E 458 
 
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 Copy 2 
 
 LOYAL PUBLICATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 NATIOxNAL UmON ASSOCIATION OF OHIO. 
 
 No. 7. 
 
 CINCINNATI, OHIO, OCTOBER, 1863. 
 
 OBJECTS OF THE REBELLION, 
 
 AND 
 
 EFFECTS OF ITS SUCCESS 
 
 UPON 
 
 FREE LABORERS AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 BY 
 
 A MEMBER OF THE CINCINNATI BAR. 
 
 CINCINNATI: 
 WRIGHTSON & CO., PRINTERS, 
 
 lOr WALNUT STREET. 
 
 1863. 
 
.5 
 .0\5 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by 
 
 THE AUTHOE, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern 
 District of Ohio. 
 
 BTEREOTYPED AT THE FRANKLIN TYPE FOUNDRY, CINCINNATI, OHIO. 
 
THE 
 
 CAUSES AND OBJECTS OF THE REBELLION, 
 
 THE PRETENSES FOR IT, 
 
 EFFECTS OF ITS SUCCESS UPON FREE LABORERS 
 AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 CAUSES AND OBJECTS OF THE REBELLION. 
 
 THE REBELLION IS THE WORK OF OFFICE-HOLDERS AND OFFICE- 
 SEEKERS OF THE CALHOUN SCHOOL OF POLITICS. 
 
 Millions of people never act from the same motive, but fear 
 had controlling influence in arraying the South against the 
 Union. The Southern Confederacy consists of its army and 
 officers of civil government ; and the efficiency of its army is in 
 its leaders. Some of its officers and many of its private sol- 
 diers are opposed to the Rebellion. Many were induced to 
 volunteer by political sophistry, and by false representations of 
 matters of fact; and many of the rank and file of 1863 were 
 forced into the army, and are retained there by force. The 
 masses in and out of the army in the Rebel States are con- 
 trolled by their political and military leaders ; and the most- 
 active, intelligent, and reckless of these control the residue. 
 To understand the Rebellion, then, we must consider the motives 
 and objects of those who sway the mass of the leaders; and these 
 are the leading office-holders and office-seekers of the Calhoun 
 school of politics. The only causes of the Rebellion will be 
 found in their designs. 
 
 These master-spirits did not rebel for any of the causes as- 
 
4 REOPENING OF THE SLAVE-TRADE. 
 
 signed by them, before the Rebellion, to justify their conduct. 
 We are not to believe, from this, that they acted without any 
 motive ; but, rather, that they had motives which they did not 
 choose to avow. If a principal object of the master rebels was 
 to obtain slaves at nominal prices from Africa, it would have 
 been impolitic to publish it in an official document, as such pub- 
 lication might have shocked the moral sense of the world. If 
 this was one of their objects, it is, however, highly important 
 that the people should know it, especially the free laborers of 
 the North. Attention is, therefore, directed to the reasons for 
 believing that 
 
 A LEADING OBJECT OF THE BEBELLION WAS TO REOPEN THE SLAVE- 
 TRADE. 
 
 This trade was carried on, to some extent, before the Rebel- 
 lion, notwithstanding the efforts of the Government to suppress 
 it. Under a slaveholding government, the traffic would be ex- 
 tensive, whether the constitution and laws of the government 
 permitted it or not. Cotton-planters have long complained of 
 the injustice of being compelled to pay ^2,000 for a negro in 
 the border States, when they could get a better one for $50 
 from Africa. 
 
 A rebel who has never had a slave, nor means to buy one, 
 can not be fighting to defend his right to his slave ; but may be 
 fighting to get one. He may be unable to pay from $500 to 
 $2,000 for a slave, but might, perhaps, pay from $25 to $100. 
 
 REBEL LEADERS CLAIMED THAT SLAVERY WAS OF DIVINE ORIGIN; 
 AND THEY WOULD, AS A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE, EXTEND WHAT 
 THEY DEEM ITS BLESSINGS, TO NATIVE AFRICANS. 
 
 The political and religious slaveholders of the Calhoun school 
 have long claimed that slavery was of divine origin, and was 
 not a curse, but a blessing, to both master and slave. As a 
 moral duty, then, they would seek to bring the greatest number 
 possible of native Africans within the benign influence of their 
 social system ; they would increase, extend, and perpetuate 
 slavery, as they revere God, love men, and desire wealth and 
 power. 
 
THE DIVINE INSTITUTION WAS FADING. 5 
 
 SLAVES FROM AFRICA WERE NECESSARY TO SUSTAIN THE 
 INSTITUTION. 
 
 A change of politics in the border States and Texas, such as 
 might occur from additions to the free white population, might 
 result in the abolition of slavery in these States. The institu- 
 tion was in danger, in many localities, from the fact, that it 
 was becoming apparent, that, if slavery should be abolished, 
 the loss of the slaves would be more than compensated by the 
 increased value of the land. 
 
 Our Ethiopian was changing his skin. A large portion of the 
 infant slaves were but half as black as their mothers, and many 
 of the mothers were half or more white ; there was, conse- 
 quently, a disposition, on the part of the fathers and masters, to 
 emancipate these slave infants and mothers. 
 
 The institution, however divine, was, in more than one sense, 
 evidently fading; and the pious Secessionist — pious, at least, in 
 his own estimation — naturally looked to reopening the slave- 
 trade, through revolution and independence, as the only means 
 of perpetuating his favorite system. 
 
 THE SLAVES WERE TOO FEW FOR THE TERRITORY IN THE SLAVE 
 STATES. 
 
 Taking the slave States together, there are less than five slaves 
 to the square mile. Including New Mexico and Arizona as 
 slave territory, there will be more than one million of square 
 miles of slave territory, and about four slaves and six free per- 
 sons to the square mile. The territory is capable of sustaining 
 a population more than twenty times as large as it has at 
 present. If the rebel leaders expect hosts of native Africans 
 for slaves, we can understand their anxiety for more slave ter- 
 ritory, and their anxiety to have slavery protected in it by 
 Federal power ; but it is impossible to understand them upon 
 any other hypothesis. 
 
 THE NATIVE AFRICANS COULD BE OBTAINED. 
 
 No insuperable difficulty would present itself in obtaining 
 native Africans. If independent, the Confederacy would have 
 a right to establish a colony on any part of the coast of Africa 
 
6 EULOTJT OP DAVIS ON THE SLAVE-TRADE 
 
 not occupied by a civilized power, and to extend it, at pleasure, 
 into the interior, and could admit such colony into the Confed- 
 eracy of States. Slaves, in Africa, are said to be numerous. 
 The petty chiefs who own them would be as anxious to sell as 
 the Confederates to buy ; and the slaves might change hands, 
 unobserved by any, except the venders and purchasers. When 
 the slaves should become the property of the Confederates, 
 reasons would abound for transferring them to some State of the 
 Confederacy in the Western Hemisphere. Such transfer would 
 give employment to shipping, and would tend to increase the 
 quantity and lessen the market price of cotton. The slave- 
 trader's ship would be held to be a part of the country to which 
 it belonged, and its flag would protect whatever w^as under it. 
 If the English aristocracy and French Emperor favored emanci- 
 pation, when the effect appeared to be to convulse our Republic, 
 it is not illogical to infer that they would favor slavery and the 
 slave-trade, when the tendency of such action, on their part, 
 would be to divide our Republic, and to establish an oligarchy 
 or a monarchy in the southern division. 
 
 In levying war against the United States, the rebels must 
 have calculated upon the loss of many slaves from its casualties. 
 We can see how they designed to repair their losses. 
 
