ADDRESS OF CHARLES D. DRAKE
"The War of Slavery Upon The Constitution"
By
Charles D. Drake
The War of" Slavery upon tlie Constitution.
ADDRESS
0 F
CHARLES D. DRAKE,
ON THE
ANNIVERSARY OP THE CONSTITUTION.
»-•-«
Delivered in tlie City of Saint Louis, Sept. 17, 1S62.
Three-quarters of a century ago, that noble i
body of American statesmen and patriots, over
which the Father of his Country presided, com¬
pleted the formation of the Constitution of the ■
United States, and presented it for adoption by
the American people, as a form of Government
and a bond of Union which they believed would
endure through all future time. It was the first
written Constitution ever adopted by any na¬
tion; and it has, in the world's judgment, stood,
from that day to this, as the noblest monument
ever reared by freemen to their own wisdom and
patriotism. It_has_shed -upon our country un- i
numbered blessings, and has afforded a light to
other nations struggling into the exercise of
self-government. Under its benign sway every
expectation of its framers for the good of Ameri¬
ca and of humanity has been fully realized; and
there is not a hope that a patriot could cherish
for his country, which would not be more than
fulfilled by its continued existence.
And yet, while there are those still living who
lived at the day of its formation, the nation for
which that Constitution was made is precipita¬
ted into a terrible struggle fiQE-it» preservation
. from destruction by -its owh children i And it
is while the land trembles beneath the tread of
armed legions, and the air is rent with the roar
of battle for and against the Union it was de¬
signed to cement and perpetuate, that we meet
to observe as patriots the recurring anniversary
of tne great step which our fathers took towards
making the American Nation what it was and
is yet capable of being, the glory of freedom and
of the human race.
Under any other circumstances than such as
now fill our beloved land with grief and dread,
it would be a work of love to trace the history
of our Constitution, and endeavor to set forth
the great principles which pervade its entire
frame; but how could this be done, with
the oppressed mind wandering every mo¬
ment to the fiendish assault upon it
now in progress, and swayed continually by
alternate hopes and fears, as it follows the shift¬
ing scenes and changing tides of the war which
is to end in its complete and final vindication or
its destruction ? It is impossible. The theme
most prominent under such circumstances is. not
the origin and principles of the Constitution, but
the origin and principles of the war now waged
against it. To that let us then direct our at¬
tention.
The American people have reached a point
where an overpowering necessity is laid upon
them to remove every film from their eyes, and
2
look with perfectly clear and steady vision at
what iB around and before them. I have a pro¬
found and painful impression, that notwithstand¬
ing all said and written and seen and heard dur¬
ing the last twenty months, there are multitudes
everywhere, especially in the border slave States,
who have no correct idea of what this war really
means, or to what it directly tends. God help
them, if this continues much longer.
Light—light upon the motives, aims, and ends
of the South in the begiuning and the prosecu¬
tion of this war, is what the people want. You
may hurl denouncing generalities at the rebel¬
lion forever, and do little good : the people re¬
quire tangible particulars. You cannot feed a
starving man on the fumes of a kitchen: he must
have food, or die. Supernatural eloquence were
but as fumes, if the public mind be not imbued
with knowledge of the true character and actual
intent of Southern treason. The popular heart
answers truth with mighty throbs: it answers
nothing else so. It may flutter for a
while under a transient stimulus, but it
is the tremor of weakness. Truth alone
makes it strong. I dare not approach it
with aught but truth; with that I dare seek
its innermost recesses. I intend to speak the
truth now. I will speak it here, in this city,
face to face with that pestilent element of
treachery and treason, which, last year, in the
first months of the rebellion, bore so high a head,
and which, yet unexcelled, scowls through our
streets by day, and, in nightly conclave of the
Knights of the Golden Circle, schemes to build
an Empire of Slavery over our country's grave !
