Volume IV Part 4 (2/2)
Thus the colored man has been the football between the two parties in the North, and has suffered accordingly. I confess it to my shame. But I am speaking now on my own ground, for I began twenty-five years ago, with a small party, to combat the unjust dislike of the colored man.
[Loud applause, dissension, and uproar. The interruption at this point became so violent that the friends of Mr. Beecher throughout the hall rose to their feet, waving hats and handkerchiefs, and renewing their shouts of applause. The interruption lasted some minutes.] Well, I have lived to see a total revolution in the Northern feeling--I stand here to bear solemn witness of that. It is not my opinion; it is my knowledge.
[Great uproar.] Those men who undertook to stand up for the rights of all men--black as well as white--have increased in number; and now what party in the North represents those men that resist the evil prejudices of past years? The Republicans are that party. [Loud applause.] And who are those men in the North that have oppressed the negro? They are the Peace Democrats; and the prejudice for which in England you are attempting to punish me, is a prejudice raised by the men who have opposed me all my life. These pro-slavery Democrats abuse the negro.
I defended him, and they mobbed me for doing it. Oh, justice! [Loud laughter, applause, and hisses.] This is as if a man should commit an a.s.sault, maim and wound a neighbor, and a surgeon being called in should begin to dress his wounds, and by and by a policeman should come and collar the surgeon and haul him off to prison on account of the wounds which he was healing.
Now, I told you I would not flinch from any thing. I am going to read you some questions that were sent after me from Glasgow, purporting to be from a workingman. [Great interruption.] If those pro-slavery interrupters think they will tire me out, they will do more than eight millions in America could. [Applause and renewed interruption.] I was reading a question on your side too. ”Is it not a fact that in most of the Northern States laws exist precluding negroes from equal civil and political rights with the whites? That in the State of New York the negro has to be the possessor of at least two hundred and fifty dollars'
worth of property to ent.i.tle him to the privileges of a white citizen?
That in some of the Northern States the colored man, whether bond or free, is by law excluded altogether, and not suffered to enter the State limits, under severe penalties? and is not Mr. Lincoln's own State one of them? and in view of the fact that the $20,000,000 compensation which was promised to Missouri in aid of emanc.i.p.ation was defeated in the last Congress (the strongest Republican Congress that ever a.s.sembled), what has the North done toward emanc.i.p.ation?” Now, then, there 's a dose for you. [A voice: ”Answer it.”] And I will address myself to the answering of it. And first, the bill for emanc.i.p.ation in Missouri, to which this money was denied, was a bill which was drawn by what we call ”log-rollers,” who inserted in it an enormously disproportioned price for the slaves. The Republicans offered to give them $10,000,000 for the slaves in Missouri, and they outvoted it because they could not get $12,000,000. Already half the slave population had been ”run” down South, and yet they came up to Congress to get $12,000,000 for what was not worth ten millions, nor even eight millions. Now as to those States that had pa.s.sed ”black” laws, as we call them; they are filled with Southern emigrants. The southern parts of Ohio, the southern part of Indiana, where I myself lived for years, and which I knew like a book, the southern part of Illinois, where Mr. Lincoln lives--[great uproar]--these parts are largely settled by emigrants from Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina, and it was their vote, or the Northern votes pandering for political reasons to theirs, that pa.s.sed in those States the infamous ”black” laws; and the Republicans in these States have a record, clean and white, as having opposed these laws in every instance as ”infamous.” Now as to the State of New York; it is asked whether a negro is not obliged to have a certain freehold property, or a certain amount of property, before he can vote. It is so still in North Carolina and Rhode Island for white folks--it is so in New York State. [Mr. Beecher's voice slightly failed him here, and he was interrupted by a person who tried to imitate him. Cries of ”Shame!” and ”Turn him out!”] I am not undertaking to say that these faults of the North, which were brought upon them by the bad example and influence of the South, are all cured; but I do say that they are in process of cure which promises, if unimpeded by foreign influence, to make all such odious distinctions vanish.
There is another fact that I wish to allude to--not for the sake of reproach or blame, but by way of claiming your more lenient consideration--and that is, that slavery was entailed upon us by your action. [Hear, hear!] Against the earnest protests of the colonists the then government of Great Britain--I will concede not knowing what were the mischiefs--ignorantly, but in point of fact, forced slave traffic on the unwilling colonists. [Great uproar, in the midst of which one individual was lifted up and carried out of the room amidst cheers and hisses.]
The CHAIRMAN: If you would only sit down no disturbance would take place.