 EULOGY OF JEFFERSON DAVIS ON THE SLAVE-TRADE, IN THE SENATE 
 OF THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 12, 1849 — REPORTED IN THE 
 CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE, PAGE 209. 
 
 "Has it" (the slave-trade) "made any man a slave any more than he 
 was a slave without this institution, or reduced any man from liberty to 
 slavery? That is the question, sir; and I answer, it has not. Under 
 laws older than the records of history, men were taken captives in war, and 
 held as slaves. These slaves were purchased from contending warring 
 bands, who held their captives in slavery; and the slaves thus purchased 
 were saved from a more ignominious and degrading slavery than they would 
 be subject to on this side of the Atlantic. It benefits them, in removing 
 them from the bigotry and heathen darkness that hangs, like a cloud, over 
 the country in the interior of Africa, to the enjoyment of all the blessings 
 of civilization and Christianity. Slavery brought with it commerce, sir; 
 for it occasioned the necessity of enlarging our productions; and what is 
 commerce but the parent of civilization, of international exchanges, and 
 
SLAVE-TRADE THE TEST OP SLAVERY. 7 
 
 all those mighty blessings tliat now bind the people of the most remote 
 quarters of the globe together?" 
 
 This is conclusive as to the views of Jefferson Davis. He 
 was, evidently, not only willing, but anxious, that the slave-trade 
 should be reopened. 
 
 On the question of providing for Africans taken by a ship 
 carrying our flag, and returning them to Afi-ica, Mr. Davis, in 
 his remarks in the Senate, May 24, 1860, {Congressional Globe, 
 p. 2303-2304,) said: 
 
 " Mr. President, in assuming an obligation upon our Government to stop 
 the slave-trade with other countries, we adopted a policy upon which, if it 
 were open for debate, I should have some opinions to express." 
 
 And in reply to Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, Mr. Davis, in the 
 same debate, said : 
 
 "Is it true, sir, that the little crews which go out on the crafts with 
 which the Senator is more familiar than myself — for they go from his 
 country, and not from mine — have invaded Africa, penetrated its wilderness, 
 there to capture the free barbarian? or does not the Senator know that 
 they go to the barracoons, upon the coast, and buy them from those who 
 hold them in bondage; that they are traders, not soldiers; that they bu}' 
 elaves — they do not capture Africans; that they take them in trade, not by 
 violence?" 
 
 Mr. Davis had not then, as late as 1860, changed the views 
 he expressed in 1849. 
 
 Mr. Spratt, a leading Secessionist of South Carolina, protested 
 against the clause in the Confederate Constitution against the 
 slave-trade. He says : 
 
 " I have been connected with the slave-trade measure from the start. 
 . . . . I have been intrusted, by its friends, witli a leading part in its 
 advancement Our suppression of the slave-trade is war- 
 ranted by no necessity to respect the sentiments of foreign States. They 
 will pocket their philanthropy and the profits together 
 
 •' I now oppose restrictions on the slave-trade. I oppose them for the 
 wish to emancipate our institution. / regard the slave-trade as the test 
 OF ITS IKTEGRITY. If that be right, then slavery is right; but not without." — 
 I Put. liec. Reb., 364. 
 
 Mr. Spratt further says : 
 
 "I was the single advocate of the slave-trade in 1853. It is now the 
 question of the time.'^ 
 
8 NEGROES THE FOUNDATION OF THE CONFEDERACY, 
 
 He argues that a country will sustain a more dense slave 
 population than it will free, and says: 
 
 " With a population only as dense as Belgium, South Carolina could 
 hold the population of the Southern States." 
 
 Why, then, was more slave territory wanted? For slaves from 
 Africa. 
 
 The prohibition of the slave-trade in the Confederate Consti- 
 tution was understood, no doubt, by Mr. Davis. It was of no 
 force without an act of the Confederate Congress to carry it into 
 effect. If an act should be passed, it would be easy to evade 
 it. Foreign sentiment could be respected, and the slave-trade 
 carried on at the same time. 
 
 THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE CONFEDERACY HOLDS THAT THE 
 
 FRAMERS OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION WERE ABOLITIONISTS, 
 
 AND THAT THE CONFEDERATE CONSTITUTION WAS INTENDED TO 
 
 CORRECT THEIR ERRORS. 
 
 [Speech of Alexander H. Stephens, delivered March 21, 18G1, at Savannah, Georgia. 
 Put. Keb. Record, Document 48, page 45.] 
 
 We may accept the language of the Vice-President as the 
 opinion of the Confederacy. Mr. Stephens says : 
 
 "African slavery, as it exists among us — the proper status of the negro in 
 our form of civilization — this was the immediate cause of the late rupture and 
 present revolution. Jefferson, in liis forecast, had anticipated this, as the 
 rock upon which the old Union would split 
 
 "The prevailing ideas entertained by him, and most of the leading 
 statesmen, at the time of the formation of tlie old Constitution, were, that 
 the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; 
 that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, politically. It was an evil 
 they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of states- 
 men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, 
 the institution would be evanescent, and pass away 
 
 "Those ideas were, however, fundamentally wrong. They rested upon 
 
 the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error 
 
 Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its found- 
 ations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that the negro 
 is not the equal of the white man; tliat slavery, subordination to the superior 
 race, is his natural and moral condition." 
 
 Before the Rebellion, the institution of slavery was protected 
 by the whole power of the United States ; and but for rebellion, 
 
COMBINATION TO REOPEN THE SLAVE-TRADE. 9 
 
 this protection would have been continued. Rebellion put 
 slavery in jeopardy, and would not have been ventured upon, 
 by sane men, for any of the causes officially assigned for it. 
 But reopening the slave-trade presented a dazzling prospect of 
 wealth and power, which might have induced men, less ambi- 
 tious than the rebel leaders, to adopt desperate measures. 
 
 THE EXISTENCE OF A FORMIDABLE COMBINATION SEEKING TO 
 KEOPEN THE SLAVE-TRADE, ANNOUNCED BY THE PRESIDENT OF 
 THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Mr. Buchanan, in his Annual Message of December 19, 1859, 
 said : 
 
 " All lawful means at my command have been employed, and shall con- 
 tinue to be employed, to execute the laws against the African slave- 
 trade 
 
 " We have not been able to discover that any slaves have been imported 
 into the United States, except the cargo by the Wanderer, numbering be- 
 tween three and four hundred. Those engaged in this unlawful enterprise 
 have been rigorously prosecuted, but not with as much success as their 
 crimes deserved." 
 
 Can there be any reason wdiy they were not prosecuted with 
 success, except that Southern courts and juries would not sus- 
 tain the laws against the slave-trade ? 
 
 The President proceeds to argue, that the laws against the 
 slave-trade are constitutional ; that the effect of reopening the 
 trade would be most deplorable to the interest of the master 
 and the native-born slave ; and that " the numerous victims re- 
 quired to supply the trade would convert the whole slave-coast 
 into a perfect pandemonium." 
 
 This argument, this appeal, could have no object other than 
 to awaken all opposed to the slave-trade to a sense of their 
 danger.* 
 
 the REBEL LEADERS WANTED THE OFFICES OF A NATIONAL 
 GOVERNMENT. 
 
 This is no more than they have always sought, and generally 
 obtained. They professed to be Democrats, and might have 
 
 *One of the avowed objects of the "Golcion Circle," exposed by the Louisville 
 Journal, was to reojien the slave-trade, aotinp:, for that and other purposes, in 
 concert with the governors of the Southern States. 
 
