Yale University Library

39002002950278

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE DESTRUCTION

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICANISM

THE

OBJECT OF THE REBELLION.

THE TESTIMONY OE SOUTHERN WITNESSES.

COMPILED
By LOEING MOODY.

THIRD EDITION.

BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY SUBSCRIPTION, FOR GRATUITOUS DISTRIBUTION.
Weight & Pottek, Printers, 4 Spring Lane.
18 6 3..

ADVERTISEMENT.

As will be seen on its title page, this pamphlet is published by subscription,
for gratuitous distribution. It is desirable that it should be placed in every
house in the country. Persons wishing to aid in this object, by contributions or
otherwise, will please direct to Wkight & Potter, Printers, No. 4 Spring
Lane, Boston, Mass.

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OBJECT OF THE REBELLION.

Comparatively few persons understand the real nature of the
contest going on in this country, for the simple reason that only a
few have been sufficiently jealous and watchful of the encroach
ments of power upon the rights and liberties of the people.
The machinery of governments has generally been in the hands
of despots. In other words, Despotism has wielded the powers
and forces of governments for the accomplishment of its own
tyrannical purposes.
During the past few centuries Freedom has been growing
strong with the advancing light of Christian civilization, — so
strong that, at the time of the American Revolution", our Fathers
wrested the reins of government in this country from the hands
of Despotism, and placed them in the hands of Freedom ; thus
for the first time in all history, clothing Freedom with the powers
and attributes of government, and, as most people have supposed,
succeeded in driving Despotism entirely out of the country. But,
though Despotism was tumbled from its throne, it still clung to
the country, and was determined never to give up its right to rule
here, as it had ruled everywhere else through all previous periods
of history ; and, although the revolutionary struggle left it com
paratively weak, the slave power, fostered and cherished in the
South, where it took refuge, nourished it into strength again, and
it has attempted once more to seize the reins of government, and
trample out the life-blood of Freedom as of old.
Nothing could be more natural than that slavery should be the
nursery and hot-bed propagator of Despotism. For Despotism
and Slavery are as near akin to each other as sin and satan. So
it has spent the whole time since the adoption of our present
Constitution, in plotting and devising ways and means for the
overthrow of our free government, determined to ruin where it
could not rule.
Despotism hates Freedom with " a perfect hatred," and has so
hunted her down that she has never yet fouiid a perfect resting-
place for the sole of her foot on this planet Moreover it has no

faith in the people. Its servants have always despised and hated
the people, especially the working people.
Now the leaders of this Rebellion are the sworn servants of
Despotism. Their open avowals and declarations during the last
thirty years, show clearly enough that they are aiming to dis
franchise and degrade the great mass of the people to absolute
slavery, without regard to color or race. They tell us plainly
that they never mean to stop in their wicked career until " the
capitalists own the laborers," whether " white or black ! " And
already they tell us that " slavery has become the ' chief head of
the corner' in their new edifice ! "
The design of this work is to show, from the testimony of the
prime movers and leaders in this Rebellion, and those in sympathy
with them, that this is an open and undisguised conflict between •
the opposing principles of Freedom and Despotism ; that the
leaders of the Rebellion are fighting to break down and destroy
the government of Freedom which our Fathers founded, and to
establish a despotic, slaveholding aristocracy on its ruins.
Le$ every one then read and ponder the declarations of these
men. We will go back more than thirty years, and begin with the
testimony of B. "Watkins Leigh, (Va.)
" In every civilized country under the sun, some there must be who labor
for their daily bread, — men who tend the herds, and dig the soil, — who
have no real nor personal capital of their own, and who earn their daily
bread by the sweat of their brow. I have as sincere feelings of regard for
that people as any man who lives among them. But I ask gentlemen to
say, whether they believe that those who depend on their daily labor for
their daily subsistence, can, or do, ever enter into political affairs ? They
never do, never will, never can." — Speech in Virginia Convention, 1829.
Chancellor Habpee, (S. C.)
" Would you do a benefit to the horse, or the ox, by giving him a culti
vated understanding, a fine feeling ? So far as the mere laborer has the
pride, the knowledge, or the aspiration of a freeman, he is unfitted for his
situation. If there are sordid, servile, laborious offices to be performed, is
it not better that there should be sordid, servile, laborious beings to perform
them ? Odium has been cast upon our legislation on account of its forbid
ding the elements of education being communicated to slaves. But, in truth,
what injury is done them by this ? He who works during the day with his
hands does not read in the intervals of leisure, for his amusement, or the
improvement of his mind ; or the exception is so very rare as scarcely to
need being provided for." — Southern Literary Messenger.