Frequently as I have spoken of Slavery as con¬
nected with this rebellion, it is of that I shall
now speak again. When Cato, ever after his
visit to Carthage, ended his every speech with
the well-known words, " Prceterea censeo Cartha-
ginem esse delendam," it was to impress continual¬
ly upon Rome that her only safety was in the de¬
struction of her great rival. When, in address¬
ing the people in this crisis, I recur
again and again to Slavery, it is be¬
cause P" believe nothing with a more unbid¬
den and resistless conviction, than that Slavery
was the one sole cause, and is now the single
life-principle and the great sustaining power, of
the rebellion; and that the safety of the country
demands that the people know and never forget
those truths.
So speaking, I refer not to Slavery as a system
of domestic labor. HQr"To'*ahy"oi its ordinary
moral, social, or^economic^Tasjgg.cts, nor. to the
wrongs, oppressions,,sins, andbAtfearisms which
have been laid to its ^TgVr
ground than that. Passing by every other view
of Slavery, I .deal with it now only in its gela¬
tions to the rebellion. It is of Slavery the ^pe¬
culiar institution," loved more than country by
the South-^-of Slavery as the foundation and in¬
strument of aggressive political power—of
Slavery as the hot-bed of a " social aristocracy,"
alien in spirit to our free institutions—of
Slavery speaking and acting through its per¬
fidious votaries—of Slavery in its faith¬
less-"abandonment of all honor, duty, and
patriotism, for the sake of its own advance¬
ment—of Slavery plotting treason for thirty
years—of Slavery false to country and therefore
false to everything—of Slavery the secessionist,
the rebel, the traitor, the parricide, the filibus¬
ter, the guerilla, the demon of destruction, that
I speak, and, with God's help, will continue to
speak; for I dare not smother down the burning
convictions forced into my soul by this hell-born
rebellion.
My friends, but the other day our country was
tranquil, prosperous, and united; to-day, it
writhes and quivers under the deadly blows of
Slavery, the armed destroyer; blows causeless,
and therefore most cruel; blows struck with all
the power of unprovoked and savage malignity ;
blows aimed at the very life of a nation that had
nourished slavery as a child; blows which, if suc¬
cessful, will batter down into a shapeless mass
of ruins all that makes our country worthy of
our love, or of the respect of mankind if' It is
the Samson of Slavery heaving at the pirfttrs of
the Constitution—the Lucifer of Slavery deso¬
lating the realm it cannot rule! Search the
world's records and traditions fora parallel, and
desist in despair; for never was there a crime
approaching it in distant and feeble comparison.
It comprehends every other, and overtops them
all. American Slavery has made itself the Cain
of the human race : some time its wail will be
heard, " Behold, thou hast driven me out this day
from theface of the earth /"
Can there be any lingering doubt that Slavery
is the wanton aggressor in this mortal strife ?
Not for an instant, with him who looks and reads
and thinks; not for an instant, with him who is
open to the truth; not for an instant, with any
but those who will not see; and many such there
are, with whom all argument and appeal is
vain. Not to such do I speak; but to those who
hearing will heed, and heeding will embrace the
truth, for its own and their country's sake. Of
such there are tens of thousands, who love the
Union with their whole hearts, but do not yet
distinctly recognize the Union's enemy. They
know that the Union is assailed, and'they give
their sons and their substance for its defense,
but still do nofJiEy-see what assails it. They
hear by day, and dream by night, of horrid war
between opposing hosts, that yesterday were
brothers, and ought to be brothers to-day, to¬
morrow, and always; but know not how all this
3
came about, or why it should be. Let them clear
away the mists which becloud their vision, and
see that Slavery, in the reckless ambition, the
heartless selfishness, the fierce intolerance, the
tyrannical will, and the piratical greed of its re¬
morseless aristocracy, must alone bear the igno¬
miny of this unmatched crime forever.
And yet there arc those who deny this, and
those that ignore it. Of the first class, besides
the host of Slavery's devotees, and the attendant
retinue of politicians, greedy for votes and of¬
fice, each and all frowning upon or sneering at
the idea of Slavery's responsibility in any way
for our present calamities, I have observed,
among men of note, so distinguished and vener¬
able a man as Amos Kendall, in a letter to the
President of the United States, denying that
Slavery was the cause of the rebellion!
