Volume I Part 3 (2/2)
”Mr. President: I briefly and reluctantly referred, because the subject had been introduced, to the att.i.tude of Mississippi on a former occasion. I will now as briefly say that in 1851, and in 1860, Mississippi was, and is, ready to make every concession which it becomes her to make to the welfare and the safety of the Union. If, on a former occasion, she hoped too much from fraternity, the responsibility for her disappointment rests upon those who failed to fulfill her expectations. She still clings to the Government as our fathers formed it. She is ready to-day and to-morrow, as in her past and though brief yet brilliant history, to maintain that Government in all its power, and to vindicate its honor with all the means she possesses. I say brilliant history; for it was in the very morning of her existence that her sons, on the plains of New Orleans, were announced, in general orders, to have been the admiration of one army and the wonder of the other. That we had a division in relation to the measures enacted in 1850, is true; that the Southern rights men became the minority in the election which resulted, is true; but no figure of speech could warrant the Senator in speaking of them as subdued-as coming to him or anybody else for quarter. I deemed it offensive when it was uttered, and the scorn with which I repelled it at the instant, time has only softened to contempt. Our flag was never borne from the field. We had carried it in the face of defeat, with a knowledge that defeat awaited it; but scarcely had the smoke of the battle pa.s.sed [pg 45] away which proclaimed another victor, before the general voice admitted that the field again was ours. I have not seen a sagacious, reflecting man, who was cognizant of the events as they transpired at the time, who does not say that, within two weeks after the election, our party was in a majority; and the next election which occurred showed that we possessed the State beyond controversy. How we have wielded that power it is not for me to say. I trust others may see forbearance in our conduct-that, with a determination to insist upon our const.i.tutional rights, then and now, there is an unwavering desire to maintain the Government, and to uphold the Democratic party.
”We believe now, as we have a.s.serted on former occasions, that the best hope for the perpetuity of our inst.i.tutions depends upon the cooperation, the harmony, the zealous action, of the Democratic party. We cling to that party from conviction that its principles and its aims are those of truth and the country, as we cling to the Union for the fulfillment of the purposes for which it was formed. Whenever we shall be taught that the Democratic party is recreant to its principles; whenever we shall learn that it can not be relied upon to maintain the great measures which const.i.tute its vitality-I for one shall be ready to leave it. And so, when we declare our tenacious adherence to the Union, it is the Union of the Const.i.tution. If the compact between the States is to be trampled into the dust; if anarchy is to be subst.i.tuted for the usurpation and consolidation which threatened the Government at an earlier period; if the Union is to become powerless for the purposes for which it was established, and we are vainly to appeal to it for protection-then, sir, conscious of the rect.i.tude of our course, the justice of our cause, self-reliant, yet humbly, confidingly trusting in the arm that guided and protected our fathers, we look beyond the confines of the Union for the maintenance of our rights. An habitual reverence and cherished affection for the Government will bind us to it longer than our interests would suggest or require; but he is a poor student of the world's history who does not understand that communities at last must yield to the dictates of their interests. That the affection, the mutual desire for the mutual good, which existed among our fathers, may be weakened in succeeding generations by the denial of right, and hostile demonstration, until the equality guaranteed but not secured within the Union may be sought for without it, must be evident to even a [pg 46] careless observer of our race. It is time to be up and doing. There is yet time to remove the causes of dissension and alienation which are now distracting, and have for years past divided, the country.
”If the Senator correctly described me as having at a former period, against my own preferences and opinions, acquiesced in the decision of my party; if, when I had youth, when physical vigor gave promise of many days, and the future was painted in the colors of hope, I could thus surrender my own convictions, my own prejudices, and cooperate with my political friends according to their views of the best method of promoting the public good-now, when the years of my future can not be many, and experience has sobered the hopeful tints of youth's gilding; when, approaching the evening of life, the shadows are reversed, and the mind turns retrospectively, it is not to be supposed that I would abandon lightly, or idly put on trial, the party to which I have steadily adhered. It is rather to be a.s.sumed that conservatism, which belongs to the timidity or caution of increasing years, would lead me to cling to, to be supported by, rather than to cast off, the organization with which I have been so long connected. If I am driven to consider the necessity of separating myself from those old and dear relations, of discarding the accustomed support, under circ.u.mstances such as I have described, might not my friends who differ from me pause and inquire whether there is not something involved in it which calls for their careful revision?
