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O.O M M E N" T S

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LETTER- AND TWO SPEECHES,
By Montgomery Blair,
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NEW YORE :
HALL, CLAYTON & MEDOLE, PRINTERS,
46 Pime Stbeet.
18 6 3.

COMMENTS

ON THE

POLICY INAUGURATED

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LETTER AND TWO SPEECHES.

By Montgomery Blair,
POSTMASTER-GENERAL.

NEW YORK:
HALL, CLAYTON & MEDOLE, PRINTERS,
46 Pine Stbeet.
1863.

LETTER
TO THE
MEETING HELD AT THE COOPER INSTITUTE,
NEW YORK, MARCH 6, 1862.

Washington, District op Columbia, March 2, 1863.
Gentlemen — I have the honor to acknowledge your favor of yesterday,
inviting 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 offer some thoughts for your consideration.
I do not concur 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 the
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 unimproved 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 property in the region where the rebellion broke
out, and were prosperous. It was the Democratic organization, which
did not represent the slaveholders as a class, which hatched the rebellion.
Their defeat in the late political 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, et id
ovine genus, for the Presidency of the Union, and hence the rebellion. It
extinguished slavery as a power to control the Federal Government, and
it was the capacity of slavery to subserve this purpose aloue 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 uphold it. No man ever defended such an institution except for pay,
and nothing short of the power of the Government could provide sufficient
gratification to ambition to pay for such service ; and therefore Mr.
Toombs said, with perfect truth, that the 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
ment, 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. The calamities now upo.n us have 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
secessionists in the non-slaveholders.
In considering the means of securing the peace of the country hereafter,
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 them, and
consequently amalgamation, that their jealousy was stimulated to the
fighting point. Nor 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 popular iustiucts,
proceeds from the highest wisdom. It is, in fact, the instinct of self-pres
ervation which revolts at hybridism.
Nor 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 which the immortal author of
the Declaration himself declared to be indispensable 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
in Exeter Hall, are so far removed, by their circumstances, from any prac-

tical equality with, working people of any race, that they have little
sympathy for them, and nothing to apprehend for themselves from the
theory of equality. Not so with the white working man in a community
where there are many negroes. In such circumstances, the distinction of
caste is the only protection of the race from hybridism and consequent
extinction. That this jealousy of caste is the instinct of the highest wisdom, and is
fraught with the greatest good, is abundantly attested by its effects ou our
own race, in which it is stronger than in any other. We conquer aud
hold our conquest 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 be
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, they would be unconquerable. As matters stand, we can put down
the rebellion, because the people of the natural strongholds of the southern
country 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 nnmerous 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 engaged
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 object if they were finally
subdued and exterminated, if we left the negroes on the soil ; for other
whites would take the country, 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 result in the massacre of them. A general
massacre was on the eve of taking place in the State of Tennessee in 1856,
upon a risiug of some of them on the Cnmberland ; 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 the slave 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 them as their own, 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 maintainad 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, iu the end, any more than such means could
avail to preserve the Indian possession and dominion.
The rebellion, like the Indian outbreaks, is but a vain attempt to stem
the tide of civilization and progress. The treachery, falsehood, and cru
elty perpetrated 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 provision 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. Jefferson'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 to 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 white 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 should be adopted 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 the 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 are and ever will
be, to insure the co-operation of the non-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 Committee op Invitation, &c.

SPEECH
AT THH
MEETING HELD AT CLEVELAND,
MAY 20, 1863,

Fellow-Citizens — 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 which 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