In the second class are found newspapers,
which, reserving their lightnings for the Aboli¬
tionists/the Black Republicans, and the Radicals,
launch promiscuous thunder at the rebellion,
but betray not the least consciousness that Sla¬
very has anything on earth to do with it; and
eloquent oralors, who enthrall admiring crowds
with ornate discourse about every element and
feature of the rebellion, save just that insignifi¬
cant one of Slavery; and a numberless crowd ot
" weak brethren," instantly aghast at the slight¬
est question of the virgin purity of the "peculiar
institution;" all opposing, but vainly, the resist¬
ance of a dead silence to that mighty public
opinion, which marches straight forward to burn
into the brow of Slavery the eternal brand of the
traitor and the parricide. Dare I confront such
odds? Yes, and a thousand times more; for
truth shuns no conflict, fears no foes; nor, armed
with truth, do I. That I am so armed, it is now
my duty to show. In doing so I must needs use
some facts which 1 have before used in public.
No matter; thejr do not grow old, nor will they
ever lose their point.
In a commercial Convention of delegates from
eight Southern States, held at Vicksburg, in May,
1860, Mr. Spratt, of South Carolina, in advocat¬
ing resolutions in favor of re-opening the African
slave-trade, used these words :
" It might be said that the slave-trade could
not be legalized within the Union, and that to
re-establish it the Union would have to be dis¬
solved. Let it be so. The men op the South
h ave higher trusts than to preserve the union."
There was a day when such words would, even
in Vicksburg, have called down a storm of indig¬
nation and reproach upon their utterer; but then
and there they received the direct sanction of the
body to which they were addressed, by its adop¬
tion of the resolutions referred to; thereby
proclaiming defiance to the Constitgtii^^uiclL
prohibits that trade. Mr. Spratt
tative there of that "social aristocracy," about
which, less than a year later, he wrote a letter,
that is probably the most vivid and truthful expo¬
sition of the spirit and aims of secession that
exists. He spoke the simple, undisguised, and
most execrable truth, as held by his class, when
he said, " the men of the South had higher trusts
than to preserve the Union." He announced him¬
self, in advance, a traitor in heart, as afterwardB
he became one in act. And it was for Slavery,
and, far worse, for the renewal of that accursed
traffic, against which the anathemas of civilized
nations are hurled, that he proclaimed-his trea~
son. He renounced the Constitution of his coun¬
try, and defied the conscience of Christendom,
for the sake of a return, in this enlightened age
and land, to that diabolical piracy of humaifbe-
ings, upon which, more than seventy years be¬
fore, the fathers of this nation had set the seal
of irrevocable condemnation. This was one of
the " higher trusts," which the men of the South
held to be above the preservation of the Union!
If this fact stood alone, it would be the
enigma of the age; but it ceases to
excite our special wonder, when we see
in it but the natural fruit of nearly
thirty years' effort to enshrine Slavery in the
Southern mind, not only as the unfailing spring
of material prosperity, but as the normal con¬
dition of society, and as a blessing divinely or¬
dained to perpetuation and diffusion, and wor¬
thy to be made "the chief stone in the corner "
of a republican form of government emanating
from Americans, in the latter half of the Nine¬
teenth Century!
Fifteen years before, " men of the South " had
declared that they preferred the annexation of
Texas—a vast domain dedicated to, and desired
by them for the spread of, Slavery—to the pres¬
ervation of the Uflion. Five years later, they
threatened the Union, unless Slavery were al¬
lowed unrestricted access to the Territories.
Six years nearer the present time, they were
ready for revolt, if the Republican candidate
should be elected President. Four years still
nearer, they did revolt, when another Republican
candidate, through their own design and their
own intrigue, was elected to that high office.
Through all these periods of agitation and dan¬
ger, the animating and sole incentive of South¬
ern action was the extension and perpetuation of
Slavery. Upon this, and for this alone, the idea
and purpose of a Southern Confederacy were an¬
nounced, not only to the people of the South, but
in the halls of Congress. Hear some of the ut¬
terances of Southern aristocrats on this point.
