American Eloquence Volume III Part 11

I do not despair of the Republic. When I see before me Senators of so much intelligence and so much patriotism, who have been so honored by their country, sent here as the guardians of that very union which is now in question, sent here as the guardians of our national rights, and as guardians of that national flag, I cannot despair; I cannot despond.

I cannot but believe that they will find some means of reconciling and adjusting the rights of all parties, by concessions, if necessary, so as to preserve and give more stability to the country and to its inst.i.tutions.

ROBERT TOOMBS,

OF GEORGIA. (BORN 1810--DIED 1885.)

ON SECESSION; SECESSIONIST OPINION;

IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, JANUARY 7, 1861.

MR. PRESIDENT AND SENATORS:

The success of the Abolitionists and their allies, under the name of the Republican party, has produced its logical results already. They have for long years been sowing dragons' teeth, and have finally got a crop of armed men. The Union, sir, is dissolved. That is an accomplished fact in the path of this discussion that men may as well heed. One of your confederates has already, wisely, bravely, boldly, confronted public danger, and she is only ahead of many of her sisters because of her greater facility for speedy action. The greater majority of those sister States, under like circ.u.mstances, consider her cause as their cause; and I charge you in their name to-day, "Touch not Saguntum." It is not only their cause, but it is a cause which receives the sympathy and will receive the support of tens and hundreds of thousands of honest patriotic men in the non-slave-holding States, who have hither-to maintained const.i.tutional rights, and who respect their oaths, abide by compacts, and love justice. And while this Congress, this Senate, and this House of Representatives, are debating the const.i.tutionality and the expediency of seceding from the Union, and while the perfidious authors of this mischief are showering down denunciations upon a large portion of the patriotic men of this country, those brave men are coolly and calmly voting what you call revolution--ay, sir, doing better than that: arming to defend it. They appealed to the Const.i.tution, they appealed to justice, they appealed to fraternity, until the Const.i.tution, justice, and fraternity were no longer listened to in the legislative halls of their country, and then, sir, they prepared for the arbitrament of the sword; and now you see the glittering bayonet, and you hear the tramp of armed men from your Capitol to the Rio Grande. It is a sight that gladdens the eyes and cheers the heart of other millions ready to second them.

Inasmuch, sir, as I have labored earnestly, honestly, sincerely, with these men to avert this necessity so long as I deemed it possible, and inasmuch as I heartily approve their present conduct of resistance, I deem it my duty to state their case to the Senate, to the country, and to the civilized world.

Senators, my countrymen have demanded no new government; they have demanded no new const.i.tution. Look to their records at home and here from the beginning of this national strife until its consummation in the disruption of the empire, and they have not demanded a single thing except that you shall abide by the Const.i.tution of the United States; that const.i.tutional rights shall be respected, and that justice shall be done. Sirs, they have stood by your Const.i.tution; they have stood by all its requirements; they have performed all its duties unselfishly, uncalculatingly, disinterestedly, until a party sprang up in this country which endangered their social system--a party which they arraign, and which they charge before the American people and all mankind, with having made proclamation of outlawry against four thousand millions of their property in the Territories of the United States; with having put them under the ban of the empire in all the States in which their inst.i.tutions exist, outside the protection of Federal laws; with having aided and abetted insurrection from within and invasion from without, with the view of subverting those inst.i.tutions, and desolating their homes and their firesides. For these causes they have taken up arms. I shall proceed to vindicate the justice of their demands, the patriotism of their conduct. I will show the injustice which they suffer and the rightfulness of their resistance.

I shall not spend much time on the question that seems to give my honorable friend (Mr. Crittenden) so much concern--the const.i.tutional right of a State to secede from this Union. Perhaps he will find out after a while that it is a fact accomplished. You have got it in the South pretty much both ways. South Carolina has given it to you regularly, according to the approved plan. You are getting it just below there (in Georgia), I believe, irregularly, outside of the law, without regular action. You can take it either way. You will find armed men to defend both. I have stated that the discontented States of this Union have demanded nothing but clear, distinct, unequivocal, well-acknowledged const.i.tutional rights; rights affirmed by the highest judicial tribunals of their country; rights older than the Const.i.tution; rights which are planted upon the immutable principles of natural justice; rights which have been affirmed by the good and the wise of all countries, and of all centuries. We demand no power to injure any man.