Government they managed and enjoyed, would ultimately extend the bless
ing of liberty to a dependent people, and effectually remove their disabili
ties on a new scene of useful and independent exertion. These considera
tions induced the sages, on founding the Republic, not to disturb that poi
sonous element which they believed the vigor of the Constitution would
work out of the system in time. They lived to see their fond hopes proved
delusions. The noxious plant of barbarous African growth, taking
root in the accumulations of avarice, worked by the energy of a great race,
outstripped all the sweet shoots of humanizing culture given to our Constitu
tion by the benevolent philosophy of our forefathers. In plain truth, slavery
has propagated in its region, in prodigious strength, all that is evil in the na
ture of our countrymen, aud stifled all the virtues in which our glorious
Government had its origin. How strikingly this is demonstrated by the
fact, that whilst there was not a man in the South, who contributed to es
tablish the free institutions among us, who did not denounce slavery as a
curse from which the country must somehow be redeemed, now there is not
one of that slave-breeding and governing class who does not proclaim it as
the all-essential blessing for which life itself must be sacrificed.
The process by which this melancholy change has been accomplished is
illustrated by the drunkard's career. This unhappy class 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 iuto 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 land of slaves tells the same story which
is to be found in the annals of every slave empire. All Asia has been
corrupted by slavery. Africa, its birth-place, has ever been a desert.
The glorious ancient republics perished under its influence, after reaching
the highest point of civilization by 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 serfdom.
Reverence for the hopeful idea of our fathers that the inherent virtue
of the Constitution would extinguish slavery induced all who felt that i'ts
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 break all compacts and strike
for the empire of the continent. Kansas was taken by force and a slave
government was designed to be established by fraud, and the Supreme
Court affirmed a principle in the Dred Scott case which carried it all over
our country. Slavery, the Court said, was a property which was held-
under the Constitution of the United States, and for that reason could not

10
be excluded from the Territories by their lawful Government. The reason
ing applies to the States as well as to the Territories, for the Constitution
of the United States is equally paramount in both. Their fillibusters or
pirates having failed in their attempt to seize Cuba and Central America,
they proposed lo lake 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 rebellion
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 fighting in their ranks — multitudes in erecting and
defending their fortifications — the greater mass in the fields 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 the President was a reluctant advance, because,
however necessary, it proceeded solely from himself, as being alone invested
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 placed the Government in
a position from which there was no retreat. The proclamation to the slaves
to weaken the enemy commits the nation irrevocably to moke 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 pledge of honor to the foreign powers whose conduct it is designed
to influence. That measure which, as Commander-in Chief, 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, cau 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 of 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 the 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 continuance 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 defence, proposed by the Military Committee of the 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 invulnerable. 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-American 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 break the fetters of Cuba, and make it excel the fabled Hesperides
under Cis'- Atlantic influences, and the favor of European nations inter
ested in the commerce of the Indies of the West, far richer than those of
the Orient. Aided with the capital and intelligence of the great commer
cial powers, they will make the waters of the Pacific and Atlantic flow
through Central 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 iuadmissible and 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
whole, I think he may safely ask the verdict of his cotemporaries and of
posterity upon his patriotism and comprehensive wisdom.

SPEECH
AT THE
UNION MASS CONTENTION,
CONCORD, N. H., JUNE 17, 1863.

Fellow-Citizens — I thank you for this kind greeting. I have cherished
ties with New Hampshire, and for almost twenty years have had such
friendly intercourse with the people of the State, that such an 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 ani
mated New Hampshire. In 1*1*16, 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 in the fight, 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
jnst rights of the South, or the firmness displayed in maintaining their own
rights — in every aspect in which the conduct of this people can be regarded,
in these great eras, it challenges the admiration of the friends of popular
Government. No one can now recur to the political conflicts 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 beeii 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 part of the South to defend their prop
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
unite 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
sensitiveness which would enable the nullifiers to unite the South to demand
the submission of the North on 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 foreshadowed 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 men calling themselves Democrats, who
think the people of the North 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 nullifiers, 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 nullifier'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 snch 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 nullifiers had not recalled him to the Senate by the repeal of the
Missouri compromise.
So much for the past — I draw no unfavorable auguries from it for the
future. The self-reliance of the American people — the grand feature which
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 omnipotent 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 parties
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 in
letter or in 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 form of government, and con
struction of a new one — the periodical catastrophe in revolutionary Mexico,
or the 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
sacritice popular institutions, secured by the best government known to the
world, to selfish designs, countenance the idea. The heartless faction of
oligarchs, North and South, who consider republican principles an abomin
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 in the middle and demolish it
to make experiments with the fractions in reconstructions suited to their
designs, which are only known as hostile 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 government to
the guillotine of revolutionary tribunals, because they recognize the exist
ence of different races among us — of white, 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 one 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 Dative-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 purpose,
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 war 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 their subversion. Into this practical issue
Calhoun's State right doctrines resolve themselves. If the people of the
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 doctrines of Wendell Phillips
come ? Slavery is abolished, as I have shown, by the rebellion aud 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 them-