Senator Iverson, of Georgia, said in the
Senate:
- There is but one path of safety for the South;
i buj?«jfte mode of preserving her institution of
domestic Slavery; and that is a confederacy of
States having no incongruous and opposing
elements—a confederacy of slave States alone,
with homogeneous language, laws, interests,
and institutions. Under such a confederated
Republic, with a Constitution which should
Bhut out the approach and entrance of all incon¬
gruous and conflicting elements, which should
protect the institution "from change, and keep the
whole nation ever bound, to its preservation, by an
unchangeable fundamental law, the fifteen slave J
States, with their power of expansion, would
present to the world the most free, prosperous, i
and happy nation on the face of the wide earth." I
Mr. Brooks, Representative in Congress from
South Carolina, said:
"We have the issue upon us now; and how
are we to meet, it? I tell you, from the bottom
of my heart, that the only mode which i can
think available for meeting it is just to tear the
Constitution of the United States, trample it
under foot, and form a Southern Confederacy,
every State of which shall be a slacehoUing
State."
The South Carolina Convention, in December,
1860, in an address to the people of the slave-
holding States, urged them to secession in the
following terms:
" cit1zen8 of the SlAVEHOLDING states of the
United States : Circumstances beyond our con¬
trol have placed us in the van of the great con¬
troversy between the Northern and" Southern
States. We would have preferred that other
States should have assumed the position we now
occupy. Independent ourselves, we disclaim
any desire or design to lead the counsels of the
other Southern States. Providence has cast our
lot together, by extending over us an iden¬
tity of purpose, _ interests and institu¬
tions. South Carolina desires no destiny
separate from yours. To be one of a great slave-
holding Confederacy, stretching its arms over
a territory larger than any power in Europe
possesses—with a population lour times greater
than that of the whole United States when they
achieved their independence of the British em¬
pire—with productions which make our exis¬
tence more important to the world than that of
any other people who inhabit it—with common
institutions to defend and common dangers to
encounter—we ask your sympathy and confede¬
ration. * * * United together, and we must
be the most independent, as we are the most im¬
portant, among the nations of the world. United
together, and we require no ether instrument to con¬
quer peace than our beneficent productions. United
together, and we must be a great, free and pros¬
perous people, whose • renown must spread
throughout the civilized world and pass down,
we trust, to the remotest ages. We ask you to
join us in forming A CONFEDERACY OF SLAVE-
HOLDING STATES."
In these three brief specimens you have the
spirit which impelled the South into disunion.
A volume of such treasonable and incendiary
expressions might be compiled; but these are
enough for this occasion. They teach too plain¬
ly for any one to doubt, that the glittering price
of treason was a Confederacy living, moving,
and having its being in Slavery; where, free
from "incongruous and conflicting elements,"
the aristocrats of Slavery might matare and exe¬
cute schemes of expansion and conquest, which
should eclipse those of Cortez and Pizarro, and
start Slavery forward in its anticipated career
of universal dominion.
For, my friends, let no man deceive himself
with the fancy, that a Southern Confederacy
meant only a Confederacy of such slave States as
could be wrenched from our Union. Men who
had fiercely struggled in the Union, through
long years, for the expansion of Slavery here,
were not the men to abide its restriction to the
limits of those States out of the Union. Nor did
they profess any such intention. Emboldened
by the near approach of the consummation of
their wicked machinations, they declared
that to confine Slavery to that area would
destroy it, and daringly avowed the fixed
purpose, at every hazard, to push it into
adjacent regions, belonging to foreign nations in
amity with the American Government and peo¬
ple. Secession, then, was not the exodus of the
South from the presence of the Pha¬
raoh of Abolitionism, but the beginning
of a career of buccaneering subjuga¬
tion, in which the pillar of cloud by day and of
fire by night should lead on and on to the en¬
slavement of contiguous non-slaveholding na¬
tions, for the extension, establishment, and per¬
petuation of African Slavery. Listen to some of
their declarations of this audacious and infernal
purpose.
Senator Iversonsaid :
"y " In a confederated government of their own,
the Southern States would enjoy sources of
wealth, prosperity, and jiower, unsurpassed by
any nation on earth. So neutrality laws would
restrain mir adventurous sons. Our expanding pol¬
icy would stretch far beyond present limits.
Central America would join her destiny to ours,
and so would Cuba, now withheld from us by the
voice and votes of Abolition enemies."
