Fremont’s request, in reply, that the President would himself take the responsibility of the retreat. Then recruiting stopped, wherever the news arrived; a new regiment disbanded, and the fogs drove up again. While there was uncertainty whether the President would remove Fremont from his command, the people remained in ostentatious suspense. Now that he has been superseded, there is a split of the gravest character;—or there will be unless the Government, the creature of the people, comes round in good time to the people’s stand-point. And here arise the questions,—who are, in this case, the people? and what is their stand-point?
The people on whom the direction of the policy of the republic depends are a different set from those who have, for thirty years, sold the liberties of their country to the slave-holders. The slave-traders of New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, the manufacturers dependent on Southern cotton, the merchants who carry Southern produce, and the host of underlings, from head clerks to warehouse-sweepers and Irish labourers hanging about the docks,—these are the people (reinforced by a timid clergy and the vanity which has been mistaken for patriotism), who have hitherto personated the North generally, and spoken as the whole North at Washington. Their day is over; or, if it be not, another revolution has to be gone through: for the true republicans of the North will not henceforth permit themselves to be represented by this great pro-slavery party. Many of the party are banished, or self-banished as traitors: many are silenced by public opinion or by public intolerance; many are at work to obtain a compromise; many will profess anything to preserve the form and pretentions of the Union: and a daily increasing number are sincerely penitent for past dereliction of principle, and anxious to support a virtuous course of action at last. Against this fluctuating, confused, embarrassed and humbled party, is now ranged the honest and resolute country population of the North: and nearly the whole population of the North-west. These last furnished the President of the time: they are resolute to claim their share of action and influence: they abhor slavery, on every account. After having seen it abolished in their own region by General Fremont, they are not disposed to let it be re-established by their own President, under the compulsion of the time-serving gentry and mob of the ports. These being the people condemned, the inquiry follows,—what is the stand-point which has to be taken or defended?
All parties join in desiring to support the Union; but hitherto the Washington government and the unregenerate North have assumed this to mean the same thing as upholding the constitution as it stood when Mr. Lincoln was elected. But that constitution is, in the main point of present importance, a corruption of the original scheme. Under it the slave power has attained supremacy, and has used that supremacy to overthrow the liberties of the Free States. But that constitution is not only unworthy and unsuitable: it is impracticable. The war has rendered it impossible to observe the engagements of the constitution in regard to fugitive slaves. Therefore the western and the rural populations demand that there shall be an amended constitution, purified of all complicity with slavery; so that the very cause of the disruption of the Union may be got rid of: and with this view those large, staunch, single-minded populations range themselves with Fremont and his policy, and are not likely to quit their stand-point. The next disclosure will be whether the upholders of the existing constitution will enter upon a struggle with them for the sake of the bare chance of a reconciliation with the South, or in the dread of losing the Border States. To persons outside of the struggle it does not appear likely that the Border States can seriously expect to hold slaves while forming a part of the Northern Union. In bidding farewell to the other slave states, and joining a region of free labour, they must know that they are bidding farewell to slavery: and if not, the few Border States cannot be allowed to spoil the policy of the whole North. As for the government at Washington, it will act according to the will of the strongest party, as it ought to do, and cannot but do. At present it is in an untenable position. It professes to support the constitution, but is daily compelled to violate its conditions. It could not but be aware that it was bringing on the real revolutionary crisis by either countenancing or disavowing General Fremont’s policy. After long hesitation it disavowed the policy; and after another interval superseded the man. It will probably never be settled whether the President would have gained most support by upholding the anti-slavery or the constitutional and pro-slavery party: but it is clear that his actual procedure fixes the moment when the real revolution must begin. Mr. Sumner’s address at Worcester, Massachusetts, indicates this state of affairs; and the hostility with which it was received by the city people and by Washington politicians shows how significant were its contents.
Thus it appears that there may be issues which the war will not decide. The business of the war will be to ascertain what proportion of the American nation are willing to enter on the question whether a corrupted and unworkable constitution shall be attempted to be sustained, or whether a new one, consisting of the principles of the original one, purified of its fatal compromises, shall be adopted.
The barbarous character of the warfare is a subject too painful to be needlessly dwelt upon. It arises partly from the unmilitary character of the American nation; and partly from unprecedented conditions of the struggle as a civil war. There are “traitors” in all the departments of a public service which has suddenly changed hands at the most critical moment of the republic. What was patriotism a year ago has become treason. The friendships of a year ago have become snares: the commercial partnerships of the two sections have become embarrassments; the family ties have generated hatreds; sectional grudges have grown into fierce revenges. The brigands of the whole country have come to the front; and the worthiest citizens retire into the darkness to grieve unseen. The sacking and burn-