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Curtis, George Ticknor
An Oration. . .
Boston, 1862.

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OEATION

D K I- 1 V E li E D ON T II !£

FOURTH OF JULY, 1862,

li E F O R E

THE MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES

OK THE

CITY OF BOSTOIST

BY GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS.

BOSTON:
.1. E. FAliWELL AND COMPANY, PBINTEES TO THE CITY,
SO. 37 Congress Strekt.
1862.

OEATION

D E L I V IS II E D ON THE

FOURTH OF JULY, 1862,

BEFORE

THE MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES

OF THE

CITY OF bosto:n^

BY GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS.

BOSTON:
J. E. FAR"W"ELL AND COMPANY, PRINTERS TO THE CITY,
No. 37 CONGRESS Street.
1862.

a\3

CITY OF BOSTON

In Board of Aldermen, July 7, 1862.
Ordered: That the thanks of the City Council are hereby
presented to the Hon. George T. Curtis for his very eloquent
and patriotic Oration before the Municipal Authorities of the
City of Boston on tlie occasion of the Eighty-sixth Anniversary
of the Declaration of the Independence of the United States of
America, and that he be requested to furnish a copy for publi
cation. Passed : Sent down for concurrence. THOMAS P. EICH, Chairman.
In Common Council, July 10, 1862.
Concurred. JOSHUA D. BALL, President.
Approved, July 11, 1862. JOSEPH M. WIGHTMAN, Mayor.
A true copy.
Attest: SAMUEL F. McCLEAEY, City Clerk.

OEATION

Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen of the City Council :
Had I felt at liberty to consult my own inclination
alone, I should have asked you to excuse mc from
taking part in the proceedings of this day. At a
much earlier period of life, I enjoyed the distinction
of being placed on the long roll of those "who have
successively spoken to the people of Boston, at the
bidding of their municipal authorities, on this our
national anniversary. At this particular juncture, I
could "vvell have desired to be spared from the per
formance of any such public duty. I had prepared
myself to bear "what is now upon us, in silence and
obscurity ; doing the infinitely little that I may, to
alleviate personal suffering, sustaining the hopes of
those who are nearest to me, and endeavoring to cher
ish in my own breast a living faith in the strength
and perpetuity of our republican forms of govern
ment. But private wishes are nothing — private tastes are
nothing — in the presence of great public trials and

dangers. Wc cannot, if we would, escape the respon
sibilities which such trials and dangers entail upon
us. If we fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, the
thought of our country is with us there. If we put
on the robes of the stoic, or wrap ourselves in the
philosophy of the fatalist, the heart beneath will beat
for the land of our birth, in spite of the outward man.
There is no peace, there is no hope, there is no hap
piness, in a state of indifference to the welfare and
honor of our country. The most sordid of men, whose
sole delight consists in laying, day by day, one more
piece of gold on his already swollen heaps, has no
more assured rest from anxiety for his country, in
times of real peril, than he whose whole being quiv
ers beneath the blows which public disasters or dis
graces inflict upon a refined and sensitive nature. To
love our country ; to labor for its prosperity and re
pose ; to contend, in civil life, for the measures which
wc believe essential to its good ; to yearn for that
long, deep, tranquil flow of public affairs, which we
fondly hope is to reach and bear safely on its bosom
those in whom we are to have an earthly hereafter ;
these are the nobler passions and the higher aims
which distinguish the civilized from the savage man.
Even if I did not feel such emotions deeply, how could
I bring here at such a time as this the doubts and

misgivings of one fearful for himself? The thickly
crowding memories of the far-off dead, who haAc
fallen in the bitter contests of this civil war, admon
ish me of the insignificance of such fears. Who shall
bring a thought of the exertions, the sacrifices or the
responsibilities of public discourse into the presence
of the calamities of his country !
I am here for a far other purpose. I come to plead
for the Constitution of our country. I am here to
show you, from my own earnest convictions, how dan
gerous it may be to forego all care for the connection
between the political past and the political future. I
am here to state to you, as I have read them on the
page of history, the fundamental conditions on which
alone, as I believe, the people of these States can be
a nation, and preserve their liberties. I am here to
endeavor to rescue the idea of union from heresies as
destructive as the disorganizing and justly reprobated
heresies of secession. I wish to do what I can to
define to rational and intelligent minds the real na
ture and limits of the national supremacy ; and to
vindicate it from the corroding influence of doctrines
which are leading us away from the political faith
and precepts of a free people.
Do you say that there is no need of such a discus
sion 1 Reflect for a moment, I pray you, on what has
already crept into the common uses of our political

speech. We hear men talk about the " old " Con
stitution ; as if that admirable frame of government,
which is not yet older than some who still live under
its sway, and which has bestowed on this nation a
vigor unexampled in history, were already in its de
crepitude ; or as if it had become suspended from its
functions by general consent, to await at respectful
distance the advent of some new authority, as yet un
known. We hear men talk of the " old " Union ; as
if there were a choice about the terms on which the
Union can subsist, or as if those terms were not to
be taken as having been fixed, on the day on which
Washington and his compatriots signed the Consti
tution of the United States. You will not say that
this tendency — this apparent willingness to break
away from the past and its obligations, and to throw
ourselves upon a careless tempting of the future —
does not demand your sober consideration. I beg
you also to call before you another symptom of these
unsettled times. With an extravagance partly habit
ual to us, and partly springing from the intense ex
ertions of the year which has just passed, we have
encountered the doctrines of secession and disunion
with many theories about the national unity and the
Federal authority, which are not founded in history
or in law. Are you not conscious that there has been
poured forth from hundreds of American pulpits, plat-

