Speeches of Carl Schurz/01 The Irrepressible Conflict
SPEECHES OF CARL SCHURZ.
I.
THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT.
SPEECH DELIVERED AT MECHANICS' HALL, CHICAGO,
ON THE 28TH OF SEPTEMBER, 1858.
This speech was delivered in the memorable Senatorial campaign in Illinois, Mr. Lincoln being the candidate of the Republican, and Mr. Douglas the candidate of the Democratic party. The topics discussed may be presumed to be familiar to every American reader who is somewhat conversant with the politics of the day.
Mr. President and Gentlemen:—
The remarks I am going to offer will not be of the
exciting and enthusiastic kind. I will speak to your
understanding, and call your attention to some of the
simple broad principles which rule the development of
human affairs.
The destinies of nations and countries are, indeed, not governed by majorities and governmental authority alone. You will sometimes see nations struggle with almost superhuman efforts against certain impending dangers; but an overruling fatality seems to frustrate all their exertions. This overruling fatality, which stands above the power of majorities and governments, I will call by a simple term—the logic of things and events. It is the close connection between cause and effect, between principle and fact—a connection which cannot be severed, and the clear knowledge of which is the only safe foundation for political wisdom.
I have been taught by history that a democratic system of government, although it may overcome local and temporary inconveniences, cannot bear a direct contradiction between political principles on the one and social institutions on the other side. Such inconsistencies will and must bring forth questions and conflicts involving the very foundations of popular liberty. They may appear in different shapes, but when they have once taken possession of the political arena, they will overshadow all other issues. Everything else will be subordinate to them; they will form the only legitimate line of distinction between parties, and all attempts to divert public attention from them, or to palliate them with compromises or secondary issues, will prove futile and abortive. Their final decision, one way or the other, will decide the practical existence of a people.
Such a contradiction is that between liberty, founded upon the natural rights of man, and slavery, founded upon usurpation; between democracy, which is the life-element of our Federal Constitution, and privilege, which is the life-element of the slaveholding system and of Southern society.
I do not intend to make an anti-slavery speech in the common understanding of the term, dwelling at length upon the sufferings of the bondman and the cruelty of the master and the sinfulness of sin in general. My purpose is to investigate, from a political stand-point, the conflicts which, as natural consequences, must spring from the mixture of the contradictory principles of slavery and democracy.
When in a democratic community there is a powerful individual, or an association or class of men, whose claims and pretensions are in conflict with the natural rights of man in general, or with the legitimate claims of other individuals, and who deem their own particular interests above all other considerations, we may well say that the liberties of the people are in danger. When such individuals, or classes of men, find that their claims and pretensions cannot stand before a free criticism, they will spare no effort to impose silence upon the organs of public opinion; they will use force, if argument is of no avail. They will endeavor to concentrate all political power in their hands, and use it as a machinery for the promotion of their own selfish ends, and as a safeguard of their own particular interests. They will resort to usurpation, when, by constitutional means, they can exercise no absolute control.
In States which are ruled by absolute monarchs, the public press is manacled for no other reason than that absolutism and its excrescences cannot stand before the free criticism of public opinion, and that, if press and speech were let free to-day, there would be a death-struggle between public opinion and the absolute power to-morrow, which would result either in the complete overthrow of the latter, or complete re-enslavement of the former. But it is not essential that this powerful and dangerous interest should have monarchical aspirations; if it be an aristocracy, or an association of great merchants or planters, or, in general, a class of persons who have common interests which are inconsistent with the natural rights of man, and who deem them superior to all other considerations, and are determined to defend them, the tendency and the ultimate result will be the same. To such an interest the people will have to submit, or against such an interest the people will have to fight. There will be a struggle, and there must be a victory. [Applause.] Is this applicable to slavery and the slaveholders? A rapid glance at the political development of this country will answer that question.
In the slaveholding States all political life is shaped by the ruling interest. While the people of the South profess the principle of equality, one class of citizens is accustomed to rule, and the other to obey (mark, I am speaking of the whites, not of the slaves), and the whole machinery of government, even to the smallest functions, is in the hands or under the control of the slaveholding aristocracy. While they profess the principle of political liberty, you dare neither speak nor write a word against the peculiar institution. While they claim to be freemen, they have fettered the hands of the people with the most odious police regulations, dictated by the instinctive fears common to all tyrants. While they claim to be an enlightened people, they do not suffer the great leading ideas of the age to be taught in their schools and colleges, for fear they might engender a thought against slavery. While they claim to be a religious and moral people, they address even their prayers to no other God than the black God of slavery. While they pretend to be a patriotic people, they have sacrificed to slavery the liberties of speech and of the press; sacrificed even the liberty of conscience; sacrificed the welfare of the non-slaveholding whites; sacrificed the prosperity and prospects of their own States; sacrificed the peace of the Republic. [Applause.] And they will tell you as often as you want to hear it, that they stand ready to sacrifice to the preservation of slavery the Union of these States, and the last remnant of their liberties and republican institutions. Nobody can deny it, in the South slavery overrules everything else; slavery rules in all. [Applause.]