George M'Duffif..
" If we look into the elements of which all political communities are
composed, it will be found that servitude in some form is one of the essen
tial constituents. ... In the very nature of things,, there must be
classes of persons to discharge all the different offices of society, from the
highest to the lowest. . . . Where these offices are performed by mem
bers of the political community, a dangerous element is obviously introduced
by the body politic. . . . Domestic slavery, therefore, instead of being
an evil, is the corner-stone of our republican edifice." — Message
to S. C. Legislature, 1835.
John C. Calhoun.
" We regard slavery as the most safe and stable basis for free institutions
in the world. It is impossible with us that the conflict should take place
between labor and capital. Every plantation is a little community, with
the master at its head, who concentrates in himself the united interests of
capital and labor, of which he is the common representative."
F. W- Pickens, (S. C.)
" All society settles down into a classification of capitalists and laborers.
The former will own the latter, either collectively through the government,
or individually in a state of domestic servitude, as exists in the Southern
States of this confederacy. If laborers ever obtain the political power of a
country, it is in fact in a state of revolution."
" Hence if is, that they must have a strong federal government to control
the labor of the nation. But it is precisely the reverse with us. We have
already not only a right to the proceeds of our laborers, but we own a class
of laborers themselves. But, let me say to gentlemen who represent the
great class of capitalists at the North, beware how you drive us into a sepa
rate system, for, if you do, as certain as the decrees of Heaven, you will
be compelled to appeal to the sword to maintain yourselves at home. It
may not come in your day; but your children's children will be covered with
the blood of domestic factions, and a plundering mob contending for power
and conquest." — Speech in Congress, January 21, 1837.
Here we have the testimony of five prominent Southern states
men, some of which has been on record more than thirty years,
bearing directly on this point. And it will be observed that not one
of them makes any allusion whatever to color or race ; but slaves
and laborers are spoken of as belonging to the same class, and
holding the same relations to society. And both are doomed to
the same state of civil and social debasement, so as to form what
another slaveholding statesman has spoken of, in language of
genuine " Southern elegance " as " the mudsills of society."
Following the lead of these statesmen, the press began to reit
erate these anti-republican sentiments, with much more boldness
and even arrogance. It no longer deprecated the existence of
slavery as an " evil," but assumed the ground of its inherent
rightfulness, and undertook its defence accordingly. During the

Kansas controversy, the following sentiments were boldly pro
claimed by the " Richmond Enquirer" : —
" The South once thought her own institutions wrongful and inexpedient.
It thinks so no longer, and will insist that they shall be protected and
extended by the arm of the Federal government, equally with the institu
tions of the North."
Again it says : —
" Eepeatedly have we asked the North, ' has not the experiment of uni
versal liberty failed? Are not the evils of free society insufferable? And
do not most thinking men among you propose to subvert and reconstruct it.'
Still no answer. This gloomy silence is another conclusive proof, added to
many other conclusive evidences we have furnished, that/ree society, in the
long run, is an impracticable form of society. It is everywhere starving,
demoralized and insurrectionary. We repeat, then, that policy and human
ity alike forbid the extension of the evils of free society to new people and
coming generations."
The following plain speaking on this point is from the "Rich
mond Examiner " :
" Until recently the defence of slavery has' labored under great difficul
ties, because its apologists took half-way ground. They confined the
defence of slavery to mere negro slavery ; thereby giving up the slavery
principle, admitting other forms of slavery to be wrong. The line of
defence, however, is now changed. The South maintains that slavery is
right, natural and necessary, and does not depend upon difference of com
plexion. The laws of the slave States justify the holding of white men in
bondage." And still more blunt and downright is the following from the
" Charleston Mercury " : —
" Slavery is the natural and normal condition of the laboring man,
whether white or black."
DESPOTISM OPPOSED TO EDUCATION.
As learning is the friend of Freedom and the foe of Tyranny,
the despotic slave power not only "forbids the elements of
education being communicated to slaves," but arrays itself in
deadly hostility to the cause of education among the people gener
ally. It utters its maledictions against the New England common
school system, after this sort, through one of its organs, the
" Richmond Examiner," Dec. 28, 1855 : —
" We have got to hating every thing with the prefix free — frorii free
negroes down and up, through the whole catalogue of abominations, dema-
gogueries, lusts, philosophies, fanaticism, and follies, free farms, free labor,
free niggers, free society, free will, free thinking, free love, free wives, free

children, and free schools, all belonging to the same brood of damnable
isms, whose mother is Sin and whose daddy is the Devil.
" But the worst of all these abominations* — because, when once installed,
it becomes the hot-bed propagator of all — is the modern system of free
schools. We forget who it is that has charged and proved that the New
England system of free schools has been the cause and prolific source of
all the legions of horrible infidelities and treasons that have turned her
cities into Sodoms and Gomorrahs, and her fair land into the common
nestling-place of howling bedlamites. We abominate the system because
the schools are free, and because there ought to be no mob road to learn
ing." The unequivocal utterances of the Southern press, of which
the above extracts are only a few samples from a large stock,
plainly foreshadow the ultimate designs of the leaders and
movers of the Rebellion. " Slavery is the natural condition of
the laboring man." " The laws of the slave States justify the
holding of white men in bondage."
Who are " laboring men"? The millions In the North and
elsewhere, whose work fills our granaries and warehouses, freights
our ships with its inestimable products, beautifies and adorns the
earth, and surrounds us with material and even spiritual bless
ings. That these infamous doctrines and practices have brought forth
their legitimate fruits, is seen in the astounding fact that ihere
are seventy-five thousand free white adult men and women in Vir
ginia, unable to read or write. Nor is this state of things con
fined to Virginia, as will be shown by the following extract from
the Georgia " Federal Union."
" A generous patriotism is startled by the fact as it stood in 1840 :
upward of 30,000 free white grown-up citizens in Georgia unable to read
or write a word of their mother tongue ! Ten years roll by, 1850 comes,
and the number in that short time has swollen to 41,000 ! Many have
looked with anxiety at these figures (and surely not without the best of
reasons) who have not noticed the most distressing feature of the case.
We refer to the rapidity with which the number of entirely uneducated
freemen in Georgia increases. It increases more rapidly than the entire
population does. By reference to the last census, it will be seen that
between 1840 and 1850 the rate of increase of the entire white popula
tion was a little under 28 per cent. During the same time the rate of
increase of the number of adult citizens in the State unable to read or
write was over 34J per cent. It is only by distinctly observing this rapid
increase that we see the facts in their appalling magnitude. This vast
army of forty-one thousand will be more than doubled in thirty years ! At
the rate of the increase shown by the census, it will have within its ranks
in the year 1900, one hundred and seventy thousand of the citizens of
Georgia."