9

forms, and presses, and on the floors of Congress, a
species of what is called argument, in defence of the
national supremacy, which ill befits the nature of our
republican institutions 1 When I hear one of these
courtier-like preachers or writers, for our American
sovereigns, resting the authority of our government on
a doctrine that might have gained him promotion at
the hands of James or Charles Stuart, I cannot help
wishing that he had lived in an age when such teach
ings, if not actually believed to be sound, were at
all events exceedingly useful to the teachers. My
friends, I cannot bear the thought of vindicating the
supremacy of our national government by anything
but the just title on which it was founded ; and I
will not desert the solid ground of our republican
constitutional liberty for any purpose on earth while
there is a hope of maintaining it.
I know of no just foundation for the title of gov
ernment in this country, but consent — that consent
which resides in compact, contract, stipulation, con
cession — the " do et concedo " of public grants. Give
me a solemn cession of political sovereign poAvers,
evidenced by a public transaction and a public char
ter, and you have given me a civil contract, to which
I -can apply the rules of public law and the obliga
tions of justice between man and man ; on which I
can separate the legitimate powders of the government

10
from the rights of the people ; on which I can, with
perfect propriety, assert the authority of law in the
halls of criminal jurisprudence, or, if need be, at the
mouth of the cannon. But when you speak of any
other right of one collection of people or States to
govern another collection of people or States ; when
you go beyond a public charter to create a national
unity and a duty of loyalty and submission indepen
dent of that charter ; when you undertake to found
government on something not embraced by a grant —
I understand you to employ a language and ideas
that ought never to be uttered by an American
tongue, and which, if carried out in practice, will
put an end to the principles on which your liberties
are founded.
For these and many other reasons — most appropri
ate for our consideration this day — let us recur to
certain indisputable facts in our history. I shall
make no apology for insisting on the precedents of
our national history. No nation can safeh' lay aside
the teachings, the obligations, or the facts of its pre
vious existence. You cannot make a tabula rasa of
your political condition, and write upon it a purely
original system, with no traditions, no law, no com
pacts, no beliefs, no limitations, derived frorn the gen
erations who have gone before you, without ruinously
failing to improve. RcAolutionary France tried such

11

a proceeding; — and property, life, religion, morals,
public order and public tranquillity went down into
a confusion no better than barbarism, out of which
society could be raised again only by the strong hand
of a despot. We are of a race which ought to have
learned by the experience of a thousand years, that
reforms, improvements, progress, must be conducted
with a fixed reference to those antecedent facts which
have already formed the chief condition of the na
tional existence. Let us attend to some of the well
known truths in our history.
1. The Declaration of Independence was not
accepted by the people of the colonies, and their
Delegates in Congress were not authorized to enter
into a Union, without a reservation to the people of
each colony of its distinct separate right of internal
self-government. To represent the abstract sentiments
of the Declaration as inconsistent with any law or
institution existing in any one of the colonies, is to
contradict the record and history of its adoption.
What, for example, do you make of the following
resolution of the people of Maryland in convention,
adopted on the 28th day of June, 1776, and laid be
fore the Continental Congress three days before the
Declaration of Independence was signed : " That the
deputies of said Colony or any three or more of
them, be authorized and empowered to concur with

12
the other United Colonies, or a majority of them,
in declaring the United Colonies free and indepen
dent States ; in forming such further compact and
confederation between them ; in making foreign alli
ances, and in adopting such other measures as shall
be adjudged necessary for securing the liberties of
America ; and, that said Colony will hold itself
bound by the resolutions of the majority of the
United Colonies, in the premises : frovided, the sole
and exclusive RIGHT OF REGULATING THE INTERNAL
GOVERNMENT AND POLICE OF THAT CoLONY BE RESERVED
TO THE PEOPLE THEREOF."
This annunciation of the sense and purpose in
which the people of jNIaryland accepted the Decla
ration, is just as much a part of the record as the
Declaration itself ; and it clearly controls for them
the meaning and application of every political ax
iom or principle which the Declaration contains. It
was intended to signify to the country and the
world, that the people of ^Maryland consented to
separate themselves from the sovereignty of Great
Britain, on the condition, that the right to maintain
within their own limits just such a system of soci
ety and government as they might see flt to main
tain, should belong to them, notwithstanding any
thing said in the Declaration to which they were
asked to give their assent.

13

Several of the other colonies made a similar
express reservation; and all of them, and all the
people of America, understood that every colony ac
cepted the Declaration, in fact, in the same sense.
No man in the whole country, from the 4th of
July, 1776, to the adoption of the Articles of Con
federation, ever supposed that the Revolutionary
Congress acquired any legal right to interfere with
the domestic concerns of any one of the colonies
which then became States, or any moral authority
to lay down rules for determining what laws, insti
tutions, or customs, or what condition of its inhab
itants, should be adopted or continued by the States
in their internal government. From that day to
this, it has ever been a received doctrine of Amer
ican law, that the Revolutionary Congress exercised,
with the assent of the whole people, certain powers
which were needful for the common defence ; but
that these powers in no way touched or involved
the sovereign right of each State to regulate its
own internal condition.
2. When the Articles of Confederation were
finally ratified, in 1781, there was placed in the
very front of the instrument the solemn declaration
that, " Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom,
and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and
right, which is not by this Confederation expressly

u
delegated to the United States in Congress assem-
bled;" and the powers given to the United States in
Congress related exclusively to those affairs in which
the States had a common concern, and were framed
with a view to the common defence against a for
eign enemy, in order to secure, by joint exertions,
the independence and sovereignty of each of the
States. 3. When the Constitution of the United States
was finally established, in 1788, the people of each
State, acting through authorized agents, executed, by
a resolution or other public act, a cession of cer
tain sovereign powers, described in the Constitution,
to the Government which that Constitution pro
vided to receive and exercise them. These powers
being once absolutely granted by public instruments
duly executed in behalf of the people of each State,
were thenceforth incapable of being resumed ; for I
hold that there is nothing in the nature of political
powers which renders them, when absolutely ceded,
any more capable of being resumed at pleasure by
the grantors, than a right of property is when once
convoyed by an absolute deed. In both cases, those
who receive the grant hold under a contract; and if
that contract, as is the case with the Constitution,
proA-idcs for a common arbiter to determine its mean-
iuo- and operation, there is no resulting right in the

