slavery was odious in name and by association to the Northern mind,
and because it was that which most obviously marks the different
civilizations of the two sections. The South herself, in her early and
later efforts to rid herself of it, had exposed the weak and offensive
parts of slavery to the world. Abolition intermeddling taught her
at last to search for and defend the assumed social, economic, and
political merit and values of the institution. But there never was an
hour from the beginning when it did not seem to me as clear as the sun
at broad noon that the agitation in any form in the North and West of
the slavery question must sooner or later end in disunion and civil war.
This was the opinion and prediction for years of Whig and Democratic
statesmen alike; and, after the unfortunate dissolution of the Whig
party in 1854, and the organization of the present Republican party upon
the exclusive antislavery and sectional basis, the event was inevitable,
because, in the then existing temper of the public mind, and after
the education through the press and the pulpit, the lecture and the
political canvass, for twenty years, of a generation taught to hate
slavery and the South, the success of that party, possessed as it was
of every engine of political, business, social, and religious influence,
was certain. It was only a question of time, and short time. Such
was its strength, indeed, that I do not believe that the union of the
Democratic party in 1860 on any candidate, even though he had been
supported also by the entire so-called conservative or anti-Lincoln vote
of the country, would have availed to defeat it; and, if it had, the
success of the Abolition party would only have been postponed four years
longer. The disease had fastened too strongly upon the system to be
healed until it had run its course. The doctrine of "the irrepressible
conflict" had been taught too long, and accepted too widely and
earnestly, to die out until it should culminate in secession and
disunion, and, if coercion were resorted to, then in civil war. I
believed from the first that it was the purpose of some of the apostles
of that doctrine to force a collision between the North and the South,
either to bring about a separation or to find a vain but bloody pretext
for abolishing slavery in the States. In any event, I knew, or thought I
knew, that the end was certain collision and death to the Union.
Believing thus, I have for years past denounced those who taught that
doctrine, with all the vehemence, the bitterness, if you choose--I
thought it a righteous, a patriotic bitterness--of an earnest and
impassioned nature. * * * But the people did not believe me, nor those
older and wiser and greater than I. They rejected the prophecy, and
stoned the prophets. The candidate of the Republican party was chosen
President. Secession began. Civil war was imminent. It was no petty
insurrection, no temporary combination to obstruct the execution of
the laws in certain States, but a revolution, systematic, deliberate,
determined, and with the consent of a majority of the people of each
State which seceded. Causeless it may have been, wicked it may have
been, but there it was--not to be railed at, still less to be laughed
at, but to be dealt with by statesmen as a fact. No display of vigor or
force alone, however sudden or great, could have arrested it even at the
outset. It was disunion at last. The wolf had come, but civil war had
not yet followed. In my deliberate and solemn judgment there was but
one wise and masterly mode of dealing with it. Non-coercion would avert
civil war, and compromise crush out both abolitionism and secession. The
parent and the child would thus both perish. But a resort to force would
at once precipitate war, hasten secession, extend disunion, and while it
lasted utterly cut off all hope of compromise. I believed that war, if
long enough continued, would be final, eternal disunion. I said it; I
meant it; and accordingly, to the utmost of my ability and influence, I
exerted myself in behalf of the policy of non-coercion. It was adopted
by Mr. Buchanan's administration, with the almost unanimous consent of
the Democratic and Constitutional Union parties in and out of Congress;
and in February, with the consent of a majority of the Republican party
in the Senate and the House. But that party most disastrously for the
country refused all compromise. How, indeed, could they accept any? That
which the South demanded, and the Democratic and Conservative parties of
the North and West were willing to grant, and which alone could avail to
keep the peace and save the Union, implied a surrender of the sole vital
element of the party and its platform, of the very principle, in fact,
upon which it had just won the contest for the Presidency, not, indeed,
by a majority of the popular vote--the majority was nearly a million
against it,--but under the forms of the Constitution. Sir, the crime,
the "high crime," of the Republican party was not so much its refusal
to compromise, as its original organization upon a basis and doctrine
wholly inconsistent with the stability of the Constitution and the peace
of the Union.
The President-elect was inaugurated; and now, if only the policy of
non-coercion could be maintained, and war thus averted, time would do
its work in the North and the South, and final peaceable adjustment
and reunion be secured. Some time in March it was announced that the
President had resolved to continue the policy of his predecessor, and
even go a step farther, and evacuate Sumter and the other Federal forts
and arsenals in the seceded States. His own party acquiesced; the whole
country rejoiced. The policy of non-coercion had triumphed, and for
once, sir, in my life, I found myself in an immense majority. No man
then pretended that a Union founded in consent could be cemented by
force. Nay, more, the President and the Secretary of State went farther.