We demand no right to injure our confederate States. We demand no right to interfere with their inst.i.tutions, either by word or deed. We have no right to disturb their peace, their tranquillity, their security. We have demanded of them simply, solely--nothing else--to give us equality, security, and tranquillity. Give us these, and peace restores itself.

Refuse them, and take what you can get.

I will now read my own demands, acting under my own convictions, and the universal judgment of my countrymen. They are considered the demands of an extremist. To hold to a const.i.tutional right now makes one considered as an extremist--I believe that is the appellation these traitors and villains, North and South, employ. I accept their reproach rather than their principles. Accepting their designation of treason and rebellion, there stands before them as good a traitor, and as good a rebel as ever descended from revolutionary loins.

What do the rebels demand? First, "that the people of the United States shall have an equal right to emigrate and settle in the present or any future acquired territories, with whatever property they may possess (including slaves), and be securely protected in its peaceable enjoyment until such Territory may be admitted as a State into the Union, with or without slavery, as she may determine, on an equality with all existing States." That is our territorial demand. We have fought for this Territory when blood was its price. We have paid for it when gold was its price. We have not proposed to exclude you, though you have contributed very little of blood or money. I refer especially to New England. We demand only to go into those Territories upon terms of equality with you, as equals in this great Confederacy, to enjoy the common property of the whole Union, and receive the protection of the common government, until the Territory is capable of coming into the Union as a sovereign State, when it may fix its own inst.i.tutions to suit itself.

The second proposition is, "that property in slaves shall be ent.i.tled to the same protection from the Government of the United States, in all of its departments, everywhere, which the Const.i.tution confers the power upon it to extend to any other property, provided nothing herein contained shall be construed to limit or restrain the right now belonging to every State to prohibit, abolish, or establish and protect slavery within its limits." We demand of the common government to use its granted powers to protect our property as well as yours. For this protection we pay as much as you do. This very property is subject to taxation. It has been taxed by you and sold by you for taxes. The t.i.tle to thousands and tens of thousands of slaves is derived from the United States. We claim that the Government, while the Const.i.tution recognizes our property for the purposes of taxation, shall give it the same protection that it gives yours. Ought it not to be so? You say no. Every one of you upon the committee said no. Your Senators say no. Your House of Representatives says no. Throughout the length and breadth of your conspiracy against the Const.i.tution, there is but one shout of no! This recognition of this right is the price of my allegiance. Withhold it, and you do not get my obedience. This is the philosophy of the armed men who have sprung up in this country. Do you ask me to support a government that will tax my property; that will plunder me; that will demand my blood, and will not protect me? I would rather see the population of my native State laid six feet beneath her sod than they should support for one hour such a government. Protection is the price of obedience everywhere, in all countries. It is the only thing that makes government respectable. Deny it and you cannot have free subjects or citizens; you may have slaves.

We demand, in the next place, "that persons committing crimes against slave property in one State, and fleeing to another, shall be delivered up in the same manner as persons committing crimes against other property, and that the laws of the State from which such persons flee shall be the test of criminality." That is another one of the demands of an extremist and rebel. The Const.i.tution of the United States, article four, section two, says:

"A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice and be found in another State, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime." But the non-slave-holding States, treacherous to their oaths and compacts, have steadily refused, if the criminal only stole a negro, and that negro was a slave, to deliver him up. It was refused twice on the requisition of my own State as long as twenty-two years ago. It was refused by Kent and by Fairfield, Governors of Maine, and representing, I believe, each of the then Federal parties. We appealed then to fraternity, but we submitted; and this const.i.tutional right has been practically a dead letter from that day to this. The next case came up between us and the State of New York, when the present senior Senator (Mr. Seward) was the Governor of that State; and he refused it. Why? He said it was not against the laws of New York to steal a negro, and therefore he would not comply with the demand. He made a similar refusal to Virginia. Yet these are our confederates; these are our sister States! There is the bargain; there is the compact. You have sworn to it. Both these Governors swore to it. The Senator from New York swore to it. The Governor of Ohio swore to it when he was inaugurated. You cannot bind them by oaths.

