Part 25

First, the army of the United States was so far dispersed and exiled, that the commander-in-chief found it difficult, during the recent anxious winter, to bring together a thousand troops for the defence of the national capital, menaced by the conspirators.

Secondly, the navy was so far scattered or dismantled, that on the 4th of March, when the new Administration came into power, there were no ships to enforce the laws, collect the revenues, or protect the national property in the Rebel ports. Out of seventy-two vessels of war, counted as our navy, it appears that the whole available force at home was reduced to the steamer Brooklyn, carrying twenty-five guns, and the store-ship Relief, carrying two guns.

Thirdly, the forts on the extensive Southern coast were so far abandoned by the public force, that the larger part, counting upwards of 1,200 cannon, and built at a cost of more than six million dollars, became at once an easy prey to the Rebels.

Fourthly, national arms were transferred from Northern to Southern arsenals, so as to disarm the Free States and equip the Slave States. This was done on a large scale. Upwards of 115,000 arms, of the latest and most approved pattern, were transferred from the Springfield and Watervliet arsenals to different arsenals in the Slave States, where they were seized by the Rebels; and a quarter of a million percussion muskets were sold to various Slave States for $2.50 a musket, when they were worth, it is said, on an average, $12. Large quantities of cannon, mortars, powder, ball, and shell received the same direction.

Fifthly, the National Treasury, so recently prosperous beyond example, was disorganized and plundered even to the verge of bankruptcy. Upwards of six millions are supposed to have been stolen, and much of this treasure doubtless went to help the work of Rebellion.

Thus, even before its outbreak, the conspiracy contrived to degrade and despoil the Government, so as to secure free course for the projected rebellion. The story seems incredible. But it was not enough to disperse the army, to scatter the navy, to abandon forts, to disarm the Free States, and to rob the Treasury. The President of the United States, solemnly sworn to execute the laws, was won into a system of inactivity amounting to practical abdication of his great trust. He saw treason plotting to stab at the heart of his country, saw conspiracy, daily, hourly, putting on the harness of rebellion, but, though warned by the watchful general-in-chief, he did nothing to arrest it, standing always,

“like a painted Jove, With idle thunder in his lifted hand.”[214]

Ay, more; instead of instant lightnings, smiting and blasting in their fiery crash, which an indignant patriotism would have hurled, he nodded sympathy and acquiescence. No page of history is more melancholy, because nowhere do we find a ruler who so completely abandoned his country: not Charles the First in his tyranny, not Louis the Sixteenth in his weakness. Mr. Buchanan was advanced to power by Slave-Masters, who knew well that he could be used for Slavery. The Slaveholding conspirators were encouraged to sit in his Cabinet, where they doubly betrayed their country, first by evil counsels, and then by disclosing what passed to distant Slaveholding confederates. The sudden act of Major Anderson, in removing from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, and the sympathetic response of an aroused people, compelled a change of policy, and the Rebellion received its first check. After painful struggle, it was decided at last that Fort Sumter should be maintained. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of that decision, which, I believe, was due mainly to an eminent Democrat,--General Cass. This, at least, is true: it saved the national capital.

Meanwhile the conspiracy increased in activity, mastering State after State, gathering its forces and building its batteries. The time had come for the tragedy to begin. “At Nottingham,” says the great English historian, speaking of King Charles the First, “he erected his royal standard, the open signal of discord and civil war throughout the kingdom.”[215] The same open signal now came from Charleston, when the conspirators ran up the Rattle-Snake flag, and directed their wicked cannonade upon the small, half-famished garrison of Sumter.

Were this done in the name of Revolution, or by virtue of any revolutionary principle, it would assume a familiar character. But such is not the case. It is all done under pretence of constitutional right. The forms of the Constitution are seized by the conspirators, as they have already seized everything else, and wrested to the purposes of treason. It is audaciously declared, that, under the existing Constitution, each State, in the exercise of its own discretion, may withdraw from the Union; and this asserted right of secession is invoked as cover for Rebellion begun in conspiracy. The election of Mr. Lincoln is made the _occasion_ for the exercise of this pretended right; certain opinions at the North on the subject of Slavery are made the _pretext_.

Who will not deny that this election can be a just _occasion_?

Who will not condemn the _pretext_?

But both occasion and pretext are determined by Slavery, and thus testify to the part it constantly performs.

