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THE REBELLION AND THE WAR.
SPEECH BY MB. YALLAATBIGIIIM,
01 OHIO,
in the souse of Representatives,
JANIJALRY 14, 1863.
[QQNCLI*3IOII.]
Are there physical causes which render re
union impracticable I None. Where other causes
do not control, rivers unite; bat mountains,
deserts, and great bodies of water—ocean disco
du/dee—separate a people. Vast forests origin
ally, and the Lakes now, also divide us—not
very widely or wholly—from the Canadas,
though we speak the same language, and are
similar in manners, laws and institutions. Our
chief navigable rivers run from North to South.
Most of our bays and arms of the sea take the
same direction. So do our ranges of mountains.
Natural mines all tend to Union, except as be
tween the Pacific coast and the country east of the
Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic. It is mani
fest destiny." Union is empire. Hence, hithet ,
to we have continually extended our territory,
and the Union with it, South and West The
Louisiana purchase, Florida., and Texas all attest
it. We passed desert and forest, and scaled even
the Rocky Mountains, to extend the Union to
the Pacific. 'Sir, there is no natural boundary
between the North and the South, and no line of
latitude, upon which to separate and if ever a
line or longitude shall be established, it will be
east of the Mississippi valley. The Alleghenies
are no l6nger a barrier. Highways ascend' them
everylihere, and the railroad now climbs their
summits and spans their chasms, or penetrates
their rockiest sides. The electric telegraph fol
lows, and, stretching its connecting wires along
the clouds, there mingles its vocal lightnings
with the fires of heaven.
But if disunionists in the East will force a sep
aration of any of these States, and a boundary
purely conventional, is at last to be marked out,
it must and will be either from Lake Erie upon
the shortest line to the Ohio river, or from Man
hattan to the Canadas.
And, now, sir, is there any difference of race
here, so radical as to forbid reunion? Ido not.
refer to the negro race, styled now, in unctions
official phrase by the President, "Americana of
African descent." Certainly, there are two
white races in the United States, both from the
same common stock, and yet so distinct—one of
them so peculiar—that they develop different
forms of civilization, and might belong, almost,
to different types of mankind. But the boundary
of these two recce is not at all marked by the
line which divides the slaveholding from the
non—alaveholding States. If race is to be the
geographical limit of disunion, then Mason and
Bizon's can never be the line.
Next, sir; do not the causes which, in the
beginning, impelled to Union still exist in their
utmost force and extent? What were they?
First, the common descent—and therefore
consanguinity—of the great mass of the people
from the Angto.Saxon stock. Had the Canadas
been settled originally by the English, they
would doubtless have followed the fortunes of
the thirteen colonies. Nex,t, a common language,
one of the strongest of the ligaments which binde
a people. Had we been contiguous to Great
Britain, either the causes which led to a separa
tion would have never existed, or else been
speedily removed; or, afterwards, we would long
since have been reunited as equals and with all the
rights of Englishmen. And along with these
were similar, at least not essentially dissimilar,
manners, habits, laws, religion, and institutions
of all kinds, except one. The common defense
was another powerful incentive, and is named
in the Constitution as one among the objects of
the "more perfect Union" of 1787. Stronger
yet than all these, perhaps, but made up of all
of them, was a common interest. Variety of
climate and soil, and therefore of production,
implying also extent of country, is not an element
of separation, but, added to contiguity, becomes
a part of the ligament of interest, and is one of
its toughest strands. Variety of rroduction is
the parent of the earliest commerce and trade ;
and these, in their lull development, are, as be
tween foreign nations, heritages for peace; and
between States and people united, they are the
'firmest bonds of Union. But, after all, the
strongest of the many original inpelling causes to
the Union,
was the securing of domestic tran
quillity. The statesmen of 1181 well knew that
between thirteen independent but contiguous
States without a natural boundary, and with
nothing to separate them except the machinery
of similar governments, there must be a perpet
ual, in fact an irrepressible conflict" of juris
diction and interest, which, there being no other
common arbiter, could only be terminated by the
conflict of the sword. And the statesmen of
1862 ought io know that two or more confederate
governments, made up of similar States, having
no natural boundary either, and separated only
by different governments, cannot endure long
together in peace, noises one or more of them
be either too pusillanimous for rivalry, or too
insignificant to provoke it, or too weak to resist
aggression.
Tbeee, air, along with the establishment of
justice, and the securing of the gener . al welfare,
and of the blessings of liberty to themselves and
their posterity, made up the causes and motives
isMoh impelled our fathers to the Union at first.
And now, sir, what one of them is wanting ?
What one diminished? On the contrary, many
of them are stronger to day than in the begin—
ning. Migration and intermarriage have strength
ened the ties of consanguinity_ Commerce, trade,
and production have immensely multiplied.
Cotton, almost unknown here in 1787, is now the
chief product and export of the country. It has
set in motion three-fourths of the spindles of
New England, and given employment, directly
or remotely, to full half the shipping, trade, and
commerce of the United States. More than that :
cotton has kept the peace between England and
America for thirty years; and had the people
of the North been as wise and practical as the
statesmen of Great. Britain, it would have main
tained Union and peace here. But we are being
taught in our first century and at our own cost,
the lessons which England learned through the
long and bloody experience of eight hundred
years. We shall be wiser next time. Let not
cotton be king, but peace-maker, and inherit
the blessing.
A common interest, then, still remains to us.
And union far the common defame, at the and of
this war, taxed, indebted, impoverished, ex
hausted, as both sections must be, and with
foreign fleets and armies around us, will be fifty
fold more essential than ever before. And final
ly, air, without union, our domestic tranquillity
must forever remain unsettled, If it cannot be
maintained within the Union, how then outside
of it, without an exodus or colonization of the
people of one section or the other to a distant
country ? Sir, I repeat that two governments
so interliuked and bound together every way by
physical and social ligaments, cannot exist in
peaks without a common arbiter. Will treaties
bind us? What better treaty than the ConsU
tution ? What more solemn, more durable?