Yet they talk to us of treason; and I suppose they expect to whip freemen into loving such brethren! They will have a good time in doing it!

It is natural we should want this provision of the Const.i.tution carried out. The Const.i.tution says slaves are property; the Supreme Court says so; the Const.i.tution says so. The theft of slaves is a crime; they are a subject-matter of felonious asportation. By the text and letter of the Const.i.tution you agreed to give them up. You have sworn to do it, and you have broken your oaths. Of course, those who have done so look out for pretexts. n.o.body expected them do otherwise. I do not think I ever saw a perjurer, however bald and naked, who could not invent some pretext to palliate his crime, or who could not, for fifteen shillings, hire an Old Bailey lawyer to invent some for him. Yet this requirement of the Const.i.tution is another one of the extreme demands of an extremist and a rebel.

The next stipulation is that fugitive slaves shall be surrendered under the provisions of the fugitive-slave act of 1850, without being ent.i.tled either to a writ of _habeas corpus_, or trial by jury, or other similar obstructions of legislation, in the State to which he may flee. Here is the Const.i.tution:

"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into an-other, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

This language is plain, and everybody understood it the same way for the first forty years of your government. In 1793, in Washington's time, an act was pa.s.sed to carry out this provision. It was adopted unanimously in the Senate of the United States, and nearly so in the House of Representatives. n.o.body then had invented pretexts to show that the Const.i.tution did not mean a negro slave. It was clear; it was plain.

Not only the Federal courts, but all the local courts in all the States, decide that this was a const.i.tutional obligation. How is it now? The North sought to evade it; following the instincts of their natural character, they commenced with the fraudulent fiction that fugitives were ent.i.tled to _habeas corpus_, ent.i.tled to trial by jury in the State to which they fled. They pretended to believe that our fugitive slaves were ent.i.tled to more rights than their white citizens; perhaps they were right, they know one another better than I do. You may charge a white man with treason, or felony, or other crime, and you do not require any trial by jury before he is given up; there is nothing to determine but that he is legally charged with a crime and that he fled, and then he is to be delivered up upon demand. White people are delivered up every day in this way; but not slaves. Slaves, black people, you say, are ent.i.tled to trial by jury; and in this way schemes have been invented to defeat your plain const.i.tutional obligations. * * *

The next demand made on behalf of the South is, "that Congress shall pa.s.s effective laws for the punishment of all persons in any of the States who shall in any manner aid and abet invasion or insurrection in any other State, or commit any other act against the laws of nations, tending to disturb the tranquillity of the people or government of any other State." That is a very plain principle. The Const.i.tution of the United States now requires, and gives Congress express power, to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the laws of nations. When the honorable and distinguished Senator from Illinois (Mr. Douglas) last year introduced a bill for the purpose of punishing people thus offending under that clause of the Const.i.tution, Mr. Lincoln, in his speech at New York, which I have before me, declared that it was a "sedition bill "; his press and party hooted at it. So far from recognizing the bill as intended to carry out the Const.i.tution of the United States, it received their jeers and jibes. The Black Republicans of Ma.s.sachusetts elected the admirer and eulogist of John Brown's courage as their governor, and we may suppose he will throw no impediments in the way of John Brown's successors. The epithet applied to the bill of the Senator from Illinois is quoted from a deliberate speech delivered by Lincoln in New York, for which, it was stated in the journals, according to some resolution pa.s.sed by an a.s.sociation of his own party, he was paid a couple of hundred dollars. The speech should therefore have been deliberate.