17
¦selves. This amalgamation in races is more than a revolution in govern
ment. It is an attempt to make a fundamental change in the laws of na
ture, and, by blending different species of the human race, create a hybrid
nation. This will prove to be an impossibility. The red, white, and black
races have mingled very freely on this continent, but the hybrids gradually
wear out, while the old stock preserves its original type. The French,
from the infancy of discovery on this continent, intermarried with the
Indian tribes — but where is the French tribe of Indians to be found ?
They made the same experiment with the blacks in St. Domingo, and a
mongrel race appeared for a time of various tints, but it is gradually van
ishing. So the old Spanish blood that mixed with that of the Indians, in
Spanish America, has almost run out, and Indians and Spaniards are as
incongruous with each other as in the beginning, and the fatal result of
this attempted amalgamation is shown in the degradation of both races,
and in the instability of their governments.
If the history of the world, and the present aspect of both hemispheres,
did not make manifest the absurdity of the proposed system of mixing the
black and white races in the management of a common government, and
blending the two colors to make a third, or rather a piebald people of all
colors, the repugnance of caste which has grown up in this country, on the
part of the white freeman to the black man, contrasted by his servile con
dition from his first appearance among us as strongly as by his ebon skin
and curled hair, certainly shows that nothing short of insanity could hope
to reconcile the dominant, and, I might say, the domineering race, to such
a conjunction. When the Northern free States have framed laws prohib
iting the colored freedman from obtaining a foothold on their soil, upon
what terms can it be supposed the master race, in the slave States, would
consent to associate with negroes made free by the hand of war ? They
would see their State laws and their State rights, as they insist, set aside
by the deprivation of their ownership in slaves. This would be just for
feiture. But while the free States of the North excluded the manumitted
slaves from their soil, avowing the abhorrent feeling of caste as an insuper
able bar to the association on any terms, much less of equality, how could
it be asked of the Southern States that this excommunicated race, surren
dered by them as slaves, should be retained, nevertheless, among them, and
admitted as equals and as partners in- political power, in defiance of the
Constitution of the United States, and the laws even of the Northern
States, which brand them with the badge of inferiority and political disab
ility? What would be the attitude of the Anglo-Saxon and the African
toward each other in such relations produced by the triumph of the free
States over the slave ? Would the white man of the South live to bear
subjugation to such fellowship ? Would not the inextinguishable memory
of wrongs on one side, and of admitted mastery on the other, make patient
acquiescence on either side impossible ? 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 the
basis of the ultra abolitionists 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.
The advocates of this hybrid policy know this, but they think the negro
so essential to the selfish purposes of their political ambition, that, 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
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, the 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 np 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 the invasion of our homes. The great wall of
China — the prodigious military highways through which Rome united her
empire over As'ia, Africa and Europe, were the works of populations,
whose necessities placed them as a charge on the government.
By such means. the process of liberating four millions of bondsmen, 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 peace, what do those ultra humanitarians offer ? They
profess so much philanthropy in the abstract, and such perfect impartiality
in judging of human affairs, tha't 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. All
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 daDger, 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 profound 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 white 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 you would scarcely have much
preference between being governed by Jeff. Davis, as the leader of the
slave power, aud 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 versed 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 Phillips scheme is the dream of vis
ionaries wholly unskilled in government, and will be 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
men, 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. Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia. In 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. Natdke, 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 off insensibly, and in their place be 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."

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Gift of
STUART W.JACKSON
Yale 1898