10 BEBEL LEADERS OPPOSED TO FREE GOVERNMENT, 
 
 elected an able Democrat, in 1860, to the office of President. 
 He was not, however, a slaveholder, and could not be depended 
 upon on the question of the slave-trade. Electing him would 
 take away the leading pretense for revolution. Whoever might 
 be elected, it was essential to the rebel plan, that the Northern 
 Democrat should be defeated. If the Secession candidate was 
 elected, Secessionists would have the national offices. One 
 opposed to slavery-extension was elected, and they put them- 
 selves at the head of a rebel Government. Every political pro- 
 gramme of theirs provided for their holding national offices. 
 
 ARE THE REBEL LEADERS OPPOSED TO FREE GOVERNMENT? 
 
 They have inaugurated a despotism — endeavored to enter into 
 alliances with France and England, and expressed the happiness 
 it would give them to have one of the royal family of England at 
 the head of their Government. They have manifested their con- 
 tempt for free institutions, and spurned universal suffrage as an 
 absurdity. The South Carolinians wanted the slave-trade re- 
 opened ; for, otherAvise, their slaves would be taken west by 
 higher prices — white laborers would take the places of their 
 slaves, and this, as they said — and shuddere-d at the direful 
 prospect as they said it — would '■'•tend to degrade the seaboard 
 iStafes to the condition of a democracy.'" 
 
 An oligarchy or monarchy has now become a necessity with 
 the rebel leaders. The evils they have brought upon their country 
 would exclude them from office, and render them personally un- 
 safe, if the South should become a government of the people. 
 
 THE REBEL LEADERS DESIRED MORE SLAVE TERRITORY. 
 
 The policy of the Confederacy is clearly foreshadowed by the 
 favor which its leaders have shown to the unauthorized invasions 
 of Central America and Cuba; and by the pertinacity with which 
 they have recently insisted upon having slavery protected in all 
 territories which might be acquired by the United States. 
 Southern papers have, however, expressed the sentiments of 
 Southern leading politicians. The Houston (Texas) Patriot of 
 April 5, 1861, said: "The game North is beneath contempt, 
 while Mexico invites us, by invasion of Texas, to re-enact our 
 
REBEL LEADERS COULD NOT DELAY ACTION. 11 
 
 former achievements." An address of the Convention of the 
 Knights of the Golden Circle, held at Raleigh, N. C, on the 7th 
 of May, 1860, shows that the Order and Secession are the same, 
 and that objects of the rebel leaders were, the conquest of 
 Mexico, reducing it to slavery, and confiscating the property of 
 the Church to the amount of three hundred millions. With the 
 slave-trade opened, and in possession of Central America, Mexico, 
 and Cuba, who Avould set bounds to Confederate ambition ? 
 
 The master spirits of the South had the alternative to rebel or 
 abandon their cherished objects. They Avere groAving compara- 
 tively Aveaker every year. Mr. Buchanan, representing the class 
 most favorable to them in the North, had exerted his Avhole power 
 and influence against reopening the slave-trade. This was the 
 matter in which they needed assistance most. The right to take 
 their slaves into the territories was a naked, barren right, unless 
 coupled with the right to bring slaves from Africa. But, on the 
 question of the reopening of the slave-trade, the free States 
 seemed to be united against them. 
 
 Nothing but revolution and an independent government, con- 
 trolled by slaveholders, could enable them to reopen the slave- 
 trade, and transfer Africa to America ; nothing less could insure 
 them all the offices of a national government; nothing less could 
 insure them an oligarchy or monarchy as their government ; and 
 nothing less could enable them to seize all the cotton and sugar 
 lands on the North American continent preparatory to still more 
 extended dominion. 
 
 The aversion of these leaders to free government, and their 
 propensity to grasp, Avithout right, negroes, offices, and territory, 
 explains all the phenomena of the Rebellion, and indicates its 
 future career and destiny, in case the Confederacy should establish 
 its independence. 
 
 THE PRETENSES FOR THE REBELLION. 
 
 ABOLITION AGITATION WAS COMPLAINED OF AS UNCONSTITUTIONAL. 
 
 The Vice-President of the Confederacy stated, as Ave have 
 seen, what all know, that the framers of the Federal Constitu- 
 tion were opposed to slavery, and expected it to be evanescent, 
 
12 IS ABOLITION AGITATION UNCONSTITUTIONAL? 
 
 and pass away. The principles of the founders of our govern- 
 ment have not been departed from by Abolition agitation ; but 
 the complaint is, that they and the statesmen of their day were 
 themselves Abolitionists. 
 
 The period of our war for Independence abounded in argu- 
 ment and declamation against tyranny, and in favor of universal 
 liberty and equality. The language in favor of freedom, directed 
 against British oppression, was broad enough, literally under- 
 stood, to claim freedom for African slaves. Excluding slavery 
 from the territory north-west of the Ohio river, and north of 
 36° 30' north latitude, is conclusive that our early statesmen 
 intended that African slavery would cease whenever and where- 
 ever circumstances should permit. 
 
 Tlie framers of the Constitution knew that abolition agitation 
 would exist, and made no provision against it. 
 
 These statesmen understood the operations of the human 
 mind too well not to foresee that the feeling against every spe- 
 cies of oppression would be brought to bear upon candidates for 
 office who were in favor of slavery. If they could have antici- 
 pated that, for thirty-two out of thirty-six years, the office of 
 President would be held by gentlemen from one slaveholding 
 State, they would have anticipated also, that the genius of uni- 
 versal emancipation would have been invoked against what 
 would be claimed, justly or unjustly, to be a slaveholding, Pre- 
 sident-making dynasty. If they had deemed such appeals im- 
 proper, we may suppose they would have endeavored to suppress 
 them by some constitutional provision. 
 
 The acquisition of Louisiana, essential to our prosperity and 
 greatness as a nation, tended to increase slavery agitation. 
 
 The third article of the treaty of cession provided that the 
 people of Louisiana were to be incorporated into the Union, and 
 admitted to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and im- 
 munities of citizens of the United States ; and until admitted, 
 were to be protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, 
 property, and the religion they professed. 
 
 Slaves were deemed property in Louisiana, and also in the 
 United States, and slave-property would seem to be protected by 
 the treaty. 
 
MISSOURI COMPROMISE, A SOUTHERN MEASURE. 13 
 
 THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 
 
 The old Federal party, as a political, partisan measure, op- 
 posed the admission of Missouri, as a State, with a constitution 
 making slavery perpetual. She was admitted with her slave- 
 constitution, and Congress passed an act prohibiting slavery in 
 the remaining territories of the United States north of 36° 30" 
 north latitude, where, it may be observed, most of the territory 
 was situated. 
 
 This was the Missouri Compromise, and " was the work of the 
 South, sustained by the united voice of Mr. Monroe's cabinet, the 
 united voice of the Southern senators, and a majority of the 
 Southern representatives." (1 Benton's Thirty Years in the 
 Senate, p. 8.) 
 
 The act of Congress, excluding slavery north of 36° 30" north 
 latitude, merely anticipated the wishes of the people who were 
 to inhabit that region, and saved the too sanguine slaveholder 
 from the loss incident to his going where he would be unable 
 to remain, and removing again with his slaves to slave-territory. 
 
 The Constitution, applicable to the territories, reads thus : 
 *' The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all 
 needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other 
 property belonging to the United States." 
 
 North of 36° 30" land sells, and always has sold, far better 
 without slavery than with; and the reverse may be the fact 
 further south. If rapid sales were desired north of 36° 30", a 
 needful rule or regulation would seem to be to exclude slavery. 
 
 The power to make treaties includes the power to acquire and 
 cede territory. The disposition of territory has always been a 
 subject for treaty stipulations. The United States, as a sover- 
 eign power, acquired Louisiana, and, as such, might govern it, 
 limited, however, by the treaty of cession, and practically sub- 
 ject to the wishes of the people of the territory. 
 