8
Having taken away the key of knowledge from the laborers in
their midst, and surrounded them with the thick clouds of dark-
ness and ignorance, the Southern despots commenced the process
of " subjugating " the people of the North by arrogant assump
tions of superiority in their daily intercourse, and even in the
halls of Congress. That the inevitable tendencies of the slave
system were such as to create a desire for universal domination
over all within reach of its influence was clearly foreseen and
stated by Jefferson and others. " An evil tree cannot bring forth
good fruit ; " and this accursed " Upas " has brought forth its
ripened products.
In a letter of Thomas Jefferson to M. Warville, Paris, Feb.
1788, speaking of the intercourse between master and slave, he
says : —
" The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath,
puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to his
worst passions ; and, thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in
tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities."
Hon. Lewis Summers, Judge of the General Court of Virginia,
and a slaveholder, said, in a speech before the Virginia Legisla
ture, in 1832 (see." Richmond Whig," Jan. 26, 1832) :—
" A slave population exercises the most pernicious influence upon the
manners, habits, and character of those among whom it exists. Lispitig
infancy learns the vocabulary of abusive epithets, and struts the embryo
tyrant of its little domain. The consciousness of superior destiny takes
possession of his mind at its earliest dawning, and love of power and rule
' grows with his growth and strengthens with his strength.' Unless enabled
to rise above the operation of those powerful causes, he enters the world
with miserable notions of self-importance, and under the government of an
unbridled temper."
Few, indeed, have been " enabled to rise above the operation
of these powerful causes." And accordingly we find that not
only the slaveholders, but the great mass of " poor white trash "
associated with them, have " entered the world with miserable
notions of self-importance, and under the government of an
unbridled temper" the " odious peculiarities " of which have
manifested themselves under every trifling pretext.
Says the " Richmond Enquirer " : —
" The relations between the North and South are very analogous to
those which subsisted between Greece and the Roman empire after the
subjugation of Achaia by the consul Mummius. The dignity and energy
of the Roman character, conspicuous in war and in politics, were not easily
tamed and adjusted to the arts of industry and literature. The degenerate

and pliant Greeks, on the contrary, excelled in the handicraft and polite
professions. We learn, from the vigorous invectives of Juvenal, that they
were the most useful and capable of servants, whether as pimps1 or pro
fessors of rhetoric. Obsequious, dexterous, and ready, the versatile Greeks
monopolized the business of teaching, publishing, and manufacturing in the
Roman Empire — allowing their masters ample leisure for the service of
the State, in the senate or in the field. The people of the Northern
States of this confederacy exhibit the same aptitude for the arts of indus
try. They excel as clerks, mechanics, and tradesmen, and they have
monopolized the business of teaching, publishing, and peddling."
The same paper, in its issue of June 2, 1856, holds the follow
ing language, in reference to the murderous assault of Preston
S. Brooks upon the Hon. Charles Sumner : —
" In the main, the press of the South applaud the conduct of Mr.
Brooks, without condition or limitation. Our approbation at least is entire
and unreserved. We consider the act good in conception, better in execu
tion, and best of all in consequences. These vulgar abolitionists in the
Senate are getting above themselves. They have been humored until they
forget their position. They have grown saucy, and dare to be impudent to
gentlemen. Now they are a low, mean, scurvy set, with some little book
learning, but as utterly devoid of spirit and honor as a pack of curs.
Intrenched behind 'privilege,' they faney they can slander the South and
its representatives with impunity.
"The truth is, they have been suffered to run too long without collars.
They must be lashed into submission. Sumner, in particular, ought to
have nine-and-thirty early every morning. He is a great strapping fellow,
and could stand the cowhide beautifully. Brooks frightened him, and, at
the first blow of the cane, he bellowed like a bull-calf.
" There is the blackguard Wilson, an ignorant Natick cobbler, swagger
ing in excess of muscle, and absolutely dying for a_ beating. Will not
somebody take him in hand ? Hale is another huge", red-faced, sweating
scoundrel, whom some gentleman should kick and cuff until he abates
something of his impudent talk.
" We trust other gentlemen will follow the example of Mr. Brooks, that
so a curb may be imposed upon the truculence and audacity of abolition
speakers. If need be, let us have a caning or cowhiding every day. If
the worst comes to the worst, so much the sooner, so much the better."
The same paper for the week ending June 12, 1863, has the
following : —
"The establishment of this Confederacy is verily a distinct reaction
against the whole course of the mistaken civilization of the age. And this is
the true reason why we have been left without the sympathy of the nations
until we conquered that sympathy with the sharp edge of our sword. For
< Liberty, Equality, Fraternity] we have deliberately substituted Slavery, Sub
ordination and Government. Those social and political problems which
rack and torture modern society we have undertaken to solve for ourselves,
in our own way, and upon our own principles. That ' among equals equality