The disturbance having subsided,
MR. BEECHER said: I was going to ask you, suppose a child is born with hereditary disease; suppose this disease was entailed upon him by parents who had contracted it by their own misconduct, would it be fair that those parents that had brought into the world the diseased child, should rail at that child because it was diseased. [”No, no!”] Would not the child have a right to turn round and say: ”Father, it was your fault that I had it, and you ought to be pleased to be patient with my deficiencies.” [Applause and hisses, and cries of ”Order!” Great interruption and great disturbance here took place on the right of the platform; and the chairman said that if the persons around the unfortunate individual who had caused the disturbance would allow him to speak alone, but not a.s.sist him in making the disturbance, it might soon be put an end to. The interruption continued until another person was carried out of the hall.] Mr. Beecher continued: I do not ask that you should justify slavery in us, because it was wrong in you two hundred years ago; but having ignorantly been the means of fixing it upon us, now that we are struggling with mortal struggles to free ourselves from it, we have a right to your tolerance, your patience, and charitable constructions.
No man can unveil the future; no man can tell what revolutions are about to break upon the world; no man can tell what destiny belongs to France, nor to any of the European powers; but one thing is certain, that in the exigencies of the future there will be combinations and recombinations, and that those nations that are of the same faith, the same blood, and the same substantial interests, ought not to be alienated from each other, but ought to stand together. [Immense cheering and hisses.] I do not say that you ought not to be in the most friendly alliance with France or with Germany; but I do say that your own children, the offspring of England, ought to be nearer to you than any people of strange tongue. [A voice: ”Degenerate sons,” applause and hisses; another voice: ”What about the Trent?”] If there had been any feelings of bitterness in America, let me tell you that they had been excited, rightly or wrongly, under the impression that Great Britain was going to intervene between us and our own lawful struggle. [A voice: ”No!” and applause.] With the evidence that there is no such intention all bitter feelings will pa.s.s away. [Applause.] We do not agree with the recent doctrine of neutrality as a question of law. But it is past, and we are not disposed to raise that question. We accept it now as a fact, and we say that the utterance of Lord Russell at Blairgowrie--[Applause, hisses, and a voice: ”What about Lord Brougham?”]--together with the declaration of the government in stopping war-steamers here--[great uproar, and applause]--has gone far toward quieting every fear and removing every apprehension from our minds. [Uproar and shouts of applause.] And now in the future it is the work of every good man and patriot not to create divisions, but to do the things that will make for peace. [”Oh, oh!” and laughter.] On our part it shall be done. [Applause and hisses, and ”No, no!”] On your part it ought to be done; and when in any of the convulsions that come upon the world, Great Britain finds herself struggling single-handed against the gigantic powers that spread oppression and darkness--[applause, hisses, and uproar]--there ought to be such cordiality that she can turn and say to her first-born and most ill.u.s.trious child, ”Come!” [Hear, hear! applause, tremendous cheers, and uproar.] I will not say that England cannot again, as. .h.i.therto, single-handed manage any power--[applause and uproar]--but I will say that England and America together for religion and liberty--[A voice: ”Soap, soap,” uproar, and great applause]--are a match for the world.
[Applause; a voice: ”They don't want any more soft soap.”] Now, gentlemen and ladies--[A voice: ”Sam Slick”; and another voice: ”Ladies and gentlemen, if you please,”]--when I came I was asked whether I would answer questions, and I very readily consented to do so, as I had in other places; but I will tell you it was because I expected to have the opportunity of speaking with some sort of ease and quiet. [A voice: ”So you have.”] I have for an hour and a half spoken against a storm--[Hear, hear!]--and you yourselves are witnesses that, by the interruption, I have been obliged to strive with my voice, so that I no longer have the power to control this a.s.sembly. [Applause.] And although I am in spirit perfectly willing to answer any question, and more than glad of the chance, yet I am by this very unnecessary opposition to-night incapacitated physically from doing it. Ladies and gentlemen, I bid you good-evening.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
THE GETTYSBURGH ADDRESS,
NOVEMBER 19, 1863.
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so n.o.bly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under G.o.d, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS,
MARCH 4, 1865.
FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN:
At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at first.
Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued seemed very fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented.
The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avoid it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it with war--seeking to dissolve the Union and divide the effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves const.i.tuted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union by war, while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.
Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither antic.i.p.ated that the cause of the conflict might cease when, or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same G.o.d, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just G.o.d's a.s.sistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayer of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offences, for it must needs be that offences come, but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh. If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of G.o.d, must needs come, but which having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern there any departure from those Divine attributes which the believers in a living G.o.d always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pa.s.s away. Yet if G.o.d wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as G.o.d gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
HENRY WINTER DAVIS,
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