And what about the North? Look at the party in power. It considered the Missouri Compromise a sacred compact as long as it served to augment the number of Slave States. It advocated the extension of the Missouri line to the Pacific Ocean, when, by that extension, a large territory might be acquired for slavery. It became suddenly convinced of the unconstitutionality of the Missouri Compromise, and repealed it, when that compact was to augment the number of the Free States. It changed the face of popular sovereignty ten times, according to the pleasure of the slaveholders. It considered the population of Kansas numerically sufficient to form a Slave State, but sadly insufficient to form a Free State. It lavishes, with unheard of profligacy, the money of the people for the benefit of the slaveholding interest, and treats the commercial interests of the free North with contempt. It applauds the most flagrant violations of the ballot-box, the most daring usurpations of power, when they serve the interests of slavery. [Cheers.] And how are all these amazing things effected? Look at the interior organization of that party. No kingdom, no hierarchy is ruled by a more absolute despotism than that party is ruled by its leaders. As I have shown, their principles are shaped and remodelled according to the arbitrary pleasure of the South, and the masses have but to obey, and they do obey. They are watched and dogged like a flock of sheep, turned out to pasture to-day, in order to be fleeced to-morrow. Look at the executor of John C. Calhoun's last will in the White House, who, like an oriental despot, hurls his anathemas and political death-warrants where he cannot debauch the conscience of a man with a bribe. All his power and patronage he has transformed into a vast machine of corruption in the service of slavery. Cast your eye wherever you will, nothing but party despotism, nothing but the fiercest oppression of moral independence, nothing but corruption organized into a system, and all this in the service of slavery. Will you deny it? Even in the North slavery struggles to rule it all. [Great applause.]
Where are we drifting? I will not dwell on our perverted commercial policy, nor on the question of internal improvements, and the like. I point out to you the general antagonism in which our political development is entangled.
I have often been told that the slaveholders are right in restricting the liberties of speech and of the press, etc., on the subject of slavery; for those liberties unrestrained would be a real danger to them. No doubt they would be a danger, but there is no more crushing argument against slavery than this, no more conclusive proof of its entire incompatibility with true democracy. When an institution in society cannot stand before the tribunal of free speech and free press, the question arises, shall we sacrifice our liberties to that institution, or that institution to our liberties. [Cheers.] I hold that no interest which is incompatible with a free expression of public opinion, can have a right to exist in a democratic organization of society. [Great applause.] And if it does exist, it will be like a chronic disease, or like an ulcer lying underneath the skin, which will leave no rest or comfort to the body politic, until it is finally extirpated and extinct. [Cheers.] It is vain to palliate the disease by artificial means. It will break forth again and again with increased fury, and will urge on and on to a final crisis. Aye, sir, your standard-bearer is right, in spite of Douglas's sophistries. “A house that is divided against itself cannot stand.” [Loud cheers.] It cannot stand! It must fall, unless it cease to be divided. [Continued applause.] By the inexorable, uncompromising logic of things, we must go either one way or the other; not as Mr. Douglas tries to make you believe, make all States slave or free by force of arms; but we must either abandon the principle of equal rights, even among white men, and adapt the whole development of our political organization to the paramount interests of a privileged class of slaveholders; put the liberties of speech and press at the mercy of the ruling power, and sacrifice our democratic system of government to the aristocratic and despotic tendencies of the slaveholding system throughout, or we must break the political power of slavery in our national concerns, and return to the original principles on which this Republic was founded. In one word, we must formally recognize slavery as the ruling interest in our national policy, or we must deny it the recognition of any national right, and confine it to a merely local existence under positive State legislation. [Cheers.] This is the alternative.
Now, quibble as you will; devise side issues and subterfuges; invent palliative remedies; delude others and delude yourselves with fictitious compromises: this alternative will again and again push away all your plausibilities and sophistries, and say to you with the stern voice of inexorable fate: “Here am I! You have not seen me, perhaps, but here I am.” [Cheers.]
And now, there comes a man, like Mr. Douglas, who ought to understand the signs of the times, and gives it as his opinion that slavery and democracy, having lived side by side these eighty years, may live on thus, and he does not see the incompatibility. Indeed! he does not see it! The same man, who once, in the name of the slaveholders, cried out to the champions of freedom in the Senate: “We will subdue you.” He does not see that somebody and something must be subdued! [Applause.] A blind man does not see the sun, and yet it shines. A deaf man does not hear the thunder of heaven, and yet he will feel the bolt of lightning when it strikes him down. [Repeated applause.] Aye, sir, slavery and democracy did live side by side these eighty years. But how did they live? Like two combatants that held each other by the throat, each watching his chance to strangle the other. [Cheers.]
Has Mr. Douglas seen or heard nothing of the din or clamor of that battle which has raged, with but short and apparent intermissions, since that time when the ruling parties of this Republic deviated from the original policy of the Revolutionary Fathers, to confine slavery within the narrowest limits, and to promote its gradual abolition by local legislation? Does he know nothing of the ridiculous failures of all the compromises that were called final settlements? May-be, he is not so blind; but what he sees, perhaps, does not suit him. [Cheers.] The conflict between slavery and democracy might have long ago been settled in the spirit of the Revolutionary times. But it was not; and it springs up in its true aspect, when Missouri claims admission as a Slave State. It is represented to be finally settled by the Missouri Compromise. And there it is again, lurking under the tariff question. It assumes threatening dimensions in the question of the annexation of Texas and the territories acquired from Mexico. It is again said to be finally settled by the compromise of 1850. But there it rises again, more terrible than ever, in the Nebraska Bill. Mr. Douglas then claims to have finally settled it by introducing his principle of squatter sovereignty. But streams of blood and smouldering ruins in Kansas give him the lie. [Cheers.] Then Mr. Buchanan's election was to settle it. But the poor old man has hardly set his foot in the White House, when the slavery question steps forth in unheard of turpitude from the hand of Judge Taney. There it is! It is like Banquo's ghost, which rises from the ground again and again, shakes its bloody locks, and sits down at the very head of the banquet table. [Great applause.]
