Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
Hal, I haven't posted on this thread, I've just been reading the posts and following links.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
"The Address of the People of South Carolina, Assembled in Convention, to the People of the Slaveholding States of the United States."
(Monday, December 24,Seventh day of the State Convention;
Transcribed from the Charleston, South Carolina, Courier, Dec. 25, 1860)
It is seventy-three years since the Union between the United States was made by the Constitution of the United States. During this time, their advance in wealth, prosperity and power has been with scarcely a parallel in the history of the world. The great object of their Union was defence against external aggression of more powerful nations; which object is now attained, from their mere progress in power. Thirty-one millions of people, with a commerce and navigation which explore every sea, and with agricultural productions which are necessary to every civilized people, command the friendship of the world. But unfortunately, our internal peace has not grown with our external prosperity. Discontent and contention have moved in the bosom of the Confederacy for the last thirty-five years. During this time, South Carolina has twice called her people together in solemn Convention, to take into consideration the aggressions and unconstitutional wrongs perpetrated by the people of the North on the people of the South. These wrongs were submitted to by the people of the South, under the hope and expectation that they would be final. But such hope and expectation have proved to be vain. Instead of producing forbearance, our acquiescence has only instigated to new forms of aggression and outrage; and South Carolina, again assembling her people in Convention, has this day dissolved her connection with the States constituting the United States.
The one great evil, from which all other evils have flowed, is the overthrow of the Constitution of the United States. The Government of the United States is no longer the Government of Confederated Republics, but of a consolidated Democracy. It is no longer a free government, but a Despotism. It is, in fact, such a Government as Great Britain attempted to set over our fathers; and which was resisted and defeated by a seven years' struggle for independence.
The Revolution of 1776 turned upon one great principle of self-government and self-taxation; the criterion of self-government. Where the interests of two people united together under one Government, are different, each must have the power to protect its interests by the organization of the Government, or they cannot be free. The interests of Great Britain and of the Colonies were different and antagonistic. Great Britain was desirous of carrying out the policy of all nations towards their Colonies, of making them tributary to her wealth and power. She had vast and complicated relations with the whole world. Her policy towards her North American Colonies was to identify them with her in all these complicated relations; and to make them bear, in common with the rest of the Empire, the full burden of her obligations and necessities. She had a vast public debt; she had an European policy and an Asiatic policy, which had occasioned the accumulation of her public debt; and which kept her in continual wars. The North American Colonies saw their interests, political and commercial, sacrificed by such a policy. Their interests required that they should not be identified with the burdens and wars of the mother country. They had been settled under Charters, which gave them self-government; at least so far as their property was concerned. They had taxed themselves, and had never been taxed by the Government of Great Britain. To make them a part of a consolidated Empire, the Parliament of Great Britain determined to assume the power of legislating for the Colonies in all cases whatsoever. Our ancestors resisted the pretension. They refused to be a part of the consolidated Government of Great Britain.
The Southern States now stand exactly in the same position towards the Northern States that the Colonies did towards Great Britain. The Northern States, having the majority in Congress, claim the same power of omnipotence in legislation as the British Parliament. "The General Welfare," is the only limit to the legislation of either; and the majority in Congress, as in the British Parliament, are the sole judges of the expediency of the legislation this "General Welfare" requires. Thus, the Government of the United States has become a consolidated Government; and the people of the Southern States are compelled to meet the very despotism their fathers threw off in the Revolution of 1776.
The consolidation of the Government of Great Britain over the Colonies, was attempted to be carried out by the taxes. The British Parliament undertook to tax the Colonies, to promote British interests. Our fathers resisted this pretension. They claimed the right of self-taxation through their Colonial Legislatures. They were not represented in the British Parliament, and, therefore, could not rightly be taxed by its Legislation. The British Government, however, offered them a representation in Parliament; but it was not sufficient to enable them to protect themselves from the majority, and they refused it. Between taxation without any representation, and taxation without a representation adequate to protection, there was no difference. In neither case would the Colonies tax themselves. Hence, they refused to pay the taxes laid by the British Parliament.
And so with the Southern States, towards the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation. They are in a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress is useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in the British Parliament for their benefit. For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States, have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue - to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures.