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The pretended right of secession is not less monstrous than the pretext or the occasion; and this, too, is born of Slavery. It belongs to that brood of assumptions and perversions of which Slavery is prolific parent. Wherever Slavery prevails, this pretended right is recognized, and generally with an intensity proportioned to the prevalence of Slavery,--as, for instance, in South Carolina and Mississippi more intensely than in Tennessee and Kentucky. It may be considered a fixed part of the slaveholding system. A pretended right to set aside the Constitution, to the extent of breaking up the Government, is the natural companion of the pretended right to set aside human nature, making merchandise of men. They form a well-matched couple, and travel well together,--destined to perish together. If we do not overflow toward the former with the same indignation which we feel for the latter, it is because its absurdity awakens our contempt. An English poet of the last century exclaims, in mocking verses,--

“Crowned be the man with lasting praise Who first contrived the pin, To loose mad horses from the chaise, And save the necks within.”[216]

Such is the impossible contrivance now attempted. Nothing is clearer than that this pretension, if acknowledged, leaves to every State the right to play the “mad horse,” with very little chance of saving anything. It takes from the Government not merely unity, but all security of national life, and reduces it to the shadow of a name, or, at best, a mere tenancy at will,--an unsubstantial form, to be decomposed at the touch of a single State. Of course, such an anarchical pretension, so instinct with all the lawlessness of Slavery, must be encountered peremptorily. It is not enough to declare dissent. We must so conduct as not to give it recognition or foothold. [_Applause._]

Instead of scouting this pretension, and utterly spurning it, new concessions to Slavery were gravely propounded as the means of pacification,--like a new sacrifice offered to an obscene divinity. It was argued, that in this way the Border States at least might be preserved to the Union, and some of the Cotton States perhaps won back to duty: in other words, that, in consideration of such concessions, these States would consent to waive a present exercise of the pretended right of secession. Against all such propositions, without considering their character, stands on the threshold one obvious and imperative objection. It is clear that the very bargain or understanding, whether express or implied, is a recognition of this pretended right, and that a State yielding only to such appeal, and detained through concessions, practically asserts the claim, and holds it for future exercise. Thus a concession called small becomes infinite; for it concedes the pretended right of secession, and makes the permanence of the National Government impossible. Amidst all the grave responsibilities of the hour, we must take care that the life of the Republic is sacredly preserved. But this would be sacrificed at once, did we submit its existence to the conditions proposed.

Looking at these concessions, I have always found them utterly unreasonable and indefensible. I should not expose them now, if they did not testify constantly to the Origin and Mainspring of this Rebellion. Slavery was always the single subject-matter, and nothing else. Slavery was not only an integral part of every concession, but the single integer. The one idea was to give some new security, in some form, to Slavery. That brilliant statesman, Mr. Canning, in one of those eloquent speeches which charm so much by style, said that he was “tired of being a security-grinder”; but his experience was not comparable to ours. “Security-grinding,” in the name of Slavery, has been for years the way in which we have wrestled with this conspiracy. [_Laughter and applause._]

The propositions at the last Congress began with the President’s Message, which in itself was one tedious concession. You cannot forget his sympathetic portraiture of the disaffection throughout the Slave States, or his testimony to the cause. Notoriously and shamefully his heart was with the conspirators, and he knew intimately the mainspring of their conduct. He proposed nothing short of general surrender; and thus did he proclaim Slavery as the head and front, the very _causa causans_, of the whole crime.

Nor have you forgotten the Peace Conference, as it was delusively styled, convened at Washington on the summons of Virginia, with John Tyler in the chair, where New York, as well as Massachusetts, was represented by her ablest and most honored citizens. The sessions were with closed doors; but it is now known that throughout the proceedings, lasting for weeks, nothing was discussed but Slavery. And the propositions finally adopted by the Convention were confined to Slavery. Forbearing all detail, it will be enough to say that they undertook to provide positive protection for Slavery under the Constitution, with new sanction and immunity,--making it, notwithstanding the determination of our fathers, _national_ instead of _sectional_; and even more, making it an essential and permanent part of our republican system. Slavery is sometimes deceitful, as at other times bold; and these propositions were still further offensive from their studied uncertainty, amounting to positive duplicity. At a moment when frankness was needed above all things, we were treated to phrases pregnant with doubt and controversy, and were gravely asked, in the name of Slavery, to embody them in the National Constitution.

