Speeches, Addresses, And Occasional Sermons Volume Iii Part 11

2. Then again, this is a wide and new country. We have room to spread.

We have not to contend against old inst.i.tutions, established a thousand years ago, and that is one very great advantage. I make no doubt that in crossing the ocean, our fathers helped forward the civilization of the world at least a thousand years; I mean to say, it would have taken mankind a thousand years longer to reach the condition we have attained in New England, if the attempt had of necessity been made on the soil of the old world and in the face of its inst.i.tutions.

3. Then, as a third thing, much depends on the peculiar national character. Well, the freemen in the North and South are chiefly from the same race, this indomitable Caucasian stock; mainly from the same composite stock, the tribe produced by the mingling of Saxon, Danish and Norman blood. That makes the present English nation, and the American also. This is a very powerful tribe of men, possessing some very n.o.ble traits of character; active and creative in all the arts of peace; industrious as a nation never was before; enterprising, practical; fond of liberty, fond also of law, capable of organizing themselves into great ma.s.ses, and acting with a complete concert and unity of action. In these respects, I think this tribe, which I will call the English tribe, is equal to any race of men in the world that has been or is; perhaps superior to any race that has been developed hitherto. But in what relates to the higher reason and imagination, to the affections and to the soul, I think this tribe is not so eminent as some others have been.

North and South, the people are alike of Anglo-Norman descent.

4. Another cause of our prosperity, which depends a great deal on ourselves, is this--the absence of war and of armies. In France, with a population of less than forty millions, half a million are constantly under arms. The same state of things prevails substantially in Austria, Prussia, and in all the German States. Here in America, with a population of twenty millions, there is not one in a thousand that is a soldier or marine. In time of peace, I think we waste vast sums in military preparations, as we did in actual war not long since. Still, when I compare this nation with others, I think we have cause to felicitate ourselves on the absence of military power.

5. Again, much depends on the past history of the race; and here there is a wide difference between the different parts of the country. New England was settled by a religious colony. I will not say that all the men who came here from 1620 to 1650 were moved by religious motives; but the controlling men were brought here by these motives, and no other.

Many who cared less for religious ideas, came for the sake of a great moral idea, for the sake of obtaining a greater degree of civil freedom than they had at home. Now the Pilgrims and the Puritans are only a little ways behind us. The stiff ruff, the peaked beard, the "Prophesying book" are only six or seven generations behind the youngest of us. The character of the Puritans has given to New England much of its present character and condition. They founded schools and colleges; they trained up their children in a stern discipline which we shall not forget for two centuries to come. The remembrance of their trials, their heroism, and their piety affects our preaching to-day, and our politics also. The difference between New England and New York, from 1750 to 1790, is the difference between the sons of the religious colony and the sons of the worldly colony. You know something of New York politics before the Revolution, and also since the Revolution; the difference between New York and New England politics at that time, is the difference between the sons of religious men and the sons of men who cared very much less for religion.

Just now, when I said that all the North is like New England, I meant substantially so. The West is our own daughter. New England has helped people the western part of the State of New York; and the best elements of New England character mingling with others, its good qualities will appear in the politics of that mighty State.

The South, in the main, had a very different origin from the North. I think few if any persons settled there for religion's sake; or for the sake of freedom in the State. It was not a moral idea which sent men to Virginia, Georgia and Carolina. "Men do not gather grapes of thorns."

The difference of the seed will appear in the difference of the crop. In the character of the people of the North and South, it appears at this day. The North is not to be praised, nor the South to be blamed for this; they could not help it: but certainly it is an advantage to be descended from a race of industrious, moral and religious men; to have been brought up under their training, to have inherited their ideas and inst.i.tutions,--and this is a circ.u.mstance which we make quite too little account of. I pa.s.s by that.

6. There are other causes which depend on ourselves entirely. Much depends on the political and social organization of the people. There is no denying that government has a great influence on the character of the people; on the character of every man. The difference between the development of England and the development of Spain at this day, is mainly the result of different forms of government; for three centuries ago the Spaniards were as n.o.ble a race as the English.

A government is carried on by two agencies: the first is public opinion, and the next is public law,--the fundamental law which is the Const.i.tution, and the subsidiary laws which carry out the ideas of the Const.i.tution. In a government like this, public opinion always precedes the laws, overrides them, takes the place of laws when there are none, and hinders their execution when they do not correspond to public opinion. Thus the public opinion of South Carolina demands that a free colored seaman from the North shall be shut up in jail, at his employer's cost. The public opinion of Charleston is stronger than the public law of the United States on that point, stronger than the Const.i.tution, and n.o.body dares execute the laws of the United States in that matter. These two things should always be looked at, to understand the causes of a nation's condition--the public opinion, as well as the public law. Let me know the opinions of the men between twenty-five and thirty-five years of age, and I know what the laws will be.