 A period of repose followed the Missouri Compromise. Why 
 should it have been disturbed? 
 
 THERE WAS NO CONFLICT BETWEEN THE SUBSTANTIAL INTERESTS 
 OF THE NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 The cotton planter was not injured by the factories of New 
 England. Their most obvious efiect was to give the planter a 
 
14 LIBERTY BEFORE UNION, SECESSION DOCTRINE. 
 
 better market for his cotton. That the plantation and factories 
 were under the same government, simply relieved the raw and 
 manufactured material from the burden of a tariif. No one 
 was injured by the free exchange of sugar for pork, beef, and 
 flour. The owners of these commodities could not have been 
 injured by not being compelled to pay an import or export duty 
 at a custom-house on the Mississippi River. Our vast extent of 
 territory is a vast extension of free-trade — a result not in itself 
 objectionable to a Democrat of former times 
 
 A SLAVE CONTROVERSY WAS NOT NECESSARILY DISASTROUS. 
 
 If a slaveholder ridiculed a Yankee, the Yankee was not neces- 
 sarily injured by it. If slavery was denounced in the free States, 
 that did not necessarily have any appreciable effect in the slave 
 States. However loud, long, and bitter the denunciations of one 
 section against the other might be, no great inconvenience was 
 imposed upon either, beyond what it might suffer from its own 
 exertions and noise. 
 
 Slavery had been excluded from territory enough to form a 
 great republic of free laborers. 
 
 The Constitution had been so drafted that no change of a 
 sentence or word would be necessary if all the States should 
 become free. So much as related to fugitives from labor would 
 still apply to persons bound to service for a term of years. 
 The provision adding three-fifths of the slaves to the other popu- 
 lation as a basis of representation in Congress, would, if there 
 were no slavery, be merely a dead letter. 
 
 All this was the work of Southern statesmen — a work in 
 which they heartily concurred. Why were not Southern states- 
 men of our own day satisfied? 
 
 ORIGIN OF PRESENT PARTIES. 
 
 The two parties now existing were announced in two toasts, 
 given April 13, 1830, the anniversary of the birthday of 
 Thomas Jefferson — one by the President, Andrew Jackson: 
 "Our Federal Union — It must be preserved;" the other by 
 John C. Calhoun: "The Union — Next to our liberty the most 
 dear; may we all remember that it can only be preserved by 
 respecting the rights of the States, and distributing equally 
 
FALSE PRETENSE OF NULLIFIERS. 15 
 
 tlie benefit and burden of the Union." (1 Benton's Thirty 
 Years in the Senate, p. 148.) The appeal for liberty before 
 Union is but a repetition of the language of Mr. Calhoun. 
 The liberty which he placed before the Union was the liberty 
 to secede from the Union and set up an independent Govern- 
 ment. His grievances, as a single fact will show, were mere 
 pretenses. His alleged grievance was the imposition of high 
 duties on imported goods for the purpose of protecting our 
 own manufactures. The election of 1832 was against this 
 high protective system; and it was morally certain that the 
 duties on imported goods would be modified by the Congress 
 elect, so as to remove the objections complained of by Mr. 
 Calhoun. After the result of the election was known, the 
 Ordinance of Nullification was passed by the South Carolina 
 Convention. (1 Benton's Thirty Years in the Senate, p. 297.) 
 The nullifiers afterward voted for Mr. Clay's Compromise Bill, 
 as a substitute for Verplank's Bill, so called because by a mem- 
 ber of that name reported, which latter bill embodied the views 
 of the then Democratic party, and was more favorable to Mr. 
 Calhoun and his party than the compromise they accepted. 
 (1 Benton's Thirty Years in the Senate, pp. 309, 316, 321, 
 322, 324, 330.) 
 
 It is plain enough that the Calhoun party desired disunion, 
 and desired it for other reasons than those they assigned. 
 
 Nullification was a failure. Calhoun saw his error in at- 
 tempting to make the tariif a pretense for disunion. The 
 South would not unite on it against the Union ; for Louisiana 
 was in favor of protection. The effort to destroy the Govern- 
 ment was not abandoned, but was continued, with slavery as 
 the pretense. 
 
 POLITICIANS OF THE CALHOUN SCHOOL KEPT UP THE ABOLITION 
 AGITATION TWENTY-FIVE YEARS, FOR THE PURPOSE OF USING IT 
 AS A PRETEXT FOR REVOLUTION. 
 
 Previous to 1836, it had been the custom to send petitions 
 to Congress from the free States, praying for the abolition of 
 slavery in the District of Columbia. It Avas easy to refer these 
 petitions to the Committee on the District, who could receive a 
 
16 WHO KEPT UP ABOLITION AGITATION, 
 
 large number, and then report that no legislation was necessary 
 on the subject. 
 
 But Mr. Calhoun, when such petitions were presented in the 
 Senate, January 7, 1836, demanded that they should be read. 
 He then moved that they should be rejected, on the ground 
 that Congress had no power to legislate in the District on the 
 subject of slavery, thereby denying, as was claimed, the right 
 of petition. (1 Benton's Thirty Years in the Senate, p. 611.) 
 Members were surprised by the denial of the power of Con- 
 gress to legislate for the District, and felt themselves called 
 upon to defend this power and the right of petition, when they 
 might have been silent upon the subject of slavery. Their 
 constituents would not require them to advocate the abolition 
 of slavery in the District of Columbia, but would require them, 
 as they thought, to defend the right of petition. Thus, Mr. 
 Calhoun and his friends, by adroitly changing the question 
 fi'om the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia to 
 the right of petition, and to the power of Congress to legislate 
 for the District, prolonged and embittered the slavery agitation. 
 
 Mr. King, of Georgia, said that the Abolitionists knew that 
 the people were against them, and that the issue must be 
 changed, or the prospects of abolition were at an end. Re- 
 marking on the motion of Mr. Calhoun, Mr. King said : 
 
 "If Southern Senators were actually in the way of the Abolition direc- 
 tory on Nassau street, they could not more effectually co-operate in the 
 views and administer to the wishes of these enemies to the peace and quiet 
 of the country." (1 Benton's Thirty Years in the Senate, pp. 613, 61-1.) 
 
 Mr. Hill, Senator from New Hampshire, said : 
 
 "Of all the vehicles, tracts, pamphlets, and newspapers printed and circu- 
 lated by the Abolitionists, there is no ten or twenty of them that have 
 contributed so much to the excitement as a single newspaper printed in 
 this (Washington) city. He said: I have before me a copy of this paper 
 (the United States Telegraph), filled to the brim with the exciting sub- 
 ject." (1 Benton's Thirty Years in the Senate, p. 615.) 
 
 Mr. Benton said (1 Benton's View, p. 616) : 
 
 " The newspaper named by Mr. Hill was entirely in the interest of Mr. 
 Calhoun, and the course which it followed, and upon system, and inces- 
 santly, to get up a slavery quarrel between the North and the South, was 
 undeniable — every daily number of the paper containing the proof of its 
 incendiary work." 
 
INCONSISTENCY OF SECESSIONISTS. 17 
 
 From the year 1835 Mr. Benton looked to the South as the 
 point of danger from the slavery agitation, as Mr. Madison did 
 tAvo years earlier. The question was then carried by Southern 
 members "into Congress, with avowed alternatives of dissolv- 
 ing the Union, and conducted in a way to show that dissolution 
 was an object to be attained, not prevented." 
 
 TEXAS COMPROMISE. 
 
