$^ :'\>^^ ^ ^■■'• o ■ t , >\o'^ %-. "^^^ ^^"^ -iS^^'c \- .^ ¥• ^* ^^ ';?^o- ^-f' **^'-3^\/ "°^'^-'/ **^'i^\/ 'V' V-^' ^°x. '>- ^^-n^. Ov' ,^^'"-^ /.l4i;i^>o ..^\*j;;;ikvV cO^.^a^l^-o o^V. c o M m: E N T s ON' THE POLICY INAUGimATED Wxt$\Atni, LETTER AND TWO SPEECHES, By Montgomery Blair, POSTMASTEK-GENERAL. NEW YORK: HALL, CLAYTON & MEDOLE, PRINTERS, 46 Tine Steeet. 1863. COMMEISTTS ON THE POLICY INAUGURATED BY THB Wxt^i&tni, IN A LETTER AND T¥0 SPEECHES, By Montgomery Blair, POSTMASTER-GENEBAL. NEW YORK: HALL, CLAYTON & MEDOLE, PRINTERS, 46 Pine Stbeet. 1863. .3 LETTER TO TOK MEETING HELD AT THE COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK, MARCH 6, 1862. Washington, District of Columbia, March 2, 1863. Gentlemen — I have the honor to acknowledge your favor of yesterday, invitina: me to attend a meeting of the citizens of New York, at the Cooper Institute, on the 6th instant, and requesting- my views on the subject of the call. I shall not be able to attend the meeting, nor have I the'leisure to write out my views upon the subject with the care demanded by the nature of it, but I will oft'er some thoughts for your consideration. I do not concnr in the proposition that certain States have been "re- cently overturned and wholly subverted as members of the Federal Union,'' upon which the call is based. This is, in substance, what tlie ' confederates themselves claim; and the fact that secession is maintained by the authors of this call, for a different purpose, does not make it more constitutional, or prevent them from being actual aiders and abettors of the confederates. No one who knows my political career will suspect that my condemna- tion of this doctrine is influenced by any indisposition to put an end to slavery. I have left no opportunity uuimproved to strike at it, and have never been restrained from doing so by personal considerations. But I have never believed that the abolition of slavery, or any other great reform, could or ought to be effected, except by lawful and constitutional modes. The people have never sanctioned, and never will sanction any other; and the friends of a cause will especially avoid all questionable grounds when, as in the present instance, nothing else can long postpone their success. There are two distinct interests in slavery: the political and property interests, held by distinct classes. The rebellion originated with the political class. The property class, which generally belonged to the Whig organization, had lost no properly in the region where the rebellion broke out, and were prosperous. It was the Democratic organization, which did not represent the slaveholders as a crass, which hatched the rebellion. Their defeat in the late politiciil struggle, and in the present rebellion, extinguishes at once and forever the political interest of slavery. The election of Mr. Lincoln put an end to the hopes of Jeff. Davis, Wise, el id omne genus, for the Presidency of the Union, and hence the rebellion. It extin,<;nished slavery as a power to control the Federal Government, and it was the capacity of slavery to subserve this purpose alone which has given it vitality, for morally and economically it is indefensible. With the extinction of its political power, there is no motive to induce any politician to u])hold it. No man ever defended such an institution except for pay, anil nothing short of the power of the Government could provide sufficient gratilicalion to ambition to pay for such service ; and therefore Mr, Toombs said, v/ith perfect truth, that tlie institution could only be main- tained in the Union by the possession of the Government. That has been wrested from it, and the pay is on the side of justice and truth. Can any man who respects popular intelligence think it necessary, with such advantages on the side of justice and truth, to violate the great charter of our liberties to insure their triumph? Such an act, in my judg- meni, so far from advancing the cause in whose name it is performed, would surely be disastrous, and result in bringing our opponents into power in the name of the Constitution. It is not merely a question of constitutional law or slavery with which we have to deal in "securing permanent peace." The problem before us is the practical one of dealing with the relations of masses of two different races in the same community. T^he calamities now upon us h;ive been brought about, as I have already said, not by the grievances of the class claiming property in slaves, but by the jealousy of caste awakened by the r secessionists in the non-slaveholders. In considering the means of securing the peace of the country licroafter, it is, therefore, this jealousy of race which is chiefly to be considered. Emancipation alone would not remove it. It was by proclaiming to the laboring whites, who fill the armies of rebellion, that the election of Mr. Lincoln involved emancipation, equality of the negroes with tlium, and consequently amalgamation, that their jealousy was stimulated Ld the fighting point. tVor is this jealousy the fruit of mere ignorance and bad passion, as some suppose, or confined to the white people of the South. On the contrary, it belongs to all races, and, like all po[)ular instincts, proL-ceds from the highest wisdom. It is, in fact, the instinct of self-pres- . ervation which revolts at hybridism. V— Kor does this instinct militate against the natural law, that all men are created equal, if another law of nature, equally obvious, is obeyed. We have but to restore the subject race to the same, or to a region similar to that from which it was brought by violence, to make it operative ; and such a separation of races was the condition w;hich the immortal author of the Declaration himself declared to be iudis()eusab]e to give it practical effect. A theorist, not living in a community where diverse races are brought in contact in masses, may stifle the voice of nature in his own bosom, and from a determination to live up to a mistaken view of the doctrine, go so far as to extend social intercourse to individuals of the subject race. But few even of such persons would pursue their theories so far as amalgamation and other legitimate consequences of their logic. In- deed, for the most part, such persons in our country, like the leading spirits ia Exeter Hall, are so far removed, by their circumstances, from any prac- tical equality with working people of any race, that tlicy liave little sympathy fur tlieni, and nothing to apprehend for themselves from the theory of etiiiality. Kot so with the white working man in a community where there are many negroes. In such circnmstanees, the distinction of caste is the only