Senator Brown, of Mississippi, said:
" I want Cuba ; I want Tamaulipas, Potosi,
and one or two other Mexican States; and
I want them all for the same reason—/or the
pl^vntiyp and spreading of Sr. a very. And-WTOOfffTJJ
ifTTlentral AmerTcawill wonderfully aid us in
acquiring those other States. Yes; I want those
countries for the sfread of Slavery. I would
spread the blessings of Slavery, like the religion
of our Divine Master, to the uttermost ends of
the earth. * * * Whether we can obtain
the territory while the Union lasts, I do not
know; I fear we cannot. But I would make an
honest effort, and if we failed, I would go out of
the Union, and try it there."
Ex-Gov. Call, of Florida, said:
" Slavery cafanot be stopped in its career of
usefulness to the whole world. It cannot be
confined to its present limits. Dire and uncon¬
trollable necessity will compel the master and
the slave to cut their way through every barrier
which may be thrown arovna it, or perish together in
the attempt. * * * It may be in tne Prov¬
idence of God that the American Union, which
has cheered the whole world with its promises,
like the star which stood/or a while over the era-
5
die of Bethlehem, may fall and lose its light for¬
ever. It may be in His dispensation of human
events, that the great American family shall be
divided into many nations. But divided or uni¬
ted, the path of destiny must lead the Anglo-
Saxon race to the mastery of this whole conti¬
nent. And if the whole column should not
advance, this division of the race will, with the,
institution, of African Slavery, advance from, the
hanks of the Rio Grande to the line under the sun,
establishing the way-marks of progress, the al¬
tars of the reformed religion, the temples of a
higher civilization, a purer liberty, and a better
system of human government."
And last, but very far from least, hear the
words of John S. Preston, secession Commis¬
sioner from South Carolina, addressed to the
Virginia Convention, to induce that body to pass
an ordinance of secession :
" Virginia will take her place in the front
ranks. She will be as she has been for one hun¬
dred years, the foremost in the world in the
cause of liberty. She will stand here with her
uplifted arm, not !y as a barrier, but the
guiding star to au J; re, stretching frmn her
feel to the tropics, f" Atlantic to the Pacific—
?;rauder in propoiv stronger in power,
reer in right, than v!.ick has preceded it;
which will divide ! .1 : o? the Atlantic, be
felt in the far-heaving 'r ves of the Pacific, and,
ivill own the Gulf a u'-idea ind tlse Caribbean
Sea."
My friends and couv ymen, in this exposi¬
tion, out of Southern nic uths, of the real spirit,
scope, and aim of secession, is the undoubted
and authentic explanation of that memorable an¬
nouncement by Southern leaders, in the winter of
1860-61, that they would not remain in the Union,
if a sheet of blank paper were given them, and they
were allowed to write on it their own, terms ! Those
infamous conspirators had ulterior objects of un¬
hallowed and base ambition, which they knew
were unattainable in the Union, and they re¬
solved, without hesitation or remorse, to immo¬
late the Union, because it held them back. Not,
then, for any wrongs received or feared,
but for the rake of the grand destiny they
had marked out for themselves and Slavery,
all arrangement, all compromise, all conciliation,
all relenting was renounced, that they might,
over the ruins of the Constitution, carve their
way with the sword to their dazzling goal. Can
any one whose judgment is not wholly perverted,
whose conscience is not thoroughly petrified,
look upon such a picture, without recoiling as
from an open view of the bottomless pit ? What
principle of honor, or morality, or common de¬
cency, vindicates such a scheme of willful and
measureless wrong ? or rather, what principle
of honor, morality, decency, religion, or law, is
not trampled under foot by it ? I_t. fiKU.tes the_
laws of the country into the dust, it outrages the
Constitution, it degrades the American
name, it affronts the public sentiment
of the world, it violates all international law,
jjt. apifcL npon-ihft-BiUA, -it_&pra>n«-the • teachi ngs
of-Christ, it defies the throne-of Eternal Justice;
and all in the. name of Sla very, und-fop-the com¬
pulsory spread of Slavery over, nations, which
had long ago banished it from their, borders* and
devoted their domains to the inhabitation of
, free, men, as they hoped and believed, through¬
out all generations ! Had this been foretold thirty
years ago, every man in the South..would, like
Bazael, have exclaimed, " What ! isthy servant a
\dog, -thingf" and yet
they do it now, not only without compunction or
shame, but with a claim of right, and with an
insolent demand to be fiet alone" in doing it!