 Texas was admitted in 1845 as a State, with a provision 
 that new States, not exceeding four, in addition to the State 
 of Texas, might be formed out of the territory ; that the 
 States to be formed south of 36° 30' north latitude should be 
 admitted " into the Union with or without slavery, as each 
 State asking admission may desire; and in such State or 
 States as shall be formed out of said territory north of said 
 Missouri Compromise line, slavery or involuntary servitude 
 (except for crime) shall be prohibited." (2 Benton's Thirty 
 Years View, pp. 632-636.) The bill was immediately approved 
 by Mr. Tyler, then President ; and 3Ir. CalJioim claimed the 
 measure as a triumph of his own. (Ibid., p. 636.) 
 
 The Wilmot Proviso was, that no part of the territory to be 
 acquired from Mexico should be open for slavery. IMr. Cal- 
 houn and friends treated this as a great outrage upon the slave 
 States ; but Mr. Calhoun secretly expressed doubts as to the 
 propriety of defeating it, as he wished to use it for the purpose 
 of agitation and disunion. (2 Benton's Thirty Years' View, 690 ; 
 lb. 698, 699, 700.) 
 
 Oregon. Mr. Polk approved the application of the ordinance 
 of 1787, and the Missouri and Texas Compromises to the Terri- 
 tory of Oregon. (2 Benton's Thirty Years' View, p. 711.) But 
 Mr. Calhoun now claimed that the Constitution, by its own force, 
 carried slavery into all the territories of the United States. 
 {lb. 713, 714, 715, and lb. 729 to 736.) 
 
 The admission of California "with a free Constitution was 
 WITHIN the principle of the Texas and Missouri Compromises; 
 but Mr. Calhoun and his friends claimed it to be good cause for 
 dissolving the Union. (2 Benton's Thirty Years' View, 769, 
 770.) 
 
 2 
 
18 WHAT THE REBELS WANTED. 
 
 Fugitive Slaves. State legislation, or the want of it, in re- 
 lation to fugitive slaves, Avas the subject of long and bitter com- 
 plaint ; when the power of legislation relative to fugitives from 
 labor is exclusive in the national legislature. (Prigg vs. Com- 
 monweaHh of Penn., 16 Pet. Rejy. 539.) And the States which 
 have seceded have suffered no appreciable loss by the escape of 
 slaves. 
 
 Popular Sovereignty. Leaving the question of slavery in 
 the territories to the people of the territories, was a Southern 
 measure; it was the Cincinnati platform, on which Mr. Buchanan 
 was nominated and elected, although not approved by all the 
 individual members of the then Democratic party. 
 
 At Charleston the same principle was denounced, by men 
 now rebel leaders, as one to which the South could never 
 submit. 
 
 The time had arrived when the long-contemplated revolution 
 was to be inaugurated. The rebel leaders divided the Demo- 
 cratic party, defeated Mr. Douglas and their own candidate, 
 thereby electing Mr. Lincoln, and then denounced him as an 
 abolitionist, and his election as good cause for disunion. They 
 clamored about the insecurity of their slave-property under 
 abolition rule, and rejected guarantees promptly offered for its 
 safety. 
 
 They must have considered amendments to the Constitution, 
 guaranteeing their rights in the Union, as void of meaning — 
 as insipid and disgusting. They were not seeking rights in the 
 L^nion. They wanted independence and hereditary offices — ■ 
 slaves from Africa — the rich lands and commanding position of 
 Central America — the treasures of the Church and of the mines 
 of Mexico — and, whatever else they could get, except rights in 
 our Federal Union. 
 
 pretended eight op secession. 
 
 Jeff Davis, on retiring from the Senate, January 21, 1861, 
 said: "Secession is to be justified upon the basis that the States 
 are sovereign." He might have added that the States had re- 
 tained their sovereignty as to national matters, because they 
 had delegated it to the United States, as a man always keeps 
 
PRETENDED RIGHT OP SECESSION. 19 
 
 his farm when he sells it. Mr. Calhoun held, that States might 
 nullify or secede because the people of the States, as sovereign 
 communities, acceded to the Constitution. If the communities 
 were sovereign, that is conclusive that they had power to assume 
 obligations binding on themselves. He spoke, and rebel leaders 
 speak, of the Constitution as a compact, league, or treaty ; but 
 *' treaties of every kind, when made by the competent authority, 
 are as obligatory upon nations as private contracts are upon in- 
 dividuals. Their meaning is to be ascertained by the same rules 
 of construction and course of reasoning which we apply to the 
 interpretation of private contracts." (1 Kent's Com. 174, and 
 authorities there cited.) 
 
 Sovereign States can relieve themselves from their obligations 
 only by performance, by the consent of the other contracting 
 party, or by successful war. 
 
 We elect the President, the members of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, and, indirectly, the Senators of the United States. 
 Why should the united action of these be controlled by a minority 
 of Senators and Representatives, acting through State legisla- 
 tures ? Each State may have its candidates for the Presidency, 
 interested in magnifying their own political virtues, and changing 
 the virtues of others into vices. In about what time would 
 thirty-four independent bodies, with every disposition to differ, 
 concur in opinion ? The delay might be too long for emer- 
 gencies requiring prompt action. If the people could be per- 
 suaded that a State, controlled, perhaps, by a few traitors, has 
 the constitutional right to secede at pleasure from the United 
 States, and that the latter has no constitutional right to inter- 
 pose, by force, to prevent it, then anarchy and despotism might 
 follow ; and hence the rebel leaders have advocated nullification 
 and secession, with zeal, for more than thirty years. 
 
 VIRGINIA AND KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS OF 1798, 1799 — OPINIONS 
 OF MADISON, JEFFERSON, AND JACKSON. 
 
 Mr. Madison, the author of the Virginia Resolutions, in his 
 letter to Joseph Cabell, September 16, 1831, said : 
 
 " 1 know not wlience the idea could proceed, that 1 concurred in tlie doc- 
 trine, that, although a State could not nullify a law of the Union, it had a 
 right to secede from the Union. Both spring fora the same poisonous root." 
 
20 VIRGINIA AND KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 Writing to Mr. Townscnd, of S. C, December 18, 1831, Mr. 
 Madison said: 
 
 '' You ask whether Mr. Jefferson was really the author of the Kentucky 
 Eesolutions of 1799, [in which the word nullify is used, though not in the 
 sense of South Carolina nullification.] The inference, that he was not, is 
 as conclusive as it is obvious from his letter to Col. Wilson Cary Nicholas, 
 of September 5, 1794, in which he expressly declines, for reasons stated, pre- 
 paring any thing for the legislature of that year." 
 
 In his letter to Mr. Trist, of December, 1831, Mr. Madison 
 repudiates the construction in favor of nullification put upon 
 the letter of Mr. Jefferson to Mr. Cartwright. He says : " No 
 man's creed was more opposed to such an inversion of the re- 
 publican order of things." 
 
 Mr. Madison, in his letter to Mr. Trist, December 23, 1832, 
 said : 
 
 "You have noticed what he (Jefferson) says in his letters to Monroe 
 and Carrington, pages 43 and 302, Vol. II, with respect to the powers of the 
 old Congress to coerce delinquent States, and his reasons for his preferring 
 for the purpose a naval to a military force; and, moreover thai it was not 
 necessary to find a right to coerce in the Federal Articles, that being inherent 
 in the nature of a co)iqjact." 
 
 For a full statement of the views of Messrs. Madison, Jeffer- 
 son, Monroe, and others, against nullification and secession, see 
 1 Benton's Thirty Years' View, from page 347 to 362, and the 
 documents there referred to. 
 
 Jackson, in his proclamation against the nullifiers, said : 
 " Each State having expressly parted with so many powers as 
 to constitute, jointly with the other States, a single nation, can 
 not, from that period, possess any right to secede." (1 Ben- 
 ton's Thirty Years' View, 301.) 
 