15

parties, from the instrument itself, to determine any
question that arises under it.
At the same time, it is never to be forgotten that
the powers and rights of separate internal govern
ment which were not ceded by the people of the
States, or which they did not by adopting the Con
stitution agree to restrain, remained in the people
of each State in full sovereignt}'. It might have
been enough for their safety to have rested upon
this as a familiarly understood and well defined prin
ciple of public law, implied in every such grant.
But the people did not see fit to trust to implication
alone. They insisted upon annexing to the Consti
tution an amendment, which declares that " The
¦powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States,
are reserved to the States respectively, or to the
people." We thus see that, from the first dawn of our
national existence, through every form which it has
yet assumed, a dual character has constantly attend
ed our political condition. A nation has existed,
because there has all along existed a central author
ity having the right to prescribe the rule of action
for the whole people, on certain subjects, occasions,
and relations. In this sense and in no other, to
this extent but no farther, we have been since

16
1776, and are now, a nation. At the beginning, the
limits of this central authority, in respect to which
we are a nation, were defined by general popular
understanding ; but more recently they were fixed in
written terms and public charters, first by the Arti
cles of Confederation, and ultimately and with a
more enlarged scope and a more efficient machinery,
by the Constitution. The latter instrument made
this central authority a government proper, but with
limited and defined powers, which are supreme
within their own appropriate sphere. In like man
ner, from the beginning, there has existed another
political body ; — distinct, sovereign within its own
sphere, and independent as to all the powers and
objects of government not ceded or restrained under'
the Federal Constitution. This body is the State ; a
political corporation, of which each inhabitant is a
subject, as he is at the same time a subject of that
other political corporation known as the United
States. All this is familiar to you. But I state it here,
because I wish to remind you that the careful pres
ervation of this separate political body, the State, —
this sovereign right of self-government as far as it
has been retained by the people of each State, —
has ever been a cardinal rule of action with the
American people, and with all their wisest states-

17

men, Northern and Southern, of every school of
politics. There have been great differences of opin
ion, and great controversies, respecting the dividing
line which separates, or ought to be held to sepa
rate, the National from the State powers. But no
American statesman has ever lived, at any former
period, who would have dared to confess a purpose
to crush the State sovereignties out of existence ;
and no man can now confess such a wish, without
arousing a popular jealousy which will not slumber
even in a time of civil w^ar and national commo
tion. What is the true secret of this undying popular
jealousy on the subject of the State rights ] What
is it, that even now — when we are sending our
best blood to be poured out in defence of the true
principle of the national supremacy — causes all
men who are not mad with some revolutionary pro
ject, to shrink from measures that appear to threaten
the integrity of State authority, and to pray that at
least that bitter and dreaded cup may pass from us]
It is the original, inborn and indestructible belief
that the preservation of the State sovereignty, within
its just and legitimate sphere, is essential to the
preservation of Republican liberty. Beyond a doubt,
it was this belief which led the people from the
first to object, as they sometimes did unreasonably

18
object, to the augmentation of the national powers.
Perhaps they could not always explain — perhaps
they did not always fully understand — all the
grounds of this conviction. It has been, as it
were, an instinct ; and for one, I hope that in
stinct is as active and vigilant this day, as I am
sure it was eighty years ago.
For I am persuaded that local self-government, to
as great an extent as is consistent with national
safety, is indispensable to the long continued exist
ence of Republican government on a large scale.
A Republic, in a great nation, demands those sepa
rate institutions, which imply in different portions of
the nation some rights and powers with which no
other portion of the nation can interfere. You may
give the mere name of a Republic to a great many
modes of national existence ; but unless there are
local privileges, immunities, and rights, that are not
subject to the control of the national will, the gov
ernment, although resting on a purely democratic
basis, will be a despotism towards all the minorities.
A great nation, too, that atterapts republican govern
ment without such local institutions and rights, must
soon lose even the republican form. Twice within
the memory of some who are yet living, have the
people of France tried the experiment of calling
themselves a Republic ; and France, be it remem-

19

bered, has been, ever since her great Revolution,
essentially a democratic country. But her republics
have never been anything but huge democracies,
acting with overwhelming force sometimes through
a head called a Directory, sometimes through a First
Consul, sometimes through a President, but ending
speedily in an Emperor and a Despotism. It is im
practicable for a great and powerful democratic na
tion, whose power is not broken and checked by
local institutions of self-government, to avoid con
ferring on its head and representative a large part
or the whole of its own unlimited force. If that
head is not clothed with such power, there will be
anarchy. Louis Napoleon, by the present theory of
French law, is the representative of the whole au
thority of the French nation — so constituted by
universal suffrage ; and if his power did not in fact
correspond to this theory, order could not be pre
served in France. The most skeptical person may
be convinced of this, who will read the Constitution
of the French Empire, remembering that it is the
Avork of the Emperor himself.
Turning now to our own country, let us suppose
that the States of this Union, from the Atlantic to
the Pacific, were obliterated to-day, and that the
people of this whole country were a consolidated
democracy, " one and indivisible." No laws would