There is another evil, in the condition of the Southern towards the Northern States, which our ancestors refused to bear towards Great Britain. Our ancestors not only taxed themselves, but all the taxes collected from them, were expended amongst them. Had they submitted to the pretensions of the British Government, the taxes collected from them would have been expended in other parts of the British Empire. They were fully aware of the effect of such a policy in impoverishing the people from whom taxes are collected, and in enriching those who receive the benefit of their expenditure. To prevent the evils of such a policy was one of the motives which drove them on to revolution. Yet this British policy has been fully realized towards the Southern States by the Northern States. The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected, three- fourths of them are expended at the North. This cause, with others, connected with the operation of the General Government, has made the cities of the South provincial. Their growth is paralyzed; they are mere suburbs of Northern cities. The agricultural productions of the South are the basis of the foreign commerce of the United States; yet Southern cities do not carry it on. Our foreign trade is almost annihilated. In 1740, there were five ship-yards in South Carolina, to build ships to carry on our direct trade with Europe. Between 1740 and 1779, there were built in these yards, twenty-five square rigged vessels, besides a great number of sloops and schooners, to carry on our coast and West India trade. In the half century immediately preceding the Revolution, from 1725 to 1775, the population of South Carolina increased seven-fold.
No man can, for a moment, believe that our ancestors intended to establish over their posterity, exactly the same sort of Government they had overthrown. The great object of the Constitution of the United States, in its internal operation, was, doubtless, to secure the great end of the Revolution - a limited free Government - a Government limited to those matters only, which were general and common to all portions of the United States. All sectional or local interests were to be left to the States. By no other arrangement would they obtain free Government, by a Constitution common to so vast a Confederacy. Yet, by gradual and steady encroachments on the part of the people of the North, and acquiescence on the part of the South, the limitations in the Constitution have been swept away; and the Government of the United States has become consolidated, with a claim of limitless powers in its operations.
It is not at all surprising, whilst such is the character of the Government of the United States, that it should assume to possess power over all the institutions of the country. The agitations on the subject of slavery are the natural results of the consolidation of the Government. Responsibility follows power; and if the people of the North have the power by Congress "to promote the general welfare of the United States," by any means they deem expedient - why should they not assail and overthrow the institution of slavery in the South? They are responsible for its continuance or existence, in proportion to their power. A majority in Congress, according to their interested and perverted views, is omnipotent. The inducements to act upon the subject of slavery, under such circumstances, were so imperious, as to amount almost to a moral necessity. To make, however, their numerical power available to rule the Union, the North must consolidate their power. It would not be united, on any matter common to the whole Union - in other words, on any constitutional subject - for on such subjects divisions are as likely to exist in the North as in the South. Slavery was strictly a sectional interest. If this could be made the criterion of parties at the North, the North could be united in its power; and thus carry out its measures of sectional ambition, encroachment and aggrandizement. To build up their sectional predominance in the Union, the Constitution must first be abolished by constructions; but that being done, the consolidation of the North, to rule the South, by the tariff and slavery issues, was in the obvious course of things.
The Constitution of the United States was an experiment. The experiment consisted in uniting under one Government, different peoples living in different climates, and having different pursuits of industry and institutions. It matters not how carefully the limitations of such a Government be laid down in the Constitution - its success must, at least, depend upon the good faith of the parties to the constitutional compact, in enforcing them. It is not in the power of human language to exclude false inferences, constructions and perversions, in any Constitution; and when vast sectional interests are to be subserved, involving the appropriation of countless millions of money, it has not been the usual experience of mankind, that words on parchments can arrest power. The Constitution of the United States, irrespective of the interposition of the States, rested on the assumption that power would yield to faith - that integrity would be stronger than interest; and that thus, the limitations of the Constitution would be observed. The experiment has been fairly made. The Southern States, from the commencement of the Government, have striven to keep it within the orbit prescribed by the Constitution. The experiment has failed. The whole Constitution, by the constructions of the Northern people, has been absorbed by its preamble. In their reckless <font color="ff0000">•</font><font color="ff0000">•</font><font color="ff0000">•</font><font color="ff0000">•</font> for power, they seem unable to comprehend that seeming paradox - that the more power is given to the General Government, the weaker it becomes. Its strength consists in the limitation of its agency to objects of common interests to all sections. To extend the scope of its power over sectional or local interests, is to raise up against it opposition and resistance. In all such matters, the General Government must necessarily be a despotism, because all sectional or local interests must ever be represented by a minority in the councils of the General Government, having no power to protect itself against the rule of the majority. The majority, constituted from those who do not represent these sectional or local interests, will control and govern them. A free people cannot submit to such a Government. And the more it enlarges the sphere of its power, the greater must be the dissatisfaction it must produce, and the weaker it must become. On the contrary, the more it abstains from usurped powers, and the more faithfully it adheres to the limitations of the Constitution, the stronger it is made. The Northern people have had neither the wisdom nor the faith to perceive, that to observe the limitations of the Constitution was the only way to its perpetuity....