Shall we settle our disputes, then, by arbitration
and compromise ? Sir, let us,arbitrate and com
promise now, inside of the Union. Certainly ii
will be quite as easy.
And, now, sir, to all these original causes and
motives which impelled to union at first, must be
added certain artificial ligaments, which eighty
years of association under a common Govern
ment have moat fully' developed. Chief among
these are canals, steam navigation, railroads,
express companies, the post office, the newspaper
press, and that terrible agent of good and evil
mixed—" spirit of health, and yet goblin damn
ed"—if free, the gentlest minister of truth and
liberty when enslaved, the supplest instrument
of falsehood and tyranny—the magnetic tele
graph. Allihese have multiplied the speed or
the quantity of trade, travel, communication,
migration, and intercourse of all kinds between
the different States and sections ; and thus, so
long as a healthy condition of the body politic
continued, they became powerful cementing
agencies of union. The numerous voluntary
associations, artistic, literary, charitable, social,
and scientific, until corrupted and made fanatical;
the various ecclesiastical organizations, until
they divided; and the pbtiticsl forties, so long
as they remained all national and not sectional,
were also among the strong ties which bound us
together. And yet all of these, perverted
and abused for some years in the hands of bad
or fanatical men, became still more powerful in
strumentalities in the fatal work of disunion;
just as the veins and arteries of the human body,
designed to convey the vitalizing fluid through
every part of it, will carry also, and with in
creased rapidity, it may be, the subtle poison
which takes life away, Nor is this all. It was
through their agency that the imprisoned Winds
of civil war were all let loose at first with such
sudden and appalling fury ; and, kept in motion
by political power, they have ministered to that
fury ever since. Bat, potent alike for good and
evil, they may yet, under the control of the pen
pie, and tti the hands of wise, good and patriotic
men, be made the most effective agencies, under
Providence, in the reunion of these States.
Other ties also less material in their nature,
but hardly less persuasive in their influence,
have grown up under the Union. Long associ
ation, a common history, national reputation,
treaties and diplomatic intercourse abroad, ad
mission of new States, a common jurisprudence,
great men whose names and fame are the patri
mony of the whole country, patriotic music and
songs, common battle-fields, and glory won under
the same flag. These make up the poetry of
Union ; and yet, as in the marriage relation, and
the family with similar influences, they are
stronger than hooks of steel. He was a wise
statesman, though he may never have held an
office, who said, Let me write the songs of a
people, and I care not who makes their laws."
Why is the Marseillaise prohibited in France ?
Sir, Hail Columbia and the Star Spangled Ban
ner—Pennsylvania gave us one, and Maryland
the other—have done more for the Union than
all the legislation. and all the debates in this
Capitol for forty yours ; and they will do more
yet again than all your armies, though you call
out another million of men into the field. Sir, I
would add." Yankee Doodle ;" but first let me be
assured that Yankee Doodle loves the Union
more than be bates the slaveholder.*
And now, 'sir, I propose to briefly consider the
causes which led to disunion and the - present
civil war; and to inquire whether they are eter—
nal and ineradicable in their nature, and at the
same time powerful enough to overcome all the
causes and considerations which impel to re
union.
. .
Haring two years ago discussed fully and elab
orately the more abstruse and remote causes
Whence spring civil oommotions in all Governments
and those also which are peculiar to our com
plex and Federal system, such as the consolidat
ing tendencies of the General Government, be
cause of executive power and patronage, and of
the tariff, and taxation and disbursement gener
ally, all unjust and burdensome to the West
equally with the South, I pass.them by now.
What, then, I ask, is the immediate, direct
cause oP dieueloe and this civil tear Y. Slavery, it
. ..
is answered. Sir, that is the philosophy of the
rustic in the ploy—" that a great cause of the
night, is lack of the sun." Certainly slavery
was in one sense—very obscure indeed—the
cause of the war. Had there been no slavery
here, this, partioular war about slavery would
never have been waged. In a like sense, the
Holy Sepulchre was the cause of the war of the
Crusades ; and had Troy or Carthage never ex
isted, there never would have been Trojan or
Carthagenian war, and wo such personages as
Hector and Hannibal i and no Iliad or Armed
would ever have been written. But far better
say that the negro is the cause of the war; for
had there been no negro here, there would be no
war just now. What then ? Exterminate him?
Who demands it? Colonize him? How? Where?
When ? At whose cost? Sir, let, us have an end
of this folly.
But slavery is the cause of the war. Why?
Because the South obstinately and wickedly re
fused to restrict or abolish it at the demand of
the philosophers or fanatics and demagogues of
the North and West. Then, sir, it was abolition,
the purpose to abolish or interfere with and hem
in slavery, which caused disunion and war.
Slavery is only the suitjeci, but abolition the
Male, of this civil war. It was the persistent
and determined agitation in the free States of the
question of abolishing slavery in the South, be
cause of the alleged " irrepressible conflict" be
tween the forms of labor in the two sections, or
in the false and mischievous cant of the day,
betweeh freedom and slavery, that forced a col
lision of arms at last. Sir, that conflict was not
confined to the Territories. It was expressly
proclaimed by its apostles, as between the
States also, against the institution of domestic
slavery everywhere. But, assuming the plat
forms of the Republican party as the standard,
and stating the case most strongly in favor of
that party, it was the refusal of the South to
consent that slavery should be exebided from
the Territories that led to the continued agita
Gen, North and South, of that question, and
finally to disunion and civil war. Sir, I will not
be answered now by the old clamor about " the
aggressions of the slave power." That miserable
spectre, that unreal mockery, has been exorcised
and expelled by debt and taxation and blood. If
that power did govern this country for the sixty
years preceding this terrible revolution, then the
sooner this Administration and Government re
turn to the principles and policy of Southern
atatermanship, the better for the country 1 and
that, sir, is already, or Boon will be, the judg
ment of the people. But I deny that it was the
"slave power" that governed fur so many years,
land so wisely and well. It was the Democratic
party, and Its principles and policy, moulded and
controlled, indeed, largely by Southern states
men. Neither will I be stopped by that other
* In trail., the song wan written la derision, by a Brit—
ish oilicer, and not by an American.