And there are some simpletons crying “Peace, peace! stop agitation!” Who agitates it? Who agitated it in 1820, but those who wanted to extend slavery in the free West? Who agitated it when Texas was to be annexed, but those who wanted to give to slavery an unlimited domain in the South and South-west? Who agitated it by the Nebraska Bill, but those who wanted to break down the last barrier to slavery? Who agitated it by the Dred Scott decision, but those who wanted to make slavery the rule, and liberty the exception? Who agitated it by the Lecompton question, but those who wanted to sacrifice the last safeguards of self-government to slavery? [Cheers.] And all those who did so were but obeying the logic of things. For slavery cannot live, unless it rules, and it can never keep peace, unless it dies. [Continued applause.] And still some simpletons are crying “Stop agitation!” Where will you begin? Where will you end? Stop agitation! The President of the United States makes not the most trifling appointment, or the slavery question is touched upon in the Cabinet. Congress hardly makes the most inconsiderate appropriation without considering matters from this point of view, and it is agitated! No legislative assembly in any of the States ever adjourns without discussing slavery in some way, and it is agitated. Aye, the smallest log-hamlet in the West hardly elects a constable without considering what the man's views on the subject of slavery are, and it is agitated. And now, stop agitation and cry peace, peace! There is, and there will be, war in the Cabinet of the President—war in both houses of Congress—war in every State Legislature—war in the smallest log-hamlet in the West; aye, war in every heart, until the all-absorbing conflict is settled. [Loud cheers.]
But now we stand before that awful, perplexing question: How is that conflict of contradictory principles to be appeased? How is the slavery question to be settled? There are, indeed, some persons, Democrats, affecting to be philosophers, who reason thus: “Let slavery spread wherever the slaveholders wish to carry it; let it conform the laws of the land to its principles, and adapt them to the sole purpose of its protection, nevertheless time, the natural process of development, and the spirit of the age, will do away with it.” Ah! time and the spirit of the age may do wonderful things. They have even laid the Atlantic Cable; but, by the by, it required Cyrus W. Field to start the movement, and keep it going, Mr. Everett to superintend the machinery, and Captain Hudson to steer the Niagara. Aye, sir, do those men who reason thus know what the spirit of the age and the natural process of development mean? I will tell you the word—it is action, action and action again! [Cheers.] I wonder whether those philosophers have ever looked into the history of the world. They would have learned there, how time, and the natural process of development, and the spirit of the age did away with the feudal system of society in Western Europe. What was that process of development, that spirit of the age, then? It is now commonly called the French Revolution. It was the sublimest phrenzy, and the bloodiest madness, of a people. It was the destruction of the Bastile. It was the decapitation of a king and of thousands of his adherents. It was the banishment of the whole nobility and the refractory priesthood. It was a sea of blood; it was twenty years of universal war; it was more terrible than an earthquake. [Cheers.] Have our philosophers a particular liking to that kind of natural process of development and spirit of the age? But as true as the sun will rise to-morrow, they will have the full benefit of it, if their policy, unfortunately for themselves, should prevail. [Repeated applause.]
There is but one way of avoiding forcible revolutions, and that is by beginning a course of progressive reforms in time. When that season of absolute necessity may arrive, is certainly difficult to determine, but reforms will rarely be commenced too soon, and it may very soon be too late. Are the advocates of slavery sure that this “too late” is still very far off? Let them beware! If the people of the United States follow their advice, I see that kind of “process of development” advancing towards us with the steady step of Fate. I see a time drawing near when those irreconcilable contradictions will break out in a crisis more violent than any we have seen yet, and will envelop slavery, and union, and progress, and prosperity, in the flames of a universal conflagration. [Cheers.]
But now, methinks, I see Mr. Douglas standing there, with a broad smile on his face, and I hear him say with that refinement of style with which that great man endeavors to maintain the dignity of a United States Senator: “These predictions are all gammon. Haven't we got my great principle?” [Loud laughter and cheers.] Popular sovereignty! Was not popular sovereignty, according to Mr. Douglas, to appease the conflict, to remove the fight from the halls of Congress, to localize the struggle, to quell the excitement, to settle the slavery question forever? But how did it happen that the very enactment of that popular sovereignty, as embodied in the Nebraska Bill, was the signal for a new and spontaneous outburst of hostilities? How was it possible that this very remedy should fan the lingering strife into a new flame? And, indeed, the blood of American freemen spilt on the prairies of Kansas, the smouldering ruins of the pioneer's cabin—fired, not by the savage hand of the Indian, but by the hands of people that claim to be civilized—the most flagrant violations of the ballot-box, the most shameless frauds, the most atrocious usurpations of power, ever known in the history of elective governments, and a struggle in Congress fiercer than ever—these are strange fruits of a measure which was to bring peace and liberty and prosperity to mankind. [Cheers.] It will no longer do to say that all this disturbance was owing to the obstinacy of a few abolitionists. The cause of all this lies deeper. It is this:
The Kansas-Nebraska Bill was but a new embodiment of the old contradiction between political principles and social institutions; it was but a new form of that old antagonism, which has convulsed the country for the last forty years. It is not the right kind of “popular sovereignty,” but a worthless, treacherous counterfeit. It is a wild delusion—if you will not go so far as to call it an imposture, a lie. [Applause.] Popular sovereignty, in the true sense of the term, means the sovereignty of all individuals, so organized to give a common expression to the collective will, limited only by the natural rights of individual man. Its foundations can be no other than the recognition of the equal rights of all men. It can be built upon no other presumption, but that all men are free, and that no institution which contradicts this principle, has, of itself, a right to exist.