Under such a Government, there must, of course, be many and endless "irrepressible conflicts," between the two great sections of the Union. The same faithlessness which has abolished the Constitution of the United States, will not fail to carry out the sectional purposes for which it has been abolished. There must be conflict; and the weaker section of the Union can only find peace and liberty in an independence of the North. The repeated efforts made by South Carolina, in a wise conservatism, to arrest the progress of the General Government in its fatal progress to consolidation, have been unsupported, and she has been denounced as faithless to the obligations of the Constitution, by the very men and States, who were destroying it by their usurpations. It is now too late to reform or restore the Government of the United States. All confidence in the North is lost by the South. The faithlessness of the North for half a century has opened a gulf of separation between the North and the South which no promises nor engagements can fill.
It cannot be believed, that our ancestors would have assented to any union whatever with the people of the North, if the feelings and opinions now existing amongst them, had existed when the Constitution was framed. There was then no Tariff - no fanaticism concerning negroes. It was the delegates from New England who proposed in the Convention which framed the Constitution, to the delegates from South Carolina and Georgia, that if they would agree to give Congress the power of regulating commerce by a majority that they would support the extension of the African Slave Trade for twenty years. African slavery existed in all the States but one. The idea that the Southern States would be made to pay that tribute to their northern confederates which they had refused to pay to Great Britain; or that the institution of African slavery, would be made the grand basis of a sectional organization of the North to rule the South, never crossed the imaginations of our ancestors. The Union of the Constitution was a Union of slaveholding States. It rests on slavery, by prescribing a representation in Congress for three-fifths of our slaves. There is nothing in the proceedings of the Convention which framed the Constitution, to show that the Southern States would have formed any other Union; and still less, that they would have formed a Union with more powerful non-slaveholding States, having majority in both branches of the Legislature of the Government. They were guilty of no such folly. Time and the progress of things have totally altered the relations between the Northern and Southern States, since the Union was established. That identity of feelings, interests and institutions which once existed, is gone. They are now divided, between agricultural and manufacturing, and commercial States; between slaveholding and non-slaveholding States. Their institutions and industrial pursuits have made them totally different peoples. That equality in the Government between the two sections of the Union which once existed, no longer exists. We but imitate the policy of our fathers in dissolving a union with non-slaveholding confederates, and seeking a confederation with slaveholding States.
Experience has proved that slaveholding States cannot be safe in subjection to non-slaveholding States. Indeed, no people can ever expect to preserve its rights and liberties, unless these be in its own custody. To plunder and oppress, where plunder and oppression can be practiced with impunity, seems to be the natural order of things. The fairest portions of the world elsewhere, have been turned into wildernesses, and the most civilized and prosperous communities have been impoverished and ruined by anti-slavery fanaticism. The people of the North have not left us in doubt as to their designs and policy.