SATURDAY MORNING, JANUARY 31,
cry of mingled fanaticism and hypocrisy, about
the sin and barbarism of African slavery. Sir,
I see more of barbarism and sin, a 'thousand
times, in the continuance of this war, the disso—
lution of the Union, the breaking up of this
Government, and the enslavement of the white
race by debt and taxes and arbitrary power. The
day of fanatics and sophists and enthusiasts,
tbadk God, is gone at last ; and though the age
of chivalry may not, the age of practical states
manship is about to return. Sir, I accept the
language and intent of the Indiana resolution to
the full—.. that in considering terms of settle—
ment we will look only to the welfare, peace,
and safety of the white race, without reference
to the effect that settlement may have upon the
condition of the African." And when we have
done this, my word for it, the safety, peace, and
welfare of the African will have been best seem ,
ed. Sir, there is fifty-fold less of anti-slavery
sentiment to day in the West than there was two
years ago ; and if thisivar be continued,' there
will be still less a year hence. The people there
begin, at last, to comprehend that domeatie
slavery in the South, is a question, not of morals,
or religion, or humanity, but a form of labor,
perfectly compatible with the 'dignity of free
white labor in the same community, and with
national vigor, power, and prosperity, and espe
cially with military strength. They have learn.
ed, or begin to learn, that the evils of the system
affect the master alone, or the community and
State in which it exists ; and that we of the free
Slates partake of all the material benefits of the
institution, unmixed with any part of its mien
chiefs. They believe also in the subordination
of the negro race to the, white where they both
exist together. and that the condition-of subor
dination, as established in the South, is far bet
ter every way for the negro than the hard
servitude of poverty, degradation, and crime to
which he is subjected in the free States. All
this, sir, may be "pro-slaveryism," if there be
such a word. Perhaps it is; but the people of
the West begin now to think it wisdom and good
sense. We *ill not establish slavery in our own
midst; neither will we abolish or interfere with
it outside of our own limits.
Sir, an anti•slaavery paper in New York, (the
Tribune,) the most influential, and, therefore,
most dangerous of all of that class—it would
exhibit more of dignity, and command more of
Influence, it it were always to tlisoass publie
questions and public men with a decent respect
—laying aside now the epithets of "secession
ist" and " traitor," has returned to its ancient
political nomenclature, and calls certain mem
bers of this House "pro-slump." Well, sir, in
the old sense of the term as applied to the Demo
cratic party, I will not object. I said years ago,
audit is a fitting time now to repeat it:
" If to love my country ; to cherish the Union.; to revore
the Constitution ; If to abhor the madness and hate the
treason which would lilt up a eacrtiesinne hand agezietit
either if to read that in the poet, to behold It in the Tires.
ent. to foresee it in the future of this land, which in of more
value to us and to the world for ages to come than all the
multiplied millions who have inhabited Africa from the
creation to thin day!—if this is ro be pro-slavery, then, to
every nerve, fibre, vein, bone, tendon, joint, and ligament,
from the topmost hair of the head to the last extremity of
the foot, I am all over and.altogether a.pro-slavery man.'
And now, sir, I come to the great controlling
question within which the whole issue of union
or disunion is bound up: Is there "an irrepres
sible conflict" between-the slaveholding and non
alaveholding States? Must " the cotton and rice
fields of South Carolina, and the sugar planta
tions of Louisiana," in the language of Mr,
Seward, "be ultimately tilled by free labor, and
Charleston and New Orleans become marts for
legitimate merchandise alone, or else the rye
fields and wheat fields of Massachusetts and
New York again be surrendered by their farmer.
to slave eulture and the production of slaves, and
Boston and New York become once more markets
for trade in the bodies and souls of men ?" If so,
then there is an end of all union and forever.
You cannot abolish sla . very by the sword ; still
less by proclamations, Slough the President were
to " proclaim" every month, Of what possible
avail was his proclamation of September ? Did
the South submit? Was she even alarmed.? And
yet has now fulmined another "bull against
the comet."—brutum fultnen—arid, threatening
servile insurrection with all its horrors, has yet
coolly appealed to the judgment of mankind, anti
invoked the blessing or the God of pease and
love! But declaring it a military necessity, an
essential measure of war to subdue the rebels,
yet,. with admirable wisdom, he expressly ex•
empta from its operatin nthe only States and
parte of States in the South where he has the
military power to execute it.
Neither, air, can you abolish slavery by argu
ment. As well attempt to abolish marriage or
the relation of paternity. The South is resolved
to maintain - it at every hazard and by every
sacrifice ; and if this Union cannot endure part
'ove and pert free," then it is already and final.
ly dissolved. Talk not to me of " West -Vir
ginia." Tell me not of Missouri, trampled under
the feet of your soldiery. As well talk to me of
Ireland. Sir, the destiny of those States must
abide the issue of the war. But Kentucky you
may find tougher. And Maryland—
"E'en in her ashes live their wonted Aran"
Nor will Delaware be found wanting in the
day of trial.
But I deny the doctrine. It is full of disunion
and civil war. It is disunion itself. Whoever
first taught it ought to be dealt with as not only
hostile to the Union, but an enemy of the human
race. Sir, the fundamental idea of theConstitu
lion is the perfect and eternal compatibility of a
union of States "part slave and part free ;" else
the Constitution never would have been framed,
nor the Union founded; and seventy years of
successful experiment have approved the wisdom
of the plan. In my deliberate judgment, a con
federacy made up of slaveholding and non-slave
holding States is, in the nature of things, the
strongest of all popular governments_ African
slavery has been, and is, eminently conservative.