 Such are the views of men whom the American people revere. 
 The material questions, in the minds of some, may be — Was the 
 Constitution so formed or ratified as to be obligatory, and, if so, 
 •what are its contents ? 
 
 THE FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 The Continental Congress recommended a convention of dele- 
 gates from the several States to revise, amend, and alter the 
 articles of confederation. All the States, except Rhode Island, 
 
THE UNION SHOULD BE PERPETUAL. 21 
 
 appointed delegates, who assembled at Philadelpliia, in May, 
 1787. After several months deliberation, the Convention agreed 
 upon the present Constitution of the United States, and directed 
 it to be submitted to a convention of delegates to be chosen by 
 the people at large in each State, for their assent and ratifi- 
 cation. After about a year's discussion, eleven of these State 
 conventions, chosen by the people, ratified the Constitution, and 
 the Government was organized March 4, 1789. North Carolina 
 ratified the Convention afterward, and in June, 1790, the Con- 
 stitution had received the unanimous ratification of the respec- 
 tive conventions of the people in every State. (1 Kent's Com. 
 218, 219. 5 Wheaton's Rep. 420.) 
 
 The Constitution, so formed, was recognized and ratified by 
 every State, from 1789 to 1860, by the appointment of Senators 
 of the United States ; by the people of each State, by the elec- 
 tion of Representatives in Congress; and by the people of the 
 whole United States, every four years, by the election of Pre- 
 sident. Here was a recognition, for seventy-one years, of the 
 Constitution of the United States, as the supreme law of the 
 land, by every State, by the people of every State, and by the 
 people of the United States. 
 
 What was the object of a Constitution so deliberately formed? 
 We shall learn this best from its preamble. 
 
 PREAMBLE OF THE CONSTITUTION OP THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect 
 Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the com- 
 mon defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of 
 liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Consti- 
 tution for the United States of America." 
 
 Extract from Article XIII of the Confederation : 
 
 " Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in 
 Congress assembled, on all questions which, by this Confederation, are 
 submitted to them. And the Articles of Confederation shall be inviolably 
 observed by every State, and the Union shall be jjerpetual." 
 
 The Constitution of the United States was ordained and 
 established in order, among other things, "to form a more per- 
 fect Union," and " insure domestic tranquillity." 
 
'22 THE CONSTITUTION CONTEMPLATES COERCION. 
 
 The old Union, under the Confederacy, was perpetual. The 
 new, intended to be more perfect, should end only with time. 
 In the Confederacy, the States were to abide the determination 
 of Congress ; under a more perfect Union, they should neither 
 secede nor rebel. 
 
 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES — ARTICLE I. 
 Extract from — 
 
 ^'■Section 8. The Congress shall have power to levy and collect taxes, 
 duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common 
 defense and general welfare of the United States ; but all duties, imposts, 
 and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States ; 
 
 "To borrow money on the credit of the United States; 
 
 "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several 
 States, and with the Indian tribes; 
 
 " To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix 
 the standard of weights and measures ; 
 
 "To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court; 
 
 "To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, 
 and offenses against the law of nations; 
 
 "To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules 
 concerning captures on land and water; 
 
 "To raise and support armies; 
 
 "To provide and maintain a navy; 
 
 " To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval 
 forces ; 
 
 " To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union^ 
 suppress insurrections, and repel invasions; 
 
 " To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying 
 into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this 
 Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any depart^ 
 ment or officer thereof" 
 
 Congress may levy taxes and borrow money. What for ? 
 Most of it is to defray the expenses of the army, navy, and of 
 the militia. What are these to do? They are to excute the 
 laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions. 
 
 If an invading army may be " coerced," so may politicians, 
 ■who, in the name of a State, oppose the execution of the laws 
 of the United States. There is no constitutional exception 
 protecting insurgents who act in the name of a State. The 
 most dangerous would always claim to act by authority of an 
 independent government. 
 
NATIONAL POWERS DENIED TO THE STATES. 23 
 
 Article I. Limitations of the Powers of Individual States. 
 
 Extract from 
 
 "*S'ec. 10. No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; 
 grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; or emit bills of credit. 
 
 " Xo State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any imposts or 
 duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for 
 executing its inspection laws ; and the net produce of all duties and im- 
 posts, levied by any State on imports and exports, shall be for the use of 
 the Treasury of the United States ; and all such laws shall be subject to 
 the revision and control of Congress. 
 
 " No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of 
 tunage, keep troops or ships of war -in time of peace, enter into any 
 agreement or compact with another State, or with a foreign power, or 
 engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will 
 not admit of delay." 
 
 Here we find every power essential to an independent sov- 
 ereign State, denied to the several individual States of our 
 Union. The Constitution here prohibits, so far as it is possible 
 to do it, the right of revolution. No State can keep a ship of 
 war, or a squad of soldiers, or enter into any agreement or com- 
 pact with another State, or with a foreign power, without the 
 consent of Congress. 
 
 The rebel leaders induced the States they controlled to 
 violate the Constitution by keeping troops and ships of war 
 in time of peace, without the consent of Congress ; by forming 
 compacts with other States ; by entering into a confederation ; 
 by attempting to enter into alliances with foreign powers, and 
 by levying war against the United States. 
 
 Article 11. Of the Executive. 
 Extracts from 
 
 ^' Sec. 1. The Executive power shall be vested in a President of the 
 United States. 
 
 " Before he enters on the execution of his office, he shall take the follow- 
 ing oath or affirmation : 
 
 "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office 
 of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, pre- 
 serve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." 
 
 Extract from 
 
 "Sec. 2. The President shall be Commander-in-chief of the army and 
 navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States, when 
 called into the actual service of the United States. 
 
24 AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 " He shall have power, by and with the consent of the Senate, to make 
 treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur." 
 
 Extract from 
 
 " iSec. 3. lie shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." 
 
 The President may call the militia of any State into the 
 service of the United States, and take command of them. 
 This would leave the State powerless as against the United 
 States. The militia and State authorities could disobey the 
 President, in such case, only by disobeying the Constitution. 
 
 Article III. 0/ the Judiciary. 
 
 '^ Sec. 1. The Judicial power of the United States shall be vested in 
 one Supreme Court, and in such other inferior courts as the Congress may, 
 from time to time, ordain and establish 
 
 "Sec. 2. The Judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, 
 arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties 
 made or which shall be made under their authority; to controversies to 
 which the United States shall be a party; to controversies between two or 
 more States; between a State and citizens of another State; between citi- 
 zens of different States, and between a State and the citizens thereof." . . . 
 
 The Federal Judiciary enables the United States to act 
 directly on persons, without reference to States, and to avoid 
 conflict with State authority. 
 
 Requiring States to submit their controversies with each 
 other to the Federal Judiciary, is decidedly against the sov- 
 ereign character claimed for them by Secessionists. 
 
 Article IV. Eccri/ State to have a Republican Form of Govermnent. 
 
 ^^ Sec. 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union 
 a republican form of Government, and shall protect each of them against 
 invasion; and on application of the Legislature, or of the Executive, 
 (when the Legislature can not be convened,) against domestic violence." 
 
 Under this section, an application by State authority to the 
 President for protection is contemplated. No such application 
 is provided for in the case of an insurrection. 
 
 Article V. Amendments to the Constitution. 
 
 " The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it neces- 
 sary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on application of 
 twu-tliirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amend* 
 
UNITED STATES SUPREME IN NATIONAL MATTERS. 25 
 
 ments, which, in either case, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, 
 as a part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three- 
 fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as 
 one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; 
 . . . . provided no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its 
 equal suftrage in the Senate." 
 
 Providing one mode of changing the Constitution, is exclud- 
 ing every other. 
 