”I desire no divided flag for the Democratic party.
”Our principles are national; they belong to every State of the Union; and, though elections may be lost by their a.s.sertion, they const.i.tute the only foundation on which we can maintain power, on which we can again rise to the dignity the Democracy once possessed. Does not the Senator from Illinois see in the sectional character of the vote be received,16 that his opinions are not acceptable to every portion of the country? Is not the fact that the resolutions adopted by seventeen States, on which the greatest reliance must be placed for Democratic support, are in opposition to the dogma to which he still clings, a warning that, if he persists and succeeds in forcing his theory upon the Democratic party, its days are numbered? We ask only for the Const.i.tution. We [pg 47] ask of the Democracy only from time to time to declare, as current exigencies may indicate, what the Const.i.tution was intended to secure and provide. Our flag bears no new device. Upon its folds our principles are written in living light; all proclaiming the const.i.tutional Union, justice, equality, and fraternity of our ocean-bound domain, for a limitless future.”
Footnote 14: (return) The words, ”within the limits of its const.i.tutional powers,” were subsequently added to this resolution, on the suggestion of Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, with the approval of the mover.
Footnote 15: (return) The speech of the author, delivered on the 7th of May ensuing, in exposition of these resolutions, will be found in Appendix F.
Footnote 16: (return) In the Democratic Convention, which had been recently held in Charleston. (See the ensuing chapter.)
CHAPTER VII
A Retrospect.-Growth of Sectional Rivalry.-The Generosity of Virginia.-Unequal Accessions of Territory.-The Tariff and its Effects.-The Republican Convention of 1860, its Resolutions and its Nominations.-The Democratic Convention at Charleston, its Divisions and Disruption.-The Nominations at Baltimore.-The ”Const.i.tutional-Union” Party and its Nominees.-An Effort in Behalf of Agreement declined by Mr. Douglas.-The Election of Lincoln and Hamlin.-Proceedings in the South.-Evidences of Calmness and Deliberation.-Mr. Buchanan's Conservatism and the weakness of his Position.-Republican Taunts.-The ”New York Tribune,” etc.
When, at the close of the war of the Revolution, each of the thirteen colonies that had been engaged in that contest was severally acknowledged by the mother-country, Great Britain, to be a free and independent State, the confederation of those States embraced an area so extensive, with climate and products so various, that rivalries and conflicts of interest soon began to be manifested. It required all the power of wisdom and patriotism, animated by the affection engendered by common sufferings and dangers, to keep these rivalries under restraint, and to effect those compromises which it was fondly hoped would insure the harmony and mutual good offices of each for the benefit of all. It was in this spirit of patriotism and confidence in the continuance of such abiding good will as would for all time preclude hostile aggression, that Virginia ceded, for the use of the confederated States, all that vast extent of territory lying north of the Ohio River, out of which have since been formed five States and part of a sixth. The addition of these States has accrued entirely to the preponderance of the Northern section over that from which the donation proceeded, and to the [pg 48] disturbance of that equilibrium which existed at the close of the war of the Revolution.
It may not be out of place here to refer to the fact that the grievances which led to that war were directly inflicted upon the Northern colonies. Those of the South had no material cause of complaint; but, actuated by sympathy for their Northern brethren, and a devotion to the principles of civil liberty and community independence, which they had inherited from their Anglo-Saxon ancestry, and which were set forth in the Declaration of Independence, they made common cause with their neighbors, and may, at least, claim to have done their full share in the war that ensued.