Now in public opinion and in the laws of the United States, there are two distinct political ideas. I shall call one the Democratic, and the other the Despotic idea. Neither is wholly sectional; both chiefly so.

Each is composed of several simpler ideas. Each has enacted laws and established inst.i.tutions. This is the democratic idea: That all men are endowed by their Creator with certain natural rights, which only the possessor can alienate; that all men are equal in these rights; that amongst them is the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that the business of the government is to preserve for every man all of these rights until he alienates them.

This democratic idea is founded in human nature, and comes from the nature of G.o.d who made human nature. To carry it out politically is to execute justice, which is the will of G.o.d. This idea, in its realization, leads to a democracy, a government of all, for all, by all.

Such a government aims to give every man all his natural rights; it desires to have political power in all hands, property in all hands, wisdom in all heads, goodness in all hearts, religion in all souls. I mean the religion that makes a man self-respectful, earnest, and faithful to the infinite G.o.d, that disposes him to give all men their rights, and to claim his own rights at all times; the religion which is piety within you, and goodness in the manifestation. Such a government has laws, and the aim thereof is to give justice to all men; it has officers to execute these laws, for the sake of justice. Such a government founds schools for all; looks after those most who are most in need; defends and protects the feeblest as well as the richest and most powerful. The State is for the individual, and for all the individuals, and so it reverences justice, where the rights of all, and the interests of all, exactly balance. It demands free speech; every thing is open to examination, discussion, "agitation," if you will.

Thought is to be free, speech to be free, work to be free, and worship to be free. Such is the democratic idea, and such the State which it attempts to found.

The despotic idea is just the opposite:--That all men are _not_ endowed by their Creator with certain natural rights which only the possessor can alienate, but that one man has a natural right to overcome and make use of some other men for his advantage and their hurt; that all men are _not_ equal in their rights; that all men have _not_ a natural right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that government is _not_ inst.i.tuted to preserve these natural rights for all.

This idea is founded on the excess of human pa.s.sions, and it represents the compromise between a man's idleness and his appet.i.te. It is not based on facts eternal in human nature, but on facts transient in human nature. It does not aim to do justice to all, but injustice to some; to take from one man what he ought not to lose, and give to another what he ought not to get.

This leads to aristocracy in various forms, to the government of all by means of a part and for the sake of a part. In this state of things political power must be in few hands; property in few hands; wisdom in few heads; goodness in few hearts, and religion in few souls. I mean the religion which leads a man to respect himself and his fellow men; to be earnest, and to trust in the infinite G.o.d; to demand his rights of other men and to give their rights to them.

Neither the democratic nor the despotic idea is fully made real anywhere in the world. There is no perfect democracy, nor perfect aristocracy.

There are democrats in every actual aristocracy; despots in every actual democracy. But in the Northern States the democratic idea prevails extensively and chiefly, and we have made attempts at establishing a democratic government. In the Southern States the despotic idea prevails extensively and chiefly, and they have made attempts to establish an aristocratic government. In an aristocracy there are two cla.s.ses: the people to be governed, and the governing cla.s.s, the n.o.bility which is to govern. This n.o.bility may be movable, and depend on wealth; or immovable, and depend on birth. In the Southern States the n.o.bility is immovable, and depends on color.

In 1840, in the North there were ten million free men, and in the South five million free men and three million slaves. Three eighths of the population have no human rights at all--privileges as cattle, not rights as men. There the slave is protected by law, as your horse and your ox, but has no more human rights.

Here, now, is the great cause of the difference in the condition of the North and South; of the difference in the material results, represented by towns and villages, by farms and factories, ships and shops. Here is the cause of the difference in schools, colleges, churches, and in the literature; the cause of the difference in men. The South, with its despotic idea, dishonors labor, but wishes to compromise between its idleness and its appet.i.te, and so kidnaps men to do its work. The North, with its democratic idea, honors labor; does not compromise between its idleness and its appet.i.te, but lays its bones to the work to satisfy its appet.i.te; instead of kidnapping a man who can run away, it kidnaps the elements, subdues them to its command, and makes them do its work. It does not kidnap a freeman, but catches the winds, and chains them to its will. It lays hands on fire and water, and breeds a new giant, which "courses land and ocean without rest," or serves while it stands and waits, driving the mills of the land. It kidnaps the Connecticut and the Merrimac; does not send slave-ships to Africa, but engineers to New Hampshire; and it requires no fugitive slave law to keep the earth and sea from escaping, or the rivers of New England from running up hill.