There was another string of propositions much discussed during the last winter, which acquired the name of the venerable Senator from whom they came,--Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky. These also related to Slavery, and nothing else. They were more obnoxious even than those from the Peace Conference. And yet there were petitioners from the North, even from Massachusetts, who prayed for this great surrender. Considering the character of these propositions,--that they sought to change the Constitution in a manner revolting to the moral sense, to foist into its very body the idea of property in man, to protect Slavery in all present territory south of 36° 30´, and to carry it into all territory hereafter acquired south of that line, and thus to make our beautiful Stars and Stripes in their southern march the flag of infamy,--considering that they provided new constitutional securities for Slavery in the national capital and in other places within the exclusive national jurisdiction, new constitutional securities for the transit of slaves from State to State, opening the way to a roll-call of slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill or the door of Faneuil Hall, and also the disfranchisement of nearly ten thousand of my fellow-citizens in Massachusetts, whose rights are fixed by the Constitution of that Commonwealth, drawn by John Adams,--considering these things, I felt at the time, and I still feel, that the best apology of these petitioners was that they were ignorant of their true character, and that in signing the petition they knew not what they did. But even in their ignorance they bore witness to Slavery, while the propositions were the familiar voice of Slavery, crying, “Give! give!”

There was another single proposition from still another quarter, but, like all the rest, it related exclusively to Slavery. It was to insert in the text of the Constitution a stipulation against any future amendment authorizing Congress to interfere with Slavery in the States. If you read this proposition, you will find it crude and ill-shaped,--a jargon of bad grammar, a jumble and hodge-podge of words,--harmonizing poorly with the accurate text of our Constitution. But even if tolerable in form, it was obnoxious, like the rest, as a fresh stipulation in favor of Slavery. Sufficient, surely, in this respect, is the actual Constitution. Beyond this I cannot I will not go. What Washington, Franklin, Madison, and Hamilton would not insert we cannot err in rejecting. [_Applause._]

I do not dwell on other propositions, because they attracted less attention; and yet among these was one to overturn the glorious safeguards of Freedom set up in the Free States, known as the Personal Liberty Laws. Here again was Slavery--with a vengeance.

There is one remark which I desire to make with regard to all these propositions. It was sometimes said that the concessions they offered were “small.” What a mistake is this! No concession to Slavery can be “small.” Freedom is priceless, and in this simple rule alike of morals and jurisprudence you find the just measure of any concession, how small soever it may seem, by which Freedom is sacrificed. Tell me not that it concerns a few only. I do not forget the saying of Antiquity, that the best government is where an injury to a single individual is resented as an injury to the whole State; nor am I indifferent to that memorable instance of our own recent history, where, in a distant sea, the thunders of our navy, with all the hazards of war, were aroused to protect the liberty of a solitary person claiming the rights of an American citizen. By such examples let me be guided, rather than by the suggestion, that Human Freedom, whether in many or in few, is of so little value that it may be put in the market to appease a traitorous conspiracy, or soothe accessories, who, without such concession, threaten to join the conspirators.

Warnings of the past, like the suggestions of reason and of conscience, were all against concession. Timid counsels always are an encouragement to sedition and rebellion. If the glove be of velvet, the hand must be of iron. An eminent master of thought, in some of his most vivid words, has bravely said,--

“To expect to tranquillize and benefit a country by gratifying its agitators would be like the practice of the superstitious of old with their sympathetic powders and ointments, who, instead of applying medicaments to the wound, contented themselves with salving the sword which had inflicted it. Since the days of Dane-gelt downwards, nay, since the world was created, nothing but evil has resulted from concessions made to intimidation.”[217]

These are the words of Archbishop Whately, in his annotation to an Essay of Bacon,--and how applicable to our times, when it is so often proposed _to salve the sword of Secession_!

In the same spirit spoke the most shining practical statesman of English history, Mr. Fox.

“To humor the present disposition, and temporize, is a certain, absolutely certain, confirmation of the evil. No nation ever did or ever can recover from Slavery by such methods.”[218]

Pardon me, if I express regret, profound and heartfelt, that the pretensions of Slavery, whether in claim of privilege or in doctrine of secession, were not always encountered boldly and austerely. Alas! it is ourselves that have encouraged the conspiracy, and made it strong. Secession has become possible only through long continued concession. In proposing concession we encourage secession, and while professing to uphold the Union, we betray it. It is now beyond question that the concessionists of the North have from the beginning played into the hands of the secessionists of the South. I do not speak in harshness, or even in criticism, but simply according to my duty, in unfolding historically the agencies, conscious and unconscious, at work, while I hold them up as a warning for the future. They all testify to Slavery, which from earliest days has been at the bottom of the conspiracy, and also at every stage of the efforts to arrest it. It was Slavery which fired the conspirators, and Slavery also which entered into every proposition of compromise. Secession and concession both had their root in Slavery.