Lincoln denounced that bill. He places the stamp of his condemnation upon a measure intended to promote the peace and security of confederate States. He is, therefore, an enemy of the human race, and deserves the execration of all mankind.

We demand these five propositions. Are they not right? Are they not just? Take them in detail, and show that they are not warranted by the Const.i.tution, by the safety of our people, by the principles of eternal justice. We will pause and consider them; but mark me, we will not let you decide the question for us. * * *

Senators, the Const.i.tution is a compact. It contains all our obligations and the duties of the Federal Government. I am content and have ever been content to sustain it. While I doubt its perfection, while I do not believe it was a good compact, and while I never saw the day that I would have voted for it as a proposition _de novo_, yet I am bound to it by oath and by that common prudence which would induce men to abide by established forms rather than to rush into unknown dangers. I have given to it, and intend to give to it, unfaltering support and allegiance, but I choose to put that allegiance on the true ground, not on the false idea that anybody's blood was shed for it. I say that the Const.i.tution is the whole compact. All the obligations, all the chains that fetter the limbs of my people, are nominated in the bond, and they wisely excluded any conclusion against them, by declaring that "the powers not granted by the Const.i.tution to the United States, or forbidden by it to the States, belonged to the States respectively or the people." Now I will try it by that standard; I will subject it to that test. The law of nature, the law of justice, would say--and it is so expounded by the publicists--that equal rights in the common property shall be enjoyed.

Even in a monarchy the king cannot prevent the subjects from enjoying equality in the disposition of the public property. Even in a despotic government this principle is recognized. It was the blood and the money of the whole people (says the learned Grotius, and say all the publicists) which acquired the public property, and therefore it is not the property of the sovereign. This right of equality being, then, according to justice and natural equity, a right belonging to all States, when did we give it up? You say Congress has a right to pa.s.s rules and regulations concerning the Territory and other property of the United States. Very well. Does that exclude those whose blood and money paid for it? Does "dispose of" mean to rob the rightful owners? You must show a better t.i.tle than that, or a better sword than we have.

But, you say, try the right. I agree to it. But how? By our judgment?

No, not until the last resort. What then; by yours? No, not until the same time. How then try it? The South has always said, by the Supreme Court. But that is in our favor, and Lincoln says he "will not stand that judgment." Then each must judge for himself of the mode and manner of redress. But you deny us that privilege, and finally reduce us to accepting your judgment. The Senator from Kentucky comes to your aid, and says he can find no const.i.tutional right of secession. Perhaps not; but the Const.i.tution is not the place to look for State rights. If that right belongs to independent States, and they did not cede it to the Federal Government, it is reserved to the States, or to the people. Ask your new commentator where he gets the right to judge for us. Is it in the bond?

The Northern doctrine was, many years ago, that the Supreme Court was the judge. That was their doctrine in 1800. They denounced Madison for the report of 1799, on the Virginia resolutions; they denounced Jefferson for framing the Kentucky resolutions, because they were presumed to impugn the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States; and they declared that that court was made, by the Const.i.tution, the ultimate and supreme arbiter. That was the universal judgment--the declaration of every free State in this Union, in answer to the Virginia resolutions of 1798, or of all who did answer, even including the State of Delaware, then under Federal control.

The Supreme Court have decided that, by the Const.i.tution, we have a right to go to the Territories and be protected there with our property.