This is not quite all! I have just now tried to hint at the causes of the difference in the condition of the people, North and South. Now let me show the cause of the agitation and alarm. We begin with a sentiment; that spreads to an idea; the idea grows to an act, to an inst.i.tution; then it has done its work.

Men seek to spread their sentiments and ideas. The democratic idea tries to spread; the despotic idea tries to spread. For a long time the nation held these two ideas in its bosom, not fully conscious of either of them. Both came here in a state of infancy, so to say, with our fathers; the democratic idea very dimly understood; the despotic idea not fully carried out, yet it did a great mischief in the State and church. In the Declaration of Independence, writ by a young man, only the democratic idea appears, and that idea never got so distinctly stated before. But mark you, and see the confusion in men's minds. That democratic idea was thus distinctly stated by a man who was a slaveholder almost all his life; and unless public rumor has been unusually false, he has left some of his own offspring under the influence of the despotic and not the democratic idea; slaves and not free men.

In the Const.i.tution of the United States these two ideas appear. It was thought for a long time they were not incompatible; it was thought the great American party might recognize both, and a compromise was made between the two. It was thought each might go about its own work and let the other alone; that the hawk and the hen might dwell happily together in the same coop, each lay her own eggs and rear her own brood, and neither put a claw upon the other.

In the mean time each founded inst.i.tutions after its kind; in the Northern States, democratic inst.i.tutions; in the Southern, aristocratic.

What once lay latent in the mind of the nation has now become patent.

The thinking part of the nation sees the difference between the two.

Some men are beginning to see that the two are completely incompatible, and cannot be good friends. Others are asking us to shut our eyes and not see it, and they think that so long as our eyes are shut, all things will go on peacefully. Such is the wisdom of the ostrich.

At first the trouble coming from this source was a very little cloud, far away on the horizon, not bigger than a man's hand. It seemed so in 1804, when the brave senator from Ma.s.sachusetts, a Hartford Convention Federalist, a name that calls the blood to some rather pale cheeks now-a-days, proposed to alter the Const.i.tution of the United States, and cut off the North from all responsibility for slavery. It was a little cloud not bigger than a man's hand; now it is a great cloud which covers the whole hemisphere of heaven, and threatens to shut out the day.

In the last session of Congress, ten months long, the great matter was the contest between the two ideas. All the newspapers rung with the battle. Even the pulpits now and then alluded to it; forgetting their decency, that they must preach "only religion," which has not the least to do with politics and the welfare of the State.

Each idea has its allies, and it is worth while to run our eye over the armies and see what they amount to. The idea of despotism has for its allies:

1. The slaveholders of the South with their dependents; and the servile cla.s.s who take their ideas from the prominent men about them. This servile cla.s.s is more numerous at the South than even at the North.

2. It has almost all the distinguished politicians of the North and South; the distinguished great politicians in the Congress of the nation, and the distinguished little politicians in the Congresses of the several States.

3. It has likewise the greater portion of the wealthy and educated men in many large towns of the North; with their dependents and the servile men who take their opinions from the prominent cla.s.s about them. And here, I am sorry to say, I must reckon the greater portion of the prominent and wealthy clergy, the clergy in the large cities. Once this cla.s.s of men were masters of the rich and educated; and very terrible masters they were in Madrid and in Rome. Now their successors are doing penance for those old sins. "It is a long lane," they say, "which has no turn," and the clerical has had a very short and complete turn. When I say the majority of the clergy in prominent situations in the large cities, are to be numbered among the allies of the despotic idea, and are a part of the great pro-slavery army, I know there are some n.o.ble and honorable exceptions, men who do not fear the face of gold, but reverence the face of G.o.d.

Then on the side of the democratic idea there are:

1. The great ma.s.s of the people at the North; farmers, mechanics, and the humbler clergy. This does not appear so at first sight, because these men have not much confidence in themselves, and require to be shaken many times before they are thoroughly waked up.

2. Beside that there are a few politicians at the North who are on this side; some distinguished ones in Congress, some less distinguished ones in the various legislatures of the North.

3. Next there are men, North and South, who look at the great causes of the welfare of nations, and make up their minds historically, from the facts of human history, against despotism. Then there are such as study the great principles of justice and truth, and judge from human nature, and decide against despotism. And then such as look at the law of G.o.d, and believe Christianity is sense and not nonsense; that Christianity is the ideal for earnest men, not a pretence for a frivolous hypocrite.

