PARTY--WHAT KEEPS THE PARTY ALIVE--WHAT THE FINAL END OF THIS REPUBLIC.
|THREE more questions, please, and then I will not trouble you more.
What you have already said seems to be true, and yet so new and so
strange are these revelations to my ears--stranger than any fiction I
ever read in the works of Sir Walter Scott or others--that had you not
substantiated each proposition with arguments drawn from antecedent
probability, from sign, and from example, I could scarcely have believed
them. But three queries yet remain in my mind. Allowing all that you
have said to be veritable history, how comes it that the South has not
denounced the Democratic party for its perfidy in making promises which
it never fulfilled? How comes it that, with such a weight of sin upon
it, the party can still be kept alive? And, from all your study of
history, what deductions do you draw as to the final decline and
fall--if such a thing is to be--of this Republic?
Your questions are plain, frank, yet pointed, and I will endeavor to
answer each in as plain and frank a manner. First, as to the truth of
what we have already said, if the statements and propositions related
to any other than a political subject, there would be no more doubt of
their truthfulness than of any statement or proposition made by Gibbon,
Macaulay, Bancroft, or any other historian. But upon the two subjects
of politics and religion, men are generally so set in their opinion that
blindness in the one and bigotry in the other seems to be as natural to
the human mind "as for grass to be green, or skies to be blue, on
bright clear days in June." Nor are such statements ever allowed to go
unchallenged, however true they may be, unless the parties have been
so long dead and buried that no sympathy remains. What Macaulay says of
political parties and of church influences in his _History of England,_
is just as true as any other part of his admirable work, and yet the
work had scarcely made its appearance before the most violent epithets
were hurled at him because of these. Had Gibbon written his Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire ten or even five centuries earlier, it would
have received most bitter denunciation from all who yet sympathized with
the wrongs which Gibbon pointed out, and even so late as the eighteenth
century, when his work was first published, it did not escape censure.
While Bancroft only wrote of the long, long ago, in his capital History
of the United States, nobody questioned his statements or deductions;
but as he approached nearer to the present, and had of necessity to
say something of the acts and influence of political parties and of
churches, he awoke the sleeping demons--blindness and bigotry--and from
thenceforth there was more or less growl whenever a new volume appeared.
I revive and mention these facts now, only to show you, my friend, that
I am not at all surprised at your inquiries; nor shall I be surprised if
the last six chapters of this volume, and, because of these, the whole
book, are most violently and bitterly denounced by the entire Democratic
press of this country, and by every religious and political journal in
this country and Europe whose special province it is to uphold foreign
religious and political influence. With these as introductory remarks, I
will now proceed to answer your inquiries.
1. How comes it that the South has not denounced the Democratic party
for its perfidy in making promises which it never fulfilled?
We have no sympathy now, and never had, with rebellion, as such; and,
while it continued, helped to fight it as best we could; but we had
then, and have now, a very deep sympathy with those who were blindly led
to their own destruction by wicked, designing men. To no people in all
of history are the words of our blessed Saviour more applicable than to
the people of the South, when he said, "Woe unto the world because of
offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man
by whom the offence cometh!"
We have heretofore spoken of Jefferson Davis, his Cabinet, and of
others with whom he advised, as high-minded, honorable gentlemen. This
character they had before the war, maintained it during the war, and
such as survived continued to maintain it after the war. After the war,
Mr. Davis had but little to say of the events of the past. He preferred
not to talk of them at all, as he often said to those who broached the
subject, and never would talk of them except to his most confidential
friends. He desired to live a quiet, peaceful, retired, Christian life,
in the bosom of his little family (and no man ever had a truer or more
faithful helpmeet than Mrs. Davis proved to be to her husband), nor
would he allow himself to talk of politics at all, as before stated,
except to a very few. From one of these few we have it, as from Mr.
Davis's own lips, that no one felt, nor could feel, more keenly than he
did, the perfidy, the meanness, the baseness which had been practised
upon the South by certain leading Democratic politicians of the North;
and yet he could not but recollect that others, as they had opportunity,
had aided him and their cause to the full extent of their ability, and
had the will to aid them a thousand times more, if they could have done
so with safety to themselves, personally and pecuniarily. This last
recollection took the keen edge off the first, and left a sort of
dulcamara--a bitter-sweet--to rest upon his mind.
