TREASON IN THE NORTHERN CAMPS.
The immortal Charter of Freedom had, as we have seen, with comparative
ease, after a ten days' debate, by the power of numbers, run the
gauntlet of the Senate; but now it was to be subjected to the much more
trying and doubtful ordeal of the House. What would be its fate there?
This was a question which gave to Mr. Lincoln, and the other friends of
Liberty and Union, great concern.
It is true that various votes had recently been taken in that body, upon
propositions which had an indirect bearing upon the subject of
Emancipation, as, for instance, that of the 1st of February, 1864, when,
by a vote of 80 yeas to 46 nays, it had adopted a Resolution declaring
"That a more vigorous policy to enlist, at an early day, and in larger
numbers, in our Army, persons of African descent, would meet the
approbation of the House;" and that vote, although indirect, being so
very nearly a two-thirds vote, was most encouraging. But, on the other
hand, a subsequent Resolution, squarely testing the sense of the House
upon the subject, had been carried by much less than a two-thirds vote.
This latter Resolution, offered by Mr. Arnold, after conference with Mr.
Lincoln, with the very purpose of making a test, was in these direct
terms:
"Resolved, That the Constitution shall be so amended as to Abolish
Slavery in the United States wherever it now exists, and to prohibit its
existence in every part thereof forever."
The vote, adopting it, was but 78 yeas to 62 nays. * This vote,
therefore, upon the Arnold Resolution, being nowhere near the two-thirds
affirmative vote necessary to secure the passage through the House of
the Senate Joint Resolution on this subject amendatory of the
Constitution, was most discouraging.
It was definite enough, however, to show the necessity of a change from
the negative to the affirmative side of at least fifteen votes. While
therefore the outlook was discouraging it was far from hopeless. The
debate in the Senate had already had its effect upon the public mind.
That, and the utterances of Mr. Lincoln--and further discussion in the
House, it was thought, might produce such a pressure from the loyal
constituencies both in the Free and Border Slave-States as to compel
success.
But from the very beginning of the year 1864, as if instinctively aware
that their Rebel friends were approaching the crisis of their fate, and
needed now all the help that their allies of the North could give them,
the Anti-War Democrats, in Congress, and out, had been stirring
themselves with unusual activity.
In both Houses of Congress, upon all possible occasions, they
had been striving, as they still strove, with the venom of their
widely-circulated speeches, to poison the loyal Northern and
Border-State mind, in the hope that the renomination of Mr. Lincoln
might be defeated, the chance for Democratic success at the coming
Presidential election be thereby increased, and, if nothing else came
of it, the Union Cause be weakened and the Rebel Cause correspondingly
strengthened.
At the same time, evidently under secret instructions from their
friends, the Conspirators in arms, they endeavored to create
heart-burnings and jealousies and ill-feeling between the Eastern
(especially the New England) States and the Western States, and
unceasingly attacked the Protective-Tariff, Internal Revenue, the
Greenback, the Draft, and every other measure or thing upon which the
life of the Union depended.
Most of these Northern-Democratic agitators, "Stealing the livery of
Heaven to serve the Devil in," endeavored to conceal their treacherous
designs under a veneer of gushing lip-loyalty, but that disguise was
"too thin" to deceive either their contemporaries or those who come
after them. Some of their language too, as well as their blustering
manner, strangely brought back to recollection the old days of Slavery
when the plantation-whip was cracked in the House, and the air was blue
with execration of New England.
Said Voorhees, of Indiana, (January 11, 1864) when the House was
considering a Bill "to increase the Internal Revenue and for other
purposes:"
"I want to know whether the West has any friends upon the floor of this
House? We pay every dollar that is to be levied by this Tax Bill. * *
* The Manufacturing Interest pays not a dollar into the public Treasury
that stays there. And yet airs of patriotism are put on here by men
representing that interest. I visited New England last Summer, * * *
when I heard the swelling hum of her Manufactories, and saw those who
only a short time ago worked but a few hands, now working their
thousands, and rolling up their countless wealth, I felt that it was an
unhealthy prosperity. To my mind it presented a wealth wrung from the
labor, the sinews, the bone and muscle of the men who till the soil,
taxed to an illegitimate extent to foster and support that great System
of local wealth. * * * I do not intend to stand idly by and see one
portion of the Country robbed and oppressed for the benefit of another."