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And now, after this review, I am brought again to the significance of that Presidential election with which I began. The Slave-Masters entered into that election with Mr. Breckinridge as their candidate, and their platform claimed constitutional protection for Slavery in all territories, whether now belonging to the Republic or hereafter acquired. This concession was the ultimatum on which was staked their continued loyalty to the Union,--as the continuance of the Slave-Trade was the original condition on which South Carolina and Georgia entered the Union. And the reason, though criminal, was obvious. It was because without such opportunity of expansion Slavery would be stationary, while the Free States, increasing in number, would obtain a fixed preponderance in the National Government, assuring to them the political power. Thus at that election the banner of the Slave-Masters had for open device, not the Union as it is, but the extension and perpetuation of human bondage. The popular vote was against further concession, and the conspirators proceeded with their crime. The _occasion_ so long sought had come. The _pretext_ foreseen by Andrew Jackson was the motive power.

Here mark well, that, in their whole conduct, the conspirators acted naturally, under instincts implanted by Slavery; nay, they acted logically even. _Such is Slavery, that it cannot exist, unless it owns the Government._ An injustice so plain can find protection only from a Government which is a reflection of itself. Cannibalism cannot exist except under a government of cannibals. Idolatry cannot exist except under a government of idolaters. And Slavery cannot exist except under a government of Slave-Masters. This is positive, universal truth,--at St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Timbuctoo, or Washington. The Slave-Masters of our country saw that they were dislodged from the National Government, and straightway they rebelled. The Republic, which they could no longer rule, they determined to ruin. And now the issue is joined. Slavery must either rule or die.

Though thus audaciously criminal, the Slave-Masters are not strong in numbers. The whole number, great and small, according to the recent census, is not more than four hundred thousand,--of whom there are less than one hundred thousand interested to any considerable extent in this peculiar species of property.[219] And yet this petty oligarchy--itself controlled by a squad still more petty--in a population of many millions, has aroused and organized this gigantic rebellion. But success is explained by two considerations. First, the asserted value of the slaves, reaching at this date to the enormous sum-total of two thousand millions of dollars, constitutes an overpowering property interest, one of the largest in the world,--greatly increased by the intensity and unity of purpose naturally belonging to the representatives of such a sum-total, stimulated by the questionable character of the property. But, secondly, it is a phenomenon attested by the history of revolutions, that all such movements, at least in their early days, are controlled by minorities. This is because a revolutionary minority, once embarked, has before it only the single, simple path of unhesitating action. While others doubt or hold back, the minority strikes and goes forward. Audacity then counts more than numbers, and crime counts more than virtue. This phenomenon has been observed before. “Often have I reflected with awe,” says Coleridge, “on the great and disproportionate power which an individual of no extraordinary talents or attainments may exert by merely throwing off all restraint of conscience.… The abandonment of all _principle of right_ enables the soul to choose and act upon _a principle of wrong_, and to subordinate to this one principle all the various vices of human nature.”[220] These are remarkable and most suggestive words. But when was a “principle of wrong” followed with more devotion than by our Rebels?

The French Revolution furnishes authentic illustration of a few predominating over a great change. Among the good men at that time who followed “principle of right” were others with whom success was the primary object, while even good men sometimes forgot goodness; but at each stage a minority gave the law. Pétion, the famous mayor of Paris, boasted, that, when he began, “there were but five men in France who wished a Republic.”[221] From a contemporary debate in the British Parliament, it appears that the asserted power of a minority was made the express ground of appeal by French revolutionists to the people of other countries. Sheridan, in a brilliant speech, dwells on this appeal, and by mistake ascribes to Condorcet the unequivocal utterances, that “revolutions must always be the work of the minority,”--that “every revolution is the work of a minority,”--that “the French Revolution was accomplished by the minority.”[222] This philosopher, who sealed his principles by a tragical death, did say, in an address to the Parliamentary Reformers of England, that from Parliamentary reform “the passage to the complete establishment of a republic would be short and easy”;[223] but it was Cambon, the financier of the Revolution, and one of its active supporters, who, in the National Convention, put forth the cries attributed to Condorcet.[224] The part of the minority was also attested by Brissot de Warville, who imputed the triumph of the Jacobins, under whose bloody sway his own life became a sacrifice, to “some twenty men,” or, as he says in another place, “a score of anarchists,” and then again, “a club, or rather a score of those robbers who direct that club.”[225]

The future historian will record, that the present rebellion, notwithstanding its protracted origin, the multitudes it enlisted, and its extensive sweep, was at last precipitated by fewer than twenty men,--Mr. Everett says by as few as eight or ten.[226] It is certain that thus far it has been the triumph of a minority,--but of a minority moved, inspired, combined, and aggrandized by Slavery.

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