10
is right ;' among those who are not naturally equal, equality is chaos ; that
there are slave races bom to serve, master races born to govern. Such are
the fundamental principles which we inherit from the ancient world ; which
we lifted up in the face of a perverse generation that has forgotten the
widom of its fathers ; by those principles we live, and in their defence we
have shown ourselves ready to die. Reverently we feel that our Confederacy
is a God-sent missionary to the nations, with great truths to preach. We
must preach them boldly ; and whoso hath ears to hear let him hear."
Comment on this atrocious avowal is needless. It is only
necessary to be read, to be denounced by every loyal American
citizen. Says the " Muscogee Herald" (Ala.) : —
"'Free Society!' We sicken at the name. What is it but a con
glomeration of greasy mechanics, filthy operatives, small-fisted farmers and
moonstruck theorists'? All the Northern and especially the New England
States, are devoid of society fitted for well-bred gentlemen. The prevailing
class one meets with, is that of mechanics, struggling to be genteel, and
small farmers, who do their own drudgery, and yet who are hardly fit for
association with a Southern gentleman's body servant."
When these mechanics lose all self-respect, cease " struggling,"
and, sinking down into a state of utter hopelessness, fall under the
task-master's lash ; and when these " small farmers," doomed to
the same degraded condition, shall do the " drudgery " of genteel
" masters " instead of " their own," they will be,, in the estimation
of these despotic traitors, in their proper places.
Following these arrogant assumptions of superiority, Southern
politicians began to utter terrible threats of disunion and destruc
tion to the whole country, unless every one of their desires and
schemes, no matter how tyrannical and devilish, were at once
gratified and carried out with alacrity by the North. The South
would accept nothing that savored of halting or hesitation. The
North must bow down and serve it with " all its might and soul
and strength."
The nomination of Fremont for President in 1856 was made
the pretext for renewing with increased vigor the agitation of the
project of the dissolution of the Union, which for thirty'years
had been the ultimate design of the Southern politicians. From
1856 to 1860 it was discussed, and its purpose avowed with great
freedom and boldness throughout the South and even in the halls
of Congress. The following statements and declarations of
Southern statesmen and politicians, clearly indicate tlie objects
aud designs of the leaders of the Rebellion. The reader will

11
observe that they all have the merit of clearness of statement,
and directness of purpose. " Drive the ' black Republican ' out
of the Temple of Liberty," exclaims Mr. Toombs, " or pull down
its pillars and involve him in a common ruin ! "
lt will also be noticed that, in order to carry out their plots
with greater certainty of success, the conspirators had chosen to
accomplish their wicked designs in the names of " Liberty " and
" Democracy." They knew well the force of names, and, that " a
lie shall keep its throne a whole age longer if it skulk behind the
shelter of some fair seeming name." So they assumed those
names and ideas dearest to the people as the surest and readiest
way to lead them blindfolded to their ruin. And so " Demo
cratic " statesmen and " Democratic " editors talked loudly of
Liberty, sung the praises of Liberty, shouted the sacred name of
LIBERTY, while they strangled her within her very sanctuary.
Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, a leading member of the U. S.
Senate, and chairman of the Judiciary Committee in 1856, said : —
" When Fremont is elected, we must rely upon what we have — a good
State Government. P>ery Governor ofthe South should call the Legisla
ture of his State together, and have measures of the South decided upon.
If they did not, and submit to the degradation, they would deserve the fate of
slaves. I should advise my Legislature to go at the tap of the drum."
Mr. Keitt, of South Carolina, made a fiery speech at Lynch-
burgh, Va., in 1856, and in view of the apprehended election of
Col. Fremont, exclaimed : —
" I tell you now, that if Fremont is elected, adherence to the Union is
treason to liberty. [Loud cheers.] I tell you now, that the Southern man
who will submit to his election is a traitor and a coward." [Enthusiastic
cheers.] This speech was indorsed as " sound doctrine " by the Hon.
John B. Floyd, of Virginia, Mr. Buchanan's Secretary of War.
For his attempted (and nearly successful) assassination of
Senator Sumner, Mr. Preston S. Brooks was complimented by an
ovation at the hands of 1 1 is constituents, at which Senators Butler,
of South Carolina, and Toombs, of Georgia, assisted. The hero
of the day, Mr. Brooks, made a speech on the occasion, from
which the following is an extract: —
" We have the issue upon us now ; and how are we to meet it ? I tell
you, fellow citizens, from the bottom of my heart, that the only mode which
I think available for meeting it, is just to tear the Constitution ofthe United
States, trample it under f not, and form a Southern Confederacy, every State
of which wiU be a slaveholding State. [Loud and prolonged cheers.] I