protection of the race from hybridism and consequent extinction. Tliat tliis jealousy of caste is the instinct of the highest wisdom, and is fraught with the greatest good, is ahniidantly attested l)y its effects on our own race, in which it is stronger than in any other. We conquer and hold our con((uest by it. The difficult question with which we have to deal is, then, the question of race, and I do not think it is disposed of, or that our difficulties will i)e lessened by emancipation by Congress, even if such an act was constitu- tional. It would certainly add to the exasperation of the non-slaveholding whites of the South, and might unite them against the Government, and, if so, I hey would be unconquerable. As matters stand, we can put down the reiiellion, because the people of the natural strongholds of the southern couutry are with us. It is chiefly in the low lands accessible from the ocean and navigable rivers and bays that treason is rampant. The moun- tain fastnesses, where alone a guerrilla war can be sustained, are now held by Union men, and they are more numerous and more robust, intelligent, and independent than the rebels. It is chiefly the more degraded class of non-slaveholders, who live in the midst of slavery, who are now engaiicd against the Government. But the non-slaveholders of the mountain and high land regions, while for the Union, are not free from the jealousy of caste, and the policy I object to would, if adopted, I apprehend, array them against us. Nor would we succeed in our oliject if they were finally subdued and exterminated, if we left the negroes on the soil ; for other whites would take the couutry, and hold it against the negroes, and re- duce them again to slavery, or exterminate them. I am morally certain, indeed, that to free the slaves of the South, with- out removing them, would I'esult in the massacre of them. A general massacre was on the eve of taking place in the State of Tennessee in 1856, upon a rising of some of them on the Cumberland ; and I have been as- sured by Hon. Andrew Johnson, who was then Governor of the State, that nothing but his prompt calling out of the militia prevented it. But this antagonism of race, which has led to our present calamities, and might lead to yet greater, if it continues to be ignored, will deliver us from slavery in the easiest, speediest, and best manner, if we recog- nize it as it is — the real cause of trouble, and invincible, and deal with it rationally. We have but to propose to let the white race have the lands intended for them by the Creator, to turn the fierce spirit aroused by the secession- ists to destroy the Union to the support of it, and at the same time to break up theslave system, by which the most fertile lands of the temperate zone are monopolized and wasted. That is the result which the logic of the census shows is being worked out, and which no political manage- ment can prevent being worked out. The essence of the contest is, whether the white race shall have these lands, or whether they shall be held by the black race, in the name of a few whites. The blacks could 6 never hold tbem as their owu, for we have seen how quickly that race has disappeared when emancipated. Experience proves, what might have been inferred from their history, that it has not maiutainad and cannot maintain itself in the temperate zone, in contact and in competition with the race to which that region belongs. It is only when dependent that it can exist there. But this servile relation is mischievous, and the com- munity so constituted does not flourish and keep pace with the spirit of the age. It has scarcely the claim to the immense area of land it occupies which the aborigines had ; for though the Indians occupied larger space, with fewer inhabitants, they did not waste the land as the slave system does. No political management or sentimentalism can prevent the natural resolution of such a system, in the end, any more than «uch means could avail to preserve the Indian possession and dominion. I'hi' rebellion, like the Indian outbreaks, is but a vain attempt to stem the tiiie of (tivilizatioti and progress. The treachery, falsehood, and cru- elty ]'cr|)etrated to maintain negro possession, scarcely less than that of the savages, marks the real nature of the contest. Nevertheless, I believe it might have been averted if we had adopted Mr. Jefferson's counsels, and made p.rovision for the separation of the races, provided suitable homes for the blacks, as we have for the-Indians. It is essential still, in order to abridge the conflict of arms, and to fraternize the people when that is past, to follow Mr. Jeflerson's advice. This most benevolent and sagacious statesman predicted all the evils which it has been our misfortune to witness, unless we should avert them by this, the only means which, after the most anxious thought, he could suggest. No statesman of our day has given the subject so much thought as he did, or possesses the knowledge or ability tp treat it so wisely. Let us, then, listen to his counsels. By doing so we shall establish a frater- nity among the workingmen of the Avhite race throughout the Union, which has never existed, and give real freedom to the black race, which cannot otherwise exist. Nor is it necessary to the restoration of harmony and prosperity to the Union that this policy should be actually and com- pletely put in force. It is only necessary that it sliould be ado])ted by the Government, and that it be made known to the people that it is adopted, to extinguish hostility in the hearts of the masses of the South towards the people of the North, and secure their co-operation in putting an end to slavery. No greater mistake was ever made than in supposing that the masses of the people of the South favor slavery. I have already stated that they did not take up arms to defend it, and explained the real motives of their action. The fact that they oppose emancipation in their midst is the only foundation for the contrary opinion. But the masses of the North are equally opposed to it, if the four millions of slaves are to be trans- ported to their midst. The prohibitory laws against their coming, existing in all the States subject to such invasion, prove this. On the other hand, the intense hostility which is universally known to be felt by tlie non- slaveholders of the South towards all negroes expresses their real hos- tility to slavery, and it is the natural form of expression under the circumstances. It needs, therefore, but the assurance which would be given by provid- ing homes for the blacks elsewhere, that they are to be regarded as sojourners when emancipated, as, in point of