It makes the absolute political equality of the
white race everywhere practicable. It dispenses
with the English order of nobility, and leaves
every white man,_North and South, owning
slaves or owning none, the equal of every other
white man. It has reconciled universal suffrage
throughout the free States with the stability of
government. I speak not. now of its material
benefits to the North and West, which are many
and more obvious. But the South, too, has
profited many Ways by a union with the non
slaveholding States. Enterprise. industry, self
reliance, perseverance, and the other hardy vir
tues of a people living in a higher latitude and
without hereditary servants, she has learned or
received from the North. Sir, it is easy, 1 know,
to denounce all this, and to revile him who utters
it.. Be it so. The English is, of all languages,
the most copious in words of bitterness and re
proach. ...Pour on: 1 will endure."
Then, sir, there is not an " irrepressible con
flict" between.slave labor and free labor. There
is no conflict at all. Both exist together in per
fect harmony in the South. The master and the
slave, the white laborer and the black, work
together in the same field or the same shop, and
without the slightest sense of degradation. They
are not equals, either socially or politically.
And why, then, cannot Ohio, having only
fr4e labor, live in harmony with Kentucky
which has both slave and free? Above all, why
cannot Massachusetts allow the same right of
choice to South Carolina, separated as they are
a thousand miles, by other States who would ,
keep the peace and live in good will? Why this I
civil war? Whence disunion? Not from slavery
—not because the South chooses to have two
kinds of labor instead of one; but from section
alism, always and everywhere a disintegrating
principle. Sectional jealousy and hate—these,
sir, are the only elements of conflict' between
these States, said though powerful, they are yet
net at all irrepressible. They exist between
families, communities, towns, cities, counties,
and States, and if not repressed would dissolve
all society and government. They exist also
between other sections than the North and
South. Sectionalism East, many years -ago,
saw the SOuth and West united by the ties of
geographical position, migration, intermarriage,
and interest, and thus strong enough to control
the power and policy of the Union. It. found us
divided' only by different forms of labor ; and,
with consummate but most guilty sagacity, it
seized upon the question of slavery as the surest
and most powerful instrumentality by irhioh to
separate the West from the South, and bind her
wholly to the North. Encouraged every way
from abroad by those who were jealous of our
prosperity and greatness, and who knew the
secret of our strength, it proclaimed the " irre
preeeihle conflict" between slave labor and free
labor. It taught the people of the North to for
get both their duty and their interests ; and
aided by the artificial ligaments and influ
ence which money and enterprise had creat
ed between the sea board and the Northwest, it
persuaded the people of that section, also, to
yield up every tie which binds them to the-great
valley of the Mississippi, and to join their polit
ical fortunes especially, wholly with the East. It
resisted the fugitive slave law, and demanded
the exclusion of slavery from all the Territories
and from this District, and clamored against the
admission of any more slave States into the
Union. It organized a sectional anti-slavery
party, and thus drew to its aid as well political
ambition and interest as fanaticism; and after
twenty-five years of incessant and vehement
agitation, it obtained possession finally, and
upon that issue, of the Federal Government and
of every State government North and West. And
to-day, we are in the midst of the greatest, most
cruel, most destructive civil war ever waged.
But two years. sir, of blood and debt and taxation
.and incipient commercial ruin are teaching the
people of the West, and I trust of the North also
the folly and madness of this crusade against
African slavery, and the wisdom and necessity of
a union of the States, as our fathers made it,
"part slave and part free."
What, then, sir, with so many causes impelling
to reunion, keeps us apart to-day! Hate, pas
sion, antagonism, revenge, all heated seven times
hotter by war. Sir, these, while they last, are
the most powerful of all motives with a people,
and with the individual man ; but fortunately
they are the least durable. They bold a divided
sway in the same bosoms with the nobler quali
ties of love, justice, reason, placability ; and,
except when at their height, are weaker than
the sense of interest, and always, in States at
least, give way to it at last. No statesman who
yields himself up to them can govern wisely or
well ; and no State whose policy is controlled by
them can either prosper or endure. But war is
both their offspring and their aliment, and while
it lasts, all other motives are subordinate. The
virtnee ef peace ..cannot flourish, cannot even
find development in the midst of fighting; and
this civil war keeps in motion the centrifugal
forces of the Union, and gives to them increased
strength and activity every day. But such, and
so many and powerful, in my judgment, are the
cementing or centripetal agencies impelling us
together that nothing but perpetual war and
strife can keeps us always divided.
Sir, I do not underestimate the power of the
prejudices of section, or, what is much stronger,
of race. Prejudice is collier, and, therefore,
more durable than the passions of hate and re
venge, or the spirit of antagonism, Buts as I
have already said, its boundary in the United
States is not Mason and Dixon's line. The long
standing mutual jealousitsi of New England and
the South do not primarily grow out of slavery.
They are deeper, and will always he the chief
obstacle in the wny of full and absolute reunion,
They are founded in difference of manners,' hab
its, and social life, and different notions about
politics, morals, and religion. Sir, after all,
this whole war is.not so much one of sections—
least of all between the elavehtdding and non
slaetholding Indians—act of rotes, representing
not difference in blood but mind and its devel
opment, and different types of civilization. It is
the old conflict of the Cavalier and the Round
head, the Liberalist and the Puritan ; or rather
it is a conflict upon new issues of the ideas and
elements represented by those names, It is a
war of the Yankee and the Southron. Said a
Boston writer the other day, eulogizing a New
England officer who fell at Fredericksburg:
" This is Massachusetts's war; Massachusetts
and South Carolina made it." But in the begin
ning, the Roundhead outwitted the Cavalier, and
by a skillful use of slavery and the negro united
all New England first, and afterward the entire
North and West, and finally sent out to battle
against him Celt and Saxon, German and Knick
erbocker, Catholic and Episcopalian, and even a
part of his own household and of the descendants
of his own stook. ' Said Mr. Jefferson, when
New England threatened secession some sixty
years ago: "No, let us keep the Yankees to
quarrel with." Ah, sir, he forgot that quarrel
ing is always a hazardous experiment ; and after
some time, the countrymen of Adams proved
themselves too sharp at that work for the coun
trymen of Jefferson. But every day the contest.
now tends again to its natural and original ele
ments. In many parts of the Northwest—l
might add of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and
New York city—the prejudice against the "Yan
kee" has always been almost as bitter as in the
South. Suppressed for a little while by the
anti-slavery sentiment and the war, it threatens
now to break forth in one of those great but un
fortunate popular uprisings, in the midst of
which reason and justice are for the time utterly
silenced. I speak advisedly ; and let New Eng
land heed; else she, and the whole Eakt, too, in
their struggle for power, may learn yet from.the
West the same lesson which civil war taught to
Rome, that etrulgato intperii arcano, posse principem
alibi, quam Rome fieri. The people of the West
demand peace, and they begin to more than BM
pect that New England is the way. The
storm rages ; and they believe that she, not
slavery, is the cause. The ship is sore tried;
and passengers and crew are now almost ready
to propitiate the waves by throwing the ill
omened prophet everboard. In plain English—
not very classic, but most expressive—they
threaten to "set New England out in the cold."