And the same day, replying to Mr. Morrill of Vermont, he exclaimed: "Let
him show me that the plethoric, bloated Manufacturers of New England are
paying anything to support the Government, and I will recognize it."
Washburne, of Illinois got back at this part of Mr. Voorhees's speech
rather neatly, by defending the North-west as being "not only willing to
stand taxation" which had been "already imposed, but * * * any
additional taxation which," said he, "may be necessary to crush out this
Rebellion, and to hang the Rebels in the South, and the Rebel
sympathizers in the North." And, he pointedly added: "Complaint has
been made against New England. I know that kind of talk. I have heard
too often that kind of slang about New England. I heard it here for ten
years, when your Barksdales, and your Keitts's, and your other Traitors,
now in arms against the Government, filled these Halls with their
pestilential assaults not only upon New England, but on the Free North
generally."
Kelley of Pennsylvania, however, more fitly characterized the speech of
Voorhees, when he termed it "a pretty, indeed a somewhat striking,
paraphrase of the argument of Mr. Lamar, the Rebel Agent,--[in 1886,
Secretary of the Interior]--to his confreres in Treason, as we find it
in the recently published correspondence: 'Drive gold coin out of the
Country, and induce undue Importation of Foreign products so as to
strike down the Financial System. You can have no further hope for
Foreign recognition. It is evident the weight of arms is against us;
and it is clear that we can only succeed by striking down the Financial
System of the Country.' It was an admirable paraphrase of the
Instructions of Mr. Lamar to the Rebel Agents in the North."
The impression was at this time abroad, and there were not wanting
elements of proof, that certain members of Congress were trusted
Lieutenants of the Arch-copperhead and Outlaw, Vallandigham. Certain it
is, that many of these leaders, six months before, attended and
addressed the great gathering from various parts of the Country, of
nearly one hundred thousand Vallandigham-Anti-War Peace-Democrats, at
Springfield, Illinois--the very home of Abraham Lincoln--which adopted,
during a lull, when they were not yelling themselves hoarse for
Vallandigham, a resolution declaring against "the further offensive
prosecution of the War" as being subversive of the Constitution and
Government, and proposing a National Peace Convention, and, as a
consequence, Peace, "the Union as it was," and, substantially such
Constitutional guarantees as the Rebels might choose to demand! And
this too, at a time (June 13, 1863), when Grant, after many recent
glorious victories, had been laying siege to Vicksburg, and its Rebel
Army of 37,000 men, for nearly a month, with every reason to hope for
its speedy fall.
No wonder that under such circumstances, the news of such a gathering of
the Northern Democratic sympathizers with Treason, and of their adoption
of such treasonable Resolutions, should encourage the Rebels in the same
degree that Union men were disheartened! No wonder that Lee, elated by
this and other evidences of Northern sympathy with Rebellion, at once
determined to commence a second grand invasion of the North, and on the
very next day (June 14th,) moved Northward with all his Rebel hosts to
be welcomed, he fondly hoped, by his Northern friends of Maryland and
elsewhere! As we have seen, it took the bloody Battle of Gettysburg to
undeceive him as to the character of that welcome.
Further than this, Mr. Cox had stumped Ohio, in the succeeding election,
in a desperate effort to make the banished Traitor, Vallandigham--the
Chief Northern commander of the "Knights of the Golden Circle"
(otherwise known as the "Order of the Sons of Liberty," and "O. A. K."
or "Order of American Knights")--Governor of that great State.
[The Rebel General Sterling Price being the chief Southern
commander of this many-named treasonable organization, which in the
North alone numbered over 500,000 men.
August, 1864.--See Report of Judge Advocate Holt on certain "Secret
Associations," in Appendix,]
And it only lacked a few months of the time when quantities of copies of
the treasonable Ritual of the "Order of American Knights"--as well as
correspondence touching the purchase of thousands of Garibaldi rifles
for transportation to the West--were found in the offices of leading
Democrats then in Congress.