12
believe it, as I stand in the face of my Maker ; I believe it on my responsi
bility to you as your honored representative, that the only hope of the South
is in the South, and that the only available means of making that hope effec
tive is to cut asunder the bonds that tie us together, and take our* separate
position in the family of nations. These are my opinions. They have
always been my opinions. I have been a disunionist from ihe time I could
think. * * * * * ******
" Now, fellow citizens, I have told you very frankly and undisguisedly,
that I believe the only hope of the South is in dissolving the bonds which
connect us icith the Government — in separating the living body from the dead
carcass. If I was the commander of an army, I never would post a sentinel
who would not swear that slavery is right. *****
" I speak on my individual responsibility : If Fremont be elected Presi
dent ofthe United States, lam for the people in their majesty rising above
the law and leaders, taking the power in their own hands, going by concert
or not by concert, and laying the strong arm of Southern freemen upon the
treasury and ai chives oj the Government." [Applause.]
The Charleston " Mercury" the recognized organ of the South
Carolina Democracy, says : —
" Upon the policy cf dissolving the Union, of separating the South from
her Northern enemies, and establishing a Southern Confederacy, parties,
presses, politicians, and people, are a unit. There is not a single public man
in her limits, not one of her present Representatives or Senators in Congress,
who is not pledged to the lips in favor of disunion. Indeed, we well remem
ber that one of the most prominent leaders of the co-operation party, when
taunted with submission, rebuked the thought by saying, ' that in opposing
secession, he only took a step backward to strike a blow more deadly against
the Union.' "
In the autumn of 1856, Henry A. Wise, then Governor of
Virginia, told the people of that State that
" The South could not, without degradation, submit to the election of a
Black Republican President. To tell me we should submit to the election
of a Black Republican, under circumstances like these, is to tell me that
Virginia and the fourteen slave States are already subjugated and degraded
[cheers] ; that the Southern people are without spirit, and without purpose
to defend the rights they know and dare not maintain. [Cheers.] If you
submit to the election of Fremont, you will prove what Seward and Bur-
lingame said to be true — that the South cannot be .kicked out of the
Union." During the presidential campaign of 1856, the Washington
correspondent of the " New Orleans Delta" wrote : —
"It is already arranged, in the event of Fremont's election, or a failure
to elect by the people, to call the legislatures of Virginia, South Carolina
and Georgia to concert measures to withdraw from the Union before Fre
mont can get possession of the army and navy, and the purse-strings of
government. Governor Wise is actively at work already in the matter.
The South can rely on the President in the emergency contemplated. The
question now is, whether the people of the South will sustain their leaders."

13
At a Union meeting held at Knoxville, Tenn., Judge Daily,
formerly of Georgia, made a violent Southern speech, in the
course of which he said : —
" During the Presidential contest, Governor Wise had addressed letters
to all the Southern governors, and that the one to the Governor of Florida
had been shown him, in which Governor Wise said he had an army in readi
ness to prevent Fremont from taking his seat, if elected, and asking the
cooperation of those to whom he wrote."
Here we see that Governor Wise declared that he had an army
in readiness to overthrow the government of 1856 ; and by tlie
following it is shown that he relied upon seizing the United States
arsenal at Harper's Ferry, for arming his army— thus proposing
to do the same thing which John Brown was hung for doing two
years later.
Charles J. Faulkner, formerly a Representative in Congress from
Virginia, Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Committee,
in 1856, at a Democratic meeting held in Virginia, over which he
presided, said : —
~" When that noble and gallant son of Virginia, Henry A. Wise, declared,
as was said he did in October, 1856, that if Fremont should be elected, he
would seize the National Arsenal at Harper's Feert, how few
would, at that time, have justified so bold and decided a measure? It is the
fortune of some great and gifted minds to see far in advance of their con
temporaries. Should William H. Seward be elected in 1860, where is the
man now in our midst, who would not call for the impeachment of a Governor
of Virginia who would silently suffer that armory to pass under the control
of such an Executive head ? "
The " Richmond Enquirer," long one of the leading exponents
of the Southern Democracy, in commenting on the murderous
assault on Senator Sumner, said : — •
" Sumner and Sumner's friends, must be punished and silenced. Either
such wretches must be hung or put in the penitentiary, or the South should
ptepare at once to quit the Union.
" Let the South present a compact and undivided front. Let her, if
possible, detach Pennsylvania and southern Ohio, southern Indiana, and
southern Illinois from the North, and make the highlands between the
Ohio and the lakes the dividing line. Let the South treat with California ;
and, if necessary, ally herself with Russia, with Cuba and Brazil."
Senator Iverson, of Georgia, in a speech made to his constitu
ents previous to the assembling of the second session of the
36th Congress, said : —
" Slavery mu.t be maintained — in the Union, if possible; out of it, if
necessary ; peaceably, if we may, forcibly if we must. * * *
" In a confederated government of their own, the Southern States would
enjoy sources of wealth, prosperity, and power, unsurpassed by any nation