By the exclusion of the South, in 1820, from all that part of the Louisiana purchase lying north of the parallel of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, and not included in the State of Missouri, by the extension of that line of exclusion to embrace the territory acquired from Texas; and by the appropriation of all the territory obtained from Mexico under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, both north and south of that line, it may be stated with approximate accuracy that the North had monopolized to herself more than three fourths of all that had been added to the domain of the United States since the Declaration of Independence. This inequality, which began, as has been shown, in the more generous than wise confidence of the South, was employed to obtain for the North the lion's share of what was afterward added at the cost of the public treasure and the blood of patriots. I do not care to estimate the relative proportion contributed by each of the two sections.
Nor was this the only cause that operated to disappoint the reasonable hopes and to blight the fair prospects under which the original compact was formed. The effects of discriminating duties upon imports have been referred to in a former chapter-favoring the manufacturing region, which was the North; burdening the exporting region, which was the South; and so imposing upon the latter a double tax: one, by the increased price of articles of consumption, which, so far as they were of home production, went into the pockets of the manufacturer; the other, by the diminished value of articles of export, which was [pg 49] so much withheld from the pockets of the agriculturist. In like manner the power of the majority section was employed to appropriate to itself an unequal share of the public disburs.e.m.e.nts. These combined causes-the possession of more territory, more money, and a wider field for the employment of special labor-all served to attract immigration; and, with increasing population, the greed grew by what it fed on.
This became distinctly manifest when the so-called ”Republican” Convention a.s.sembled in Chicago, on May 16, 1860, to nominate a candidate for the Presidency. It was a purely sectional body. There were a few delegates present, representing an insignificant minority in the ”border States,” Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri; but not one from any State south of the celebrated political line of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes. It had been the invariable usage with nominating conventions of all parties to select candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency, one from the North and the other from the South; but this a.s.semblage nominated Mr. Lincoln, of Illinois, for the first office, and for the second, Mr. Hamlin, of Maine-both Northerners. Mr. Lincoln, its nominee for the Presidency, had publicly announced that the Union ”could not permanently endure, half slave and half free.” The resolutions adopted contained some carefully worded declarations, well adapted to deceive the credulous who were opposed to hostile aggressions upon the rights of the States. In order to accomplish this purpose, they were compelled to create a fict.i.tious issue, in denouncing what they described as ”the new dogma that the Const.i.tution, of its own force, carries slavery into any or all of the Territories of the United States”-a ”dogma” which had never been held or declared by anybody, and which had no existence outside of their own a.s.sertion. There was enough in connection with the nomination to a.s.sure the most fanatical foes of the Const.i.tution that their ideas would be the rule and guide of the party.
Meantime, the Democratic party had held a convention, composed as usual of delegates from all the States. They met in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 23d, but an unfortunate disagreement with regard to the declaration of principles to be [pg 50] set forth rendered a nomination impracticable. Both divisions of the Convention adjourned, and met again in Baltimore in June. Then, having finally failed to come to an agreement, they separated and made their respective nominations apart. Mr. Douglas, of Illinois, was nominated by the friends of the doctrine of ”popular sovereignty,” with Mr. Fitzpatrick, of Alabama, for the Vice-Presidency. Both these gentlemen at that time were Senators from their respective States. Mr. Fitzpatrick promptly declined the nomination, and his place was filled with the name of Mr. Herschel V. Johnson, a distinguished citizen of Georgia.
The Convention representing the conservative, or State-Rights, wing of the Democratic-party (the President of which was the Hon. Caleb Cus.h.i.+ng, of Ma.s.sachusetts), on the first ballot, unanimously made choice of John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, then Vice-President of the United States, for the first office, and with like unanimity selected General Joseph Lane, then a Senator from Oregon, for the second. The resolutions of each of these two conventions denounced the action and policy of the Abolition party, as subversive of the Const.i.tution, and revolutionary in their tendency.