fact, they arc antl ever will be, to insure the co-operation of tlie uon-slaveholders in their emancipation. Nor would they require immediate, universal, or involuntary transporta- tion, or that any injustice whatever be done to the blacks. The more enterprising would soon emigrate, and multitudes of less energy would follow, if such success attended the pioneers as the care with which the Government should foster so important an object would doubtless in- sure ; and with such facilities, it would require but few generations to put the temperate regions of America in the exclusive occupation of the white race, and remove the only obstacle to a perpetual union of the States. With great respect, I am your obedient servant, M. BLAIR. To the CoMmTTKE of Invitation, &c. SPEECH AT THB MEETING HELD AT CLEVELAND MAY 20, 1863. FELLOw-CiTizENg — My heart responds warmly to the feeling which in- duces your kind reception. I could not forego the opportunity offered by the invitation to be present on this occasion to meet so many earnest men in the cause of our country, and unite in your efforts to carry on the strug- gle and crown it with success. The reaction against free Government in the United States and in this age, bears upon its front the marks of insanity. The father of the con- spiracy, of wliich the convulsion which now fills the country with suffering and dismay is the offspring, wore on his face, as was remarked by many observers, when his last words and dying imprecations against the princi- ples of our Constitution were read in the Senate, the ghastly aspect of a monomaniac. His conspiracy, prolonged through a thirty years' gestation, had even then a vitality to make itself painfully felt, and now the mon- strous birth is stamped with his phrensied features. But neither the mysterious workings of Oath-bound societies, nor the public agitation contrived by intrigue, in Congress, in State Legislatures and election canvasses, to engender partisan fury, prepared the country to expect and meet the shock it has received. The progress of the Govern- ment had been so easy, prosperous, and glorious ; it had attained such high rank with States of greatest strength and renown, that scarcely any sound mind supposed it possible that an assassin attempt would be made to close its career by a sudden blow, as if its life were as frail as that of an individual. There is no parallel in the history of the world of a similar assault on a vast, beneficent, beloved, popular Government, without even an alleged act of oppression on its part to provoke it, and whilst it was actually administered and its advantages enjoyed by the very men who aimed the stroke for its destruction. But whilst prosperity made us insensible to the danger, the wise and patriotic men who founded the Government, saw in slavery a mine by which phrensy and selfish ambition might lay their work in ruin. The slav- ery of one race they felt was not compatible with the freedom of another. They hoped the superior race, influenced by the benign tendencies of the 9 Government they nianagi'd and enjoyed, would ultimutely extend the Ulcss- in^ of liberty to a dependent people, rind effi'ediidly remove tin.'ir (lisal)ili- ties on a new scene of usefnl and independent exertion. Tle'se considera- tions induced tlie sashes, on fonndinji: the llepiil)lie, not to dislurli tliat poi- sonous element wliicli tliey believed tlie viji^or of tiie Cons! itnl ion would work out of the system in time. Tliey lived to see their fond hopes proved delnsioiis. 'LMie noxious plant of barbarous African {irowth, taking root in the accumnlations of avarice, worked by the energy of a ^reat race, outstripped all the sweet shoots of hnmanizing culture jiivcn to our Constitu- tion by ihe benevolent philosophy of our forefathers. In plain Iriitii, slavery haspro{iagated in its region, in pi'odigious strength, nil that is evil in the na- ture of oiir countrymen, and stilled all the virtues in which our glorious Government had its origin. Mow strikingly thi.s is ilenionstrated by the fact, that whilst tb.ere was not a man in the rfouth, who conlriliuted to es- tablish the free institntioiis among us, who did not denounce slavery as a curse from which the country must somehow Ite redeemed, now there is not one of that slave-breeding and governing class who doe.s not procluim it as the all-essential blessing for which life itself must l)e saeriliceil. The process by which this melancholy change hns been aecomplished is illustrated by the drunkard's career. This uidiappy ehiss of reprobates once felt that decency, sobriety, industry and purity were the true sources of happiness. But long indulgence in intoxicating draughts renders exist- ence a burden unless stimulated into extravagant feeling ; wild hilarity or sensual indolence then become their only good. Negro slavery is that black opium drug in the South which excites it into delirious phrensy or sinks it into that sad lethargy, both alike fatal to its prosperity. It pam- pers every vice and impairs every virtue. And can a State prosper under a system working such demoralization? The picture now presented in the laud of slaves tells the suae :?tory which is to be found in the annals of every slave emi)ire. All Asia has been corrupted by slavery. Africa, its birtb-phice, has ever been a desert. The glorious ancient republics perished unci* r its inflnence, after reaching the highest point of civilization l)y the hardy virtues of a free people, and modern Europe only redeemed herself from the common fate by the ex- tinction of the feudal system that originated serfdoai. Reverence for the hopeful idea of our fathers that the inherent virtue of the Constitution would extinguish slavery induced all who felt that its permanence would be destructive, to acquiesce in a passive resistance to its extension, although that resistance had proved unavailing to its first encroachments west of the Mississippi. It was hoped that the passion for expansion would be allayed by the surrender of Missouri and the acquisi- tion of Texas, and that the compromise line established in 1820 and re- approved in 1850 as the northern boundary of slavery would be respected. But having secured the President, both branches of Congress and the Supreme Court, the slave power resolved to bretik all compacts and strike for the empire of the continent. Kansas was tid; failed in their attempt to seize Cuba and Central America, they proposed to take these countries openly by the power of the Govern- ment. Such were the means adopted prior to the war to make the Con- stitution of the United States what that of the Confederacy now is, an instrument to increase, diffuse