And, besides this, only a choice of evils was left to him and his
followers. Their own party of Secession having been destroyed, only the
Democratic and Republican parties remained. To side with or go into the
Republican party was out of the question. Such as did, would be charged
with, or suspected of, treachery by both sides. To denounce and yet
expect to get into, or cooperate with, the Democratic party, was out of
the question. No one can regard as a friend one that curses him. So, you
see, they were walled in, as it were, on every side, and, as a choice of
evils, thought it best to go into the Democratic party--to which most
of them had belonged all their lives, previous to the rebellion--to hold
their peace, and to "wait for the good time coming which the voice of
certain siren leaders still whispered into their ears. We say this not
in a poetic, but in a historic sense; for we know it to be true that,
after the close of the rebellion, prominent leaders of the Democratic
party North said to prominent gentlemen of the South that so soon as
they could get the general government once again into their own hands,
all Southern claims upon the government, because of the war, should be
adjusted, the same as Northern claims had been; all bonds issued by the
Confederate government during the war should be placed upon precisely
the same footing as the bonds issued by the United States government
during the same period; and that slavery should be restored as it
was before the war, or those who had owned slaves, or their legal
representatives, should be paid full value for every slave they had
lost. When it was said to them that to do all this would require several
alterations in the United States Constitution as it now stands, their
ready reply was, "Only put the government into our hands, and we'll find
means to amend the Constitution just as readily as to make laws, for
all needed purposes. Your wrongs and ours will find a way, or make
one!" With such assurances, made over and over again in the most solemn
manner, how could a Southern man find it in his heart to denounce the
Democratic party, notwithstanding all the wrongs he had suffered from
it?
Some seventeen years have now passed since the close of that war. As a
matter of history it is well known that over ninety-five per cent, of
those who had taken an active part in the Confederate cause went into
the Democratic party, and since that time have steadily cooperated with
that party. A few, a very few, could not, as they said, forgive the
treachery and the wrongs of the Democratic party towards the South, and
these went into the Republican party--some honestly, no doubt; others,
only because they thought it would "pay best."
Another answer to your query would be, that in not denouncing, but by
going into, the Democratic party a very large proportion of Southern men
were only returning to their first love. In the days of Whiggery several
of the Southern States gave Whig majorities; but when that party died,
because of its coquetting with slavery, and the Republican party took
its place, the leading principle of which new party was opposition to
slavery, first, as to its extension, and then as to its continuance,
nearly the whole vote of the South became Democratic. This was very
plainly shown in the vote cast for Franklin Pierce and Winfield Scott
(the last Whig candidate), in 1852, when the former received two hundred
and fifty-four electoral votes and the latter only forty-two. Indeed, it
was this fact, and the great preponderance of Democratic votes at
that election, that gave to the Secessionists of the South, and their
sympathizers, aiders, and abettors of the North, the encouragement which
caused them to inaugurate a rebellion in 1860. It was this, together
with the fact that out of the thirty-two preceding years--from the
election of Jackson in 1828 to that of Lincoln in 1860--the Democrats
had held the power twenty-four years and the Whigs only eight. They
had grown to look upon the Democratic power as invincible, and their
European coadjutors had been made to believe that the time had finally
come when the hated representative form of the United States government
could be changed into a slaveocracy, then into an aristocracy, and then
into a kingly form of government; while a censorship could be placed
upon the press so effectual, that from thenceforth it could never do
European sovereignties or the Roman Catholic Church any harm. Those
who only saw the outside of the late rebellion supposed that it had its
incipiency in 1860, whereas those who knew of its inside workings (as we
all know now), knew that preparations had been going on for eight years
previous, and that both Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan, from 1852
to 1860, had only been used as tools or instruments by which to forward
these preparations. The result of the Presidential vote in 1856 only
made those in the secret of the secession movement (both in this country
and in Europe) the more determined to strike the blow in 1860; for they
saw by that vote that, while their candidate, Buchanan, was elected by
a majority of fifty-two electoral votes (Buchanan one hundred and
seventy-four, Fremont et al. one hundred and twenty-two), yet the
popular vote stood Buchanan 1,838,169, Fremont et al. 2,215,498, being
really against their candidate, on the popular vote, to the extent of
377,329 votes. This strange result was owing to the fact that, while
all the Southern States voted for their candidate, and several Northern
States as well, they were all by small majorities; whereas such of
the Northern States as voted for Fremont and others did so by large
majorities. Had they delayed the strike another four years, it would
have been forever too late.
So soon as the secret commenced to ooze out among the masses, it caused
no little commotion in the Democratic party itself, and when they came
to name presidential candidates in 1860, while those in the secret
boldly put forward John C. Breckenridge (who afterwards became a rebel
general in their army), the more timid and doubting named Stephen A.