United as a section in the late Presidential election, they have elected as the exponent of their policy, one who has openly declared that all the States of the United States must be made free States or slave States. It is true, that amongst those who aided in his election, there are various shades of anti-slavery hostility. But if African slavery in the Southern States be the evil their political combination affirms it to be, the requisitions of an inexorable logic must lead them to emancipation. If it is right to preclude or abolish slavery in a Territory, why should it be allowed to remain in the States? The one is not at all more unconstitutional than the other, according to the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. And when it is considered that the Northern States will soon have the power to make that Court what they please, and that the Constitution never has been any barrier whatever to their exercise of power, what check can there be, in the unrestrained counsels of the North, to emancipation? There is sympathy in association, which carries men along without principle; but when there is principle, and that principle is fortified by long existing prejudices and feelings, association is omnipotent in party influences. In spite of all disclaimers and professions, there can be but one end by the submission of the South to the rule of a sectional anti-slavery government at Washington; and that end, directly or indirectly, must be - the emancipation of the slaves of the South. The hypocrisy of thirty years - the faithlessness of their whole course from the commencement of our union with them, show that the people of the non-slaveholding North are not, and cannot be safe associates of the slaveholding South, under a common Government. Not only their fanaticism, but their erroneous views of the principles of free Governments, render it doubtful whether, if separated from the South, they can maintain a free Government amongst themselves. Numbers, with them, is the great element of free Government. A majority is infallible and omnipotent. "The right divine to rule in Kings," is only transferred to their majority. The very object of all Constitutions, in free popular Government, is to restrain the majority.
Constitutions, therefore, according to their theory, must be most unrighteous inventions, restricting liberty. None ought to exist; but the body politic ought simply to have a political organization, to bring out and enforce the will of the majority. This theory may be harmless in a small community, having identity of interests and pursuits; but over a vast State - still more, over a vast Confederacy, having various and conflicting interests and pursuits, it is a remorseless despotism. In resisting it, as applicable to ourselves, we are vindicating the great cause of free Government, more important, perhaps, to the world, than the existence of all the United States. Nor in resisting it, do we intend to depart from the safe instrumentality, the system of Government we have established with them, requires. In separating from them, we invade no rights - no interest of theirs. We violate not obligation or duty to them. As separate, independent States in Convention, we made the Constitutions of the United States with them; and as separate independent States, each State acting for itself, we adopted it.
South Carolina, acting in her sovereign capacity, now thinks proper to secede from the Union. She did not part with her Sovereignty in adopting the Constitution. The last thing a State can be presumed to have surrendered, is her Sovereignty. Her Sovereignty is her life. Nothing but a clear express grant can alienate it. Inference has no place. Yet it is not at all surprising that those who have construed away all the limitations of the Constitution, should also by construction, claim the annihilation of the Sovereignty of the States. Having abolished all barriers to their omnipotence, by their faithless constructions in the operations of the General Government, it is most natural that they should endeavor to do the same towards us in the States. The truth is, they having violated the express provisions of the Constitution, it is at an end, as a compact. It is morally obligatory only on those who choose to accept its perverted terms. South Carolina, deeming the compact not only violated in particular features, but virtually abolished by her Northern confederates, withdraws herself as a party from its obligations. The right to do so is denied by her Northern confederates. They desire to establish a sectional despotism, not only omnipotent in Congress, but omnipotent over the States; and as if to manifest the imperious necessity of our secession, they threaten us with the sword, to coerce submission to their rule.
Citizens of the slaveholding States of the United States! Circumstances beyond our control have placed us in the van of the great controversy between the Northern and Southern States. We would have preferred that other States should have assumed the position we now occupy. Independent ourselves, we disclaim any design or desire to lead the counsels of the other Southern States. Providence has cast our lot together, by extending over us an identity of pursuits, interests, and institutions. South Carolina desires no destiny separated from yours. To be one of a great Slaveholding Confederacy, stretching its arms over a territory larger than any power in Europe possesses - with a population four times greater than that of the whole United States when they achieved their independence of the British Empire -- with productions which make our existence more important to the world than that of any other people inhabiting it - with common institutions to defend, and common dangers to encounter - we ask your sympathy and confederation. Whilst constituting a portion of the United States, it has been your statesmanship which has guided it, in its mighty strides to power and expansion. In the field, as in the