But what means Mr. Douglas's great principle of popular sovereignty? He says, that the people of a territory shall decide for themselves, whether they will have slavery or not—that is to say, whether the employer may own his laborer, or whether he shall hire him. Did slavery exist in those territories at the time of the enactment of the Nebraska Bill? No, it did not. Well, now the people shall decide for themselves. But what shall be the rule, what shall be the law, before the people shall have given their verdict by positive legislation? Shall the presumption be in favor of freedom, according to the fundamental principle of the good old Anglo-Saxon common law? No, sir, the slaveholder shall have the inherent right to go into the territory with his slaves, and to hold them there as slaves; the right of a man to own his laborer is, as such, recognised by the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. And here let me add, that the Dred Scott decision is a most logical construction of the Nebraska Bill [loud cheers] and acknowledged to be such by Mr. Douglas himself, and that his quibbles between his squatter sovereignty, and that decision are the most contemptible subterfuges by which ever a pettifogger made himself ridiculous. [Continued applause.] Thus Mr. Douglas's popular sovereignty is based upon a presumption in favor of slavery! upon the presumption that slavery exists of right, where it is not prohibited by positive legislation. [Cheers.]
True popular sovereignty means the removal of all barriers which the ingenuity of despotism has set to human liberty. [Cheers.] But Mr. Douglas tells you that the true foundation of American popular sovereignty is the right of slavery to exist where it is not expressly prohibited, and that it means the removal of all barriers which American patriotism has set to human bondage! [Applause.] If you could ask Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Jay, Madison, Henry Clay, for their opinions—who of them would christen this abominable mixture with the great name of popular sovereignty? They would have stigmatized it as a contemptible bastard, begotten in the adulterous embrace of Democracy and slavery, with the features of liberty on its face, but with the black venom of despotism in its heart. [Long-continued applause.]
I repeat it, sir, this so-called popular sovereignty is but a new embodiment of the old antagonism, but a new signboard to the old concern; a new melody to the old song [cheers]; a new trap set for old fools. [Thundering applause.] It is the old mistake, the old confusion of ideas; there is nothing new in it but one feature, and that is its very worst.
It marks, indeed, a new period in the history of this country. All the compacts between freedom and slavery, struck by the fathers of this Republic and the subsequent generation of statesmen, were compromises between a principle and an interest. Endeavoring to reconcile the social institutions of this country with the fundamental ideas upon which this government was built, the fathers of this Republic labored for the gradual abolition of slavery wherever they could reach it. But, unable to extinguish it at once, they made concessions to slavery as to an unfortunately existing fact, without recognising in it any principle from which it might derive any national right. To them freedom was the ruling, the fundamental, the national principle, and slavery a local institution which existed only by sufferance, and to which concessions were made for the sake of temporary expediency. This spirit governed the councils of the nation in all acts relating to slavery, and Congress, therefore, did not hesitate to exclude from the national territories what it considered a nuisance. The manifest tendency was to remove the existing contradiction between the fundamental principles of our government and a social institution, by sacrificing the latter. [Cheers.]
Even the Missouri Compromise, so far as it excluded slavery from certain territories, was dictated by this spirit.
The Nebraska Bill, in opening the national territories to slavery, elevated slavery from the rank of a mere obnoxious fact to the rank of a national principle. According to that measure, slavery shall have the right to exist everywhere, by virtue of the national law, where it is not abolished and prohibited by local legislation. Before Mr. Douglas's popular sovereignty slavery and freedom stand apparently as equal claimants. But in fact, slavery has acquired the right of precedence over freedom. This is the principle which Douglas has introduced into the policy of this country in place of the leading ideas of the revolution. He may claim the merit of being the first man who succeeded in displacing the political development of this Republic from the solid basis of the Declaration of Independence. The Nebraska Bill, very far from being a progressive movement, was the boldest step in the reaction against the principles of the Revolution.
Do not say that I am indulging in a mere play with abstract ideas and theoretical discriminations, and that things might look better in reality; for, I tell you, what is nonsense in theory, you will never make sense in practice.
I know, Mr. Douglas's principal position, that the people of the territories should be left free to settle the question of slavery for themselves, carries some plausibility with it. But why could it not be fairly and quietly executed? Because everybody tried to execute it as he pretended to understand it. Yes, sir, no sooner was the word spoken, than the contradiction, which lay hidden in the new measure, broke out in a practical conflict. This was not astonishing to me, for such must be the result when the construction of ambiguous measures is put into the hands of antagonistic interests. [Cheers.]
Look at the Constitution of the United States. Its words are the same for Mr. Gerrit Smith of New York, and for Mr. Hammond of South Carolina. But how does it happen that these gentlemen understand its meaning so differently? How does it happen that the same words which signify liberty to Gerrit Smith, signify slavery to Hammond? It is because their stand-points, from which they judge it, are different. The one looks at it from the hills of free New York, the other from the miry soil of a South Carolina cotton-field. The antagonism between liberty and slavery has drawn in its whirl the current of human thought and the reasoning faculties of the human mind. But is such is the case even with the Federal Constitution, of which Madison said, that it should contain nothing which might remind coming generations that such an abomination as slavery ever existed in this Republic, what will be the fate of such measures, as are nothing but an embodiment of the old contradiction and antagonism between democracy and slavery? As soon as such a measure is enacted, both principles and both sections of the country representing them, will seize upon it and try to monopolize its construction, and what is construed to mean liberty here, will be construed to mean slavery there; and this is natural, for to the slaveholder the principal meaning of liberty is that man shall have the right to hold his fellow-man as property. [Cheers.]