and perpetuate slavery and make it a con- tinental institution ; but the oligarchy saw by the election of Lincoln that the peaceful action of the ballot-box would reverse these wrongs, and pre- vent future aggressions either to extend slavery further South or to main- tain it in the regions subjected by the Supreme Court. . They were pre- pared for this contingency, and flew to arms to assert their doctrine that slavery was the best foundation for the Government, and have undertaken, like Mahomet, the propagation of their faith and institutions by the sword. Hence it was in vain that Mr. Crittenden's appeasing resolutions were passed — in vain that an amendment to the Constitution declaring slavery to be irrevocably established unless abolished by the States within which it existed — no sacrifice, not even that of the Constitution, to give addi- tional guarantees to slavery where it existed, could save the country from war, for by that means alone it was now evident could slavery be made the dominant principle in the New World. It is that domination for which they are contending. Independence is sought only as a means of effecting that object. Once possessed by that means of the control of the Missis- sippi, they think that the Northwest would adopt the Confederate Con- stitution and sacrifice the freedom of the negroes to secure the freedom of the Mississippi, and that the Middle States, and even New England, would not be slow to follow suit. And when we remember how far on the mere menace of disunion the country acquiesced in that Dred Scott doctrine which alone distinguishes the rebel constitution from our own, can we doubt that if the rel)ellion is successful, we will yield that point to restore the Union ? Robert Toombs will yet call the roll of his slaves on Bunker Hill unless we con- quer. The controversy therefore is between slavery and the Government. The President, to whom the defence of the Government and the com- mand of its armies belong, has labored to avert the dangers with which we are encompassed by various measures in aid of the armed forces he has sent to the field. He would save the Union with or without slavery — would save it in any way, at whatever cost. The Union in peace under the Constitution was again and again his overture. If there could be no assurance of this with rebels bent on subverting the republic to establish an oligarchy of slaveholders, then to the loyal friends of free government in the South he tendered emancipation with compensation and a deliver- ance by colonization from a war of races which could only end in the extermination of the negro race or amalgamation with it. This failing, after nearly two years of expostulation and forbearance to exert to the utmost the military power conferred on him under the Constitution, the President felt himself constrained to issue that Proclamation of freedom to the slaves, who were in every sense the enemy's sinews of war. Some 11 of them were found rii2;litiii,i!; in their ranks — multitudes in oroctiiip; and defending their fortilications — the greater mass in the fichls at home, enabling their conscription to drag every able-bodied white man into the field of battle against the Government, who, when there, are literally fed and paid by the products of that slave labor, to secure and extend which was the pronounced object of the war. This proclamation of tlic President was a reluctant advance, because, however necessary, it proceeded solely from himself, as being ahuie iiwestcd by the Constitution with the direction of the military power of the nation, and because in deciding on the necessity of its application in the way which the exigency before him seemed to demand, he jilaced the Government in a position from which there was no retreat. Tlie ]iroclamali(iii to the slaves to weaken the enemy commits the nation irrevocably to make good the pledge by the utmost exhibition of its power. It not only creates an obli- gation to the bondsmen whose action it is meant to control, but it is an implied p/edge of honor to the foreign powers whose conduct it is designed to influence. That measure which, as Commander-inCiiief, the President rightfully adopted under the Constitution and in accordance with national, law to obtain the co-operation of a whole race of people, and which in- volves both life and freedom in its results, when proclaimed, is now beyond revocation by either the civil or military authority of the nation. The people once slaves in the rebel States can never again be recognized as such by the United States. No judicial decision — no legislative action. State or national, can be admitted to re-enslave a people who are associ- ated with our own destinies in this war of defence to save the Government, and whose manumission was deemed essential to the restoration and pres- ervation of the Union and to its permanent peace. The first movement in this grand system of emancipation has been already made under the orders o"f the President. It is seen in the segre- gations of the blacks from their masters and massing them at advantage- ous positions on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and tlie shores of the Mis- sissippi as they are drawn from the interior. Here they are to be brought within works which they will be taught to construct and defend, and have the contiguous land assigned to them during the contiimance of the war to contribute to their sustenance. Under proper discipline they will here learn much to fit them for self-government as an independent people, as- sociated with a kindred race that" now invites them to a congenial climate and a soil rich in all the productions best suited to repay in commerce the nations of more advanced civilization, for the protection and assistance they may have given them in their new homes with the governments into which they are admitted. . Meanwhile, during the war, the fortified places these freed men may hold on the Mississippi, the sea-coasts and elsewhere under their control, and with the support of portions of our armies, will render the river and coast commerce free to us, and exclude it from the enemy. When the war ends large numbers of the bondsmen, which it will have liberated, may still be retained temporarily, and may be employed under wages in executing the plans for national defen("e, proposed by the Military Committee of tlie last House of Representatives, in the conversion of the intra-canal navigation along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, now to a considerable extent com- 12 pleted for small boats, into a ship canal from New Orleans to New York, and in enlarging the canal now uniting the Lakes and the