouble at every step. We have been betrayed by kisses. Excitements
have deepened, lessons have multiplied, compromises have bred
cockatrices. We are spun over with webs. We are tangled with
sophistries. We have everything but manliness, straightforwardness,
courage, and decisive wisdom....
“But what is done must be done quickly. Funds must be freely given; arms
must be had, even if bought at the price mentioned by our Saviour: ‘He
that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.’ Young men who
would do aught for liberty should take no counsel of fear. Now is the
time when a man may do for his country in an hour more than in a whole
life besides. Time flies. Events hasten. Fear and treacherous peace,
that betray duty with ignorant words of religion, will ruin all; but
energy, courage, action will save all. Woe to us if war comes from our
fault! If it comes, on the skirts of false peace will its blood be
found!”
Of the result of this sending armed colonists into Kansas he speaks a
few weeks later:
“Of all the revolutions on record, we remember none so remarkable as
that which has been wrought by Sharp’s rifles. We do not know that a
single man has ever been injured by them. They are guiltless of blood.
But the principle which they involve has brought the whole South to a
protest against violence, even in the extremest necessity of
self-defence! These aforetime heroes of the knife and revolver are now
deep in the Scriptures. They are quoting all the peaceable texts; they
hang with irrepressible delight over all those passages which teach
forbearance.”
Being attacked in a religious paper for his aggressive attitude, he
answers: “We have acted consistently with our settled belief. We have
NOTHING to retract.”
An event that took place at this time added still more fuel to the hot
indignation that was glowing through the North—the attack by Preston S.
Brooks, of South Carolina, upon Charles Sumner, May 22, 1856, in the
Senate Chamber. It was an act so cowardly and atrocious that it cannot
be recalled after these many years without a tingling of the blood. If a
blow had been given at the moment of the debate, if the man seeking
redress had approached his adversary face to face and given him
opportunity to defend himself, if it had been but a single blow,
possibly some extenuation could be offered; but to strike a man a
stunning blow without warning, when he is sitting at his desk and so
hampered that he is unable to rise until he has torn the desk up from
its fastenings; to follow with more than a score of blows until the
instrument of attack, a heavy cane, is broken to pieces and his victim
is left senseless—is an act that, search where it may, can find nothing
to add to its infamy. Among the meetings called all over the North to
give voice to the anger of the people at this dastardly act, one was in
New York City. The advertised speakers were William M. Evarts, John Van
Buren, Daniel Lord, Jr., and others of eminence. The speeches were able
but tame and conservative. They did not meet the demand of the popular
heart over that tremendous outrage. Just as the meeting was being
adjourned Mr. Beecher was discovered in the back part of the room,
having come in to listen to men whose reputation was so great but whom
he had never heard. At once the cry from the unsatisfied audience was
“Beecher, Beecher!”
So unexpected was the call, and so annoyed was he at being called out,
that it required almost physical force to get him to take the platform;
but when once there his soul kindled with the occasion. A simple recital
of facts led the audience step by step over the ground which had been
traversed for the last ten years. The grand principles of our polity
were uncovered to their view. Scene after scene was depicted by his
marvellous dramatic power, culminating in that outrage in the Senate
Chamber on account of which they had gathered; and the audience,
alternately moved by his pathos, fired by his passion, or swept by his
humor, became one with the speaker. They saw as he saw, they felt as he
felt; and he stamped them that night with the impress of his hatred of
slavery and his burning enthusiasm for liberty. The next day the press
carried this impression to the multitude of its readers, and, dismissing
the other speeches of the evening with a formal notice, gave his as
nearly as possible verbatim. It was his meeting for the first time upon
the platform with the leading men of the country, and from that hour he
took his place with them and held it to the end.
Many leading men in Massachusetts having been invited to a similar
meeting held in Boston, and sending regrets, he analyzes their excuses
in a Star Paper upon “Hearts and no Hearts”:
“Admirable! The man is sacrificed to the position. No tear, no
indignation, no heart-felt throb, no voice or gesture which befits an
open and free heart. All instincts and spontaneity must be judged by
supposed interests of a professorship. In such cases as this the man is
a mere Jonah in the whale’s belly. His professorship has swallowed his
manhood! Alas for the whale!”