 Each State has put it in the power of three-fourths of thv^ 
 States to change, without its consent, the fundamental laAVS of 
 the land. This is strange sovereignty — the power and obliga- 
 tion to do as others may direct, without knowing what that 
 direction may be. 
 
 Article VI. Of the Supreme Law of the Land. 
 
 " This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be 
 made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, 
 under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the 
 land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing 
 in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." 
 
 This Constitution being supreme, no State sovereignty can 
 exist in conflict with it. Section 10 of Article I, as also Article 
 III, Article V, and Article VI, of the Constitution, are totally 
 inconsistent with any sovereignty in the States, except over 
 local matters. 
 
 No State can control the exercise of any authority under 
 the Federal Government. (1 Kent's Com., p. 409, and author- 
 ities there cited.) A supreme power must control every other 
 power which is repugnant to it, (1 Kent's Com., pp. 425, 426,) 
 and so the Supreme Court of the United States has always 
 decided. (4 Wh. R., p. 316; 6 Wh. K, p. 598;; 2 Wh. R., p. 
 1 ; 7 Cranch R., p. 279; 5 Cranch R., p. 138.) 
 
 The cases admit that a State within its proper sphere is 
 sovereign; but the United States' authorities, in fixing the 
 limits of the powers of the United States, will not be con- 
 trolled by State authority. The choice in forming the Govern- 
 ment of the United States was either to have no Government 
 or to make it the judge of the extent of its own powers. If 
 the States might judge, then the measure of its powers would 
 be their discretion and not the Constitution. 
 
26 
 
 SECESSION, THE CLIMAX OF ABSURDITY AND TREASON. 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION GIVES THE UNITED STATES POWER TO COERCE, 
 AND DENIES ALL POWER OF RESISTANCE TO THE STATES. 
 
 The framers of the Constitution did not intend that a State, 
 or the people of a State, should resist, with force, incroach- 
 ments by the General Government on State authority ; for the 
 Constitution arms the United States, and makes the States 
 defenseless. If forcible resistance by the States had been 
 contemplated, the means to resist would not have been denied. 
 
 Gen. Jackson, in one part of his proclamation against Nulli- 
 fication and Secession, discoursed as follows : 
 
 " Now, is it possible, that even if there were no express provision giving 
 supremacy to the Constitution and Laws of the United States over those of 
 the States — can it be conceived that an instrument made for the purpose 
 of 'forming a more perfect Union' than that of the Confederation, could 
 be so construed by the assembled, wisdom of our country as to substitute 
 for that Confederation a form of government dependent for its existence on 
 the local interest, the party spirit of a State, or of a prevailing faction in a 
 State? Every man of plain, unsophisticated understanding, who hears the 
 question, will give such an answer as will preserve the Union. Metaphy- 
 sical subtlety, in pursuit of an impracticable theory, could alone have de- 
 vised one that is calculated to destroy it." 
 
 When the rebel leaders levied war against the United States, 
 neither the President nor people could be said to have any 
 choice of action. The Constitution required the President to 
 suppress the insurrection. Peaceable secession could not be 
 expected to lead to peace. Fifteen hundred miles or more of 
 boundary line over which goods could be smuggled, the nav- 
 igation of the Mississippi, the escape of slaves, the reopening 
 of the slave-trade, the intrigues to induce the free to become 
 slave States, the repudiation of the principles of free govern- 
 ment in the South, the conflict between free and slave labor, 
 and the alliances of the South with monarchical governments, 
 would present so many causes of irritation that Mar Avould be 
 the natural condition of the Federal and Confederate Govern- 
 ments. 
 
 The Confederates could never have worse pretenses for a 
 quarrel than the present, — abolition agitation, which they kept 
 up to further their own designs ; the loss of fugitive slaves, 
 when it is substantially true to say they never lost any ; the 
 
CAN SLAVES UNDERWORK FREE LABORERS? 27 
 
 right to take their slaves into the territories of the United 
 States, Avhen they had no slaves, not needed at home, to take 
 there; the election of Mr. Lincoln, which they procured as a 
 base for their immediate operations; and secession, a monster 
 with thirty-four heads, some one of which, under rebel training, 
 would eat up all the others, and afterward, as Ave shall see, 
 devour itself. 
 
 THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE CONFEDERACY WOULD TEND TO DE- 
 GRADE AND DESTROY FREE LABORERS. 
 
 The number of slaves which could be obtained from Africa 
 is unlimited, and the desire to obtain them would be boundless 
 also. He having 500 would want 5,000 ; a man having none 
 would Avant at least ten, and, if he should obtain these, Avould 
 naturally want ten times as many, and would then, probably, be 
 unable to understand Avhy he should not have as many as the 
 most wealthy. 
 
 Slaves, if there were enough of them, could raise corn and 
 potatoes as well as sugar and cotton ; they could work as 
 mechanics in shops as well as laborers in the field ; and a man 
 can exist Avith less food and clothing in the South than in the 
 North. The proceeds of the labor of the slave, except so 
 much as might be necessary for his mere existenoe, would be 
 for sale, and in direct competition Avith free labor. 
 
 The contest between free and slave labor, to folloAv the 
 reopening of the slave-trade, has been considered in the South. 
 
 L. W. Spratt, before quoted, (1 Put. Reb. Rec, p. 363,) 
 says : 
 
 " It is assumed that the negro is unfit for mechanical employments, when 
 he exhibits an imitative power of manipulation unsurpassed by any other 
 creature in the world; and when, as a matter of fact, we see him daily in 
 the successful prosecution of the trades, and are forced to know that he is 
 not more generally employed for reason of the higher prices offered for 
 him by our fields of cotton. It is claimed that he can not endure the cold 
 of Northern States, when he dies not more readily in Canada than in 
 Domingo, and wlien the finest specimens of negro character and negro 
 form to be met with in the world are on the Northern borders of Maryland 
 and Missouri. 
 
 It is assumed that whenever he comes in contact with free society he 
 
28 SHALL SLAVES OR FREE LABORERS STARVE ? 
 
 must quail before it, when it is evident that the question which shall pre- 
 vail is dependent on the question which can work the cheapest; and when 
 it is evident that, with slaves at starvation prices — slaves at the prices to 
 which they will be reduced by the question whether we shall give them 
 up or feed them — at prices to which they will be reduced when the question 
 comes lohcthcr thrj/ shall starve the hireling or the hireling the slave, the sys- 
 tem of domestic slavery, ginded always by its best irttelligence, directed always 
 by the strictest economy, with few invalids and few inefficients, can underwork 
 the world." 
 
 These are not merely the views of Mr. Spratt, He repre- 
 sents a class — a class that will control the South, if the Con- 
 federacy be sustained — men contemplating the question whether, 
 after the slave-trade shall have been reopened, their slaves 
 " shall starve the hireling," as they call the free laborers of 
 of the North, or " the hireling starve the slave ;" and they 
 decide that, when this question comes, their slaves will live, and 
 the free laborers die of starvation. 
 
 While the leading rebels say that the Confederacy is founded 
 on the great truth, that the negro is inferior to the white man, 
 they claim that the negro, as a laborer, under the direction of 
 his master, is superior to the free laborer, under his own direc- 
 tion, or any direction he may have. The tendency of slavery 
 is, and the tendency of reopening the slave-trade still more 
 ■would be, to degrade free labor — to assign free laborers a 
 position below the slaves. 
 
 It can not be denied, that, in the contest for existence, the 
 master would be able to give his slaves many advantages. 
 