cabinet, you have led the way to its renown and grandeur. You have loved the Union, in whose service your great statesmen have labored, and your great soldiers have fought and conquered - not for the material benefits it conferred, but with the faith of a generous and devoted chivalry. You have long lingered in hope over the shattered remains of a broken Constitution. Compromise after compromise, formed by your concessions, has been trampled under foot by your Northern confederates. All fraternity of feeling between the North and the South is lost, or has been converted into hate; and we, of the South, are at last driven together by the stern destiny which controls the existence of nations. Your bitter experience of the faithlessness and rapacity of your Northern confederates may have been necessary to evolve those great principles of free Government, upon which the liberties of the world depend, and to prepare you for the grand mission of vindicating and re%stablishing them. We rejoice that other nations should be satisfied with their institutions. Contentment is a great element of happiness, with nations as with individuals. We are satisfied with ours. If they prefer a system of industry, in which capital and labor are in perpetual conflict - and chronic starvation keeps down the natural increase of population - and a man is worked out in eight years - and the law ordains that children shall be worked only ten hours a day -- and the sabre and the bayonet are the instruments of order - be it so. It is their affair, not ours. We prefer, however, our system of industry, by which labor and capital are identified in interest, and capital, therefore, protects labor - by which our population doubles every twenty years - by which starvation is unknown, and abundance crowns the land - by which order is preserved by an unpaid police, and many fertile regions of the world, where the Caucassian cannot labor, are brought into usefulness by the labor of the African, and the whole world is blessed by our productions. All we demand of other peoples is to be left alone, to work out our own high destinies. United together, and we must be the most independent, as we are among the most important, of the nations of the world. United together, and we require no other instrument to conquer peace, than our beneficent productions. United together, and we must be a great, free and prosperous people, whose renown must spread throughout the civilized world, and pass down, we trust, to the remotest ages. We ask you to join us in forming a Confederacy of Slaveholding States.
The Illinois Sentinel (Jacksonville), September 12, 1856
On Lincoln's Speech at Jacksonville, Illinois, September 6, 1856
The meeting was addressed during the afternoon by Hon. Abe Lincoln, in a speech which occupied some two hours. We reached the ground soon after he commenced speaking and found him discussing the subject of Kansas affairs. He referred to the principle of the Kansas law; it permitted the people to settle the question of slavery for themselves, yet the territorial legislature, elected by a Missouri constituency, had passed, together with good wholesome laws, a law in direct conflict with this principle, making it a penal offense to declare that slavery was not legal in Kansas, or that Kansas should become a free State, and punishing the individual so offending by attaching to his leg a chain and ball. He omitted, however, to inform the audience that this very law was annulled by the Kansas bill which recently passed the democratic U. S. Senate; that every black republican in the Senate voted against thus annulling this obnoxious law; that the black republicans in the House also refused to pass the bill which annulled the law; and that, therefore, the black republicans are alone responsible for the present existence of such a law in Kansas. In connection with the charge that the legislature of Kansas was elected by a Missouri constituency, he overlooked the fact that the evidence adduced by the investigations upon this subject, embraced in the several reports, goes to prove that if every Missouri vote had been thrown out, (and they were thrown out at some of the precincts, and new elections had,) it would not have changed the majority in the body, nor changed the character of its legislation. The law above referred to by Mr. Lincoln, has been denounced by the most prominent democrats of the country, and by the more prominent of the democratic press. The democracy have proven the sincerity of their disapprobation of this obnoxious law by voting for its repeal, while the black republicans have voted against its repeal, and thus continued it on the statute book. Who, then, are the friends of this law, the democracy, or Mr. Lincoln and his party?
After quoting an article from the Richmond Enquirer to prove that the democracy, to be consistent, should indorse slavery as morally right, that the constitution would afford no protection to slavery in the States unless this ground was assumed---he proceeded to state the gist of the issue in the present canvass. That issue was the intervention of congress to prohibit the extension of slavery---shall slavery be extended, or shall its extension be prohibited by a law of congress. To render Mr. Lincoln's position more fully understood it should be stated thus:---shall the people of each territory be permitted to decide the question of slavery for themselves, in accordance with the compromise of 1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska law, or shall the extension of slavery be prohibited by a sectional majority in congress. This is the true meaning of the statement of the issue made by Mr. Lincoln. The free States comprise a large majority of the nation; Mr. Lincoln and the black republican party seek to unite the numerical strength of the north on this sectional question, and thus, by a majority vote in congress, nullify the popular sovereignty principle of the compromise of 1850, and the Kansas organic law.