Mississippi. If the Erie Canal shall also be enlarged, the whole region of the Mississippi and the Atlantic will be insulated and invnlnerable. The kindred measure — the Pacific Railroad — designed to carry the military power of the Republic to the defence of our Pacific possessions, if ever invaded, will be the work of European emigrants of our own blood, lured by the rich domain it penetrates, and which the nation presents as an inheritance to those who shall engage in its construction. But the mission of the Afric-Americau race will not be concluded in the region which has been its house of bondage. Its destined glory as a re- deemed, a free and civilized race is to be consummated in the American tropics. They will there infuse vigor, unity, and enterprise, with aspira- tions to emulate the progressive genius of the country of their birth. They will brcijk liie fetters of Cuba, and make it excel the fabled llesperides under Ciis'-Atlautic influences, and the favor of European nations inter- ested in the commerce of tlie Indies of the West, far riclier than those of the Orient. Aided with the capital and intelligence of the great commer- cial powers, ihvyt will make the waters of the Pacific and Atlantic flow through Cciitral America, and they will bring their oppressed brethren from the Sahara of Africa to a Canaan in the New World. I feel that I have given a very imperfect outline of the scheme of seces- sion, of the manner in which your Chief Magistrate has met the emergency, and how he proposes to make the evils which have befallen us the sources of blessing to our posterity and to mankind. It is inadmissible an(] unnecessary here to do more than glance at these great themes. Acute observers, and some who have skill in dealing with details, have found much to complain of iu the President's Administration. Unquestionably many errors have been committed — errors not only no- ticeable to microscopic vision, but to enlarged minds. But, regarded as a v/hole, I think he may safely ask the verdict of his cotemporaries and of posterity upon his patriotism and comprehensive wisdom. SPEECH AT TIIH UlSriON MASS CONVENTION, CONCORD, N. n., JUNE 17, 1863. Fellow-Citizens — I thank you for this kind greeting. I have cherislied ties with New Hampshire, and for almost twent}'^ years have had such friendly intercourse with the people of the State, that such au assurance of their approval is peculiarly gratifying and encouraging. But I am sensible that it is not as one of the family, or because of any personal rela- tions with you, that you receive me so kindly to-day. It is because I am a member of your Government, and because you recognize in me a represent- ative of the National sentiment which now animates and always has aui- mated New Hampshire. In 111Q, in 1812, and in the present day of trial — the three great eras of national peril — no portions of our people have exhibited more devotion to the national cause than the people of New Hampshire, whether we refer to the manifestation of zeal iu the light, after the appeal was made to arms, or whether we refer to the moderation and wisdom of their political action, to the respect they exhibited for the just rights of the South, or the firmness displayed iu maintaining their own riglits — in every aspect iu which the conduct of this people can be regarded, in these great eras, it challenges the admiration of the friends of i)opular Government. No one can now recur to the political couQicts which pre- ceded the rebellion, and observe the part taken by the people of this State, without seeing that they had a clear insight into the nature of the contro- versy, and acted well their part, and have been steadfast throughout to the Union and Constitution, and to genuine Democratic principles. What was that controversy ? Was it really an effort on the part of the North to abolish slavery, and on the ])art of the South to defend their jirop- erty ? This would be a most superficial view of the subject. That would be the slavery question in the same sense as the regulation of the exchanges constituted the bank question. It needs but little political knowledge to discover that the real object of the parties controlling these institutions, the peculiar institution as well as the banking, was to make use of them as agencies to control the Government. To oppose this class government was the natural impulse of true democracy in both instances. When the nullifiers failed both to make themselves masters of the Gov- ernment or to break it up with the tariff question, because they could not nuite the South on that question. President Jackson foresaw that they would resort to the slave question, on which they could consolidate the South. He was alarmed, because he knew that slavery created a morbid Ben!-itivene?s which would enable the nullifiers to unite the South to demand the submission of the North ou the penalty of disunion. He strove to 14 baffle their design, denounced their abolition cry in advance, as a " 'pretext," and concurred with Col. Benton and other true Democrats in remonstrat- ing against their admission into the Democratic party. Twice have these wicked men attempted to execute the design so truly foresliadowed by the patriotic and prophetic heart of Jackson — first in 1850, after the defeat of 1848, and now again on their defeat in 1860. But they succeeded for many years, by the use of the slavery question, in holding the power of the Government, and used it skillfully to per- petuate their rule. This fact was proclaimed by their Vice-President Stephens, in his speech in 1860, when he demonstrated at Augusta that it was a blunder for them to quit a Union whose government they had en- joyed so long, and might hereafter enjoy, despite of the temporary ouster. And Mr. Stephens was not the only chief who quitted reluctantly the theatre on which they had exercised a sway almost imperial for a generation. But they had fired the Southern heart, and nothing but blood or dominion could quench the flame. And yet there are men, and meu calling themselves Democrats, who think the people of the jVorth should not have rallied, even in 1860, to assert their equal right in the Government they had equally contributed to found, but from which they had been practically excluded from influ- encing for twenty years. Worse still, these men call themselves "Jackson men" whilst following the nuUifiers, Jackson's most savage enemies and revilers — suffering themselves to be duped by the cry of "abolition," which the Old Hero had denounced, in advance, as a '^ false pretext." But if we left out of view the fact that Jackson and Benton, and the true leaders of the Democratic party