And now, sir, I, who have not a drop of New
England blood in my veins, but was born in Ohio,
and am wholly of southern ancestry—with a
slight cross of Pennsylvania Scotch-trish—would
speak a word to the men of the' West and the
South, in behalf of New England. Sir, some
years ago, in the midst of high sectional contro
versies, and speaking as a western man, I said
some things harsh of the North, which now, in a
more catholic spirit as a United States man, and
for the sake of reunion, I would recall. My
prejudices, indeed, upon, this subject are as
strong as any man's; but in this, the day of
great national humiliation and calamity, let the
voice of prejudies be hushed.
Sir, they who would exclude New England in
any reconstruction of the Union, assume' that all
New Englanders are "Yankees" and Puritans;
anti that the Puritan or pragmatical element, or
type of civilization, has always held undisputed
sway. Well, sir, Yankees, certainly, they are in
one sense; and so to Old England we are all
Yankees, North and South; and to the South
just now, or a little while ago, we of the middle
and western States, also, are, or were, Yankees,
too. But, there is really a very large, and most.
liberal and conservative non-Puritan element in
the population of New England, w hich, for many
years, struggled for the mastery, and sometimes
held it. It divided Maine, New Hampshire, and
Connecticut, and once controlled Rhode Island
wholly. It held the sway during the Revolution,
and at the period when the Constitution was
founded, and for some years afterward, Mr.,
Calhoun said very justly, in 1841, that to the
wisdom and enlarged patriotism of Sherman and
Ellsworth on the slavery question we were in
debted for this admirable Government; and that,
along with Paterson, of New Jersey. "their
minis ought to be engraver' out brass, and live
forever." And Mr. Webster, in 1830, in one of
those grand historic word paintings, in which he
was so great a master, said of Massachusetts and
South Carolina: "Hand in hand they stool around
the Administration of Washington, and felt his
great arm Mats on them for support." Indeed,
air, it was not till some thirty years ago that the
narrow, presumptuous, intermeddling, and fanat
ical spirit of the old Puritan element began to
863.
reappear in a form very much more aggressive I
and destructive than at first, and threatened to
obtain absolute mastery in church, and school,
and State. A little earlier it had struggled
hard, lAt the conservatives proved too etrong
for it ; and so long as the great statesmen and
jurists of the Whig and Democratic parties sur
vived, it made but small progress, though• John
Quincy Adams gave to it the strength of his
great name. But after their death it broke in as
a flood, and swept , away the last vestige of ;the
ancient, liberal, and tolerating conservatism.
Then every form and development of fanaticism
sprang up in rank and most luxuriant growth,
till abolitionism, the chief fungus of. all, over—
spread the whole of New England first, and then
the middle States, and finally every State in the
Northwest.
Certainty, sir, the more liberal or non-Puritan
element was mainly, though not altogether, from
the old Puritan stook, or largely.crossed with it.
But even within the first ten years after the
landing of the Pilgrims, a more enlarged and
tolerating civilisation was introduced. Roger
Williams, not of the Mayflower, though a Puritan
himself, and thoroughly imbued with all its pecu
liarities of cant and creed and form of worship,
seems yet to have had naturally a more liberal
spirit; and, fire , perhaps of all men, some three
or more years before "the Ark and the Dove"
touched the shores of the St. Mary's, in Mary
land, taught the sublime doctrine of freedom-of
opinion and practice in religion. Threatened
first with banishment to England, so as to "re
move as far as possible the infection of his prin
ciples; "and afterwards actually banished beyond
the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, because, in
the language of the sentence of the General
Court, he broached and divulged divers new
and strange doctrines against the authority of
magistrates" over the religious opinions of men,
thereby disturbing the peace of the colony, be
became the founder of Rhode Island, and, in.
deed, of a large part of New England society.
And, whether from his teaching and example,
and in the persons of his descendants and those
of his associates, or from other causes and an
other stock, there has always been a large infu
sion throughout New England of what may be
called the Roger Williams element, as distinguish
ed from the extreme Puritan or Mayflower and
Plymouth Rock type of the New Englander; and
its influence, till late yeare, has always been
powerful.
Sir, I would not deny or disparage the
austere virtues .of the old Puritans of Eng
land or America. But I do believe that, in
the very 14.ature of things ? no community
could exist long in peace, and no Government
endure long alone, or become great, where that
element in its earliest or its more recent form
holds supreme control. And it is my solemn
conviction that there can be no possible or dura
ble reunion of these States until it shall have
been again subordinated to other and more liber
al and conservative elements, and, above all,
until its worst, and most mischievous develop-
ment, abolitionism, has been utterly extinguish
ed. Sir, the peace of the 'Union and of this con
tinent demands it. But, fortunately, those very
elements exist abundantly in New England her
self ; and to her I look with confidence to secure
to them the mastery within her limits. In fact,
sir, the true voice of New England has for some
years past been but rarely heard here or else
where in public affairs. Men now control her
politics and are in high places, State and Feder
al, who, twenty years ago, could not have been
chosen as selectmen in old Massachusetts. But
let her remember at last her ancient renown ;
let her turn from vain-glorious admiration of the
stone monuments of her heroes and patriots of a
format. age, to generous emulation of the noble
and manly virtues which they were designed to
commemorate. Letus hear less from her of the Pil
-1 grim Fathers and the Mayflower and of Plymouth
Rook, and more of Roger Williams and his com
patriots, and his toleration. Let her banish
now and forever her dreamers and her sophists
and her fanatics, and call back again into her
State administration and into the national coun
cils " her men of might, her grand in soul "
some of them still live—and she will yet escape
the dangers which now threaten her with isola
tion,
Then, sir, while las Memorably hostile to
Puritan domination in religion or literature or
politics, I am not in favor of the proposed exclu
sion of New England. I would have the Union
as it was ; and first, New England as sbe was.