And more amazing still, it is done in the name
of "a higher civilization, and a purer liberty
as if higher civilization and negro bondage were
inseparable, and Liberty and Slavery had be¬
come synonyms in the voeabulary of this day !
And, that the picture may want no height of col¬
oring or depth of shadow, they march to their
hellish work over the outraged flag of their
country, and the prostrate bodies of their broth¬
ers, murdered, by scores of thousands, as they
rally in arms to defend their country against its
own degenerate and piratical sons!
Think you this is all? Far, very far, from it.
With their " Slave Eepublic " once estab¬
lished, and extended Southward to " the line
under the sun," and with the Gulf of Mexico,
the Caribbean Sea, and the mouth of the Missis¬
sippi under their control, will they rest there ?
Not for a day, except to gather strength fbr new
forays for Slavery. " An empire, grander in
proportions, stronger in power, freer in right
than any which has preceded it," is the gorge¬
ous prize, and will they not clutch at it ?
Conquest for Slavery ! is their slogan ; and
how long will it be until, backed by nations
bound t® them through their cotton, and sympa¬
thizing with their aristocratic impulses and
principles, they will turn northward, to subju¬
gate the nation that failed when it might to sub¬
jugate them ? My friends, call not this an idle
apprehension—a groundless fear. If this gigan¬
tic piracy he not exterminated now, it will, at no dis¬
tant, day after establishing itself, aim at " the mas¬
tery of this whole continent," and its consequent svb-
jectitn to the dominion of Slavery ! Remember,
Slavery is not fighting to repel attack, but for
extension and ferpetijity: where will be its
point of repose in the Western hemisphere? Just
where, like Alexander, it can sit down and weep
that there is no more to conquer. Say not that
their aim is impossible. Great as America is,
she is not equal to such a combination as the
South might form, and this day expects to form,
with European nations, through promised com¬
mercial advantages, and congeniality of hatred
towards those free institutions, whose life de-
6
pends upon the fidelity, the bravery, and the
endurance of her loyal people in this conflict.
Awake to the terrible consciousness, that the
success of this rebellion is death to America!
Awake to the certainty, that unless a more
mighty effort than has yet been put forth be
made, there is danger of its success! Awake to
the conviction that the nation must give itself
up to this conflict, or despair of triumph!
Awake to the stern reality, that this destroying
assault by Slavery upon all that we hold dear
must be repulsed, and the assailants defeated,
scattered, subjugated, and, if need be, extermi¬
nated, or we become the slaves op Slavery !
My friends, it is a startling truth, that never
since Sumter's fall has the nation fully risen to
the height of the great occasion. Not only has
it not seen in its true light the damnable spirit
and purpose of the rebel aristocracy, underlying
the whole surface of the rebellion, and scorning
all patriotic and brotherly appeals, and yet care¬
fully excluded from all their official pronuncia-
mentos, in order to blind the world to their real
intent and object; but it has borne a heavy
weight of long-accustomed deference to Slavery,
and been restrained by an honest, but as we now
see, mistaken and unavailing, conservatism, to¬
ward that institution, which exhibits no conser¬
vatism except of itself, and brooks no radical¬
ism but that itself employs to destroy the Union,
and clear the way for its own lawless domination
and expansion. And the nation has constantly
underrated the military strength of the rebel¬
lion, and underestimated the aid afforded it by
the three millions and a half of slaves that re¬
main at home. We counted them a dead weight
upon the South in this war; but they have so far
proved its most buoyant and most effective sup¬
port. And there has ever lurked through the
public mind, especially in the border slave
States, a notion that, some how or other, no one
could tell how, this frightful conflict would pass
away with "nobody hurt" much, and with Sla¬
very restored to its old position in "the Union
as it was." It is impossible to estimate the evil
which this mischievous idea has wrought, in
shaping the course of men to propitiate Slavery
and its votaries. Politicians keep one eye half-
open for the country, and the other wide
open for disloyal votes, when they shall
again be available. Merdhants balance
between loyalty and trade, often holding the for¬
mer at a discount. Lawyers watch for the fees
of disloyal clients, and doctors for the calls of
traitorous patients, more than for the honor of
our flag. Preachers refuse either prayer or ser¬
mon for the Government, lest disloyal ears
should be offended. Thousands hang back from
avowed loyalty, to escape traitors' frowns; and
thousands professing loyalty yield a grudging
and feeble support to the Union in its peril, that
they may commend themselves to the Union's
enemies. All this, so disgraceful to the Ameri¬
can character, so degrading to all true man¬
hood, so false to every dictate of patriotism,
and so injurious to the Government in this mor¬
tal struggle, has proceeded from the cherished
belief that Slavery is to survive this war, and
resume its former influence. It is time that this
belief yield somewhat of its strength. It is time
that every man should see that the nation will,
in all human probability, be driven, by the inex¬
orable law of self-preservation, to destroy Slavery.