20
then be made, no justice administered, no order
maintained, no institutions upheld, save in the name
and by the authority of the nation. What sort of a
Republic, think you, would that be] If it started
with the name and semblance, how long would it
preserve the substance of Republican institutions'?
In order to act at all in the discharge of the vast
duties devoMng upon it, the government of such a
Republic, extending over a country so enormous,
must more and more be made the depositary of the
irresistible force of the nation ; and the theory that
the will of the government expresses in all cases the
will of the ruling majority, must soon confer upon
it that omnipotent power, beneath which minorities
and individuals can have no rights.
This is no mere speculation. Every reflecting man
in this country knows that he has some civil rights,
which he does not hold at the will and pleasure of
a majority of the people of the United States. He
knows that he holds these rights by a tenure which
cannot lawfully be touched by all the residue of the
nation. This is Republican liberty, as I understand
and value it ; and without this principle in some
form of active and secure operation, I do not be
lieve that any valuable Republican liberty is possible
in any great Democratic country on the face of
this earth. Certainly, it is not possible for us.

21

It seems to one who looks back upon our his
tory, and who keeps before him the settled con
ditions of our liberty, almost impossible to believe
that in consequence of a direct collision between
the rightful supremacy of the nation and a wrong
ful assertion of State Sovereignty, we are exposed
to all the evdls of civil war, and to the danger of
destroying the true principles of our system, in the
effort to maintain them. That this danger is real
and practical, will be conceded now, by every man
who will contemplate the projects that spring up
on all sides, looking to the acquisition of powers
which have never belonged to the Federal Union
by any theory under which it has yet existed.
The main resemblance between these projects is
that none of them will fit the known basis of the
Constitution ; and that as means, therefore, of curing
the disorders of our country, or of making men
obedient to the Constitution, their tendency is merely
mischievous. At the same time, they are none of
them founded on any theory of a new Union, or
of a new form of national existence, which their
authors can explain to us or to themselves. One
man, for instance, wishes the government to assume
the power of emancipating all the slaves of the
South, by some decree, civil or military. But he
cannot possibly explain wdiat the government of the

22
Union is to be, when it has done this. Another
man wants a sweeping confiscation of all the prop
erty of all the people of the revolted States, guilty
and innocent alike. But he does not tell you what
kind of a sovereign the United States is to be, after
such a seizure shall have been consummated. A
third, in addition to these things, and as if in imi
tation of the Austrian method of dealing with rebel
lious Hungary, wishes to declare a sweeping forfeit
ure of all political rights ; an utter extinguishment
of the corporate State existence, and a reduction of
the people of the revolted States to a condition of
military or some other vassalage. But he not only
does not show how the Constitution enables the
Federal Government to obliterate a State, but he
does not even suggest what the Union is to be,
when this is done, or even whence the requisite
physical force is to be derived. Multitudes of poli
ticians tell us that slavery is the root of all the
national disasters, and that we must " strike at the
root." But none of them tell us how we are to
pass through these disasters to a safer condition, or
what the condition is to be when we shall have
"struck at the root."
Now it seems to me, endeavoring as I do to
repress all merely vain and useless regrets for what
is passed, and to find some safe principle of action

23
for the present and the future, that there is one
thought on "which the people of the United States
should steadily fix their attention. We have seen
that our National Union has had three distinct
stages. The first was the Union formed by sending
delegates to the Revolutionary Congress, and by a
general submission to the measures adopted by that
body for the common defence. The second was the
closer league of the Confederation, the powers of
which were defined by a written charter. The third
was the institution of a government proper, with
sovereign but enumerated powers, under the Consti
tution. Now I infer from what I see of some of
the currents of public and private opinion, that
many persons entertain a vague expectation that the
military operations now necessarily carried on by the
Federal Government will result in the creation of
new civil relations, a new Union and a new Consti
tution of some kind, they know not what. He
would be a very bold and a very rash man, who
should undertake to predict what new constitution
can follow a civil war in a great country like this.
But looking back to the commencement of our na
tional existence, we see that there never has been a
change in the form of the Union ; there never has
been a new acquisition of political power by the
central government, which has been gained by force.

24

Such additions of foreign territory, as we have ob
tained by arms or treaty, have merely increased the
area of the Union, but they have not augmented the
political powers of the government in the smallest
degree. The inhabitants of those regions have come
into the Union subject to the same powers to which
we, who were original parties to the formation of
the Constitution, have always been subject, and to
no others. The national authority has never gained
the slightest increase of its political powers by force
of arms. In every stage in which its powers have
been augmented, the increase has been gained by
the free, voluntary consent of the people of each
State, without coercion of any kind.
This consideration certainly affords no reason why
the Government of the United States should not vin
dicate its just authority under the Constitution, over
the whole of its territory, by military power. The
right of the Government of this Union to exercise
the powers embraced in the Constitution rests, I
repeat, upon a voluntary, irrevocable cession of those
powers by the people of each State ; and no impar
tial publicist in the world will deny that the right
to put down all military or other resistance to the
exercise of those powers rests, upon a just and per
fect title. This title is founded on a public grant.
But when you come to the idea of acquiring

other and further powers by the exercise of force,
you come to a very different question. You then
have to consider whether a people whose civil polity
is founded on the title given by consent — « ho have
never known or admitted any other rule of action
than that expressed in the maxim that " govern
ments derive their just powers from the consent of
the governed," — can proceed to found any new
political powers on a military conquest over a rebel
lion, without changing the whole character of their
institutions. For my own part, with the best reflec
tion I have been able to give to this momentous
subject, I have never been able to see how a major
ity of the American people can proceed to acquire
by military subjugation, or by military means, or
maxims, any new authority over the people or insti
tutions of any State or class of States, without falling
back upon the same kind of title, as that by which
William of Normandy and his descendants acquired
and held the throne of England. That title was
founded on the sword.
Perhaps there are some who will say, if this is to
be the issue, let it come. I can have no argument
with those who are prepared to accept, or who wish
for, this issue. All that I know or expect in this
world, of what may be called ci"vil happiness, is
staked on the preservation of our republican consti-
4

