THE FOUR YEARS CIVIL WAR IN THE UNITED STATES IS DIRECTLY CHARGEABLE TO
MANHOOD SUFFRAGE
The American Civil War, which lasted four years, was both morally and
politically absolutely unnecessary and therefore absolutely
unjustifiable. It is difficult for an American to discuss the subject
coolly even at this distance, when he realizes that this, the greatest
calamity which ever befell the country, was perfectly avoidable and was
due entirely to stupidity and mismanagement. It is time that the truth
was told; the Civil War was caused, not by the difficulty of the
questions to be dealt with but by a lack of statesmanship, by the dull
selfishness and asininity of the politicians of the day and by the
system of low politics which had long before been established among us.
To say that the question between the free and the slave states was of a
nature which required a settlement by the sword is absurd. In 1860 there
were fifteen slave and eighteen free states. The constitutional right of
the former to the ownership of their slaves could not be denied; and the
vast majority of the people in the free states so believed and asserted.
The question on which the country was divided was whether slavery could
or should be established in the Territories and in the new states to be
erected from the Territories. To assert that that question could not be
settled peaceably is to assert either that the American people were
fools and brutes, which is not true, or that their representatives
having the matter in hand were incapables or worse, which is true. The
war was entirely due to the conduct and misconduct of the politicians in
power and they were placed there by manhood suffrage.
The American people North and South at that time were as harmless and
peaceable a people as ever existed on the face of the earth. They did
not want any war, least of all a civil war. Tens of thousands of
inhabitants in each of the two sections had dear friends and relatives
in the other section. Most people refused even to believe it possible
until hostilities actually began that a civil war could possibly be
forced upon the country. Neither side was in any way prepared either in
men, officers, equipment, ships or money for even a small war. There was
no desire for a conflict on either side, and no need of it; and yet it
came; because the country was in the hands not of patriotic statesmen,
but of a manhood suffrage politician President, and a manhood suffrage
politician Congress, infused with a small, mean, manhood suffrage
spirit, the spirit of humbug, of selfishness, of insincerity, and of
moral cowardice. It came because for his own petty temporary purposes,
each of the politicians, too dull and short sighted to see the danger of
his own acts, had been for years nagging the people of his own district
into dislikes, suspicions and hates towards the people of other
districts and portions of the country.
We may concede the difficulties of the situation. The slavery question
had been so mismanaged that as far back as 1844 it had become a delicate
one needing to be handled with patriotic and enlightened statesmanship;
but the men in public life qualified to so handle it were after 1828
becoming fewer and fewer. Of courageous and patriotic statesmen there
was after 1852 scarcely one in public life, and it was finally left to
the newspapers and the populace, who undertook to deal with it
themselves in their own characteristic way. This of course was to hold
public meetings, at which were made inflammatory and abusive speeches;
to publish and circulate these speeches with furious newspaper comments;
and to issue books and pamphlets denunciatory of everybody in public
life. How does the ordinary manhood suffrage politician, the mediocrity
who after obeying orders of vulgar bosses for years finds himself
rewarded with a nomination for Congress; how does he deal with a
question where both money and feeling are involved? He “side-steps”; he
pussy-foots; he twists and dodges and sneaks in and out till one side or
the other shows a decided preponderance of votes, and then he mounts the
platform and rants defiance and insults at the minority. Such is his
idea of statesmanship; and though it makes the judicious grieve it
tickles the ears of the groundlings who are the majority of the
organization followers. The newspaper files inform us and the reader can
readily imagine how for years Northern and Southern orators hurled
defiance at safe distances; how the holders of perfectly honest opinions
on both sides were publicly insulted every day in the week as slave
drivers; nigger lovers, dough-faces, etc. When the legal question of the
rights of slavery in the territories came up, there was no one to decide
it; it was a difference demanding for its settlement a courage which
mere politicians never have; and requiring as well a statesmanship and
tact which are qualities of trained thinkers; of men of wide vision; of
experience in public affairs, and gifted with self-control; qualities in
short which especially belong to the well-educated classes. It should
have been dealt with by picked men; men of high prestige; uncontrolled
by passion, and above a desire for the plaudits of the mob. Such men
were not to be found in public life; and so it was left to the decision
of what was called public opinion; which means in effect that it fell
into the hands of demagogues, platform orators, second-rate politicians,
extremists, visionaries and newspaper writers. Thousands of individuals
honest and dishonest; fanatics, abolitionists and demagogues on the
Northern side, and cranks, general humbugs and notoriety seekers on the
Southern side, began to write and talk on the subject; and when they had
succeeded in irritating everybody, and when a certain emotional and
hysterical class was thoroughly inflamed, the manhood suffrage machine
was put in operation and an election for president was had. The voters
split into four parties; certainly not according to reason, which had
long before been flung to the winds by most of them; but rather
according to temperament; the more excitable and intolerant taking an
extreme position; the others offering the customary political
platitudes. The electoral college plan for the election of the
president, which had been prescribed by the Constitution to obviate just
such a catastrophe, had been long since foolishly discarded by the
people in favor of a direct election by manhood suffrage. Lincoln, a
then comparatively unknown man, who had been nominated in a roaring
political convention, was elected President of the United States by a
minority of the total vote. A few of the Southern states whose
politicians were dissatisfied with the election promptly proposed to
secede from the Union. They were permitted to do so and set up
independent governments; the administration at Washington being as usual
in the hands of men who had neither sufficient diplomacy, firmness,
decision nor patriotism to deal with the situation, or with any other
requiring the employment of honesty and courage.