in the South, denounced this slavery agitation as a uuUifier's plot for dominion or disunion, and that their pre- tended quarrel with their abolition allies had proved a rich harvest for their ambition for many years, and wrought such exclusion of the people of the North from all share in the Government, as to forbid the idea of their favoring the discussion, except upon the assumption of their absolute stupidity, how can any intelligent and candid mind accuse the North of making the controversy in view of the repeal of the Missouri compromise and the Kansas outrage ? The conduct of the people, after the adoption of the compromise measures of 1850, shows beyond all controversy that they understood the operation of the slave discussion — recognized the law that they had no power over the subject, and the fact that it disfranchised them, and sought, both for their own interests and the general good, to avoid it. For this reason they scrupulously kept the faith on the compromise of 1850, though they had not liked the terms of it when it was adopted. But as a finality, and on a pledge of faith that it was a settlement of the slave question, they ad- hered to it. There were many able men, indeed, and among them your own Senator, Mr. Hale, who, distrusting the good faith of the Southern leaders, refused to pledge themselves to adhere to the compromise. But the people of the North generally, and of New Hampshire particularly, would tolerate no disturbance of that settlement. So strong was the feel- ing here, that Mr. Hale thought his career closed — I presume so, at least, as I understood he removed to New York to practice law — and I have no doubt he would now have been at the head of the profession in that city 15 if the nuUifiers had not rccallcMl him to the Senate by the repeal of the Missouri coniproniisc. So much for the past — I draw no uiifavoraMo au<^uries from it for the future. The self-reliance of tlie American peo|)le — the jj;rand feature whicli distinguishes them among nations — is visible throughout this contest, and remains unshaken to secure our power and freedom. Look over the earth and you will see an Emperor here, an autocrat there, an onmipotent par- liament representing an upper class, a hereditary King, the instrument of a regency of Courtiers with a mercenary army at their beck disposing of the lives and fortunes of the multitude, in utter contempt of their feelings and opinions. Here we have before us an exhibition of the spirit that pervades, animates, gives impulse to everything that touches the interest of an American citizen, from the highest to the lowest. Men of all jiarties are here — men of every religious sect — men of all conditions, all callings, all professions, and each of them contributes a share in creating the feel- ing and the public opinion which is to make or mar the welfare of a con- tinent now stricken by civil war. Among any other than the American people, such a wide-spread civil war — mustering more than a million of men in arms, would portend revo- lution. Is there a man in this vast crowd who apprehends that the Con- stitutions — State and National— left us by our fathers are to be changed ia letter or iu spirit, by this bloody struggle ? Is there one who expects the result to be the driving out of one President by bayonets, and the instal- lation of another — the breaking up of one forna of government, and con- struction of a new one — the periodical catastrophe iu revolutionary Mexico, or tlie permanent severance of our States and of the natural boundaries assigned by Providence to us as a nation ? No loyal man anticipates such a revolution from this rebellion — none but bad, ambitious men, who would 8acri'.ice popular institutions, secured by the best goverr.ment known to the world, to selfish designs, countenance the idea. The heartless faction of oligarchs. North and South, who consider republican principles an al)omiu- ation, desire to convert this war, into which the government has been drawn in defence of its existence, into a revolutionary convulsion for its subversion. There are two knots of conspiring politicians, at opposite ends of the Union, that make slavery a fulcrum, on which they would play see-saw with the Government, and willingly break it iu the middle and demolish it to make experiments with the fractions in reconstructions suited to their designs, which are only known as ho.stile to the well-balanced constitu- tions inherited by our fathers. The Calhoun and Wendell Phillips Juntas have both sought the accomplishment of their adverse ends by a common means — the overthrow of the Constitution. Calhoun's school would de- stroy every free principle, because repugnant to the perpetuity and propa- gation of slavery universally as the only safe foundation of good govern- ment. Phillips' school would subject all our systems of goverinnentto the guillotine of revolutionary tribunals, because they recognize the exist- ence of different races among aa—oftvhile, red and black; because they re- pudiate the idea of equality and fraternity in regard to citizenship that tends to produce that amalgamation, personal and political, which would make our government oue of mongrel races, and because they authorize 16 legislation — State and National — which may exclude them from taking root in the soil and government of the country. The white man has extruded the Indian race from dominion on this con- tinent, its native-born aboriginal inheritor. The African was introduced on it, not as its owner or to give it law, but to be owned and receive law; and under this aspect the white man, as a conqueror, has accommodated the constitutions of the country to his own condition — that of the ruling race. The ground which Wendell Phillips and his followers take is not merely to alter the law and enfranchise the races held under it as inferior to that holding the dominion by right of conquest, but to abolish the con- stitutions which recognize that right as established, and admit to equal participation those races hitherto excluded as inferiors. The people who hold the sovereignty in the United States, equally ab- jure the Calhoun and Phillips doctrine, both looking to a radical revolu- tion to accomplish their opposing schemes. The platform of principles which put Mr. Lincoln at the head of the Government explicitly denounced both; and every State paper from the hand of the President referring to it, proclaims a policy at war with that of the partisans of Calhoun on the one hand, and of Phillips on the other. Providentially, the treason hatched under the incubation of Calhoun has destroyed the whole progeny of mischiefs by means of which he sought to