26
tutional freedom. If others are prepared to yield
it ; if others are willing to barter it for the doubly
hazardous experiment of obtaining control over the
destiny of a race not now subject to our sway, or
dependent on our responsibility ; if others are ready
to change the foundation of our Union from free
public charters to new authorities obtained by mil
itary subjugation — I cannot follow them. I shall
bear that result, if it comes, with such resignation
as may be given to me. But you will pardon me,
fellow-citizens, if, with my humble efforts, I yet
endeavor to sustain those, be they many or few,
who faithfully seek to carry us to the end of these
great perils with the whole system of our civil
liberties unimpaired. You will still, I trust, give
every honest man the freedom to struggle to the
last for that inestimable principle, on which the
very authority of your government to demand the
obedience of all its citizens was founded by those
who created it.
The object for which we are urged by some to
put at imminent hazard the foundation principle of
our Federal system, is, emancipation of the slaves of
the South. No one can be less disposed than my
self to undervalue the capacity of my countrymen
to do a great many things — and to do them suc
cessfully. One would suppose, however, that a

27

proposition to effect a sweeping change in the con
dition of four millions of the laboring peasantry of
a great region of country, and to do it in almost
total ignorance of the methods in which that partic
ular race can be safely dealt with, so as to produce
any good, — would be a proposition upon which
even our self-confldence would be likely to pause.
One would suppose that such an idea might suggest
an inquiry into the limits of human responsibility.
It is not allowed among sound moralists, that there
is any rule which authorizes a statesman to undo an
original wrong, at the imminent hazard of doing
another wrong, as great or greater ; and there is no
rule of moral obligation for a statesman, that is not
applicable to the conduct of a people.
Setting aside, then, for a moment, all idea of
constitutional restraint, let me put it to each one of
you to ask himself how many persons there are in
all the North, on whose judgment you would rely
for a reasonably safe determination as to what ought
to be done with slavery, — having a single view to
the welfare of that racel Of course I do not speak
of disposing of a few hundred individuals, but of
general measures or movements affecting four mil
lions of your fellow-creatures. It has been my
fortune, in the course of life, to know a few truly
great statesmen in this our Northern latitude, and

28
to know many other persons, for whose general opin
ions on what concerns the "\velfarc of the human
race I should have profound respect. But I have
never seen the man, born, educated and living away
from contact with slavery as it exists in the South,
whom I could regard as competent to determine
what radical changes ought to be made in the con
dition of a race, of Avhom all that we yet know
evinces their present incapacity to become self-
sustaining and self-dependent. In such a case, it
appears to me a very plain moral proposition, that
our Maker has not cast upon us the responsibility
of becoming his agents in the premises. But it
further appears to me that, in this case, he has
surrounded my moral responsibility with other lim
itations which I cannot transcend. If the order of
ciA'il society in which I am placed imposes on me
an obligation to refrain from acting on the affairs
of others ; if I cannot break that obligation without
destroying the principle of a beneficent government
and overturning the foundations of property ; if I
cannot use the means which I am tempted to em
ploy without danger of unspeakable wrong ; or if
the utter ineflScacy of those means is apparent to
me and to all men, — Avhat is my duty to Him Avho
sets the moral bounds of all my actions 1 It is to
use those means, and tliose only, against which He

has raised no such gigantic and insuperable moral
obstacles. That no valuable military allies can be
found among the negroes of the South ; that no de
scription of government custody or charge of them
can become more than a change of masters ; and
that nothing but weakness to the national cause
results from projects that look to the acquisition of
national power over their condition, — are truths on
which the public mind appears to be rapidly ap
proaching a settled conviction.
I add one word more upon this topic ; and I do
it for the purpose of saying in the presence of this
community, that any project for arming the blacks
against their masters deserves the indignant rebuke
of every Christian in the land. When the descend
ants of those whom Chatham protected against
ministerial employment of the Indian scalping-knife,
so forget the civilization of the age and their own
manhood as to sanction a greater atrocity, we may
hang our heads in shame before the nations of the
earth. But there is another aspect of this matter, which
it would be entirely wrong to overlook. The great
army which has rallied with such extraordinary
vigor and alacrity to the defence of the Union and
the preservation of the Constitution, — which has
endured so much, and has exhibited such heroic

30
qualities, — is not a standing army of hired merce
naries. It is an army of volunteers, of citizen sol
diers who have left their homes and entered the
ser"vice of their country, for a special purpose which
they distinctly understood. Permit me to say that
you are bound to remember this ; — or, rather let
me cast aside the language of exhortation, and as
sert, in your name, that you do remember it Avith
pride and exultation. The purpose for AA'hich these
men were asked to enter the public service AA^as the
protection of the existing Union and the existing
Constitution from attempts to overthrow or change
them by organized violence ; and that purpose is the
most important element in their relation to the
Government. No other army in the world ever en
tered the service of any power, with an understand
ing so distinct, so peculiar, so circumscribed in
respect to the objects for Avhich it -was to be
used ; so directly addressed to the moral sense and
intelligent judgment of intelligent men. I cannot
doubt that I speak the sentiments of nine men
out of every ten in this community, when I say
that to change that purpose, and to use that army
for any other end than the defence of the Con
stitution as it is, and the restoration of the Union
of our forefathers, Avould be a violation of the
public faith.