You say, we cannot decide the compact for ourselves. Well, can the Supreme Court decide it for us? Mr. Lincoln says he does not care what the Supreme Court decides, he will turn us out anyhow. He says this in his debate with the honorable member from Illinois [Mr. Douglas]. I have it before me. He said he would vote against the decision of the Supreme Court. Then you did not accept that arbiter. You will not take my construction; you will not take the Supreme Court as an arbiter; you will not take the practice of the government; you will not take the treaties under Jefferson and Madison; you will not take the opinion of Madison upon the very question of prohibition in 1820. What, then, will you take? You will take nothing but your own judgment; that is, you will not only judge for yourselves, not only discard the court, discard our construction, discard the practice of the government, but you will drive us out, simply because you will it. Come and do it! You have sapped the foundations of society; you have destroyed almost all hope of peace. In a compact where there is no common arbiter, where the parties finally decide for themselves, the sword alone at last becomes the real, if not the const.i.tutional, arbiter. Your party says that you will not take the decision of the Supreme Court. You said so at Chicago; you said so in committee; every man of you in both Houses says so. What are you going to do? You say we shall submit to your construction. We shall do it, if you can make us; but not otherwise, or in any other manner. That is settled. You may call it secession, or you may call it revolution; but there is a big fact standing before you, ready to oppose you--that fact is, freemen with arms in their hands. The cry of the Union will not disperse them; we have pa.s.sed that point; they demand equal rights; you had better heed the demand. * * *

SAMUEL SULLIVAN c.o.x,

OF OHIO. (BORN, 1824-DIED, 1889.)

ON SECESSION; DOUGLAS DEMOCRATIC OPINION;

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 14, 1861.

MR. CHAIRMAN:

I speak from and for the capital of the greatest of the States of the great West. That potential section is beginning to be appalled at the colossal strides of revolution. It has immense interests at stake in this Union, as well from its position as its power and patriotism. We have had infidelity to the Union before, but never in such a fearful shape. We had it in the East during the late war with England. Even so late as the admission of Texas, Ma.s.sachusetts resolved herself out of the Union. That resolution has never been repealed, and one would infer, from much of her conduct, that she did not regard herself as bound by our covenant. Since 1856, in the North, we have had infidelity to the Union, more insidious infractions of the Const.i.tution than by open rebellion. Now, sir, as a consequence, in part, of these very infractions, we have rebellion itself, open and daring, in terrific proportions, with dangers so formidable as to seem almost remediless. *

I would not exaggerate the fearful consequences of dissolution. It is the breaking up of a federative Union, but it is not like the breaking up of society. It is not anarchy. A link may fall from the chain, and the link may still be perfect, though the chain have lost its length and its strength. In the uniformity of commercial regulations, in matters of war and peace, postal arrangements, foreign relations, coinage, copyrights, tariff, and other Federal and national affairs, this great government may be broken; but in most of the essential liberties and rights which government is the agent to establish and protect, the seceding State has no revolution, and the remaining States can have none. This arises from that refinement of our polity which makes the States the basis of our inst.i.tuted labor. Greece was broken by the Persian power, but her munic.i.p.al inst.i.tutions remained. Hungary lost her national crown, but her home inst.i.tutions remain. South Carolina may preserve her const.i.tuted domestic authority, but she must be content to glimmer obscurely remote rather than shine and revolve in a constellated band. She even goes out by the ordinance of a so-called sovereign convention, content to lose by her isolation that youthful, vehement, exultant, progressive life, which is our NATIONALITY! She foregoes the hopes, the boasts, the flag, the music, all the emotions, all the traits, and all the energies which, when combined in our United States, have won our victories in war and our miracles of national advancement.

Her Governor, Colonel Pickens, in his inaugural, regretfully "looks back upon the inheritance South Carolina had in the common glories and triumphant power of this wonderful confederacy, and fails to find language to express the feelings of the human heart as he turns from the contemplation." The ties of brotherhood, interest, lineage, and history are all to be severed. No longer are we to salute a South Carolinian with the "_idem sententiam de republica_," which makes unity and nationality. What a prestige and glory are here dimmed and lost in the contaminated reason of man!

Can we realize it? Is it a masquerade, to last for a night, or a reality to be dealt with, with the world's rough pa.s.sionate handling? It is sad and bad enough; but let us not over-tax our anxieties about it as yet.

It is not the sanguinary regime of the French revolution; not the rule of a.s.signats and guillotine; not the cry of "_Vivent les Rouges! A mort les gendarmes!_" but as yet, I hope I may say, the peaceful attempt to withdraw from the burdens and benefits of the Republic. Thus it is unlike every other revolution. Still it is revolution. It may, according as it is managed, involve consequences more terrific than any revolution since government began.