 The slave may be compelled to devote his whole life to mak- 
 ing one instrument, or a part of it, or some minute part of a 
 machine. By always doing the same thing, the slave would 
 become expert and skillful. His master would see that his 
 labor was not interrupted. He would lose no time in provid- 
 ing himself with the necessaries of life — no time in searching 
 for a house for himself and family ; Ms landlord will not give 
 him notice to quit ; he would lose no time in study, none in 
 politics, and little in devotion. True, all this would make him 
 a machine, but a skillful and ever-acting machine, guided by 
 the high intelligence of his master, so that his exertions would 
 produce the greatest possible results. 
 
 The apprehended competition of a few free blacks, has made 
 
UNITE AGAINST TRAITORS, OR DIE. 29 
 
 some free laborers uneasy. It is for tliem to decide wh'at im- 
 portance should be attached to the plan for underworking thera 
 with imported slaves. 
 
 The blacks now here, if free, would naturally give much of 
 their time to the production of necessaries and luxuries for 
 themselves ; and would not compete, as slaves would, with Avhite 
 laborers. If the free blacks were too lazy to work, there 
 would, of course, be no competition. 
 
 Jeff Davis spoke of the blessings showered upon the Afri- 
 can by his transfer from his heathen land to ours of Christian 
 civilization. Ought not the slave to be consulted in this matter? 
 He may prefer heathen ease to Christian activity. But if not, 
 ■what right has he to this continent, to the exclusion of the 
 Caucasian race ? The European may also be benefited by com- 
 ing to this side of the Atlantic ; and if, conscious of his own 
 superiority, he and the native-laborers have no fears of the com- 
 petition of slave-labor, they may still well object to being ex- 
 cluded from the best portions of North American territor}^, by a 
 dense population of imported slaves, whom they must destroy, 
 or be stopped by them in their further advance South. 
 
 We, who exist by our labor, may, as a matter of prudence, 
 if we decline becoming feverish with patriotism, unite in the 
 defense of our government — unite in opposing an enemy seeking 
 to destroy us. If we have too much of the stoic to be disturbed 
 by prospective or impending danger, then we are in a proper 
 state of mind to consider the admonition of one of our own 
 order — one who could concentrate the arguments in favor of 
 Union, and portray the evils of sectional strife, in three short 
 words — 
 
 " Unite or die." 
 And so, it seems, still speaks — 
 
 Stoic Franklin's energetic shade, 
 
 Eobed in the lightnings which his hand allayed." 
 
30 INSURRECTION AND BARBARISM — END OF CONFEDERACY. 
 
 THE VAST IMPORTATIONS OF SLAVES, BY AN INDEPENDENT CON- 
 FEDERACY, MIGHT BE EXPECTED ULTIMATELY TO AFRICANIZE THE 
 COUNTRIES AROUND THE GULF OF MEXICO. 
 
 We have learned, from Mr. Stephens and others, that the foun- 
 dation of the rehel government is laid, its corner-stone rests, 
 upon the great truth that the negro is inferior to the white 
 man. Is the slave certain to remain inferior? If female slaves 
 have phj^sical powers superior to their mistresses, and the chil- 
 dren of these slaves should have, as they might, under the 
 operation of Avell-known laws of nature, the spirit and intellect 
 of their masters, it seems plain that the inferior might change 
 so as to become the superior race. In that event, the great 
 truth would become an antiquated fiction, and the foundation, 
 the corner-stone of the rebel government, would find no resting 
 place. 
 
 There are other agencies potent to undermine the rebel gov- 
 ernment. The future of the Confederacy, should it have a 
 future, can be told without any supernatural powers of prophesy. 
 Children of slaveholders are not generally expected to work. 
 They can live without it; and manual labor, in a slave State, 
 is considered disgraceful. Having the means to gratify their 
 wishes without exertion on their part, the rising generation of 
 slaveholders, or their immediate descendants, would naturally 
 become luxurious, effeminate, and corrupt. The slaves, in con- 
 sequence of continued exertion, would have strength and en- 
 durance. Large numbers of them have received important 
 lessons in war from their masters. The knowledge thus acquired 
 will be imparted by the slaves having it to others, and will be 
 repeated by parents to children, until the time shall arrive to 
 put it in practice. This time can not be forever, nor long de- 
 laj^ed. The continual addition of physical strength to one party, 
 by hard labor and additional numbers of slaves, and the con- 
 tinual weakening of the other party, by luxurious indulgence, 
 would suggest to the slave to break his chains. The debauchery 
 of the master would drown the nobler impulses of his nature. 
 Suffering, sometimes real, sometimes imaginary, and the hope 
 of freedom — freedom painted to suit his own fancy — would 
 
GLORY — HEALTH — VICE — CORRUPTION — BARBARISM. 31 
 
 render the slave desperate. The master would become a slave 
 in spirit — a slave to his own petty passions. The slave would 
 become a hero, placing no value upon life, except as it should 
 aid him in obtaining his object. A contest would inevitably 
 come; and the result could be calculated before it would begin. 
 
 The horrors of servile war would change the half-civilized 
 African back to a savage, as the half-tamed tiger resumes his 
 ■wild fierceness on tasting fresh blood. The white race would 
 rapidly disappear. Few, except barbarians or savages, would 
 remain in the countries around the gulf; and large hordes of 
 this base population might be expected to wander over other 
 parts of our continent. 
 
 If the rebel leaders should establish their independence, we 
 might expect them to have, or rather to be, an exacting and 
 insolent oligarchy, or monarchy, as a government, and to have 
 a social system, where the slaveholders would be first, the slaves 
 second, and white people, without slaves, the third and lowest 
 class. They would reopen the slave-trade; and would enter 
 upon a brilliant career of conquest, commencing with Central 
 America, Mexico, and Cuba. Then we should see vast impor- 
 tations of slaves, and wealth and refinement in the governing 
 and slaveholding class. And then we might expect to see ex- 
 treme suifering of white laborers, in consequence of being thrown 
 out of employment by the competition of slave-labor. We should 
 see the luxury, effeminacy, and corruption of the slaveholders — 
 some might be found worthy of their ancestors, but these would 
 be too few to save a sinking world. 
 
 A slave insurrection, ending in the extermination of the 
 mass of the white, and the barbarism of the black race, would 
 close the drama. " Superstition and bigotry would hang like a 
 cloud " over the fair regions around the Gulf of Mexico, as they 
 now do over the interior of Africa. 
 
 The loyal people of the United States must destroy the gov- 
 ernment of these rebel leaders by dispersing its armies, and 
 seizing its material of war, or they must submit to it, take a 
 social position below its slaves, and be involved in its final 
 ruin. 
 
v-«jnui^t;>;> 
 
 012 026 733 4 
 
 32 THE CONFEDERACY — ITS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC FRIENDS. 
 
 Our brilliant military achievements have not yet divested 
 the Confederate government of all interest. French armies 
 are still in Mexico ; Confederate ships are fitted out in French 
 and British ports, and influential men at home may insist upon 
 such terms of peace for the rebel leaders, as will enable them 
 to prepare for another struggle, more terrible than the one 
 which now seems about to close. 
 
 NATIONAL UNION ASSOCIATION OF OHIO. 
 
 Hon. EDWARD WOODRUFF, President. 
 
 JOSIAH KIRBY, Chairman of Executive Committee. 
 
 HENRY KESSLER, Treasurer. 
 
 JOHN D. CALDWELL, General Secretary. 
 
 HEADQUARTERS, No. 2 BACON'S BUILDINGS, 
 
 N. W. Corner of Sixth and Walnut Streets, 
 
 REGULAR MEETINGS, every Tuesday Evening, in Metropolitan 
 Hall, N. E. Corner of Ninth and Walnut Streets. 
 
 "OUR COUNTRY BEFORE PARTY." 
 "OUR FEDERAL UNION— IT MUST BE PRESERVED. 
 
L!5R,ARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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