31

It is now proposed to enlarge that army by a
further call for volunteers. Let them come forth,
making no conditions Avith the Government ; for the
Government has made its OAvn conditions, and has
made them in accordance with the letter and the
spirit of the Constitution. The purposes and ob
jects of the war, as declared at the beginning, can
never be changed, unless the people shall be so
untrue to themselves as to compel a change ; and
when they do that, they Avill be themselves respon
sible for the defeat of their own hopes.
There is yet another topic, on which, as it seems
to me, we ought carefully and soberly to reflect. I
mean the history of opinion concerning the nature
of the Union, and the causes which from time to
time have produced disorganizing doctrines respect
ing it. But let me ask you here not to misunder
stand me. I seek no occasion to fasten upon par
ticular persons one or another measure of responsi
bility for what has occurred ; and, therefore, in
pursuance of a rule which I have imposed on my
self in the preparation of this discourse, the name
or designation of no living man, in the North or
the South, will pass my lips this day.
Whoever is well acquainted with the political
history of this country, since the adoption of the
Federal Constitution, must know that there have

32
been developed at various times, certain strange
opinions (concerning the nature of the Federal
Union, the foundation of its authority, and the char
acter of the obligations which we owe to it. In
general, the people of the United States have been
content to rest upon that theory respecting their gov
ernment which has ahvays prevailed in its official
administration, in Avhatever hands that administra
tion has been lodged ; — this theory being that the
central government holds certain direct and sover
eign, but special, powers over the whole people,
ceded to it by the voluntary grant of the people of
each State. But a sense of injury in certain locali
ties, springing from wrong supposed to haAC been
committed or meditated by the ruling majority, or
by those Avho at the time exercised the poAver of
the majority, has not infrequently led men here as
elscAvhere, to indulge in speculations and acts quite
inconsistent Avith the only basis on Avhich the gov
ernment can be said to have any real authority
AvhateA^er. To enumerate all these occasions, or to
recite the intemperate conduct that has attended
them in periods of great excitement, is unneces
sary. But there is one of them, which may serve
as an ample illustration of all that I desire to say
on this special topic.
It is commonly said, — and Avith much logical

33
truth, — that the doctrines of Nullification lead, Ijy
natural steps, to the doctrines of Secession ; and
the late Mr. Calhoun, who is justly considered as
the patron, if not the author, of the former, is also
popularly regarded as the father of the latter. But
it is important for us, in more aspects than one
to know that Mr. Calhoun did not contemplate or
desire a dissolution of the Union. He adopted a
doctrine respecting it which does indeed lead, Avhen
consistently foUoAved out, to what is called the con
stitutional right of secession ; but he did not see
this connection, or intend the consequence. There
is reason to believe that if his confidential corre
spondence during the times of Nullification shall
ever see the hght, it will be found that he was a
sincere lover of the Union, and was wholly uncon
scious that he was sowing, in the minds of those
who were to come after him, seeds that were to
bear a fatal fruit. It was in his power, at one
time, to have arrested the career of the Nullifiers
in South Carolina, for to them his word was law ;
and if he had so done, he would probably have
been placed by his numerous, powerful, and at
tached friends, out of that State, in nomination at
least for the highest office in the country.
But what was it that led that subtle, acute and
generally logical intellect to embrace a theory
5

34

respecting the Constitution which was entirely at
variance with the facts that attended its establish
ment ¦? The process was very simple, with a mind
of a highly metaphysical and abstract turn. Mr.
Calhoun had persuaded himself, contrary to an
earlier opinion, that a protective tariff was an un
constitutional exercise of power by the General
Government, oppressive to South Carolina ; and he
cast about for a remedy. He saw no relief against
this fancied wrong, likely to come from a majority
of Congress and the people of the Union ; and rea
soning from the premises that the Constitution is a
compact between sovereign States, an infraction of
which the parties can redress for themselves when
all other remedy fails, he reached the astounding
conclusion, that the operation of an act of Congress
may be arrested in any State, by a State ordinance,
when that State deems such act an unconstitu
tional exercise of power. But he always main
tained that this was a remedy within the Union,
and not an act of revolution, or violence, or seces
sion. This memorable example of the mode in which
opinion respecting the nature of our Union is af
fected, is full of instruction at the present time.
But, let no one misunderstand or misrepresent the
lesson that I draw from it ; and, that no one may

have an excuse for so doing, let me be as frank
and explicit as my temporary relation to this audi
ence demands. I do not say that the course and
result of the late Presidential election furnisbes the
least justification or excuse for Avhat the South has
done. I have never believed that any circumstances
of a constitutional election, could of themselves
afford a justification to any State, or any number
of States, ifl. withdrawing from the Union. Neither
do I say, or believe, that any condition of opinion
respecting a right to withdraw, can afford the
slightest apology for that conduct on the part of
individuals, in or out of the government, in respect
to which there must always remain in every sound
mind a great residuum of moral condemnation.
Neither do I doubt at all the existence of a long-
cherished purpose on the part of some Southern
political men, to seize the first pretext for breaking
up the Union of these States.
But, my fellow-citizens, it does appear to me, —
and there is practical importance in the inquiry, in
reference to a future restoration of the Union, —
that we ought soberly to consider, whether any
mere conspiracy of politicians could have found a
willing people, if causes had not long been in opera
tion which have promoted the growth of doctrines