The politicians in power at Washington, as they were incapable of
properly dealing with slavery, so they were incapable of properly
dealing with secession. As nothing timely was done to coerce the first
seceding states they were in time joined by others; the demagogic rant
and newspaper clamor and abuse continued unabated on both sides, but
nothing practical was done to save the situation or to preserve the
Union; the seceding states were allowed four months to consummate their
plans; and were permitted without molestation or hindrance to seize one
fort and arsenal after another, until the enterprise of rebellion,
which, originating in a few hot heads could have been summarily
suppressed in December 1860 had in April 1861 resulted in the
establishment of a southern armed confederacy of eleven states. Meantime
the Northern Democracy looked on complacently and did nothing till the
South made the dramatic blunder of firing on Fort Sumter. Sluggishness
and indifference in the North were now succeeded by indignation and
fury; hostilities began and lasted four years; hundreds of thousands of
lives and thousands of millions of property were uselessly sacrificed,
and all because among the governing politicians of the United States
there had not been enough patriotic statesmanship to undertake the task
of devising and enforcing a peaceable arrangement. That there was no
inherent difficulty in the case, insurmountable by diplomacy, is
perfectly apparent to any intelligent mind; and is almost conclusively
demonstrated by the conceded fact that even after four years’ bloody
strife no hopeless division between North and South existed; that the
defeated Southern rank and file and their leaders, officers and generals
admitted that they had even then no insufferable grievance; that they
really preferred the Union, even without slavery, to disunion; and that
the Southerners immediately came back into their places as citizens of
the Union and have ever since been and still are as true and loyal to
the flag as the northern population. They never really disliked the
Federal Union; they had in fact always loved it; but they had been
crazed year after year in the course of one political campaign after
another by the assaults and insults of Northern platform press and
pulpit ranters, and had been deceived, misled and egged on to violence
by their own demagogues. It was a case of the cumulative effect of years
of repeated word provocations and word retorts on both sides; all
delivered either to promote the sale of wicked and sensational
newspapers or for electioneering purposes, or to capture the votes of a
senseless rabble. The effect of this long-continued agitation was to
derange the shallow judgment of the irresponsibles, a class which
includes hot-headed youths, lovers of turmoil, improvident men with more
sail than ballast; those who lack prudence both in politics and in
business; who show the same poor judgment in giving a vote as in making
a bargain; who are as willing to rush into a foolish war as into a
foolish business enterprise; who are reckless because, never having
much, they can never lose much; in short, that class who, though
absolutely unable to manage their own affairs, are by our laws
considered quite capable of attending to those of the community, and who
whenever a storm arises lose their heads and do their best to wreck the
ship. In a word, the course of conduct adopted by the politicians of the
country which resulted in the war was intended to win the applause and
the votes of a set of men most of whom should not have been allowed to
vote at all. Had the business men and the propertied classes alone been
consulted the civil war would never have broken out.
And it is to-day just as it was then. When any question capable of being
made the subject of political discussion, and having an emotional or
sympathetic aspect, is brought before the public, it is sure to be
seized upon by fanatics and time servers who make it the subject of
clamor and vociferation. These are in time joined by a lot of honest but
inexperienced youth; emotional enthusiasts; sympathetic women more or
less hysterical; people with grudges to pay off; political adventurers;
platform ranters eager for an audience; demagogues out of a job and vain
fools anxious for the lime light; empty heads who find society and
excitement in political organizations and meetings. These classes of
agitators and the followers of agitators exist and have always existed
here as well as in Russia and elsewhere; and they are put in the front
when they ought to be suppressed and sent to the rear or out of sight.