When, therefore, it is said, and repeated, that there were not wanting
elements of proof, outside of Congressional utterances and actions, that
leading Democrats in Congress were trusted Lieutenants of the Supreme
Commander of over half a million of Northern Rebel-sympathizers bound
together, and to secrecy, by oaths, which were declared to be paramount
to all other oaths, the violation of which subjected the offender to a
shameful death somewhat like that, of being "hung, drawn, and
quartered," which was inflicted in the middle ages for the crime of
Treason to the Crown--it will be seen that the statement is supported by
circumstantial, if not by positive and direct, evidence.
Whether the Coxes, the Garret Davises, the Saulsburys, the Fernando
Woods, the Alexander Longs, the Allens, the Holmans, and many other
prominent Congressmen of that sort,--were merely in close communion with
these banded "Knights," or were actual members of their secret
organizations, may be an open question. But it is very certain that if
they all were not oath-bound members, they generally pursued the precise
methods of those who were; and that, as a rule, while they often loudly
proclaimed loyalty and love for the Union, they were always ready to act
as if their loyalty and love were for the so-called Confederacy.
Indeed, it was one of these other "loyal" Democrats, who even preceded
Voorhees, in raising the Sectional cry of: The West, against New
England. It was on this same Internal Revenue Bill, that Holman of
Indiana had, the day before Voorhees's attack, said:
"If the Manufacture of the Northwest is to be taxed so heavily, a
corresponding rate of increase must be imposed on the Manufactures of
New England and Pennsylvania, or, will gentlemen tax us without limit
for the benefit of their own Section? * * * I protest against what I
believe is intended to be a discrimination against one Section of the
Country, by increasing the tax three-fold, without a corresponding
increase upon the burdens of other Sections."
But these dreadfully "loyal" Democrats--who did the bidding of
traitorous masters in their Treason to the Union, and thus, while
posturing as "Patriots," "fired upon the rear" of our hard-pressed
Armies--were super-sensitive on this point. And, when they could get
hold of a quiet sort of a man, inclined to peaceful methods of
discussion, how they would, terrier-like, pounce upon him, and extract
from him, if they could, some sort of negative satisfaction!
Thus, for instance, on the 22nd of January, when one of these quiet men
--Morris of New York--was in the midst of an inoffensive speech, Mr. Cox
"bristled up," and blusteringly asked whether he meant to say that he
(Cox) had "ever been the apologist or the defender of a Traitor?"
And Morris not having said so, mildly replied that he did "not so
charge"--all of which little bit of by-play hugely pleased the touchy
Mr. Cox, and his clansmen.
But on the day following, their smiles vanished under the words of
Spalding or Ohio, who, after referring to the crocodile-tears shed by
Democratic Congressmen over the Confiscation Resolution--on the pretense
that it would hunt down "innocent women and children" of the Rebels,
when they had never a word of sympathy for the widows and children of
the two hundred thousand dead soldiers of the Union-continued:
"They can see our poor soldiers return, minus an arm, minus a leg, as
they pass through these lobbies, but their only care is to protect the
property of Rebels. And we are asked by one of my colleagues, (Mr. Cox)
does the gentleman from New York intend to call us Traitors? My friend,
Mr. Morris, modestly answered no! If he had asked that question of me,
he knows what my answer would have been! I have seen Rebel officers at
Johnson's Island, and I have taken them by the hand because they have
fought us fairly in the field and did not seek to break down the
Government while living under its protection. Yes, Sir, that gentleman
knows that I would have said to him that I have more respect for an open
and avowed Traitor in the field, than for a sympathizer in this Hall.
Four months have scarcely gone by since that gentleman and his political
friends were advocating the election of a man for the Gubernatorial
office in my State, who was an open and avowed advocate of Secession--AN
OUTLAW AT THAT!"
And old Thaddeus Stevens--the clear-sighted and courageous "Old
Commoner"--followed up Spalding, and struck very close to the root and
animus of the Democratic opposition, when he exclaimed:
"All this struggle by calm and dignified and moderate 'Patriots;' all
this clamor against 'Radicals;' all this cry of 'the Union as it Was,
and the Constitution as it Is;' is but a persistent effort to
reestablish Slavery, and to rivet anew and forever the chains of Bondage
on the limbs of Immortal beings. May the God of Justice thwart their
designs and paralyze their wicked efforts!"