But if New England will have no union with
olaveholders ; if she ip not content with "the
Union as it was," then upon her own head be
the responsibility for secession. And there will
be no more coercion now. I, at least, will be
exactly consistent.
And now, sir, can the central States, New
York, New Jersey, and Peunsylvani4, consent to
separation? Can New York city ? sir, the trade
of the South made her largely what she is. She
was the factor and banker of the South—cotton
filled her harbor with shipping and her banks
with gold. But in an evil hour the foolish, I
will not say bad, "men of Gotham" persuaded
her merchant princes—against their first lesson
in business—that she could retain or force back
the southern trade by war. War, indeed, has
given her, just now, a new business and trade
greater and more profitable than the old. But
with disunion that, too, must perish. And let
not Wall street, or any other great interest, mer
cantile, manufacturing, or commercial, imagine
that it shall have power enough or wealth enough
to stand in the way of reunion through peace.
Let them learn, one and all, that a public man
who has the people as his support, is stronger
than they, though he may not be worth a mil—
lion, nor even one dollar. A little while ago the
banks said that they were king, but President
Jackson speedily taught them their mistake.
Next, railroads assumed to be king ; and cotton
once vaunted largely hie kingship. Sir, these
are only of the royal family—princes of the
blood. There is but one king on earth. Politics
is king.
But to return : New Jersey, too, is bound
closely to the South, and the South to her; and
more and longer than any other State, she re.
membered both her duty to the Constitution and
her interest in the Union. And Pennsylvania, a
sort of middle ground, just between the North
and the South, and extending, also, to the West,
is united by nearer, if not st ronger ties, to every
section, than any other one Stale, unless it be
Ohio. She was—she is yet—the keystone in the
great but now crumbling arch of the Union. She
is a border State; and, more than that, she has
less within her of the fanatical or disturbing
element than any of the States. The people of
Pennsylvania are quiet, peaceable, practical, and
enterprising, without being aggressive. They
have more of the honest old English and German
thrift than any other. No people mind more
diligently their own business. They have but
one idiosyncrasy or specialty—the tariff; and
even that is really far more a matter of tradition
than of substantial interest. The industry, en
terprise, and thrift of Pennsylvania are abun
dantly able to take care of themselves against
any competition. In any event, the Union is of
more value, many times, to her then any local
interest.
But other ties also bind, these States—Pennsyl
vania and New Jersey, especially—to the South,
and the South to them. Only an imaginary line
I separates the former from Delaware and Mary
land. The Delaware river, common to both
Pennsylvania and New Jersey, flows into Dela
ware bay. The Susquehanna empties its waters,
through Pennsylvania and Maryland, into the
Chesapeake. And that great watershed itself,
extending to Norfolk, and, therefore, almost to
the North Caroline line, does belong, and must
ever belong, in common to the central and south—
ern States, under one Government; or else the
line of separation will be the Potomac to its head
waters. All of Delaware and Maryland, and the
counties of .Accomao and Northampton, in Vir
ginia, would, in that event, follow the fortunes
of the northern confederacy. In feet, air, dis
agreeable as the idea may be to many within
their limits on both sides, no man who looks at
the map and then reflects upon history and the
[VOL. XXIII.-NO. 41.-WHOLE NO. 1983.
force of natural causes, and considers the pre
sent actual and the future probable position of
the hostile armies and navies at the end of this
war, ought for a moment to doubt that either the
States and counties which I have named must go
with the North, or Pennsylvania and New Jersey
with the South. Military force on either side
cannot control the destiny of the States lying
between the mouth of the Chesapeake and the
Hudson. And if that bay were itself made the
line. Delaware, and the Eastern Shore of Mary
land and Virginia, would belong to the North ;
while Norfolk, tile only capacious harbor -on the
southeastern coast, must be commanded by the
guns of some new fortress upon Cape Charles;
and Baltimore, the now queenly city, eeated then
upon the very boundary of two rival, yes, hos
tile, confederacies, would rapidly fall into decay.
And now, sir, I will not ask whether the North
west can consent to separation from the South.
Never. Nature forbids. We are only a part of
the great valley of the Mississippi. There is no
line of latitude upon which to separate. The
getilll WORN net (login Om •914 lice of 30 ° 30 '
on both sides of the river; and there is no natu
ral boundary east and west. The nearest to it
are the Ohio and Missouri rivers. But that line
would leave Cincinnati and St. Louis, as. border
cities, like Baltimore, to decay, and, extending
fifteen hundr e d miles he leu s dh, would bee'ome
the scene of an eternal border warfare without
example even in 'the worst of times. Sir, we
cannot, ought not, will not, separate front the
South. And if you of the East who have found
this war against the South and for the negro,
gratifying to your hate or profitable to your
purse, will continue it till a separation be forced
between the slaveholding and your non- slave
holding States, then, believe me, and accept 'it,
as you did not the other solemn warnings of
years past, the day which divides the North from
the South, that self—sone day decrees eternal divorce
between the West and the East.
Sir, our destiny is fixed. There is not one drop
of rain which descending from the heavens, and
fertilizing our soil, causes it to yield an abundant
harvest, but flows into the Mississippi, and there,
mingling with the waters of the mighty river,
finds its way, at last, to the Gulf of Mexico. And
we must and will follow it with travel and trade,
not by treaty but by right, freely, peaceably, and
without restriction or tribute, under the same
Oovornment and flag, to its helm in the bosom
of that Gulf. Sir, we will not remain after sepa
ration from the South, a province or appanage
of the East, to bear her burdens and pay her
taxes ; nor hemmed in and isolated as we are,
and without a sea-coast, could we long remain a
distinct oonfetletliCy. But wherever we go,
married to the South or the east, we bring with
us three-fourths of the territories of that valley
to the Rocky mountains, and it may be to the
Pacific—the grandest and most magnificent dowry
which bride ever had to bestow.