work the overthrow of the Government. Rebellion to overthrow the Constitution compelled the ex- ertion of its war power, under which has fallen in the rebel States that local institution employed by the assailants of the national system for its ruin. The bondage which rendered the slaves subservient to this ptu'pose, is declared by the President's proclamation to be broken, and if the arms of the United States can maintain its authority, the servitude which the Constitution once made it a duty to tolerate, now becomes, by the fiat of its wa^' functionary, the malady that must be thrown off for self-preserva- tion. The life of the Constitution is now the death of slavery. The wea- pon used to destroy the Government is wrested from the hands of traitors, and is a forfeit. The slavery abolished under the proclamation is the rightful conquest as it is the salvation of our free institutions. It can never be restored but through tlieir subversion. Into this practical issue Calhoun^s State right doctrines resolve themselves. If the people of tlie United States constitute a nation — have a national Government, and can maintain it, his so-called State rights, exerted to destroy it, conclude in treason. To what better result do the abolition docti'ines of Wendell Phillips come ? Slavery is abolished, as I have shown, by the rebellion and its consequences — by the war, and the constitutional means accorded to the Government for its defence. The abolition of slavery does not content one class of anti-slavery men. The Wendell Phillips school, to arrive at the consummation of their wishes, demand the same sacrifice that Calhoun's proselytes make war to obtain — the abolition of the Constitution of the United States. They demand that the different races on this continent, marked by the very terms of the Constitution and the laws made under it as subordinate to the white race asserting full sovereignty over this coun- try, shall be elevated to equality with the race holding it by conquest, and whose Constitution and laws specially ordain its appropriation to tliem- 17 selves. This amalgamation in races is more than a revolntion in govcrii- raent. It is an attempt to make a fnndamental change in the laws of na- ture, and, by lilending different species of tlie human race, create a hyl)rid nation. Tiiis will prove to be an impossibility. The red, white, anssible ? All the bloodiest revolutions of ancient and modern times have been those broached by slaves against en- slavers. Our civil war, closing in the manumission of four million of slaves, to take equal rank with six million of enslavers, would be but the prelude to a servile war of extermination. Can any one doubt that the military skill and desperation of the master race would reduce the negroes again to sub- 18 jugation, unless the freemen of the North made common cause with them against their white brethren ? The bare statement of this complication makes it apparent that there can be no peace on this continent on tha basis of the ultra aI)olitionists who insist on the abolition of existing con- stitutions to establish negro amalgamation, liberty, fraternity and equality. / Yet, I have long ago proclaimed myself unalterably the friend of the lib- erty, equality and fraternity of the African race, but not in this region, which is devoted, by constitutions, laws and fixed usages, to the liberty, equality and fraternity of the race of pale-faces. Such commingling of blood, of domestic intimacies, of social, civil and political interests, between the white and black castes is unnatural and fatal to the welfare of both, and, therefore, impossible. jL, The advocates of this hybrid policy know this, but they think the negro so essential to the selfish purposes of their political ambition, tl:at, like Calhoun, they are willing to make him, as well as those who hold him in durance, the victim of their policy. I advocate the President's plan of saving both, and ministering to their prosperity and to their elevation in their respective spheres to power and greatness as a people. This may be done by a gradual segregation of the two races, and as- signing to each the regions on this continent and adjacent isles congenial f— to their natures. The old Roman policy of spreading their institutions and influence abroad in the world, by providing homes for new people drawn into their service, and whom it was not politic and safe to settle in Italy, should be adopted in favor of the unhomogeneous dependent people of African descent whom this war will throw upon the hands of the Government as freedmen. Many of them will enlist in the army — multi- tudes will be employed on the waste lands of the Government in providing for their own subsistence. All should be drawn together in military camps on the Roman plan — put under the control of public officers, instructed in the business of self-government, self-defence, and self-support, and when employed in the public service, amply compensated. Thus, they would be in a state of probation while the Government would have opportunity to provide for their settlement in the suitable regions to which they are in- vited as colonists. When peace comes and this liberated multitude seek other employment than that servitude under former masters who would render it more intolerable than the slave system, .which, while it extorted labor without compensation, yet created such an interest in the bodies of the slaves that they were cared for on economical principles, tlie Govern- ment must necessarily become their patron. Placed in this relation, the Government must provide them compensated employment, until they are .ready to assume the character of an independent people. This might be done advantageously in the Southern States, by opening into ship canals those communications which the enterprise of individuals and the natural aqueducts from the Mississippi have to a great extent opened up from the great artery of our continent around the shores of the Gulf through the Hudson to the lakes. What a glorious result of the war for North and South, especially the latter, would be the completion of this bond of com- mercial brotherhood — this interception of the waters of all our rivers and . bays before they reach the Atlantic, and opening them up to each other out of the reach of the hostile navies that might endanger our commerce 19 or bring foreign power to tlic invasion of our lionics. The prcnt wall of China — the prodigious military liighways tlirongli wliicli Home niiin-ii licr cn)j)ire over Asia, Africa and Europe, were the works of populations, whose necessities jilaeed thera as a charge on the government. By such means the process of