Was it not so with the Kansas-Nebraska Bill? No sooner was that measure passed by Congress than the slaveholding interest succeeded in monopolizing its construction, and while our poor democrats in the Northern States were descanting on the beauties of territorial self-government, the South put down squatter sovereignty with a sneer, and all that remained of the “great principle” was, that the slaveholders acquired the absolute right to hold their slaves as property in all the territories of the United States “by virtue of the Federal Constitution.” [Cheers.] What means the Nebraska Bill now? Ah, look at Mr. Douglas himself, how he is fluttering between the Northern and Southern construction of his “great principle;” how that happy father is hardly able to tell his own child, which is white to-day and black to-morrow [great laughter and applause]; how he bows to the Dred Scott decision with his face towards Charleston, and then to territorial squatter sovereignty with his face towards Springfield. [Cheers.] Look at that disgusting, pitiable exhibition of a man who boasts of his greatness as a statesman with a thundering voice, and who is short-sighted enough not to see that, like a boy, he has fallen into the meshes of that eternal contradiction from which his pettifogging sophistries will never extricate him. [Thundering applause.]
Such has been the fate of squatter sovereignty, and of the man who invented it. And such will be the fate of all measures which, at the same time, concede to slavery the right to spread, and to liberty the right to restrict it. So long as our national laws countenance slavery in any way beyond that measure of right which it derives from the local legislation of the States in which it exists, the agitation and the war will be the same, and no compromises, and no mock popular sovereignty will allay the struggle. It will be repeated over and over again as often as, and wherever, slavery has the slightest chance to intrude. All such measures, which embody both the antagonistic principles, are like a railroad train to which two locomotives are attached, one at each end. The name of one is Liberty—the name of the other, Slavery. If the two locomotives pull in different directions, what will be the consequence? Either the superior power of one will pull the train, together with the other locomotive, in its direction, or, the strength of both being equal, they will tear the train to pieces. And I tell you all measures like the Nebraska Bill will be torn to pieces by the different constructions put upon them.
What else, therefore, is Douglas's “great principle,” but a wild delusion? What else is his policy, but a dangerous imposition? It speaks of harmony, and yet it preserves the elements of strife and conflict. It speaks of peace, and yet it keeps alive the elements of war. Where is its safety?—where its blessings? [Cheers.]
There is the same struggle, everywhere, at all times. You must make up your minds to fight it out.
Since compromise measures and Mr. Douglas's “great principle” will not do it, what will? Let us learn from our opponents.
The clearest heads of the slaveholding States tell you openly that slavery cannot thrive, unless it be allowed to expand. And common sense must tell you, that the slave-power cannot rule, unless you submit to its dictation with cowardly obedience. [Cheers.]
Well, then, in the name of all that is good and great, if slavery cannot thrive, unless it be allowed to expand—pen it up! [Applause.] If the slave-power cannot rule, unless you lie prostrate on your knees—arise! [Repeated cheers.] I know Mr. Douglas will call this a revolutionary doctrine, but let him remember that he himself was called a revolutionist, when, by one of the strangest mistakes of his life, he opposed the Lecompton Constitution. [Cheers.]
In order to restrict slavery, you have but to return to the principles which dictated the ordinance of 1787 and which governed the policy of the greatest patriots American history can boast of.
In order to throw off the yoke of the slave-power, you have but to hold up your heads as men. [Cheers.] If they call this revolutionary, let them call it so. It is the revolutionary spirit to which this Republic owes its existence. [Applause.]
I will not waste your time by demonstrating that the power of Congress to exclude slavery from the national territories stood almost above all doubt and question, from the establishment of this Republic, down to the time when Mr. Douglas thought it necessary to invent a “great principle” of his own. Every school-boy knows it; and even Mr. Douglas, who is not very timid in denying settled facts, will hardly deny this.
I will call your attention to the probably consequences of this policy which I am advocating. It has often been asserted that a great many of the Southern States would have abolished slavery long ago, had they not been annoyed by the intrusive efforts of Northern anti-slavery men; and that, in case of an anti-slavery victory in a national campaign, the slaveholding States would dissolve the Union at once;—and, sir, let me say, by the way, that I do not deem it out of place here to speak of the emergency of a national campaign; for, in my opinion, we are fighting the battle of the Union on the soil of Illinois [cheers], and a victory here in 1858, means half a victory in the federal campaign of 1860. [Tremendous cheers.] Well, what truth is there in those arguments and threats I was speaking of? Turn over the pages of our history, down to our days, and you will find that as long as the anti-slavery movement in the North was weak, distracted, irresolute, straggling, as long as the Northern mobs put down the champions of human freedom, as long as the North was more clamorous against abolitionism than the South herself, the slaveholder was more overbearing, and the institution seemed to be more firmly rooted in the South, than ever. But now look at the events of our days; behold the anti-slavery movement gaining strength, spreading, becoming powerful, forming in solid columns of defence and attack, and then with drums beating, and banners proudly flung to the breeze, rushing to a general assault on the very citadel of the slave aristocracy—the Federal Government. What are the effects now? Turn your faces Southward, see and listen! In the very heart of the Slave States the voice of freedom begins to be heard! South Carolina trembles at the detection of abolitionists among the professors of her colleges! The warm soil of North Carolina bears crops of fiery anti-slavery books! See daring leaders putting themselves at the head of the non-slaveholding whites, and bidding defiance to the oligarchy! See a free-labor colony driving its wedge into the very heart of the Old Dominion! Aye, in spite of the election-frauds and ballot-box stuffing, all the bells of St. Louis are pealing the tocsin of emancipation [loud cheers], and before long the whole State of Missouri will respond with a triumphant echo! [Applause.] I tell you, the heroic youths in the fiery furnace of slavery are chanting the praise of freedom with fearless voices, for they have heard the wings of the angel of liberty rustling in the thunder-cloud of the northern horizon. [Long and continued applause.]