Said Mr. Seward, in an official diplomatic letter to Mr. Adams: "For
these reasons, he (the President) would not be disposed to reject a
cardinal dogma of theirs (the secessionists), namely, that the Federal
Government could not reduce the seceding States to obedience by
conquest, although he were disposed to question that proposition. But
in fact the President willingly accepts it as true. Only an imperial
or despotic government could subjugate thoroughly disaffected and
insurrectionary members of the State." * * * This Federal republican
system of ours is, of all forms of government, the very one which is
most unfitted for such a labor. This, sir, was on the 10th of April, and
yet on that very day the fleet was under sail for Charleston. The
policy of peace had been abandoned. Collision followed; the militia were
ordered out; civil war began.
Now, sir, on the 14th of April, I believed that coercion would bring on
war, and war disunion. More than that, I believed what you all believe
in your hearts to-day, that the South could never be conquered--never.
And not that only, but I was satisfied--and you of the Abolition party
have now proved it to the world--that the secret but real purpose
of the war was to abolish slavery in the State. * * * These were my
convictions on the 14th of April. Had I changed them on the 15th, when I
read the President's proclamation, * * *
I would have changed my public conduct also. But my convictions did not
change. I thought that, if war was disunion on the 14th of April, it was
equally disunion on the 15th, and at all times. Believing this, I
could not, as an honest man, a Union man, and a patriot, lend an active
support to the war; and I did not. I had rather my right arm were
plucked from its socket and cast into eternal burnings, than, with
my convictions, to have thus defiled my soul with the guilt of moral
perjury. Sir, I was not taught in that school which proclaims that "all
is fair in politics." I loathe, abhor, and detest the execrable maxim.
* * * Perish office, perish honors, perish life itself; but do the thing
that is right, and do it like a man.
Certainly, sir; I could not doubt what he must suffer who dare defy the
opinions and the passions, not to say the madness, of twenty millions of
people. * * * I did not support the war; and to-day I bless God that not
the smell of so much as one drop of its blood is upon my garments. Sir,
I censure no brave man who rushed patriotically into this war; neither
will I quarrel with any one, here or elsewhere, who gave to it an honest
support. Had their convictions been mine, I, too, would doubtless
have done as they did. With my convictions I could not. But I was a
Representative. War existed--by whose act no matter--not by mine. The
President, the Senate, the House, and the country all said that there
should be war. * * * I belonged to that school of politics which teaches
that, when we are at war, the government--I do not mean the Executive
alone, but the government--is entitled to demand and have, without
resistance, such number of men, and such amount of money and supplies
generally, as may be necessary for the war, until an appeal can be had
to the people. Before that tribunal alone, in the first instance,
must the question of the continuance of the war be tried. This was Mr.
Calhoun's opinion * * * in the Mexican war. Speaking of that war in
1847, he said: "Every Senator knows that I was opposed to the war; but
none but myself knows the depth of that opposition. With my conception
of its character and consequences, it was impossible for me to vote for
it. * * * But, after war was declared, by authority of the government,
I acquiesced in what I could not prevent, and what it was impossible for
me to arrest; and I then felt it to be my duty to limit my efforts to
give such direction to the war as would, as far as possible, prevent
the evils and dangers with which it threatened the country and its
institutions."
Sir, I adopt all this as my position and my defence, though, perhaps, in
a civil war, I might fairly go farther in opposition. I could not, with
my convictions, vote men and money for this war, and I would not, as a
Representative, vote against them. I meant that, without opposition, the
President might take all the men and all the money he should demand, and
then to hold him to a strict responsibility before the people for the
results. Not believing the soldiers responsible for the war or its
purposes or its consequences, I have never withheld my vote where
their separate interests were concerned. But I have denounced from the
beginning the usurpations and the infractions, one and all, of law and
constitution, by the President and those under him; their repeated and
persistent arbitrary arrests, the suspension of _habeas corpus_, the
violation of freedom of the mails, of the private house, of the press,
and of speech, and all the other multiplied wrongs and outrages upon
public liberty and private right, which have made this country one of
the worst despotisms on earth for the past twenty months, and I will
continue to rebuke and denounce them to the end; and the people, thank
God, have at last heard and heeded, and rebuked them too. To the record
and to time I appeal again for my justification.
HENRY WARD BEECHER,
OF NEW YORK. (BORN 1813, DIED 1887.)
ADDRESS AT LIVERPOOL, OCTOBER 16, 1863
For more than twenty-five years I have been made perfectly familiar with
popular assemblies in all parts of my country except the extreme South.
