Volume I Part 5 (1/2)

I have not told quite all the reasons why Ma.s.sachusetts did nothing. Men knew the war would cost money; that the dollars would in the end be raised, not by a direct tax, of which the poor man paid according to his little, and the rich man in proportion to his much, but by a tariff which presses light on property, and hard on the person; by a tax on the backs and mouths of the people. Some of the Whigs were glad last Spring, when the war came, for they hoped thereby to save the child of their old age, the tariff of '42. There are always some rich men, who say ”No matter what sort of a Government we have, so long as we get our dividends;” always some poor men, who say ”No matter how much the nation suffers, if we fill our hungry purses thereby.” Well, they lost their virtue, lost their tariff, and gained just nothing; what they deserved to gain.

Now a third opportunity has come; no, it has not come; we have brought it. The President wants a war tax on tea and coffee. Is that democratic, to tax every man's breakfast and supper, for the sake of getting more territory to whip negroes in? (Numerous cries of ”Yes.”) Then what do you think despotism would be? He asks a loan of $28,000,000 for this war. He wants $3,000,000 to spend privately for this war. In eight months past, he has asked I am told for $74,000,000. Seventy-four millions of dollars to conquer slave territory! Is that democratic too?

He wants to increase the standing army, to have ten regiments more! A pretty business that. Ten regiments to gag the people in Faneuil Hall.

Do you think that is democratic? Some men have just asked Ma.s.sachusetts for $20,000 for the volunteers! It is time for the people to rebuke all this wickedness.

I think there is a good deal to excuse the volunteers. I blame them, for some of them know what they are about. Yet I pity them more, for most of them, I am told, are low, ignorant men; some of them drunken and brutal.

From the uproar they make here to-night, arms in their hands, I think what was told me is true! I say I pity them! They are my brothers; not the less brothers because low and misguided. If they are so needy that they are forced to enlist by poverty, surely I pity them. If they are of good families, and know better, I pity them still more! I blame most the men that have duped the rank and file! I blame the captains and colonels, who will have least of the hards.h.i.+ps, most of the pay, and all of the ”glory.” I blame the men that made the war; the men that make money out of it. I blame the great party men of the land. Did not Mr.

Clay say he hoped he could slay a Mexican? (Cries, ”No, he didn't.”) Yes, he did; said it on Forefather's day! Did not Mr. Webster, in the streets of Philadelphia, bid the volunteers, misguided young men, go and uphold the stars of their country? (Voices, ”He did right!”) No, he should have said the stripes of his country, for every volunteer to this wicked war is a stripe on the nation's back! Did not he declare this war unconst.i.tutional, and threaten to impeach the President who made it, and then go and invest a son in it? Has it not been said here, ”Our country, howsoever bounded,” bounded by robbery or bounded by right lines! Has it not been said, all round, ”Our country, right or wrong!”

I say I blame not so much the volunteers as the famous men who deceive the nation! (Cries of ”Throw him over, kill him, kill him,” and a flourish of bayonets.) Throw him over! you will not throw him over. Kill him! I shall walk home unarmed and unattended, and not a man of you will hurt one hair of my head.

I say again it is time for the people to take up this matter. Your Congress will do nothing till you tell them what and how! Your 29th Congress can do little good. Its sands are nearly run, G.o.d be thanked!

It is the most infamous Congress we ever had. We began with the Congress that declared Independence, and swore by the Eternal Justice of G.o.d. We have come down to the 29th Congress, which declared war existed by the act of Mexico, declared a lie; the Congress that swore by the Baltimore Convention! We began with George Was.h.i.+ngton, and have got down to James K. Polk.

It is time for the people of Ma.s.sachusetts to instruct their servants in Congress to oppose this war; to refuse all supplies for it; to ask for the recall of the army into our own land. It is time for us to tell them that not an inch of slave territory shall ever be added to the realm. Let us remonstrate; let us pet.i.tion; let us command. If any cla.s.s of men have hitherto been remiss, let them come forward now and give us their names--the merchants, the manufacturers, the whigs and the democrats. If men love their country better than their party or their purse, now let them show it.

Let us ask the General Court of Ma.s.sachusetts to cancel every commission which the Governor has given to the officers of the volunteers. Let us ask them to disband the companies not yet mustered into actual service; and then, if you like that, ask them to call a convention of the people of Ma.s.sachusetts, to see what we shall do in reference to the war; in reference to the annexation of more territory; in reference to the violation of the Const.i.tution! (Loud groans from crowds of rude fellows in several parts of the hall.) That was a tory groan; they never dared groan so in Faneuil Hall before; not even the British tories, when they had no bayonets to back them up! I say, let us ask for these things!

Your President tells us it is treason to talk so! Treason is it? treason to discuss a war which the government made, and which the people are made to pay for? If it be treason to speak against the war, what was it to make the war, to ask for 50,000 men and $74,000,000 for the war? Why, if the people cannot discuss the war they have got to fight and to pay for, who under heaven can? Whose business is it, if it is not yours and mine? If my country is in the wrong, and I know it, and hold my peace, then I am guilty of treason, moral treason. Why, a wrong,--it is only the threshold of ruin. I would not have my country take the next step.