See here, the first earnest and powerful display of anti-slavery sentiments in the North; and there, right consequent upon it, the first bold effort of the anti-slavery elements in the South! Is this merely accidental? No! The emancipation movement in Missouri and the free-labor colony in Virginia are the first-born children of the Fremont campaign. [Applause.] Courage and energy here, will inspire them with boldness and energy there. Had the North acted manfully thirty years ago, Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, Delaware and Maryland, would perhaps be Free States now. And now let us hear no more of the fanatics of the North disturbing the poor slaveholders in their meek philanthropic intentions. [Cheers.]
Such, sir, have been some of the effects of a great anti-slavery campaign, in which we were unsuccessful. Such have been the effects of a glorious defeat, which was merely a demonstration of growing strength. Now I ask you, what would be the effects of a great anti-slavery victory? I will undertake to answer: Give us a few years more of firm, cheerful and successful co-operation among the anti-slavery elements of the North, and a few years more of strong encouragement and moral support to the anti-slavery elements of the South, and then a victory in a federal campaign, and who of the slaveholding aristocracy will dare to raise his hand against the result? [Cheers.] I tell you, then, Slave State will have to fight Slave State, before the South can accomplish secession. [Great cheering.]
Dissolution of the Union![1] Our Northern poltroons have been frightened to bed often enough by this bugbear. [Applause.] I have often wondered how a Northern man could repeat that stale threat without feeling the blush of shame rising to his cheeks, unless he felt his swaddling clothes fluttering round his limbs. [Great cheers.] Is it so difficult to understand the bellicose humor of the South? When a coward falls in with a greater coward than he, or with a man that is even dead, he is very apt to assume the attitudes of a hero. The history of the world shows few examples of more outspoken bravery than Sir John Falstaff's when he found Percy Hotspur dead as a mouse on the field of battle. [Laughter and applause.] But let Percy move one of his fists and you will see Sir John nimbly taking to his legs. [Continued laughter and cheers.] As long as the North was as tame as a chicken, the South was as overbearing as a bull-dog. But things have changed since. The North begins to understand the policy: Si vis pacem para bellum! in good English: to impudent fellows show your teeth! and you will see the result. [Great cheers.]
The history of the last four years, and especially that of the Kansas struggle, has shown the mighty colonels and generals of the South two great things: first, that the North can and will unite against the progress of slavery, and that some of the Slave States are becoming unreliable; and, second, that the Yankee will fight! [Cheers.] Aye, that the descendants of those men who fought in 1776, will fight now and again! [Applause.] And, further, that there is a solid column of German and Scandinavian anti-slavery men here, who know how to handle a musket, and who will fight too. [Repeated cheers.] Let them come on, then, the bragging cavaliers of the South! The Northern roundheads stand just ready for them. [Thundering applause.] Calm your warlike enthusiasm; if they are wise, they will not come. The first attempt at a forcible dissolution of the Union will show them the madness of the undertaking.
What will the South do then, if this policy prevails? I do not say that the slaveholders will at once submit, cheerfully and gracefully. They will certainly give their lungs a hearty exercise in the finest figures of speech, and in the most brilliant exclamations. They will predict fearful things, although they may not be over nice concerning the time when these fearful things are going to happen. [Laughter and cheers.] But after a while will they not stop and listen to what the North may have to say? Suppose, then, the North were to speak to them as follows: Friends, we love and esteem you as citizens of a common country. As citizens, you enjoy every right that we enjoy, and whatever legitimate ambition you entertain, there is an open field for it, in this our common Republic. But, as we claim no privileges for ourselves, we are unwilling to concede any to others. If you want to curb our necks under the yoke of your peculiar notions; if you want to adapt the laws of the land to the sole purpose of the protection of the slaveholding interest; if you make any pretensions, or claim any superiority, as a slaveholding aristocracy, you will expose yourselves to grievous disappointment. There is a solid phalanx arrayed against the arrogations of slavery beyond the limits which the Constitution and history have assigned to it. Now, this is your choice: either govern this Republic with us, as citizens on perfectly equal terms, or, as a slaveholding aristocracy, submit to the doom of a hopeless minority. Here is strife and disappointment—there is peace and prosperity; choose. [Cheers.]