Without advancing any constitutional arguments to prove the power of congress to prohibit slavery in the territories, Mr. Lincoln assumed that it should be prohibited by congress, and should not be left discretionary with the people of the territory, who, he imagined, were incompetent to prevent its introduction even if so disposed; that if once introduced it would be harder to eradicate than to keep out at the start. He referred to the original introduction of slavery into the colonies by the mother country, and stated that the new territories occupy now exactly the same relation to the States of the Union that the colonies did to the mother country then; that England has been censured for permitting the introduction of slavery into the colonies then, and the States of the Union will hereafter be censured for suffering its introduction (by the will of the people of the territories themselves) into the new territories now. He also read an extract from a speech made by Henry Clay in reference to the territories acquired from Mexico, in which Mr. Clay expressed himself as opposed to legislating slavery into those territories; but Mr. Lincoln forgot to inform the audience that Mr. Clay was also opposed to prohibiting slavery in the territories; that the distinguished sage of Ashland was one of the leaders that established the doctrine of non-intervention by congress in reference to those very territories---the very principle Mr. Lincoln and his party are now assailing. Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster informed the country, in their speeches upon this subject, that they advocated the adjustment of the question of slavery in the territories upon this principle, because the doctrine of leaving the question with the people of the territories was a right principle, and because they believed it to be the only means of preserving the Union. We have then the high authority of Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster to strengthen the inference that, in assailing the principle of non-intervention, Mr. Lincoln and the woolly party are working to endanger if not dissolve the Union.
We think the assertion made by Mr. Lincoln, that the Territories occupy the same relative position to the States as did the Colonies to the mother country, an unfortunate one for himself, his principles and his party. If this parallel be a true one, then do the black republicans seek to enforce the very doctrines which caused the American revolution and a separation from the mother country. The mother country imposed upon the colonies local laws against their consent, and denied them the privilege of regulating their own domestic affairs---hence the revolution. The black republicans would impose upon the people of the territories a law in reference to their local affairs whether they (the people of the territories) desire it or not, thus imitating the tyranny of the mother country, and denying the great principle of self government. If the relations of the territories to the States be parallel to those which existed between the colonies and the mother country, then the people of the territories have the right to resist, even by revolution, the imposition of such a law---as did the people of the colonies. If Mr. Lincoln denies the right of the people of the territories to so resist, then he condemns the act of the American revolution, and sustains the tyranny of George the Third against our revolutionary sires.
England introduced slavery into the colonies against the wishes of the people of the colonies. England may therefore justly be censured for the evil she has imposed. The doctrine of non-intervention does not legislate slavery, nor necessarily introduce it, into the territories. If the people of the territories themselves introduce and establish slavery, they alone are responsible for the evil---not the States of the Union.
Mr. Lincoln then defined Fremont's position. He was in favor of congressional intervention, as warranted both by the constitution and expediency. He (Lincoln) would go for Fremont on that account---would go for the woolly horse itself, if necessary to secure congressional prohibition of slavery in the territories. (Meaning the woolly horse which Fremont certified had been taken by him in the Rocky Mountains, and with which, on the faith of Fremont's certificate, Barnum humbugged the public). He referred to the charge that the black republicans were a sectional party; he presumed this charge was based upon the fact that the republican candidates were from the free States; that if this made them a sectional party, so was the democratic party a sectional party---the present executive and vice-president were both citizens of the north. He denied that the black republicans were a sectional party, although he admitted they expected to elect their ticket by the exclusive votes of the free states; and charged, as an offset, that the democrats rested their hopes for the success of Buchanan on the southern States alone.
The attempt of Mr. Lincoln to evade the conclusion that the black republicans are a sectional party, by referring to the fact that Mr. Pierce is also a northern man, is a dodge we have seen attempted by some of the country fusion papers, but were surprised to see such a weak and silly subterfuge advanced to an intelligent audience by a gentleman of ability and standing like Mr. Lincoln.
It is well known that Mr. Pierce was nominated by a national convention, composed of delegates from every State in the Union, that thus he was the candidate of a national party, and as such he has been sustained in his administration by all sections of the country. Mr. Buchanan was nominated in the same way. He is thus a national candidate. Fremont was nominated by a convention composed only of delegates from the northern States. He has no party, no supporters, in one half of the Union; therefore he is the sectional candidate of a sectional party. The flattering illusion that Buchanan does not expect a support in the free States, will be dissipated in a few weeks, if such an illusion really exists in the mind of Mr. Lincoln.