14
on earth. No neutrality laws would restrain our adventurous sons. Our
expanding policy would stretch far beyond present limits. Central America
would join her destiny to ours, and so would Cuba, now withheld from us,
by the voice and votes of abolition enemies."
In an elaborate speech in the Senate, the same Senator said : —
" Sir, there is but one path of safety to the South ; but one mode of
preserving her institution of domestic slavery ; and that is a confederacy
of States having no incongruous and opposing elements — a confederacy of
slave States alone, with homogeneous language, laws, interests, and institu
tions. Under such a confederated Republic, with a Constitution which
should shut out the approach and entrance of all incongruous and conflict
ing elements, which should protect the institution from change, and keep
the whole nation ever bound to its preservation, by an unchangeable funda
mental law, the fifteen slave States, with their power of expansion, would
present to the world the most free, prosperous, and happy nation on the
face of the wide earth."
Senator Brown, of Mississippi, in a recent speech to his constit
uents, said : —
I want Cuba; I want Tamaulipas, Potosi, and one or two other Mexi
can States ; and I want them all for the same reason — -for the planting and
spreading of slavery. And a footing in Central America will powerfully
aid us in acquiring those other States. Yes ; I want these countries for the
spread of slavery. I would spread the blessings of slavery, like the religion
of our Divine Master, to the uttermost ends of the earth ; and, rebellious
and wicked as the Yankees have been, I would even extend it to them. * *
" Whether we can obtain the territory while the Union lasts, I do not
know ; I fear we cannot. But I would make an honest effort, and if we
failed, I would, go out of the Union, and try it there. I speak plainly — I
would make a refusal to acquire territory because it was to be slave terri
tory, a cause of disunion, just as I would make the refusal to admit a new
State, because it was to be a slave State, a cause for disunion." * *
Hon. Robert Toombs, of Georgia, made a violent speech in the
Senate, January, 1860, in which he said : —
" Never permit this Federal Government to pass into the traitorous hands
of the Black Republican party. It has already declared war against you
and your institutions. It every day commits acts of war against you ; it
has already compelled you to arm for your defence. Listen to ' no vain
babblings,' to no treacherous jargon about ' overt acts ; ' they have already
been committed. Defend yourselves ; the enemy is at your door ; wait not
to meet him at the hearthstone, — meet him at the door-sill, and drive him
from the temple of liberty, or pull down its pillars and involve him in a
common ruin."
Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina, in a speech in relation to the
proper eauses for disunion, said : —
"In my judgment, the election ofthe presidential candidate ofthe Black
Republican party will furnish that cause. ******

15
" No other ' overt act ' can so imperatively demand resistance on our part
as the simple election of their candidate. Their organization is one of
avowed hostility, and they come against us as enemies." * *
These numerous propositions and threats of disunion and war
were only the outcroppings of deep laid plots, ramifying through
every department of the government and involving men high in
office, from the heads of departments downwards. They were
the utterances of men of aristocratic tendencies, whose haughty
spirits fretted at being compelled to stand up on the comparative
level of democratic ideas and institutions. They had morbid
cravings for an aristocratic form of government, with its orders
of nobility, and hereditary titles and distinctions, which should
lift them above and separate them forever from the great mass of
the people. These they would keep in a state of brutish igno- ,
ranee, so that, while toiling to support their lords, they would
look up to them, as the dull ox looks to his master, as superior
beings on whom they were dependent for food, shelter and
protection. Had these plotters of Treason and Rebellion, any real grounds
of complaint against the government? It is well known that
Alexander H. Stephens was strongly opposed to Secession, and
breasted the current to the last. The following extracts from a
speech delivered by him in the Georgia Convention in January,
1861, give some of his reasons for opposing Secession, and at the
same time furnish an answer to the above inquiry :
" What right has the North assailed ? What interest of the South has
been invaded ? What justice has been denied ? and what claim founded
in justice and right has been withheld ? Can either of you to-day name
one governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the
government of Washington, of which the South has a right to complain ?
I challenge the answer ! While on the other hand, let me show the facts,
of which I wish you to judge, and I will only state facts which are clear
and undeniable, and which now stand .as records authentic in the history of
our country.
" When we of the South demanded the slave trade, or the importation
of Africans for the cultivation of our lands, did they not yield the right for
twenty years ? When we asked a three-fifths representation in Congress
for our slaves, was it not granted ? When we asked and demanded the
return of any fugitive from justice, or the recovery of those persons owing
labor or allegiance, was it not incorporated in the Constitution ? and again
ratified and strengthened in the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 ?
" But do you reply, that in many instances they have violated this com
pact, and have not been faithful to their engagements ? As individuals and
local communities they may have done so ; but not by the sanction of gov
ernment; for that has always been true to Southern interests. Again,