Do you not think that such words will be apt to make them stop and consider; such words accompanied, perhaps, by the sullen thunder of an earthquake beneath their very feet? They will certainly not abolish slavery at once. They will not suddenly cast off that singular chain of ideas which has bound them to the old order of things. for, do not forget that interest is with them not the only, and, perhaps, not even the most powerful, advocate of slavery. It cannot have escaped you that the slavery question is with them a question of aristocratic pride; that they look down upon the plebeians of the North with a certain contempt, and want to rule the government of their States and the Federal Government also, not as mere citizens, but as slaveholders. It is the pride of an aristocracy, the ambition of a caste. Against these, mere argument is no available weapon. Vain pride and ambition are fed and grow upon concessions, and there is nothing that will disarm them but the evident impossibility of their gratification. When slaveholders see their aristocratic pretensions put down by firm majorities, and when they can no longer escape the conviction, that their aspirations to rule the country as slaveholders meet with universal contempt, they will be more apt to listen to the voice of reason, which, at the same time, is the voice of their true interest. After the blinding influence of those ruling passions has been paralyzed by irrevocable events, then, and not till then, will the true moral and economical merits of slavery be fairly investigated and thoroughly understood in the slaveholding States. Discovering that they are an isolated anomaly in the wide world, the slaveholders will find themselves obliged to conform their condition to the spirit of the age. Discovering that there are other more productive and far more honorable sources of wealth than laziness feeding upon slave-labor, they will sacrifice old prejudices to a new spirit of enterprise, and repeated trials will produce substitutes for slave-labor, where hitherto the latter has been deemed indispensable. Whatever depravity the system of slavery may have entailed upon its devotees, the people of the South are neither devoid of noble impulses nor of the elements of common sense. Rather than kill their time in mourning over the ruins of departed glory, they will try to found new fortunes on a new order of things. And the non-slaveholding whites—now a degraded class of beings—will speedily rise to the rank of active citizens, carried forward by a general progressive movement. No doubt, slavery will linger some time in the cotton and rice growing States. But even there you will see statesmen at the head of affairs, who, abandoning old pretensions, will rather apologize for its continued existence, than boastingly parade it as the fundamental principle of democratic institutions. [Applause.] And at last that thick fog of prejudice will pass away, which hitherto has veiled from their eyes the sun of true democracy. They will, as if awakening from a dark dream, admire with astonishment the life-spreading warmth of its beams, and the glorious purity of its light. [Great cheers.]
And, at the same time, when slavery ceases to be a power, it will cease to exercise its demoralizing influence upon our national policy. No anti-democratic tendency will any longer rule the government of this country. The people will no longer be distracted and confused by the conflict of antagonistic principles. Our foreign policy will no longer be subservient to the grasping appetites of the slave aristocracy, but to the real interests of the whole country. Our influence with foreign nations will rise in the same measure as they have reason to believe in the sincerity of our democratic professions. The policy of our political parties will no longer be determined by a sectional minority, and the most venal of our politicians no longer sell themselves to an anti-democratic interest, which will have ceased to be a ruling political power. [Cheers.]
This state of things will, according to my profound conviction, be the consequence of a consistent, peaceable, and successful anti-slavery policy. It will stop extravagant and unwarrantable claims, without interfering with constitutional rights. It will respect the privileges of the States, but it will enforce them in favor of freedom also. It will not try to abolish slavery in the States by Congressional interference, or by the force of arms. But it will give strong encouragement and moral support to progressive reforms within them, and will sap the roots of the institution by reducing it to live on its own merits. It will not endanger the safety of the Union, but it will perpetuate it by strengthening its true foundations. [Applause.]
I love this Union, and no man can be more opposed to its dissolution; not as though the free North depended upon her bankrupt partner, but because I think that the connection of the Slave States with the free North is the only thing which prevents the former from entirely losing the last remnant of democratic spirit, and from abandoning themselves without restraint to the current of a despotic tendency. [Cheers.] Let our opponents fret and threaten—I fear nothing. The question, how the Union can be preserved, may, indeed, seem a difficult one to them. But did they ever consider how infinitely more difficult is the question how to dissolve it? And yet, there is one great and real danger to the Union; it is, that by abandoning the great principles of the Revolution, it might miss the very aims and ends for which it was instituted. [Cheers.]
It is not without a profound meaning that the several States of this Union are represented by stars on the national banner. As in our solar system on high the great central sun keeps the planets in their several orbits in sublime and eternal order, so in the solar system of our Union the stars of the States move around a central sun of pure light and irresistible attraction. This central sun is true democratic liberty. As long as that stands firm and unshaken, its whole sphere will move in serene glory. But take that away, annihilate that great centre of attraction, and where hitherto has been the sublime order of a planetary system, there chaotic confusion will reign supreme, and the fondest hopes of the world will perish in destructive concussions. [Loud and long-continued applause.]
- ↑
It would seem that, in speaking with so much assurance of the future,
the speaker ventured upon a ground which nobody can tread with safety.
For what he said, however, he had two very good reasons:
1st. He did not believe that a serious attempt at secession would be made by the Southern people, and this opinion was at the time entertained and expressed by the most prominent men, and a large majority of the Republican party. He, therefore, expressed his true and sincere opinion.
2d. He believed then, and believes still, that, if such a plan was really entertained in the Southern States, a proper attitude on the part of the Northern people would have deterred them from making the attempt, and the language he used was intended not only to convey an individual opinion, but also as demonstration of Northern spirit.
Before passing his judgment upon this matter, the reader must take into consideration the following facts:
The “fire-eaters” of the South availed themselves of every conceivable opportunity to throw out the threat of disunion. Their object was to frighten the people of the North into acquiescence in whatever they might demand, to promote the interests of slavery. In this they were aided by the Democratic party in the Northern States, who used the danger of disunion as their staple argument in their opposition to every measure tending to resist the progress and usurpations of the slave-power. In this way the slave-power achieved its most alarming successes.