Another convention was held in Baltimore about the same period17 by those who still adhered to the old Whig party, reenforced by the remains of the ”American” organization, and perhaps some others. This Convention also consisted of delegates from all the States, and, repudiating all geographical and sectional issues, and declaring it to be ”both the part of patriotism and of duty to recognize no political principle other than the Const.i.tution of the country, the Union of the States, and the enforcement of the laws,” pledged itself and its supporters ”to maintain, protect, and defend, separately and unitedly, those great principles of public liberty and national safety against all enemies at home and abroad.” Its nominees were Messrs. John Bell, of Tennessee, and Edward Everett, of Ma.s.sachusetts, both of whom had long been distinguished members of the Whig party.
The people of the United States now had four rival tickets [pg 51] presented to them by as many contending parties, whose respective position and principles on the great and absorbing question at issue may be briefly recapitulated as follows:
1. The ”Const.i.tutional-Union” Party, as it was now termed, led by Messrs. Bell and Everett, which ignored the territorial controversy altogether, and contented itself, as above stated, with a simple declaration of adherence to ”the Const.i.tution, the Union, and the enforcement of the laws.”
2. The party of ”popular sovereignty,” headed by Douglas and Johnson, who affirmed the right of the people of the Territories, in their territorial condition, to determine their own organic inst.i.tutions, independently of the control of Congress; denying the power or duty of Congress to protect the persons or property of individuals or minorities in such Territories against the action of majorities.
3. The State-Rights party, supporting Breckinridge and Lane, who held that the Territories were open to citizens of all the States, with their property, without any inequality or discrimination, and that it was the duty of the General Government to protect both persons and property from aggression in the Territories subject to its control. At the same time they admitted and a.s.serted the right of the people of a Territory, on emerging from their territorial condition to that of a State, to determine what should then be their domestic inst.i.tutions, as well as all other questions of personal or proprietary right, without interference by Congress, and subject only to the limitations and restrictions prescribed by the Const.i.tution of the United States.
4. The so-called ”Republicans,” presenting the names of Lincoln and Hamlin, who held, in the language of one of their leaders,18 that ”slavery can exist only by virtue of munic.i.p.al law”; that there was ”no law for it in the Territories, and no power to enact one”; and that Congress was ”bound to prohibit it in or exclude it from any and every Federal Territory.” In other words, they a.s.serted the right and duty of Congress to exclude the citizens of half the States of the Union from the territory belonging in common to all, unless on condition of the [pg 52] sacrifice or abandonment of their property recognized by the Const.i.tution-indeed, of the only species of their property distinctly and specifically recognized as such by that instrument.
On the vital question underlying the whole controversy-that is, whether the Federal Government should be a Government of the whole for the benefit of all its equal members, or (if it should continue to exist at all) a sectional Government for the benefit of a part-the first three of the parties above described were in substantial accord as against the fourth. If they could or would have acted unitedly, they, could certainly have carried the election, and averted the catastrophe which followed. Nor were efforts wanting to effect such a union.
Mr. Bell, the Whig candidate, was a highly respectable and experienced statesman, who had filled many important offices, both State and Federal. He was not ambitious to the extent of coveting the Presidency, and he was profoundly impressed by the danger which threatened the country. Mr. Breckinridge had not antic.i.p.ated, and it may safely be said did not eagerly desire, the nomination. He was young enough to wait, and patriotic enough to be willing to do so, if the weal of the country required it. Thus much I may confidently a.s.sert of both those gentlemen; for each of them authorized me to say that he was willing to withdraw, if an arrangement could be effected by which the divided forces of the friends of the Const.i.tution could be concentrated upon some one more generally acceptable than either of the three who had been presented to the country. When I made this announcement to Mr. Douglas-with whom my relations had always been such as to authorize the a.s.surance that he could not consider it as made in an unfriendly spirit-he replied that the scheme proposed was impracticable, because his friends, mainly Northern Democrats, if he were withdrawn, would join in the support of Mr. Lincoln, rather than of any one that should supplant him (Douglas); that he was in the hands of his friends, and was sure they would not accept the proposition.
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