Then, sir, New England, freed at last from the
doMination of her sophisters and dreamers and
bigots, and restored to the control once more of
her former liberal, tolerant, and conservative
civilization, will not stand in the way of the re
union of these States upon terms of fair and
.honorable adjustment. And in this great work
the central free and border slave States, too, will
unite heart and hand. To the West, it is a neces
sity, and she demands it. And let not the States
now called confederate insist upon • separation
and independence. Whit did they demand at
first? Security against abolitionism within the
Union. Protection from the irrepressible con
flict " and the domination of the absolute numeri
cal majority. A change of public opinion..and
consequently of political parties in the North
and West, so that their local institutions and
domestic peace should no longer be endangered.
And, now, sir, after two years of persistent and
most gigantic effort on the part of this Admin
istration to compel them to submit, but. with utter
and signal failure, the people of the free States
are now or are fast becoming satisfied that the
Union is the utter suppression of abolitionism or
anti-slay.ery as a political element, and the
complete subordination of the spirit of fanaticism
and intermeddling which give it birth. In any
event, they are ready now, if I have not greatly
misread the signs of the times, to return to the
old constitutional and actual basis of fifty years
ago—three- Mho rule of reprelentiktion, @poody
return of fugitives from labor, equal rights in
the Territories, no more slavery agitation any
where, and transit and temporary sojourn with
slaves, without molestation, in the free States.
Without all these there could be neither peace
nor permanence to a restored union of States
,4 part slave and part free." With it, the South,
in addition to all the other great and multiplied
benefits of union, would be far more secure in
her slave property, her domestic institutions,
than under a separate government. Sir, let no
man North or West, tell me that this would per
petuate African slavery. I know it. But se
does the Constitution. I repeat, sir, it is the
price of the Union. Whoeier bates negro Slavery
more than he loves the Union, must demand
separation at last. I think that you can never
abolish slavery by fighting. Certainly you never
can till you have first destroyed the South, and
then, in the language, first of Mr. Douglas and
afterwards of Mr. Seward, converted this Gov
vernment into an imperial despotism. And, sir,
I whenever I On forced to a choice between the
loss to my own country and race. of personal
and political liberty with all its blessings, and
the involuntary domestic servitude of the negro,
I shall not hesitate one moment to choose the
latter alternative. The sole question to-day is
between the Union with slavery, or finaldisunion,
and, I think, anarchy and despotism. lam for
the Union. It was good enough for my fathers.
It is good enough for us and our children after us.
And, sir, let no man in the South tell me that
she has been invaded, and that all the horrors
implied in those most terrible of words, civil
war, have been visited upon her. I know that,
too. But we, also, of the North and West, in
every State and by thousands, who have dared
so much as to question the principle and policy,
or doubt the honesty, of this Administration and
its party, have suffered everything that the worst
despotism could inflict, except only loss of life
itself upon the scaffold. Some even, have died
for the cause by the hand of the assassin. And
can we forget? Never, never. Time will but
burn the memory of these wrongs deeper into
our hearts. But shall we break up the Union?
Shall we destroy the Government because usurp
ing tyrants have held possession and perverted
it to the most cruel of oppressions ? Was it ever
so done in any other country? In Athens?
Rome? England? Anywhere? No, sir; let
us expel the usurper, and restore the Constitution
and laws, the rights of the States, and the liber
ties of the people ; and then, in the country of
our fathers, under the Union of our fathers, and
the old flag—the symbol once again of the free
and the brave—let us fulfill the grand mission
which Providence has appointed for us among
the nations of the earth.
And now, sir, if it be the will of all sections
to unite, then upon what terms? Sir, between
the South awl most of the States of the North,
and all of the West, there is but one subject in
controversy—slavery. It is the only question,
said Mr. Calhoun twenty-five years ago, of suf
ficient magnitude and potency to divide this
Union ; and divide it it will, he added, or drench
the country in blood if not arrested. It has done
both. But settle it on the original basis of the
Constitution, and give to each section the power
to protect itself within the Union, and now, after
the terrible lessons of the past two years, the
Union will be stronger than before, and, indeed,
endure for ages. Woe to the man, North and
South, who, to the third or the fourth generation,
should teach men disunion.
And now the way to reunion ; what so easy ?
Behold to-day two separate governments in one
country, and without a natural dividing line;
with two Presidents and Cabinets, and a double
Congress; and yet each under a constitution so
exactly similar, the one to the other, that a stran
ger could scarce discern the difference. Was
ever folly and madness like thin? Sir, it is not
in the nature of things that it should so continue
long.
But why speak of ways or terms of reunion
now ? The will is yet wanting in both sections.
Union is consent. and good will and fraternal
affeeti -rt. War is force, hate, revenge. Is the
country tired at last of war ? Has the experi
ment been tried long enough? Ras sufficient
blood been shed, treasure expended, and misery
inflicted in both the North and the South? What
then? Stop fighting. Make an armistice—no
formal treaty. Withdraw your army from the
seceded States. Reduce both armies to a fair
and sufficient peace establishment. Declare ab
solute free trade between the North and South.
Buy and sell. Agree upon a zollverein. Recall
your fleets. Break up your blockade. Reduce
your navy. Restore travel. Open up railroads.
Re-establish the telegraph. Reunite your ex
press companies. No more lioniters and km/-
clads, but set your friendly steamers and steam
ships again in motion. Visit the North and
West. Visit the South. Exchange newspapers.