Of this attack on Sumner he said in the Star article of June 12,
“Silence must be Nationalized”:
“This deed stands absolutely alone in our history. It has not a single
fellow! There have been brutal things, and cruel things, and mean
things, and cowardly things, and wicked and inhuman wrongs, but nothing
before that epitomized them all. With the exception of one or two
papers, the whole South has accepted the act and made it representative!
It is no longer Brooks that struck Sumner! He was the arm, but the whole
South was the body! And with one consent it is declared that for the
crime of _free speech_ it was done and deserved!”
In the meantime a new party, born of this conflict, was rapidly coming
into power. Made up of elements apparently most diverse, it was brought
together by a common purpose and fused into one by a grand enthusiasm.
There was, for a nucleus, the larger part of the old Free-Soil party,
that had been in existence since 1842; then came Abolitionists, of which
there had been for years a sprinkling in all the Northern States;
seceders from the Whig party, called in New York State “Silver Grays,”
and from the Democratic party, called “Barnburners;” and a multitude of
others, a daily increasing host, vital in every member with the spirit
of the hour. Combining some of the best elements of all the parties, it
had a breadth of power that no one party could have given it alone.
While it had enough men of experience in affairs to secure wisdom of
action, its recruits were for the most part young men, who brought the
inspiration of their youth, their numbers, their hope, and their
indignation. After a preliminary mass convention in Pittsburgh on
Washington’s birthday, February 22, 1856, they met in Philadelphia and
adopted a platform of principles and nominated candidates for President
and Vice-President.
In this platform they gave their attention mostly to the great issue of
supreme importance—that between liberty and slavery. Their action here
was positive and unequivocal: no more slave territory; no more coddling
of slave institutions. Upon this platform it nominated John C. Fremont
for its standard-bearer, and organized its hosts for the great
presidential contest of that year.
The party thus brought before the country had some great advantages over
all rivals. The Whig party was already dead, although not yet fully
conscious of the fact, and awaiting burial; the Democratic party was
inextricably associated, for weal or for woe, with the slave-power;
while the Know-Nothing party was but a mushroom, and a poisonous variety
at that. On the other hand, this new organization was intensely alive.
It had a definite object in view and was not afraid to avow it. It had
the strength of intense moral conviction. Its cause gave opportunity for
inspiration and awakened the grandest enthusiasm. It was in harmony with
the fundamental principles of our nation and the early struggles of our
people. It was in sympathy with the great movement of the age in all
lands. Its lengthening lines and the rising hosts of the Old World were
parts of the same army. Its standard-bearer, by reason of his youth,
adventurous career, and brilliant service, was well adapted to awaken a
loyal and spirited following. It had nothing to conceal; it had nothing
to fear; it carried with it the hopes of the nation and the world.
Adopting the “Marseillaise,” the greatest liberty song that was ever
written, it adapted its own chorus to the music and sang at its meetings
with boundless enthusiasm:
“Arise, arise, ye braves!
And let your war-cry be,
‘Free speech, free press,
Free soil, free men,
Fremont, and victory!’”
Mr. Beecher gave himself unreservedly to this contest:
“Well, of course we felt all aflame. My church voted me all the time
that I thought to be required to go out into the community and speak and
canvass the State of New York. I went into that canvass, spoke twice and
often three times a week, having the whole day to myself—that is, making
all the speeches that were made. I was sent principally to what we
called the Silver-Gray districts or counties—the old-time Whigs that
were attempting to run a candidate between Fremont and Buchanan. I
generally made a three hours’ speech a day in the open air to audiences
of from eight to ten thousand people. I felt at that time that it was
very likely that I should sacrifice my life, or my voice at any rate,
but I was willing to lay down either or both of them for that cause.”