This state of things presented to the anti-slavery party, or rather to the people of the Free States, the following alternative: Either they had to permit themselves to be frightened into submission to every demand the South might see fit to make, and thus to deliver the whole future of the Republic into the hands of the slave-power, or they had to disregard the threat, and to oppose to it a firmly-pronounced determination on their part to stand by the principles upon which the Union was originally founded, and to extend the dominion of free labor wherever slavery was not established by State legislation.
To do the first would have been to put even the liberties and institutions of the Free States at the mercy of the slave-power; for the latter becoming convinced by fact that the disunion threat was overawing all minds and bearing down all opposition, would have boldly gone on with its demands, removed everything that stood in the way of its aspirations, and conformed our whole national policy to its interests. The onward march of the slave-power from the Missouri Compromise to the Nebraska Bill, to the Dred Scott decision, and the Lecompton Constitution, showed its ultimate tendency beyond a doubt; while such exactions as that the agitation of the slavery question should be put down, even in the Free States, and such boasts as that “they would call the roll of their slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill Monument,” proved clearly that the ultimate views of the slave-power went beyond the limits of the Slave States and the territories. The disunion threat thus constituted a kind of terrorism wielded by the slave-power for the purpose of attaining general and absolute sway. To submit to it would have been to transform the Government of the United States into a mere recorder at the behests of a ruling aristocracy. This could not be done without giving up all the essential attributes of the Republic.
The Republican party adopted the other line of policy presented by the above-mentioned alternative. In doing so, it acted upon this theory: The slave-power, in holding out the threat to dissolve the Union, was either in earnest, or it was not. If it was not, then nothing better could be done than to put an end to the terrorism by boldly standing up against the terrorists. And it was, indeed, the general belief in the Republican party that there was more empty bravado than real meaning in the threat; and that, in case of an anti-slavery success in a national election, the fire-eaters would hardly dare to launch into a secession movement, or, at all events, that they would find it difficult to carry the people of the South with them. How far the preparation for the rebellion had already progressed, at that time, was probably known only to the leaders of the movement.
But if the threat was, indeed, serious, the following things were to be taken into consideration:
1. The co-operation of the Northern Democrats with the Southern leaders, in holding up the prospect of disunion as the great bugbear to intimidate the Northern people, was certainly encouraging the “fire-eaters” to persevere in their purpose. The worst thing that could be done was to make the latter believe that they would be aided and supported in their treasonable design by a large number of friends in the North. If the Southern leaders had any doubt of the practicability of their scheme, the attitude of the Northern Democracy was apt to remove these doubts.
2. The Southern leaders, whenever they preached secession to their own people, did so avowedly upon the supposition that the people of the North would not dare to offer any resistance to the movement, that the “Yankee would not fight.” They promised to their people the establishment of a Southern Confederacy by the quiet process of peaceable separation.
Now it is quite generally understood, and has been frequently admitted,even in the South, that had not the secessionists counted upon a powerful co-operation on the part of their friends in the North, had they not believed that the Northern people were greatly afraid of them, had they anticipated that “the Yankees” would show such a unanimity in their willingness to fight for the Union, the secession movement would not have been attempted, or, at least, it would have been impossible for the secession leaders to draw the people of the South into the vortex.
The best policy, therefore, for the people of the Free States to pursue, was to present a bold and solid front to the pro-slavery element; to try to convince the Southern people that there was an overwhelming sentiment in the North against the arrogations of the slave-power; that the threat of disunion was considered a contemptible attempt to terrorize a spirited people; that this attempt would, henceforth, be treated with disdain; that a disunion movement, if indeed undertaken, would be sternly resisted by the united North; and, finally, that “the Yankee would fight.”
If then, as was believed, the disunion cry was a mere empty threat, it was easily shown in its nothingness, and the terrorism was at an end; or, if it was a serious thing, we were likely, by a strong demonstration of a determined will and unity of sentiment, on the part of the North, to convince the Southern people that secession would be for them a most perilous undertaking; and that, if they understood their own interest, it was best for them to abandon the idea. At all events, this was the only policy which could vindicate the dignity of the people, save the spirit of our institutions, and rescue the future development of the Republic from the absolute control of the slave-power. Such were the considerations which dictated the language of the speaker in the above passage, and wherever he had occasion to express his opinions on the subject. (See below, St. Louis speech The Doom of Slavery, p. 147.)
That such demonstrations did not have the desired effect upon the people of the South, was owing principally to the following circumstances: The leaders of the secession movement were so confident of having the countenance and co-operation of the Democratic party in the Northern States, that nothing said or done by the Republicans could weaken their belief. They were assured by their friends in the North that the coercion of seceded States would not be attempted. They had reasons to rely upon the sympathy of Mr. Buchanan, then President of the United States, who, in many respects, seemed indeed to justify their expectations. And thus they calculated, that the people of the loyal States, abandoned by their own government, would be neither willing nor able to fight. All these suppositions proved erroneous, and it was certainly not the fault of the Republicans that they were entertained. One thing is eminently probable, nay, certain: if the thread of disunion had from the beginning been treated by every Northern man with becoming indignation and contempt, and if the South had been made to understand the North on that matter, no secession movement would ever have taken place. Slavery would have been gradually reduced and extinguished, as designed by the statesmen of the Revolutionary period.— C. S.