Towards the close of the speech the distinguished speaker referred to the charge that the principles and issue of the black republican party tended to a dissolution of the Union. He denied that it was so---asked who was going to dissolve the Union. The black republicans would not do it in the event of success; they would then be in the majority; would have the power; would have the army, the navy and the treasury under their control, and could compel obedience to the laws enacted. A majority would never want to dissolve the Union. Then it would be done, if done at all, by the minority---by the south. In that event the minority would alone be responsible---not the black republican party.
When this same question of congressional prohibition of slavery in the territories was agitated in congress in 1850, threatening to cause a disruption of the government, the North constituted, as now, the majority. Mr. Fillmore, a northern man, occupied the executive chair; they had a northern majority in congress, and through the executive and that majority held the power; they had the army, the navy, and the treasury under their control; yet they did not undertake to subdue the South to submission on this question of intervention. Mr. Webster, a northern man, and the acknowledged leader of the whig party in the north, did not press an act of prohibition upon the South, and say to them, a majority has done this; if you refuse to submit, upon you alone will rest the responsibility of disunion. Mr. Webster acknowledged the minority rights of the South, and he appreciated too highly the inestimable value of the Union to endanger it by infringing upon those rights. His capacious mind grasped the great principle of popular sovereignty as the only safe and just rule for the adjustment of the question. That adjustment was made and sanctioned by the country. Mr. Lincoln tells us that the black republican party are striving to unite the votes of the north on Fremont for the express purpose of annulling that adjustment principle---to secure by the majority of northern votes a prohibition of slavery in the territories by congress. If, as Mr. Webster foresaw, disunion follow the act, the South are to bear the responsibility of resisting the majority; the black republicans will be no disunionists; they will have merely introduced a civil war, in which they will have the army, navy and treasury, to back them.
Mr. Lincoln referred briefly to Mr. Fillmore. He considered that Fillmore stood upon the same platform with Buchanan. Scolded at Douglas for opening the door, (permitting the people of the territory to decide the question for themselves,) but refusing to shut it; there could be no middle ground on this question; there could be no third party. Mr. Fillmore had taken position with Buchanan (and he might have added with Clay and Webster,) in favor of non-intervention. He could not go for Fillmore for another reason. He (Lincoln) did not like the Know Nothings. They were, however, an ephemeral party, and would soon pass away.
He closed by giving a glowing and prophetic picture of the exultation and joy that would animate the country should Buchanan be elected. Rockets would go up in all directions; guns would be fired, and a general shout would go up all over the country. Could a stranger witness these rejoicings from the region of the clouds, he would naturally imagine that [a] new era of freedom had dawned upon the country; but, said Mr. L., it would only be the extension of slavery; and he urged upon his friends to prevent; if possible, these rejoicings, which seemed to loom prophetically upon his mental vision. He then made a farfetched appeal to the democrats, as the longtime advocates of individual liberty as against the whig party, to support Fremont---after which he left the stand.
We must say that we regard Mr. Lincoln as a fine speaker. He is certainly the ablest black republican that has taken the stump at this place during the canvass; yet he utterly failed to sustain by satisfactory arguments the black republican issue of intervention. We have given the leading points of his speech. In the evening a small crowd, the tail end of the meeting, was addressed by Mr. Knapp, of Winchester. We did not attend.
Editorials are proof of what the editors and/or owners of a newspaper are thinking and their positions on politics. The proof of what a community thinks is more likely reflected by how many pay their money to read such publications.
Very few (if any) minds are made up or even changed by what is read in the newspaper, political pamphlets or electioneering publications. Most people find it easier and more agreeable in reading that which agrees with what they already feel they know, not the other way around.
You pays your money and takes your pick.
I am sure all who post to this thread are aware of the above fact which you have stated.
But, the purpose of this thread is to simply post those articles, newspaper editorials and other civil war period documents and let them speak for themselves.
That is why you will find no one interjecting comments on the articles, but instead, try and find other period articles that refute or supply another answer to them.
This thread is very unique in that it lets the people and papers of the time speak for themselves without a 21st century lens being applied to them.
No offense intended, just trying to explain.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
Thanks Neil, until now I was not aware of any stated purpose for the above.
To match newspaper editorials seems a tedious exercise, but to each his own, I guess.
Thanks again.
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