16
gentlemen, look at another fact: when we have asked that more territory
should be added, that we might spread the institution of slavery, have they
not yielded to our demands in giving us Louisiana, Florida and Texas ?
" But, again, gentlemen, what have we to gain by this proposed change
of our relation to the general government ? We have alwTays had the
control of it, and can yet, if we remain in it, and are as united as we have
been. We have had a majority of the Presidents chosen from the South ;
as well as the control and management of most of those chosen from the
North. We have had sixty years of Southern Presidents to their twenty-
four, thus controlling the Executive department. So of the Judges of the
Supreme Court, we have had eighteen from the South, and but eleven
from the North ; although nearly four-fifths of the judicial business has
arisen in the Free States, yet a majority of the Court has always been
from the South. This we have required so as to guard against any inter
pretation of the Constitution unfavorable to us. In like manner we have
been equally watchful to guard our interests in the Legislative branch of
government. In choosing the presiding Presidents {pro tern.) of the
Senate, we have had twenty-four to their eleven. Speakers of the House,
we have had twenty-three, and they twelve. While the majority of the
Representatives, from their greater population, have always been from the
North, yet we have so generally secured the Speaker, because he, to a
great extent, shapes and controls the legislation of the country. Nor have
we had less control in every other department of the general government.
Attorney- Generals we have had fourteen, while the North have had but
five. Foreign ministers we have had eighty-six, and they but fifty-four.
While three-fourths of the business which demands diplomatic agents
abroad is clearly from the Free States, from their greater commercial
interests, yet we have had the principal embassies, so as to secure the world
markets for our cotton, tobacco and sugar on the best possible terms. We
have had a vast majority of the higher offices of both army and navy,
while a larger proportion of the soldiers and sailors were drawn from the
North. Equally so of Clerks, Auditors and Comptrollers filling the
Executive department ; the records show for the last fifty years, that of the
three thousand thus employed, we have had more than two-thirds of the
same, while we have but one-third of the white population of the Republic.
" Again, look at another item. From official documents, we learn that a
fraction over three-fourths of the revenue collected for the support of
government, has uniformly been raised from the North.
" Leaving out of view, for the present, the countless millions of dollars
you must expend in a war with the North ; with tens of thousands of your
sons and brothers slain in battle, and offered up as sacrifices upon the altar
of your ambition, — and for what, we ask again ? Is it for the overthrow
of the American government, established by our common ancestry, cemented
and built up by their sweat and blood, and founded on the broad principles
of Right, Justice, and Humanity ? And, as such, I must declare here, as I
have often done before, and which has been repeated by the greatest and
wisest of statesmen and patriots in this and other lands, that it is the best
and freest government — the most equal in its rights — the most just in its
decisions — the most lenient in its measures, and the most inspiring in its
principles lo elevate the race of men, that the sun of heaven ever shone upon.
" Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a government as this, is the
height of madness, folly and wickedness, to which I can neither lend my
sanction nor my vote."

17
Here it will be noticed that he makes no charges against the
government. But reason was dethroned in the rebel councils ; and Mr.
Stephens, overwhelmed by the irresistible tide of treason, accepted
the Vice-Presidency of the Slave Confederacy ; and then in the
spring of the same year — 1861 — made another speech at Savannah,
Ga., in which he explains the distinctive feature of his new
Government as follows : —
" The new constitution has put at rest forever, all the agitating questions
relating to our peculiar institutions — 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 his forecast had anticipated this as the ' rock on which the old Union
would split.' * * But whether he fully comprehended the great truth
upon which that rock stood, and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing
ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of
the formation of the 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, and politically. It was an evil they knew not
well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was,
that somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would
be evanescent and pass away. This idea though not incorporated in the
Constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. Those ideas, however,
were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the
equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation ; and
the idea of a government built upon it ; when the storm came and the
wind blew it fell.
" Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea ; its
foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the
negro is not equal to the white man — that slavery, subordination to the
superior race, is his natural and normal condition.
" This stone, which was rejected by the first builders, ' is become the
chief head of the corner ' in our new edifice."
The full significance of this language may be learned by
referring back to the extract from the " Charleston Mercury,''
which declares in the precise words of Mr. Stephens, that
" Slavery ' is the natural and normal condition ' of the laboring
man, whether white or black."
In an elaborate address of Hon. L. W. Spratt, of South Carolina,
to the confederate congress, at Montgomery, in 1861, in which he
insists, that the enslavement of at least one-half of the population
of any State is absolutely essential to its stability and safety,
occur the following among many similar passages : —
" The South is now in the formation of a slave republic. This, perhaps,
is not admitted generally. There are many contented to believe that the

18
South as £ mere geographical section, is in mere assertion of its indepen
dence ; that it is instinct with no especial truth — pregnant of no distinct
social nature ; that for some unaccountable reason the two sections have
become opposed to each other ; that for reasons equally insufficient, there
is disagreement between the peoples that direct them ; and that from no
overruling necessity, no impossibility of co-existence, but as mere matter
of policy, it has been considered best for the South to strike out for herself,
and establish an independence of her own. This, I fear, is an inadequate
conception of the controversy.
" The contest is not between the North and ihe South as geographical sections,
for between such sections merely, there can be no contest ; nor between the
people of the North and the people of the South, for our relations have been
pleasant, and on neutral grounds there is still nothing to estrange us."
* * * a ;gut the real contest lies between the two forms of society which
have become established, the one at the North and the other at the South."
* * " Society is essentially different from government." * * " And
within this government, two societies had become developed, as variant in
structure and distinct in form as any two beings in animated nature. * *
The one is bound together by the two great social relations of husband
and wife, and parent and child ; the other by the three relations of husband
and wife, and parent and child, and master and slave. The one embodies
in its political structure the principle that equality is the right of man ; the
other that it is the right of equals only. The one embodying the principle
that equality is the right of man, expands upon the horizontal plane of a
pure democracy ; the other embodying the principle that it is not the right
of man, but of equals only, has taken to itself the rounded form of a social
aristocracy." * * * * "In the one, therefore, the reins of govern
ment come from the heels, in the other, from the head of the society. In
the one it is guided by the worst, in the other by the best intelligence."
* * * * ii jn tjje onej ^he pauper laborer has the power to rise and
appropriate by law, the goods protected by the State — when pressure
comes, as come it must, there will be the motive to exert it — and thus the
ship of State turns bottom upwards. In the other, there is no pauper
labor with the power of rising ; the ship of State has ihe ballast of a dis
franchised class ; there is no possibility of a political upheaval, therefore,
and it is reasonably certain, that so steadied, it will sail erect and onward
to an indefinitely distant period." *****
" Such are the two forms of society which had come to contest within
the structure of the recent Union, and the contest for existence was inevi
table. Neither could concur in the requisitions of the other." * * *
" Like an eagle and a fish joined together hy an indissoluble bond, * *
where the eagle could not share the fluid suited to the fish and live,
where the fish could not share the fluid suited to the bird and live, and
where one must perish that the other may survive, unless the unnatural
union shall be severed — so these societies, would not if they could, concur.
The principle that races are unequal, would have been destructive to the
form of pure democracy at the North. The principle that all men are
equal, would have been destructive of Slavery at the South. Each required
the element suited to its social nature. Each must strive to make the gov
ernment expressive of its social nature. The natural expansion of the
one, must become encroachment on the other; and so the contest was
inevitable. Seward and Lincoln, in theory at least, whatever be their aim,