Douglas, while those who were yet more frightened at the prospect of
coming events named Bell of Tennessee. The Republicans named Abraham
Lincoln. The result showed one hundred and eighty electoral votes for
Lincoln and one hundred and twenty-three for all the others (again the
South voting solid against the Republican nominee), while the popular
vote showed 1,866,352 for Lincoln, and 2,810,501 for all the others. The
South by that time became so thoroughly identified with the Democratic
party, and the Democratic party with the South, that, like man and wife,
their interests were thenceforth inseparable, while the groomsman and
bridesmaid (fitly represented by European sovereignty and the Roman
Catholic Church) stood at their sides, or close behind, tapping them on
the back.
And just here let us say, lest we may be misunderstood, that when we
speak of the Catholic Church it is not by way of disparagement, so
far as their religion is concerned, but only and purely as one of the
instruments by which European sovereigns hope to work the downfall of
this nation, or rather of the representative form of its government and
the liberty of its press. Against the religious faith and the religious
zeal of the Catholics we have not a word to say, though ourself a
Protestant. History, as well as our own eyes and ears while travelling
in Europe, has proven to us that with every ounce of corruption to be
found in that Church there is a full pound of virtue, and, better
than this, so far as we know, cannot be said of any other church
organization. We cannot forget, nor overlook the facts, that while
Tetzel was peddling indulgences and Luther was thundering against them,
thousands of Sisters of Charity (God bless them!) were waiting upon the
sick and dying in Paris and elsewhere, and doing what they could to make
life tolerable and death endurable to thousands and tens of thousands;
that while scores were being tortured and burned by the Spanish
inquisition, thousands of faithful Catholic missionaries, in all parts
of the world, were enlightening their fellow-men, easing their burdens
of life, and pointing them to a hope beyond the grave. Nor can we
overlook the fact that other religious bodies have been just as bigoted
and just as intolerant as the Catholics, whenever they have had the
power and opportunity; that John Calvin and his followers burned
Servetus, at Geneva, with just as little compunction of conscience as
the Catholics burned Huss at Constance; that Luther and his coadjutors
granted to Philip, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, a dispensation for
polygamy, rather than lose his support, while Clement VII., Pope of
Rome, refused a like dispensation to Henry VIII., King of England; that
this same Henry, who was acknowledged at the time as the head of the
Church of England, divorced two wives and beheaded two others; and that
even here, in our own New England, when the Puritans had absolute power,
they ordered delicate Quaker women tied to a cart-tail and whipped upon
the bare back, and others hung, for no other reason than that they chose
to worship God in a different way from themselves. A somewhat careful
study of the rise and progress of all religions, and of all religious
sects, convinces us that bigotry, intolerance, and persecution are
alike common to all whenever they hold absolute power, and that in this
respect the Catholics are no worse than others.
And yet, while saying all this, no less in justice to ourself than to
them, we must not overlook the fact that Catholicism is the religion
of a large majority of the sovereigns and princes of Europe; that
absolutism (and consequent opposition to anything like a representative
form of government, or the liberty of the press) is one of its cardinal
principles of faith and practice; that, being so largely supported by
European sovereigns, it would naturally be disposed to aid them in
any way within its power; and that to aid them in overthrowing our
representative form of government, and our boasted liberty of the press,
would be no violation of their own cherished principles, but in exact
accordance therewith. Hence in all our calculations as to influence and
power, without having the least prejudice against the religion of the
Catholics, we must invariably put them down as in favor of absolutism,
and as only using, in this country, the name democracy (which means the
reverse of absolutism) as a cloak to their real sentiments. Of course in
this we only refer to the bishops, priests, and few educated laymen of
the Catholic Church; for, as to the great mass of its adherents, they
merely follow the dictum of others, without knowing or caring about the
meaning of names, and would vote under any name, or for anybody, if only
told to do so by their church officials.
It is a matter of public notoriety--indeed of public record--that, under
the name of "Societies for the Propagation of the Faith," the sovereigns
of Europe, and their more wealthy subjects, have sent, and are every
year sending, large sums of money to this country. A single one of these
societies at Lyons, France (as published in their own reports at the
time), sent in this way $65,438 in 1839; $163,000 in 1840; $177,000 in
1842; $207,218 in 1843, while correspondingly large sums were doubtless
sent from Spain, Austria, and other European countries during the same
years; and from that time until the present every year. A portion of
this was and is undoubtedly contributed from the purest of religious
motives; but by far the larger portion, only with the view to subvert
our representative form of government and the liberty of the press. 'All
these are matters of history, and as such come legitimately within the
province of any historian, and of any reader, who, aside from religious
or political prejudices, would carefully weigh facts with a view to
arrive at undoubted conclusions.
And thus, my friend (the reader), have we, by reciting historic facts,
and through the processes of deduction and induction, shown you very
plainly "How it comes that the South has not denounced the Democratic
party for its perfidy in making promises which it never fulfilled;" and
thus, my friend, I have, I think, fully and fairly answered your first
inquiry.
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