36
and feelings about the nature and benefits of the
Union fatal to its present dominion over their
minds and hearts.
What has been going on here in the North dur
ing the last twenty or twenty-five years ] We have
had a faction, or sect, or party, — call it what you
Avill, — constantly increasing, constantly becoming
more and more an element in our politics, which
has made, not covert and secret, but open and un
disguised war upon the Constitution, its authority,
its laAv, and the ministers of its law, because its
founders, for wise and necessary purposes, threw
the shield of its protection over the institutions of
the South. If there is a disorganizing doctrine, or
one diametrically hostile to the supremacy of the
Constitution, Avhich that faction has not held, in
culcated, and endeavored to introduce into public
action, I know not where in the Avhole armory of
disunion to look for it. They never cared whether
the Constitution was a compact between indepen
dent States, or an instrument of sovereign govern
ment resting on the voluntary grant and stipulation
of the people of each State. Destroy it, they said,
— destroy it ! for, be it one thing or another, it
contains that on which the heavens cry out, and
against Avhich man ought to rebel. And so they

3-

went on doing their utmost to undermine all re
spect for its obligations, and to render of no kind
of importance the foundations on which its au
thority rests. The more that public men in the
North, from weakness, or ambition, or for the sake
of party success, assimilated their opinions to
the opinions of this faction, the more it became
certain that the true ascendancy and supremacy
of the Constitution could never be regained, with
out some enormous exertion of popular energy,
following some newly enlightened condition of the
popular understanding. When the country was
brought to the sharp and sudden necessity of vin
dicating the nature and authority of the Union,
there was throughout the North a general popular
ignorance of its real character, and a wide-spread
infidelity to some of its important obligations.
What has been going on in the South during the
same period 1 On this point there is much to be
learned by those who seek the truth. If you Avill
investigate the facts, you will find that thirty years
ago no such opinion as a right of secession had
any general acceptance in the South. No general
support was given in the South to the conduct of
South Carolina, in the matter of nullification. Very
few Southern statesmen or politicians of eminence,
not beloncino- to that State, followed Mr. Calhoun

38

and Mr. Hayne ; and when the great debate on
the nature of the Constitution was closed, the
general mind of the South was satisfied with the
result. How is it now ] The simple truth is, that this
great heresy of secession — understood by Southern
politicians as a right resulting from the nature of
the Union — is a growth of the last twenty-five
years ; and it has become the prcA'alent political
faith Avith the most active of the educated men of
the South who have come into public life during
this period. It is my belief, founded on what I
have had occasion to know, that the great body of
Southern opinion respecting the Constitution, its
nature, its obligations, and its historical basis, has
undergone a complete revolution since the year
1835. What Mr. Calhoun never contemplated as
a remedy against supposed unconstitutional legisla
tion, has become familiar to men's minds as a
remedy against that Avhich Avas striking deeper than
legislation ; which might never take the form of
Congressional action, but was constantly taking
every form of popular agitation ; Avhich might
never become the tangible and responsible doctrine
of administration, but was yet all the more for
midable and irritating, because it lay couched in
an irresponsible popular sentiment, fomented by

39
appeals which were designed to deprive constitu
tional ties and obligations of their binding moral
force. Are AA^e told that these things do not stand in
any relation of cause and effect? Are Ave so sim
ple, so uninstructed in AA'hat infiuences the great
movements of the human mind, that we cannot
see hoAV intellect and passion and interest may be
affected by what passes before our eyes 1 Must I
wait until the whole fabric of free constitutional
government is pulled down upon my head, and I
am buried beneath its ruins, before I cry out in
its defence"? Must I postpone all judgment respect
ing the causes of its disintegration, until it has
gone down in the ashes of civil war, and History
has Avritten the epitaph over the noblest common
wealth that the Avorld has seenl I fear that there
is a too prevalent disposition to surrender ourselves
as passive instruments into the hands of fate, —
too much of abandonment to the current of mere
events, — too great a practical denial of our own
capacity to save our country by a manly assertion
of the moral laws on which its preservation de
pends. Can it be that we are losing our faith in
that Ruler who has made the safety of nations to
depend on something more than physical and mate
rial strength, who has given us moral power over

40

our own condition, and has surrounded ns with
countless moral weapons for its defence ]
It is marvellous through what a course of in
struction, through what discipline of suffering and
calamity, the people of this country have had to
pass, in order fully to comprehend the truth that
the nature of their government depends upon sound
deduction from a series of historical facts ; and that
it must, therefore, be defended by consistent popular
action. It is now somewhat more than thirty years
since Daniel Webster, combining in himself more
capacities for such a task than had ever been
given to any other American statesman, demonstra
ted that our national government can have no secure
operation whatever, unless the obviously true and
simple deduction from the facts of its origin is ac
cepted as the basis of its authority. You know
what he taught. You know that he proved — if
ever mortal intellect proved a moral proposition —
that in the exercise of its constitutional powers
the national government is supreme, because every
inhabitant of every State has covenanted with every
inhabitant of every other State that it shall be so ;
that even when the national Legislature is supposed
to have overstepped its constitutional limits, no State
interposition, no State Legislation, can afford lawful
remedy or relief; and that all adA'erse State action.