Of Mr. Beecher’s contributions to the literature of the campaign we can,
for lack of space, give but few quotations, and these only as they
afford an idea of the humorous and enthusiastic manner in which he stood
up for his candidate. In the close scrutiny of private life, which is so
marked a feature of presidential campaigns, it had been learned that
John C. Fremont and Jessie Benton had fallen in love with each other,
and, her father not approving of his daughter’s selection, the two
lovers had made a runaway match of it, and in their haste had been
married by a Roman Catholic priest. This escapade was being used against
the candidate by the opposite party, not because he ran away with the
fair Jessie—the ballot of the average American voter would as likely be
won as lost by such an exhibition of youthful enterprise—but because it
helped to prove, what was persistently claimed, that he was a Roman
Catholic. In answer Mr. Beecher wrote a vigorous article disproving the
charge, and justifying the groom in securing the services of any one
competent to perform the marriage ceremony, closing with these words:
“Like a true lover and gallant man, Fremont said that he did not care
who married him, so that it was done quick and strong. If we had been in
Colonel Fremont’s place we would have been married if it had required us
to walk through a row of priests and bishops as long as from Washington
to Rome, ending up with the Pope himself!”
He ridicules the persistency with which certain newspapers returned to
the attack upon Fremont on the assumed ground of his being a Roman
Catholic, with the story of “The Dog Noble and the Empty Hole,” that
probably did as good campaign service as any story that was ever
written:
“The first summer which we spent in Lenox we had along a very
intelligent dog named Noble. He was learned in many things, and by his
dog-lore excited the undying admiration of all the children. But there
were some things which Noble could never learn. Having on one occasion
seen a red squirrel run into a hole in a stone wall, he could not be
persuaded that he was not there for evermore!...
“The intense enthusiasm of the dog at that hole can hardly be described.
He filled it full of barking. He pawed and scratched as if undermining a
bastion. Standing off at a little distance, he would pierce the hole
with a gaze as intense and fixed as if he were trying magnetism on it.
Then, with tail extended and every hair thereon electrified, he would
rush at the empty hole with a prodigious onslaught.
“This imaginary squirrel haunted Noble night and day. The very squirrel
himself would run up before his face into the tree, and, crouched in a
crotch, would sit silently watching the whole process of bombarding the
empty hole with great sobriety and relish. But Noble would allow of no
doubts. His conviction that that hole had a squirrel in it continued
unshaken for six weeks. When all other occupations failed this hole
remained to him. When there were no more chickens to harry, no pigs to
bite, no cattle to chase, no children to romp with, no expeditions to
make with the grown folks, and when he had slept all that his dog-skin
would hold, he would walk out of the yard, yawn and stretch himself, and
then look wistfully at the hole, as if thinking to himself: ‘Well, as
there is nothing else to do, I may as well try that hole again!’
“We had almost forgotten this little trait until the conduct of the New
York _Express_ in respect to Colonel Fremont’s religion brought it
ludicrously to mind again. Colonel Fremont is, and always has been, as
sound a Protestant as John Knox ever was. He was bred in the Protestant
faith and has never changed....
“But the _Express_, like Noble, has opened on this hole in the wall, and
can never be done barking at it. Day after day it resorts to this empty
hole. When everything else fails this resource remains. There they are
indefatigably—the _Express_ and Noble—a church without a Fremont, and a
hole without a squirrel in it!...
“We never read the _Express_ nowadays without thinking involuntarily,
‘Goodness! the dog is letting off at that hole again.’”
The election of 1856 resulted, as is well known, in the choice of James
Buchanan for President. Since his policy was dictated by the same power
behind the throne as that of Mr. Pierce, it was, of course, not unlike
that of his predecessor; and this era in the great conflict which opened
with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise closes with the
Administration at Washington more than ever submissive to the demands of
the South. But it also closes with the right wing of the great army of
liberty, whose lines reached from the Atlantic to the roots of the Rocky
Mountains, securely entrenched and holding its position, and with
continually increasing numbers, barring farther aggressions of slavery
for ever.