There has not for the whole of that time been a single day of my life
when it would have been safe for me to go South of Mason's and Dixon's
line in my own country, and all for one reason: my solemn, earnest,
persistent testimony against that which I consider to be the most
atrocious thing under the sun--the system of American slavery in a great
free republic. [Cheers.] I have passed through that early period when
right of free speech was denied to me. Again and again I have attempted
to address audiences that, for no other crime than that of free speech,
visited me with all manner of contumelious epithets; and now since I
have been in England, although I have met with greater kindness and
courtesy on the part of most than I deserved, yet, on the other hand, I
perceive that the Southern influence prevails to some extent in England.
[Applause and uproar.] It is my old acquaintance; I understand it
perfectly--[laughter]--and I have always held it to be an unfailing
truth that where a man had a cause that would bear examination he was
perfectly willing to have it spoken about. [Applause.] And when
in Manchester I saw those huge placards: "Who is Henry Ward
Beecher?"--[laughter, cries of "Quite right," and applause.]--and
when in Liverpool I was told that there were those blood-red placards,
purporting to say what Henry Ward Beecher had said, and calling upon
Englishmen to suppress free speech--I tell you what I thought. I thought
simply this: "I am glad of it." [Laughter.] Why? Because if they had felt
perfectly secure, that you are the minions of the South and the slaves
of slavery, they would have been perfectly still. [Applause and uproar.]
And, therefore, when I saw so much nervous apprehension that, if I were
permitted to speak--[hisses and applause]--when I found they were afraid
to have me speak [hisses, laughter, and "No, no!"]--when I found that
they considered my speaking damaging to their cause--[applause]--when I
found that they appealed from facts and reasonings to mob law--[applause
and uproar]--I said, no man need tell me what the heart and secret
counsel of these men are. They tremble and are afraid. [Applause,
laughter, hisses, "No, no!" and a voice: "New York mob."] Now,
personally, it is a matter of very little consequence to me whether I
speak here to-night or not. [Laughter and cheers.] But, one thing is
very certain, if you do permit me to speak here to-night you will
hear very plain talking. [Applause and hisses.] You will not find a
man--[interruption]--you will not find me to be a man that dared to
speak about Great Britain 3,000 miles off, and then is afraid to speak
to Great Britain when he stands on her shores. [Immense applause and
hisses.] And if I do not mistake the tone and temper of Englishmen, they
had rather have a man who opposes them in a manly way--[applause from
all parts of the hall]--than a sneak that agrees with them in an unmanly
way. [Applause and "Bravo!"] Now, if I can carry you with me by sound
convictions, I shall be immensely glad--[applause]; but if I cannot
carry you with me by facts and sound arguments, I do not wish you to go
with me at all; and all that I ask is simply FAIR PLAY. [Applause, and a
voice: "You shall have it too."]
Those of you who are kind enough to wish to favor my speaking--and you
will observe that my voice is slightly husky, from having spoken almost
every night in succession for some time past,--those who wish to hear
me will do me the kindness simply to sit still, and to keep still; and I
and my friends the Secessionists will make all the noise. [Laughter.]
There are two dominant races in modern history--the Germanic and the
Romanic races. The Germanic races tend to personal liberty, to a sturdy
individualism, to civil and to political liberty. The Romanic race tends
to absolutism in government; it is clannish; it loves chieftains; it
develops a people that crave strong and showy governments to support and
plan for them. The Anglo-Saxon race belongs to the great German family,
and is a fair exponent of its peculiarities. The Anglo-Saxon carries
self-government and self-development with him wherever he goes. He has
popular GOVERNMENT and popular INDUSTRY; for the effects of a generous
civil liberty are not seen a whit more plain in the good order, in the
intelligence, and in the virtue of a self-governing people, than in
their amazing enterprise and the scope and power of their creative
industry. The power to create riches is just as much a part of the
Anglo-Saxon virtues as the power to create good order and social safety.
The things required for prosperous labor, prosperous manufactures, and
prosperous commerce are three. First, liberty; second, liberty; third,
liberty. [Hear, hear!] Though these are not merely the same liberty, as
I shall show you. First, there must be liberty to follow those laws of
business which experience has developed, without imposts or restrictions
or governmental intrusions. Business simply wants to be let alone.
[Hear, hear!] Then, secondly, there must be liberty to distribute and
exchange products of industry in any market without burdensome tariffs,
without imposts, and with-out vexatious regulations. There must be these
two liberties--liberty to create wealth, as the makers of it think best,
according to the light and experience which business has given them; and
then liberty to distribute what they have created without unnecessary
vexatious burdens.
