JOHN BROWN'S RAID.
But events were moving fast and furiously. The times needed no new
Mirabeau. The people were slowly welding a revolution, which must sweep
statesmen from their feet and bear upon its fierce current the strong
and weak alike. It has been asserted, and with truth, that disunion was
precipitated by the people, not by the politicians--by the North as well
as by the South.
The raid of John Brown of Kansas into Virginia was not an event which
would have stirred the people in ordinary times. It was the wild foray
of a fanatic, who tried to stir up a slave insurrection. He was
captured, tried, convicted, and hanged. There were demoralized followers
and duped negroes with him, when he was overcome by Colonel Robert E.
Lee, with a detachment of marines, at Harper's Ferry. This affair
created a feverish excitement. The South did not know how far this
movement extended, nor by what authority it had been started. The
criminal was execrated at the South and intemperately defended at the
North. The man, who under normal conditions of society would have been
sent to the insane asylum, was sentenced speedily to the gallows and
mourned as a martyr by many at the North. Bells were tolled in his
honor. Following this remarkable episode, several free States passed
strong laws against the detention of fugitive slaves, and the Northern
press and pulpit teemed with new lessons and fresh morals. John Brown's
body, in the language of the sentimental dirge, "lay moldering in his
grave"; but the spirit of the Kansas boomer actually pervaded the land.
What the Dred Scott decision had wrought at the North, the Ossawatomie
raid awoke at the South. The main features of Buchanan's administration
to hasten the "irrepressible conflict" were the well-weighed words of
the Chief Justice and the wild invasion of a border ruffian. Strange
paradox, but such were the influences at work in those disordered times.
Men lost their moorings, and political parties abandoned settled
policies. Events crowded with remorseless impact upon certain civil
strife.
Under this new condition of things Mr. Toombs made his great "door-sill"
speech in the United States Senate, on the 24th of January, 1860. It was
upon the resolution offered by Senator Douglas calling for a measure of
protection of each State and Territory against invasion by the
authorities and inhabitants of every other State and Territory. Senator
Toombs declared that the resolution opened up a new page in the history
of our country. It was a step in the right direction. He feared that the
disease lay too deep for the remedy. Heretofore the people of the United
States could grapple and surmount all difficulties, foreign and
domestic. A spirit of nationality, a common interest, a common danger,
carried the country through revolutions. Now all this has changed. The
feeling of loyalty and common destiny is rapidly passing away. Hostility
to the compact of the Union, to the tie which binds us together, finds
utterance in the tongues of millions of our countrymen, animates their
bosoms, and leads to the habitual disregard of the plainest duties and
obligations. Large bodies of men now feel and know that party success
involves danger; that the result may bring us face to face with
revolution.
"The fundamental principles of our Union are assailed, invaded, and
threatened with destruction; our ancient rights and liberties are in
danger; the peace and tranquillity of our homes have been invaded by
lawless violence, and their further invasion is imminent; the instinct
of self-preservation arms society to their defense."
Mr. Toombs contended that this was no new principle introduced into our
Constitution. ["]It was inserted in the ordinance of 1787. The New
England Confederation adopted it in 1643. The Supreme Judicial tribunal
of Prussia affirmed it as the public law of Europe as late as 1855. It
was acknowledged to be a sound principle of public law in the days of
Pericles, and its violation by one of the States of Greece was the chief
cause of the Peloponnesian War, which devastated Greece for twenty-one
years. The Megareans had given refuge to the revolted slaves of Athens."
"I say," he continued, "the bargain is broken--broken by the States
whose policy I have reviewed; broken by the Republican party, which did
the work in their legislatures and elsewhere. Their hands are soiled
with the blood of the compact. They cannot be permitted to minister at
its altar. Their representatives on this floor mock at constitutional
obligations; jeer at oaths. They have lost their shame with their
virtue.... In the name of the people, I repeat, I demand the bond. In
the name of every true and honest man at the North as well as the South,
I demand the resumption of your plighted faith. Upon these terms I have
ever been willing to let the Union stand, but upon no other.
"Who is responsible for the murder, treason, and arson of John Brown? I
have never known of his acts being approved or palliated by any other
person than a Republican. Thousands of them have done it and are now
doing it. In charging this dark catalogue of crime against this
organization, I would not be unjust. I have no doubt that thousands of
persons belonging to that organization throughout the North, loathe and
despise John Brown's raid; but it is equally true that there are other
thousands in the same organization who do approve it. They tell us that
they condemn his acts, but admire his heroism. I think the Republican
party must be pressed for a hero. The 'Newgate Calendar' can furnish
them with a dozen such saints. To 'die game' and not to 'peach' are
sometimes useful, if not heroic, virtues in an accomplice. The thousands
of blind Republicans who do openly approve the treason, murder, and
arson of John Brown, get no condemnation from their party for such acts.
They are its main defenders and propagandists all over the North, and,
therefore, the party is in moral complicity with the criminal himself.
No society can long exist in peace under these injuries, because we are
in virtual civil war; hence, I denounce their authors, the Republican
party, as enemies of the Constitution and enemies of my country.
"It is vain, in face of these injuries, to talk of peace, fraternity,
and common country. There is no peace; there is no fraternity; there is
no common country; all of us know it.
"Sir, I have but little more to add--nothing for myself. I feel that I
have no need to pledge my poor services to this great cause, to my
country. My State has spoken for herself. Nine years ago a convention of
her people met and declared that her connection with this government
depended upon the faithful execution of the Fugitive-slave law. I was a
member of that convention, and I stood then and stand now pledged to its
action. I have faithfully labored to arrest these calamities; I will yet
labor until this last contingency happens, faithfully, honestly, and to
the best of my ability. When that time comes, freemen of Georgia, redeem
your pledges! I am ready to redeem mine. Your honor is involved, your
faith is plighted. I know you feel a stain as a wound. Your peace, your
social system, your friends are involved. Never permit this Federal
Government to pass into the traitors' hands of the black Republican
party. It has already declared war against you and your institutions. It
every day commits acts of war against you; it has already compelled you
to arm for your defense. Listen to no vain babbling; to no treacherous
jargon about 'overt acts'; they have already been committed. Defend
yourselves! The enemy is at your door; wait not to meet him at your
hearthstone; meet him at the door-sill, and drive him from the Temple of
Liberty, or pull down its pillars and involve him in a common ruin."