19
are right. I realized the fact, and so declared the contest irrepressible
years before either ventured to advance that proposition."
3ffr * $p ^ $lt 3jt ¦s|t,JK,'JH,^^|f
" The officers of the State are slave-owners, and the representatives of
slave-owners. In their public acts they exhibit the consciousness of a
superior position. Without unusual individual ability, they exhibit the
elevation of tone and composure of public sentiment proper to a master
class. There is no appeal to the mass, for there is no mass to appeal to.
There are no demagogues, for there is no populace to breed them. Judges
are not forced upon the stump ; governors are not dragged before the
people ; and when there is cause to act upon the fortunes of our social
institutions, there is perhaps, an unusual readiness to meet it." * * *
" With that perfect economy of resources, that just application of power,
that concentration of forces, that security of order which results to Slavery
from the permanent direction of its best intelligence, there is no other form
of human labor that can stand against it, and it will build for itself a home,
and erect for itself, at some point within the present limits of the Southern
States, a structure of imperial power and grandeur — a glorious confederacy
of States that will stand aloft and serene for ages amid the anarchy of
democracies that will reel around it."
Here we have the calm, philosophical reasoning of cool-headed,
calculating statesmen, wherein they dispose of human beings,
with all their immortal powers and interests, as if they were no
other than herds of unreasoning brutes. " Equals have rights,"
say they, " unequals " have no rights, except such as the *' master
race " may allow. Mr. Stephens only designates " negroes " as
the & race " to be disfranchised, owned, and disposed of by the
" master class."
" DeBow's New Orleans Review " says : " The right to govern
resides in a very small minority ; the duty to obey, is inherent in
the great mass of mankind."
Mr. Spratt, with a candor surpassing prudence, perhaps, de
clares, that " the mass," the " populace," " the people," are to be
" owned," " disfranchised," and put down as " ballast to the ship
of state." And he plainly tells those Northern doughfaces who
have so long clung to the skirts of the slave power, and de
nounced every man as a traitor who has dared to say that free
dom and slavery could not live together in peaceful union, that
such a union is impossible in the very nature of things, — as
every-body, not a blind worshiper of Southern aristocracy, knew
before. The North, he tells, them, is a Democracy ; the South,
an Aristocracy : and these two can never live in peace uriuer one
government. Both will strive to make the government represent
its ideas, and serve its purposes. And as " no man can serve two

20
masters," so no government can serve two such opposing princi
ples. Whichever prospers, prospers at the expense of the other.
If Aristocracy is strengthened, Democracy is weakened and ulti
mately destroyed. If Democracy is strengthened, then Aristoc
racy goes down before it. He declared the conflict between the
two " irrepressible " years ago.
Although this sort of testimony might be multiplied indefi
nitely, we forbear, as enough has been presented to prove beyond
cavil that the movers and leaders in this Rebellion have but one
fell purpose, to establish a dismal and devilish despotism on the
ruins of our American liberties.
They are not oppressed subjects rebelling against the tyrannical
usurpations of a wicked government : for they have again and
again confessed that the only ground of their Rebellion is, that
the government is not despotic and tyrannical enough to suit
them. Had the government continued wicked enough, and could
they have used it for the purpose of robbing all laboring men,
white as well as black, of every right which God ever gave them,
and established themselves as the permanent and unquestioned
lords and masters of this continent, they never would have
made this insurrection. *
They have rebelled against our government for the sole reason
that it is too good for- them. And here we have at last, in our
own beloved country, a parallel to that insurrection in Heaven
so graphically described by Milton. And in this case, as in that,
" Devil with devil damned firm concord holds "
for the accomplishment of their infernal aims, which are to
" subdue " and " crush out " the Liberties of the people, North
and South, and convert the whole nation into one grand slave-
holding despotism, which shall grind the masses under its lordly
and imperious heel.
There is no middle ground, and no other issue involved in this
contest. " Choose ye, this day, whom ye will serve."

YALE UNIVERSITY

V