The comprehensive law of the ideal industrial condition of the word
is free manufacture and free trade. [Hear, hear! A voice: "The Morrill
tariff." Another voice: "Monroe."] I have said there were three elements
of liberty. The third is the necessity of an intelligent and free race
of customers. There must be freedom among producers; there must
be freedom among the distributors; there must be freedom among the
customers. It may not have occurred to you that it makes any difference
what one's customers are, but it does in all regular and prolonged
business. The condition of the customer determines how much he will buy,
determines of what sort he will buy. Poor and ignorant people buy little
and that of the poorest kind. The richest and the intelligent, having
the more means to buy, buy the most, and always buy the best. Here,
then, are the three liberties: liberty of the producer, liberty of
the distributor, and liberty of the consumer. The first two need no
discussion; they have been long thoroughly and brilliantly illustrated
by the political economists of Great Britain and by her eminent
statesmen; but it seems to me that enough attention has not been
directed to the third; and, with your patience, I will dwell upon that
for a moment, before proceeding to other topics.
It is a necessity of every manufacturing and commercial people that
their customers should be very wealthy and intelligent. Let us put the
subject before you in the familiar light of your own local experience.
To whom do the tradesmen of Liverpool sell the most goods at the highest
profit? To the ignorant and poor, or to the educated and prosperous? [A
voice: "To the Southerners." Laughter.] The poor man buys simply for his
body; he buys food, he buys clothing, he buys fuel, he buys lodging. His
rule is to buy the least and the cheapest that he can. He goes to the
store as seldom as he can; he brings away as little as he can; and he
buys for the least he can. [Much laughter.] Poverty is not a misfortune
to the poor only who suffer it, but it is more or less a misfortune to
all with whom he deals. On the other hand, a man well off--how is it
with him? He buys in far greater quantity. He can afford to do it; he
has the money to pay for it. He buys in far greater variety, because he
seeks to gratify not merely physical wants, but also mental wants. He
buys for the satisfaction of sentiment and taste, as well as of sense.
He buys silk, wool, flax, cotton; he buys all metals--iron, silver,
gold, platinum; in short he buys for all necessities and all substances.
But that is not all. He buys a better quality of goods. He buys richer
silks, finer cottons, higher grained wools. Now a rich silk means so
much skill and care of somebody's that has been expended upon it to make
it finer and richer; and so of cotton and so of wool. That is, the price
of the finer goods runs back to the very beginning, and remunerates the
workman as well as the merchant. Now, the whole laboring community is
as much interested and profited as the mere merchant, in this buying and
selling of the higher grades in the greater varieties and quantities.
The law of price is the skill; and the amount of skill expended in the
work is as much for the market as are the goods. A man comes to market
and says: "I have a pair of hands," and he obtains the lowest wages.
Another man comes and says: "I have something more than a pair of hands;
I have truth and fidelity." He gets a higher price. Another man comes
and says: "I have something more; I have hands, and strength, and
fidelity, and skill." He gets more than either of the others.
The next man comes and says: "I have got hands, and strength, and skill,
and fidelity; but my hands work more than that. They know how to create
things for the fancy, for the affections, for the moral sentiments"; and
he gets more than either of the others. The last man comes and says: "I
have all these qualities, and have them so highly that it is a peculiar
genius"; and genius carries the whole market and gets the highest price.
[Loud applause.] So that both the workman and the merchant are profited
by having purchasers that demand quality, variety, and quantity. Now,
if this be so in the town or the city, it can only be so because it is a
law. This is the specific development of a general or universal law, and
therefore we should expect to find it as true of a nation as of a city
like Liverpool. I know that it is so, and you know that it is true of
all the world; and it is just as important to have customers educated,
Intelligent, moral, and rich out of Liverpool as it is in Liverpool.
[Applause.] They are able to buy; they want variety, they want the very
best; and those are the customers you want. That nation is the best
customer that is freest, because freedom works prosperity, industry,
and wealth. Great Britain, then, aside from moral considerations, has a
direct commercial and pecuniary interest in the liberty, civilization,
and wealth of every nation on the globe. [Loud applause.] You also have
an interest in this, because you are a moral and religious people. ["Oh,
oh!" laughter and applause.] You desire it from the highest motives; and
godliness is profitable in all things, having the promise of the life
that now is, as well as of that which is to come; but if there were no
hereafter, and if man had no progress in this life, and if there were no
question of civilization at all, it would be worth your while to
protect civilization and liberty, merely as a commercial speculation. To
evangelize has more than a moral and religious import--it comes back to
temporal relations. Wherever a nation that is crushed, cramped, degraded
under despotism is struggling to be free, you, Leeds, Sheffield,
Manchester, Paisley, all have an interest that that nation should be
free. When depressed and backward people demand that they may have a
chance to rise--Hungary, Italy, Poland--it is a duty for humanity's
sake, it is a duty for the highest moral motives, to sympathize with
them; but besides all these there is a material and an interested
reason why you should sympathize with them. Pounds and pence join with
conscience and with honor in this design. Now, Great Britain's chief
want is--what?