In common with hundreds of thousands ofloyal
citizens, I have earnestly hoped that this couflict
might stop short of that point; but hope has
been well-nigh quenched within me by the grow¬
ing conviction, in view of the facts I have laid
before you, and of the extremity to which the
South has waged this war, that Slavery or my
country must perish. When that dread alterna¬
tive shall be fully presented, God forbid that'I
should hesitate for one moment which to choose!
My country must live, though Slavery die a thou¬
sand deaths. Tell me not that we war only for
the Constitution and the Union. I know it well;
but can they be saved now, and for all coming
time, and save Slavery, their enemy, too ? If not,
let Slavery end its days here and now, whatever
may follow. A war for the mere manumission of
negroes—a war to obliterate Slavery as a mere
domestic institution, the nation would not and
should not wage ; but against Slavery the rebel
and traitor in arms I fear it must, if it would
itself live. I almost despair of the nation's life,
but by the death of Slavery. Time was, in the
early period of the rebellion, when its suppres¬
sion or abandonment might have left Slavery
unshaken by its own horrible crime; but that
time is hopelessly past. I see no day of adjust¬
ment, restoration, or conciliation in the future.
Slavery proclaims that it conciliates only with
the sword—adjusts only at the cannon's mouth.
He who expects adjustment except by the un¬
conditional submission of the South, knows lit¬
tle of the character and temper of the loyal por¬
tion of the nation. He who looks for a restora¬
tion of the territorial integrity of the Union
otherwise than by subjugating the rebels, from
the Potomac to the Rio Grande, knows not what
it is for an aristocracy to risk its all upon such
a desperate venture as this. The first step in
secession placed them beyond all hope, but in
the complete establishment" of their slave em¬
pire. 'ihey know this well. They have never
asked restoration to the Union on any terms,
and they would not accept it now, were
it freely and cordially offered, with
unrestricted amnesty to all. They hate
the Union, because it is not "homogeneous;"
7
that is, not all under the swayj)f Slavery. They |
loathe the "pure democracy" of the North, be- i
cause it is uncongenial to their " social aristoc¬
racy," and because they hold that there "the
reins of government come from the heels of so¬
ciety," as they term the free white laborer. Ten
thousand times they have declared that they
never will unite with the North again, and it is
certain that they are in earnest. Away, then,
with idle talk about conciliation and adjust¬
ment ! Let the nation brace itself up to fight
this war {Erouglfto the perfect and absolute res¬
toration of thejuthority of the Constitution, or
i give up the contest at once, an3"reSl^ltielf to"
perpetual disgrace. If to accomplish the former
it is necessary to strike down SJavpry, as wellr
as its armies, tb.g jrorld"wiii commend the act;
and the voice .of our own loyal "people wilHrarsT
lOftli'in the midst of tiierr^dufnTng ' Tor sons
and brothers dead in battle, with the tihhsrtta*
ting and firm response," Let it be so ! The mjw
of the North have hioher trusts than to pre¬
serve Slavery !"