Some of these men are at the South; the greater number are in the North; and here again you see the difference between the son of the Planter and the son of the Puritan.

Here are the allies, the threefold armies of Despotism on the one side, and of Democracy on the other.

Now it is not possible for these two ideas to continue to live in peace.

For a long time each knew not the other, and they were quiet. The men who clearly knew the despotic idea, thought, in 1787, it would die "of a rapid consumption:" they said so; but the culture of cotton has healed its deadly wound, at least for the present. After the brief state of quiet, there came a state of armed neutrality. They were hostile, but under bonds to keep the peace. Each bit his thumb, but neither dared say he bit it at the other. Now the neutrality is over; attempts are made to compromise, to compose the difficulty. Various peace measures were introduced to the Senate last summer; but they all turned out war measures, every one of them. Now there is a trial of strength between the two. Which shall recede? which be extended? Freedom or Slavery? That is the question; refuse to look at it as we will,--refrain or refrain not from "political agitation," that is the question.

In the last Congress it is plain the democratic idea was beaten.

Congress said to California, "You may come in, and you need not keep slaves unless you please." It said, "You shall not bring slaves to Washington for sale, you may do that at Norfolk, Alexandria, and Georgetown, it is just as well, and this 'will pacify the North.'" Utah and New Mexico were left open to slavery, and fifty thousand or seventy thousand square miles and ten million dollars were given to Texas lest she should "dissolve the Union,"--without money or men! To crown all, the Fugitive Slave Bill became a law.

I think it is very plain that the democratic idea was defeated, and it is easy to see why. The three powers which are the allies of the despotic idea, were ready, and could act in concert--the Southern slaveholders, the leading politicians, the rich and educated men of the Northern cities, with their appendages and servile adherents. But since then, the conduct of the people in the North, and especially in this State, shows that the nation has not gone that way yet. I think the nation never will; that the idea of freedom will never be turned back in this blessed North. I feel sure it will at last overcome the idea of slavery.

I come to this conclusion, firstly, from the character of the tribe: this Anglo-Norman-Saxon tribe loves law, deliberation, order, method; it is the most methodical race that ever lived. But it loves liberty, and while it loves law, it loves law chiefly because it keeps liberty; and without that it would trample law under foot.

See the conduct of England. She spent one hundred millions of dollars in the attempt to wipe slavery from the West Indies. She keeps a fleet on the coast of Africa to put down the slave-trade there--where we also have, I think, a sloop-of-war. She has just concluded a treaty with Brazil for the suppression of the slave-trade in that country, one of her greatest achievements in that work for many years.

See how the sons of the Puritans, as soon as they came to a consciousness of what the despotic idea was, took their charters and wiped slavery clean out, first from Ma.s.sachusetts, and then from the other States, one after another. See how every Northern State, in revising its Const.i.tution, or in making a new one, declares all men are created equal, that all have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Then the religion of the North demands the same thing. Professors may try to prove that the Old Testament establishes slavery; that the New Testament justifies the existence of slavery; that Paul's epistle to Philemon was nothing more than another fugitive slave law, that Paul himself sent back a runaway; but it does not touch the religion of the North. We know better. We say if the Old Testament does that and the New Testament, so much the worse for them both. We say, "Let us look and see if Paul was so benighted," and we can judge for ourselves that the professor was mistaken more than the apostle.

Again, the spirit of the age, which is the public opinion of the nations, is against slavery. It was broken down in England, France, Italy, and Spain; it cannot stand long against civilization and good sense; against the political economy and the religious economy of the civilized world. The genius of freedom stands there, year out, year in, and hurls firebrands into the owl's nest of the prince of darkness, continually,--and is all this with no effect?

Besides that, it is against the law of G.o.d. That guides this universe, treating with even-handed justice the great geographical parties, Austrian, Roman, British, or American, with the same justice wherewith it dispenses its blessings to the little local factions that divide the village for a day, marshalling mankind forward in its mighty progress towards wisdom, freedom, goodness towards men, and piety towards G.o.d.

Of the final issue I have no doubt; but no man can tell what shall come to pa.s.s in the mean time. We see that political parties in the State are snapped asunder: whether the national party shall not be broken up, no man can say. In 1750, on the 28th day of November, no man in Old England or New England could tell what 1780 would bring forth. No man, North or South, can tell to-day what 1880 will bring to pa.s.s. He must be a bold man who declares to the nation that no new political machinery shall be introduced, in the next thirty years, to our national mill. We know not what a day shall bring forth, but we know that G.o.d is on the side of right and justice, and that they will prevail so long as G.o.d is G.o.d.