41
whether called by the name of Nullification or by
any other name, is unlawful resistance. Me are
glad enough now to rest upon his great name ;
we march proudly under his imposing banner, to
encounter the hosts of " constitutional secession."
But hoAV was it Avith us, even before he was laid
in that unpretending tomb, Avhich rises in the scene
that he loved so Avell, and overlooks the sounding
sea, by the music of whose billoAvs he went to his
earthly rest ? Did Ave follow in his footsteps ? Did
we requite his unequalled civil services 1 Did we
cherish the great doctrine that he taught us, as the
palladium of a government which must perish if
that doctrine loses its pre-eminence in the national
mind] How long or how Avell did we preserve the
recollection of his teachings, Avhen our local inter
ests and feelings Avere arrayed against the action of
the Federal Power] I will not open that record.
I Avould to Heaven that it were blotted out forever.
But I cannot stand here this day and be guilty of
anything so unfaithful to my country, as to admit
that under a government whose authority can live
only when sustained by popular reverence for
its sanctions and popular belief in its foundations,
opinion in the South has not been affected by what
has transpired in the North.
I have endeavored to state, with fairness and
c

42

precision, the principle on which the American
I'nion Avas founded, and to shoAV that its preservation
depends upon keeping the national and the State
sovereignties each within the proper limits of its ap-
l)ropriate sphere. I am aAvare that the opinion has
been formed to a great extent in foreign countries and
in the South, and by some among us, that this prin
ciple is no longer practicable ; that the Union of free
and slave States in the same nation has become an
exploded experiment ; and that our interests are so
incompatible that a reconstruction, on the old basis
at least, ought not to be attempted. We should
probably all concede that this view of the subject
is correct, if we believed that the incompatibility is
necessary, inherent and inevitable. But there is not
enough to justify the breaking up of such a union,
if the supposed incompatibility is but the result of
causes Avhich Ave can reach, or if it arises from an
unfaithful compliance Avith the terms of our associa
tion. We can make such an association no longer
practicable if we choose to do so. We can prevent it
from becoming impracticable, if we are so resolved.
If the free States, as one section, and the slave States
as another, Avill not respect their mutual obligations,
then there is an end of the usefulness of all effort.
If Ave, of the North, will not religiously and honestly
respect the constitutional right of every State to main-

43
tain just such domestic institutions as it pleases to
have, and protect that right from every species of
direct and indirect interference, then there is an abso
lute incompatibility. If they, of the South, Avill not
as honestly and religiously maintain the right of the
Federal Union to regulate those subjects and interests
Avhich are committed to it by the Constitution, then
there is, in like manner, an incompatibility of pre
cisely the same nature. If the parties, in reference
to the common domains, Avill admit of no compromise
or concession, but each insists on applying to them
its own policy as a national policy, then the incom
patibility is as complete from that cause as it is from
the others. The difficulty is not in the principle of
the association, for nothing can be clearer than that
principle ; and Avhen it has been honorably adhered
to, no government in the world has Avorked more
successfully. But the difficulty has arisen from dis
turbing causes that have dislocated the machine ;
and what Ave have uoav to ascertain is, Avhether the
People on both sides will treat those causes as
temporary, and remove them, or Avill accept them
as inevitable and incurable, and thus make the sep
aration final and conclusive.
In the gloomy conception of the old Grecian
tragedy, no room Avas left by the poets for the
moral energies of man, there was no force in

44

human struggles, no defence in human innocence
or virtue. Higher than Jupiter, higher than the
heavens, in infinite distance, in infinite indifference
to the fortunes of men or gods, sate the mysterious
and eternal poAver of Destiny. Before time was, its
decrees were made ; and Avhen the universe began,
that awful chancery was closed. No sweet interced
ing saints could enter there, translated from the
earth to plead for mankind. No angels of love and
mercy came from human abodes, to bring tidings of
their state. No mediator, once a sufferer in the flesh,
stood there to atone for human sin. The wail of a
nation in its agony, or the cry that went up from a
breaking human heart, might pierce into the end
less realms of space, might call on the elements for
sympathy, but no answer and no relief could come.
He Avho was pre-ordained to suffer, through vA'hat-
ever agency, suffered and sank, with no consolation
but the thought that all the deities, celestial and
infernal, were alike subject to the same power.
Are Ave, too, driven by some relentless force, that
annihilates our OAvn free wills and dethrones Him
Avho is Supreme ] Are we cast helpless and drifting,
like leaves that fall upon the rushing stream ] Must
we give Avay to blank despair] No, no, no! There
are duties to be done — to be done by us : for what
ever may be the result of the military struggle now

45

pending, — whatever may be the effect of victories
that have been or shall be Avon — whatever are to
be our future relations Avith the people of the South,
the time is coming Avhen Ave and they, face to face,
and in the eye of an all-seeing God, must deter
mine how we Avill live side by side as the children
of one eternal Parent. For that approaching day,
and for the sake of a restoration of that which arms
alone cannot conquer, let me implore you to make
some fit and adequate preparation of instruments
and agents and means and influences. Trust to the
humanizing effects of a new and better Intercourse.
Trust to the laAvs of Nature, Avhich have poui-ed
through this vast continent the mighty streams that
bind us in the indissoluble ties of Commerce. Trust
in that Charity — the follower and the handmaid of
Commerce — which clothes the naked and feeds
the hungry and forgives the erring. Trust in the
force of Kindred Blood, which leaps to reconcilia
tion, when the storms of passion are sunk to rest.
Trust in that divine law of LoA'e, which has more
power over the human soul than all the terrors of
the dungeon or the gibbet. Trust in the influence
over your own hearts and the hearts of others, of
that Religion which was sent as the messenger of
Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men. Trust in the
wise beneficent, impartial and neutral spirit of your

46

Fathers, who gave tranquillity, prosperity and happi
ness to the Avhole land. Trust in God : and you may
yet see your national emblem, not as the emblem of
victory, but as the sign of a reunited American peo
ple, floating in the breath of a merciful Heaven,
and more radiant with the glory of its restored con
stellation, than Avith all the triumphs it has won, or
can ever Avin, over a foreign foe.

PHOTOMOUNT
PAMPHLET UNDER
PAT. NO.
877188
Manafaclmed tu
GAYLORD BROS. Inc.
Syracuse, N. Y.
Stockton, Calif.

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