Treason is it, to show that this war is wrong and wicked! Why, what if George III., any time from '75 to '83, had gone down to Parliament and told them it was treason to discuss the war then waging against these colonies! What do you think the Commons would have said? What would the Lords say? Why, that King, foolish as he was, would have been lucky, if he had not learned there was a joint in his neck, and, stiff as he bore him, that the people knew how to find it.

I do not believe in killing kings, or any other men; but I do say, in a time when the nation was not in danger, that no British king, for two hundred years past, would have dared call it treason to discuss the war--its cause, its progress, or its termination!

Now is the time to act! Twice we have let the occasion slip; beware of the third time! Let it be infamous for a New England man to enlist; for a New-England merchant to loan his dollars, or to let his s.h.i.+ps in aid of this wicked war; let it be infamous for a manufacturer to make a cannon, a sword, or a kernel of powder, to kill our brothers with, while we all know that they are in the right, and we in the wrong.

I know my voice is a feeble one in Ma.s.sachusetts. I have no mountainous position from whence to look down and overawe the mult.i.tude; I have no back-ground of political reputation to echo my words; I am but a plain humble man; but I have a back-ground of Truth to sustain me, and the Justice of Heaven arches over my head! For your sakes, I wish I had that oceanic eloquence whose tidal flow should bear on its bosom the drift-weed which politicians have piled together, and sap and sweep away the sand hillocks of soldiery blown together by the idle wind; that oceanic eloquence which sweeps all before it, and leaves the sh.o.r.e hard, smooth and clean! But feeble as I am, let me beg of you, fellow-citizens of Boston, men and brothers, to come forward and protest against this wicked war, and the end for which it is waged. I call on the whigs, who love their country better than they love the tariff of '42; I call on the democrats, who think Justice is greater than the Baltimore Convention,--I call on the whigs and democrats to come forward and join with me in opposing this wicked war! I call on the men of Boston, on the men of the old Bay State, to act worthy of their fathers, worthy of their country, worthy of themselves! Men and brothers, I call on you all to protest against this most infamous war, in the name of the State, in the name of the country, in the name of man, yes, in the name of G.o.d: Leave not your children saddled with a war debt, to cripple the nation's commerce for years to come. Leave not your land cursed with slavery, extended and extending, palsying the nation's arm and corrupting the nation's heart. Leave not your memory infamous among the nations, because you feared men, feared the Government; because you loved money got by crime, land plundered in war, loved land unjustly bounded; because you debased your country by defending the wrong she dared to do; because you loved slavery; loved war, but loved not the Eternal Justice of all-judging G.o.d. If my counsel is weak and poor, follow one stronger and more manly. I am speaking to men; think of these things, and then act like men.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] John Quincy Adams.

V.

A SERMON OF THE MEXICAN WAR.--PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, JUNE 25, 1848.

Soon after the commencement of the war against Mexico, I said something respecting it in this place. But while I was printing the sermon, I was advised to hasten the compositors in their work, or the war would be over before the sermon was out. The advice was like a good deal of the counsel that is given to a man who thinks for himself, and honestly speaks what he unavoidably thinks. It is now more than two years since the war began; I have hoped to live long enough to see it ended, and hoped to say a word about it when over. A month ago, this day, the 25th of May, the treaty of peace, so much talked of, was ratified by the Mexican Congress. A few days ago, it was officially announced by telegraph to your collector in Boston, that the war with Mexico was at an end.

There are two things about this war quite remarkable. The first is, the manner of its commencement. It was begun illegally, without the action of the const.i.tutional authorities; begun by the command of the President of the United States, who ordered the American army into a territory which the Mexicans claimed as their own. The President says ”It is ours,” but the Mexicans also claimed it, and were in possession thereof until forcibly expelled. This is a plain case, and as I have elsewhere treated at length of this matter,[10] I will not dwell upon it again, except to mention a single fact but recently divulged. It is well known that Mr. Polk claimed the territory west of the Nueces and east of the Rio Grande, as forming a part of Texas, and therefore as forming part of the United States after the annexation of Texas. He contends that Mexico began the war by attacking the American army while in that territory and near the Rio Grande. But, from the correspondence laid before the American Senate, in its secret session for considering the treaty, it now appears that on the 10th of November, 1845, Mr. Polk instructed Mr.

Slidell to offer a relinquishment of American claims against Mexico, amounting to $5,000,000 or $6,000,000, for the sake of having the Rio Grande as the western boundary of Texas; yes, for that very territory which he says was ours without paying a cent. When it was conquered, a military government was established there, as in other places in Mexico.

The other remarkable thing about the war is, the manner of its conclusion. The treaty of peace which has just been ratified by the Mexican authorities, and which puts an end to the war, was negotiated by a man who had no more legal authority than any one of us has to do it.

Mr. Polk made the war, without consulting Congress, and that body adopted the war by a vote almost unanimous. Mr. Nicholas P. Trist made the treaty, without consulting the President; yes, even after the President had ordered him to return home. As the Congress adopted Mr.

Polk's war, so Mr. Polk adopted Mr. Trist's treaty, and the war illegally begun is brought informally to a close. Mr. Polk is now in the President's chair, seated on the throne of the Union, although he made the war; and Mr. Trist, it is said, is under arrest for making the treaty, meddling with what was none of his business.