If the Federal Government is to be maintained, its strength must not be frittered away by conceding the theory of secession. To concede secession as a right, is to make its pathway one of roses and not of thorns. I would not make its pathway so easy. If the government has any strength for its own preservation, the people demand it should be put forth in its civil and moral forces. Dealing, however, with a sensitive public sentiment, in which this strength reposes, it must not be rudely exercised. It should be the iron hand in the glove of velvet. Firmness should be allied with kindness. Power should a.s.sert its own prerogative, but in the name of law and love. If these elements are not thus blended in our policy, as the Executive proposes, our government will prove either a garment of shreds or a coat of mail. We want neither. * * *

Before we enter upon a career of force, let us exhaust every effort at peace. Let us seek to excite love in others by the signs of love in ourselves. Let there be no needless provocation and strife. Let every reasonable attempt at compromise be considered. Otherwise we have a terrible alternative. War, in this age and in this country, sir, should be the _ultima ratio_. Indeed, it may well be questioned whether there is any reason in it for war. What a war! Endless in its hate, without truce and without mercy. If it ended ever, it would only be after a fearful struggle; and then with a heritage of hate which would forever forbid harmony. * * *

Small States and great States; new States and old States; slave States and free States; Atlantic States and Pacific States; gold and silver States; iron and copper States; grain States and lumber States; river States and lake States;--all having varied interests and advantages, would seek superiority in armed strength. Pride, animosity, and glory would inspire every movement. G.o.d shield our country from such a fulfilment of the prophecy of the revered founders of the Union! Our struggle would be no short, sharp struggle. Law, and even religion herself, would become false to their divine purpose. Their voice would no longer be the voice of G.o.d, but of his enemy. Poverty, ignorance, oppression, and its hand-maid, cowardice, breaking out into merciless cruelty; slaves false; freemen slaves, and society itself poisoned at the cradle and dishonored at the grave;--its life, now so full of blessings, would be gone with the life of a fraternal and united Statehood. What sacrifice is too great to prevent such a calamity? Is such a picture overdrawn? Already its outlines appear. What means the inaugural of Governor Pickens, when he says: "From the position we may occupy toward the Northern States, as well as from our own internal structure of society, the government may, from necessity, become strongly military in its organization"? What mean the minute-men of Governor Wise? What the Southern boast that they have a rifle or shot-gun to each family?

What means the Pittsburgh mob? What this alacrity to save Forts Moultrie and Pinckney? What means the boast of the Southern men of being the best-armed people in the world, not counting the two hundred thousand stand of United States arms stored in Southern a.r.s.enals? Already Georgia has her a.r.s.enals, with eighty thousand muskets. What mean these lavish grants of money by Southern Legislatures to buy more arms? What mean these rumors of arms and force on the Mississippi? These few facts have already verified the prophecy of Madison as to a disunited Republic.

Mr. Speaker, he alone is just to his country, he alone has a mind unwarped by section, and a memory unparalyzed by fear, who warns against precipitancy. He who could hurry this nation to the rash wager of battle is not fit to hold the seat of legislation. What can justify the breaking up of our inst.i.tutions into belligerent fractions? Better this marble Capitol were levelled to the dust; better were this Congress struck dead in its deliberations; better an immolation of every ambition and pa.s.sion which here have met to shake the foundations of society than the hazard of these consequences! * * * I appeal to Southern men,who contemplate a step so fraught with hazard and strife, to pause. Clouds are about us! There is lightning in their frown! Cannot we direct it harmlessly to the earth? The morning and evening prayer of the people I speak for in such weakness rises in strength to that Supreme Ruler who, in noticing the fall of a sparrow, cannot disregard the fall of a nation, that our States may continue to be as they have been--one; one in the unreserve of a mingled national being; one as the thought of G.o.d is one!