liberating four millions of bondfmen, and then preparing them to assume the attitude of a self-governing nation, might be made to secure to the United States forever their Union, their domestic peace and immunity from foreign invasion. Instead of the mutual benefits which the President's plan proposes to draw out of our present adversity, by making the Afric-American race a nation in a fruitful, congenial clime, protected in all their rights under the American flag, opening the way to people of our own race to fill their places, and putting an end to the anomalous character of our institutions which destroy our jieace, what do those ultra humanitarians ofier ? They profess so much philanthropy in the abstract, and such perfect impartiality in judging of human affairs, that they seem to think the millennium come, and invite the lion and lamb to lie down together. They would break up all constitutions, laws and usages, assuming that all antagonisms of in- terests, of prejudices, of passions, were at an end in a land of fetters and whips, of swords, guns and bayonets in the hands of six millions of incensed masters, and that four millions of their manumitted slaves might be safely trusted to their tender mercies. This is a practical illustration of the Wendell Phillips love for the down-trodden African ! But the Phillipeans probably do not expect the amalgamation, liberty, equality and fraternity theory to be acceptable to the present ruling class, but intend that the Northern white man, while rejecting it for him- self, shall enforce it on the Southern white man. Unfortunately for this scheme, the Northern soldier intends becoming a Southern white man himself, and he wants the lands he redeems from nullification for himself and his posterity, and as an inheritance for his race. The scheme is another birth of that monstrous philosophy which would have discarded the Slave States from the Union and delivered the negroes to perpetual bondage, on the pretence that the conscience of the North might no longer be burdened with responsibility for the crime of Slavery. All the propositions of the abolition faction which is warring on the President come to these conclusions: destruction of the Constitution, and of the white and black races, or incessant wars after the example of the Moors and Spaniards, until the expulsion of the former from Spain. AlP the early patriots of the South — Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Clay and others, were the advocates of emancipation and coloni-__, zation. The patriots of the North concurred in the design. Is the fac- tion now opposing it patriotic or philanthropic? are they not rather like Calhoun, working the negro question to accomplish schemes of selfish am- bition, and after his method making a balance of power party of a phalanx of deluded fanatics, keeping the Union and the public peace perpetually in danger, and seeking power in the Government through its distrac- tions ? The author of the Declaration of Independence and his associates de- clared equal rights impracticable in society constituted of masses of different • 20 races.* De Tocqueville, the most profonnd writer of the Old World on American Institutions, predicts the extermination of the blacks, if it is attempted to confer such rights on them in the United States. It is ob- vious that an election would be but a mockery in a community wherein there could be no other than black and lohite parties. In such communi- ties reason and experience show that one or the other race must be the dominant race, and that Democracy is impossible. This is not less obvi- ous to the Phillips school than it is to the Calhoun school, who concur in opposing the policy of Mr. Jefferson, adopted by the President, intended to effectuate the design of our fathers to establish popular government. They concur in pressing here the antagonism of races, and only differ in looking to different races to give them power. The result of this antag- onism, so far as popular government is concerned, would be the same if either could succeed in their schemes, and yon would scarcely have much preference between being governed by Jeff. Davis, as the leader of the slave power, and Wendell Phillips, as the leader of the enfranchised blacks. But neither can succeed. Even the Calhoun scheme, matured through so many years of intrigue by men verted in public affairs, and attended with a temporary success, is a failure as a governing contrivance, though potent still to spread ruin widely through the land, and especially to desolate the homes of his deluded followers. The Philii|)S scheme is the dream of vis- ionaries wholly unskilled in government, and will bo a failure from the start. He may in turn make victims of the negroes, as Calhoun has of their masters. But I think not. They are not ambitious of ruling white meu,*and will, I believe, be contented to set up for themselves in some neighboring and congenial clime, on the plan of Jefferson and Lincoln. Here is the real issue with the President. Emancipation is a fixed fact. What next ? Shall we take Phillips for a guide, or Jefferson and Lin- coln? The people will, I am sure, answer wisely. * The colonization of our free blacks in the tropical regions of America was sug- gested by Mr. Jeiierson, ia his Notes ou Virginia. lu a letter addressed to Mr. Sparks, referring to it, he said: " The second object, and the most interesting to us, as coming home to our physical and moral characters, to our happiness and safety, is to provide an asylum, to which we can, by degrees, send the whole of that population (the negroes) from among us, and establish them under our patronage and protection, as a separate, free, and in- dependent people, in some country and climate friendly to human life and happiness." He urged the proposition at one time before the Virginia Legislature — speaking of it afterwards, he said : "It was, however, found that the public mind would not yet bear the proposition, nor will it even at this day; yet the day is not far distant when it must bear it and adopt it, or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate, than that these people (the negroes) are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same Government. Nature, habit, opinion, have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them. It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation, and in such slow degree as that the evil will wear otf insensibly, and in their place he pari passu filled up by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up. We should in vain look for an example in the Spanish de- portation or deletion of the Moors." ^* 4^ -^ ■^ »• ^ J^ ♦> -K^^^