They are apt to be abnormal in vanity, and stop at nothing to obtain
notoriety. Those of them who are soft and emotional become crazed with
mental dwelling on one subject, with the excitement of political
speaking and the applause and criticism they receive; those of them who
are cold of heart and head keep up the din to attract attention to
themselves and to further their political fortunes; with them the end
justifies the means; exaggerations, dishonest equivocations, lies and
even slanders are to their small minds justified by the object to be
attained. We have, for instance, recently seen some of the women
suffragists both in England, and to a less extent here, in what they
call their militant campaigns act on the principle that there are no
morals in politics. In England they resorted to open and violent
misconduct and even to crime to keep up the agitation. Their avowed
purpose in doing this was to keep their cause before the public, and as
to some of them incidentally to earn the salaries paid by their
associations for this vile work. They believed, and with good reason,
that under a system of manhood suffrage mere arguments are insufficient;
the unthinking rabble had to be won over; and their foolish ears must be
filled with noise in order to gain and keep their attention.
A similar process was used by the politicians and agitator’s on both
sides of the negro slavery question. There was the unreasoning vote to
be captured. Each candidate for Congress, instead of desiring the matter
amicably settled, wished rather to use the dispute as a means for his
own election. Now, it is a fact well known to politicians that it is
impossible to get all the voters to the polls at any election. Besides
securing the floaters by means of agents with cash and shrewdness, the
best way to induce the remaining nondescripts and light weights to take
the trouble to vote, is to create artificial excitement by means of
meetings, processions, bands of music and inflammatory oratory. The
opposite side and their leaders must be denounced as fools, humbugs,
liars, scamps, thieves and traitors. The wisest are repelled by this
course, but they are a minority in every community. Besides, some of the
men who know better than to believe an unscrupulous demagogue, will vote
for him, partly out of gratitude because he has amused them by his
attacks on his opponents, partly because he is the party candidate, and
partly as the result of a sort of mental contagion. Now, it was this
campaign of inflammatory denunciation; this output of lies, slanders and
vilification indulged in by the platform talkers on all sides in the
political campaigns of 1856, 1858 and 1860 that brought on the Civil
War. This is well known; but what is not known and never will be known
is just how much of this rascally oratory was hired and paid for in
cold cash contributed by that class of people who always contribute to
election funds. And this brutal and stupid process is the natural and
inevitable result of an attempt to decide important political questions
by manhood suffrage, that is by a public agitation undertaken to obtain
the votes of the most thoughtless, careless, dull and unreasonable men
of the country.
But, some may ask, how could the slavery question have been amicably
settled? Was not the Civil War inevitable? By no means. Great Britain,
Spain, Brazil, Portugal, Holland and other countries each had the same
problem. Russia had a similar one in the case of her serfs. Slavery in
the British West Indies was abolished in 1838 at a cost of $100,000,000
cash compensation paid to the masters, and other European nations having
colonial slaves had followed England’s example. Brazil and Cuba were
both large slave-owning countries; in Cuba one-third of the population
was at one time in slavery; a much larger proportion than in the United
States, and yet in both countries emancipation was gradually and
peaceably accomplished by legal methods. In Russia the serfs were freed
without bloodshed. Nowhere except in the United States was it found
necessary to make the country a shambles to accomplish such an
inevitable reform. To say that the American people are so inferior in
political capacity to the British, Russians, Spaniards and Brazilians as
this miserable emancipative Civil War of ours would indicate is
preposterous.
That the Civil War was a politicians’ and not a people’s war was
perfectly apparent at the time to all steady-minded folk. During its
progress nothing was more frequent than to hear such people say that the
politicians were responsible for it all. And this was true. Had the
settlement of the matter been left to a committee of statesmen or
business men the result would have been that under some system of
gradual emancipation and payment to the owners the thing would have been
quietly done, and with a great saving of money. The war cost at the
lowest possible estimate twenty thousand millions of dollars. There were
in this country say three millions of slaves which at the high figure of
$500 each would have cost not more than fifteen hundred millions of
dollars or less than a twelfth of the cost of the war in money, to say
nothing of human lives. Even this cost would have been nominal, since
the outlay would have been divided up amongst our own people and left
the nation not a cent the poorer. But this plain and sensible course
could not be adopted because under our mobocratic system the question
was made one of politics rather than of statesmanship. And when the
struggle was over were the politicians blamed or called to account; or
was the system condemned which produced them and really brought about
the American Civil War? Not at all. The same humbugs and schemers
continued in control; once more they were seen on political platforms,
greedy and brassy as ever, bellowing hypocritical praise of the victims
of the fight and demanding and obtaining continued offices and salaries
and perquisites for themselves; and so their course of public plundering
was vigorously continued and their rule was strengthened year by year.
With one hand deep in the public chest, they waved the banner with the
other, and the years immediately succeeding the Civil War were perhaps
richer in patriotic platform oratory and in political corruption than
any the country has ever seen.