Migrate. Intermarry. Let slavery alone. Hold
elections at the appointed times. Let ns choose a
new President in sixty.four. And when the
gospel of peace shall have descended again from
heaven into their hearts, and the'gospel of abo
lition and of hate been expelled, let your clergy
and the churches meet again in Christian inter
course, North and South. Let the secret orders
and voluntary associations everywhere reunite as
brethren once more. In short, give to all the
natural and all the artificial causes which impel
us together, their fullest sway. Let time do his
office—drying tears, dispelling sorrows, mellow
ing passion, and making herb and grass and tree
to grow again upon the hundred battle-fields of
this terrible war.
But this is recognition." It is not formal
recognition, to which I will not consent. Recog
nition now, and attempted permanent treaties
about boundary, travel, and trade, and partition
of Territories, would end in a war fiercer and
more disadtrous than before. Recognition is ab
solute disunion ; and not between the slave and
the free States, but with Delaware and Maryland
as part of the North, and Kentucky and Missouri
part of the West. But wherever the actual line,
ovary evil and misohief of disunion is implied is
it. And for similar reasons, sir, I would not at
Ibis time press hastily a convention of the States.
The men who now would hold seats in such a
convention, would, upon both sides, if both agreed
to attend, come together full of the hate and bit.
terness inseparable from civil war. No, sir; let
passion have time to cool, and reason to resume
its sway. It cost thirty years of desperate and
most wicked patience and industry to destroy or
impair the magnificent temple of this Union. Let
us be content if, within three years, we shall be
able to restore it.
But certainly what I propose is informal, prac
tical recognition. And that is. precisely what
exists to-day, and has existed, more or less de
fined, from the first. Flags of truce, exchange
of prisoners, and all your other observances of
the laws, forms and courtesies of war are acts of
recognition. Sir, does any man doubt today
that there is a Confederate government at Rich
mond, and that it is a "belligerent ?" Even the
Secretary of State has discovered it at last,
though he has written ponderous folios of polish
ed rhetoric to prove that it is not. Will contin
ual war, 'then, without extended and substantial
success, make the confederate States any the less
a government in fact?
" But it confesses disunion." Yes, just as the
surgeon, who sete'your fractured limb in splints,
in order that it may be healed, admits that it is
broken. But the Government will have failed to
"crush out the rebellion." Sir, it has failed.
You went to war to prove that we had a Govern
ment. With what result? To the people of the
loyal States it has, in your hands, been the Gov.
ernment of King Stork, but to the Confederate
States, of King Log. "But the rebellion will
have triumphed." Better trinfhph to-day than
ten years hence. But I deny it. The rebellion
will at last be crushed out in the only way in
which it ever was possible. "But no one will
be hung at the end of war." Neither will there
be, though the war should last half a century,
except by the mob' or-the band of arbitrary pow
er. But really, sir, if there is to be no hanging,
'let this Administration, and all who have done
its bidding everywhere, rejoice and be exceeding
glad.
And now, sir, allow me a word upon a subject
of very great interest at this moment, and most
important it may be in its influence upon the
future—roasinu MEDIATION. I speak not of
armed and hostile intervention, which I would
resist as long as but one man was left to strike a
blow at the invader. But friendly mediation—
the kindly offer of an impartial Power to stand
as a daysman between the contending parties in
this most bloody and exhausting strife—ought to
be met in a Spirit as cordial and ready as that in
which it is proffered. It would be churlish to
refuse. Certainly, it is not consistent with the
former dignity of this Government to ask for
mediation; neither, sir, would it befit its ancient
magnanimity to reject it. As proposed by the
Emperor of France, I would accept it at once.
Now is the auspicious moment. It is the speedi
est, easiest, most graceful mode of suspending
hostilities. Let us hear no more of the media
tion of cannon and the sword. The day for all
that has gone by. Let ns be statesmen at last.
Sir, I give thanks that some, at least, among the
Republican party seem ready now to lift them
selves up to the height of this great argument,
and to deal with it in the spirit of the patriots
and great men of other countries and ages, and
of the better days of the United States.
And now, sir, whatever may have been the
motives of England, Prance, and the other great
Powers of Europe, in withholding recognition so
long from the Confederate States, the South and
the North are both indebted to them for an im
mense public service. The South has proved her
ability to maintain herself by her own strength
and resources, without foreign aid, moral or ma
terial. And the North and West—the whole
country, indeed—these great Powers have served
incalcuably, by holding back a solemn proclama
tion to the world that the Union of. these States
was finally and formally dissolved. They have
left to us every motive and every chance for re
union ; and if that has been the purpose of Eng
land especially—our rival so long; interested
more than any other in disunion and the conse
quent weakening of our great naval and com
mercial power, and suffering, too,, as she has suf
fered, so long and severely because of this war
—I do not hesitate to say that she has performed
an act of unselfish heroism without example in
history. Was such indeed her purpose ? Let
her answer before the impartial tribunal of pos
terity. In any event, after the great reaction in
public sentiment in the North and West, to be
followed after some time by a like reaction in the
South, foreign recognition now of the Confedef
ate States could avail little to delay or prevent
final reunion ; if, as I firmly believe, reunion be
not only possible but inevitable.
Sir, I have not spoken of foreign arbitration.
That is quite another - question. I think it im
practicable, and fear it as dangerous. The very
Powers—or any other Power—which have hesi
tated to aid disunion directly or by force, might,
as authorized arbiters, most readily pronounce
fel it at last. Very grand, indeed, would be the
tribunal before which the great question of the
Union of these States and the final destiny of
this continent for ages, should be heard, and his
toric through till time, the ambassadors who
should argue it. And if both belligerents con
sent, let the subjects in controversy be referred
to Switzerland, or Russia, or any other impartial
and incorruptible Power or State in Europe. But
at last, sir, the people of these several, States
here, at home, must bathe final arbiter of this
great quarrel in America; and the people and
States of the Northwest, the mediator who shall
stand, like the prophet, betwixt the living and
the dead, that the plague of disunion may be
stayed.
Sir, this war, horrible as it is, has taught us
all some of the most important and salutary les
sons which ever a people learned.
First, it has annihilated, in twentyaleatha, all
the false and pernicious theories and teachings of
abolitionism for thirty years, and which a mast