u E 458 .3 . L94 Copy 1 LOYALTY. WHAT IS IT ? TO WHOM OR WHAT DUE? 1 /^w-^ \^ l\-<^ .u^^ / LOYALTY. WHAT IS IT ? TO WHOM OR WHAT DUE ? These are questions vital to tlie American people, and if properly understood, may yet exercise a wholesome in- fluence on the momentous issues of the day. Certain it is, that a clear coDception of the import of the term loyalty, what the standard, and to that, a faithful and honest devotion from the beginning, had saved us from disunion, and its consequents — civil war, desolated homes, universal ruin and anarchy. Lexicographers define it, to consist in ^ ^faitlifulness to one's sovereign." In despotisms, the will of the sovereign is absolute. His mandate the supreme law ; He rules by his sole sovereign authority, unchecked by Constitution or Laws. He is supposed to protect his subjects in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and for this protection, they owe him loyalty. The obligations between sovereign, and subject, are reciprocal; loyalty for protection — protection for loyalty. Under our form of government, the people ?ixe. sovereign, and by virtue of this sovereignty, in forming a govern- ment, they necessarily established a standard by which loyalty should be tested, namely, the Constitution. The theory upon which the government is based, pre- ceded, and is older than the Constitution. The latter is the embodiment of certain cardinal principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, and accepted as axio- matic truths by the statesmen and people who formed and adopted it. "That all men are created equal, and endowed with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. ThAT TO SECURE THESE, GOV- ernments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the go^tirned. That, if such governments fail to subserve the purpose FOR which they ARE INSTITUTED, IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE PEO- PLE TO ALTER OR ABOLISH THEM, AND TO INSTITUTE OTHERS IN THEIR STEAD." Other maxims were universally accredited, as containing sound philosophy and practical wisdom, namely : "That POWER is always stealing from the many to the few/' hence the danger of centralization. "That consolida- tion IS despotism." Hence the necessity of a division of the powers of the federal and State governments, to counteract this natural tendency. ''That the surest and strongest SAFEOUARD AGAINST CONSOLIDATION LIES IN THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE States." "That the barriers provided by the federal COMPACT MIGHT BE BROKEN DOWN, BUT THAT, THEN, THE IStATES, jealous of their rights, AND SEEING THE GREAT PRINCIPLE UPON WHICH REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS ARE FORMED — the right of self-governmenV — about to be overwhelmed, and usurped by the federal authority, "would make common cause against THE encroachments OF THE FEDERAL POWER," and thus pre- vent the inauguration of a consolidated despotism. "That UNRESTRICTED RULE, WHETHER OF ONE MAN, OR MAJORITIES, RE- SULTS IN THE SAME THING — DESPOTISM." ThAT LIBERTY CAN ONLY BE ASSURED AND PERPETUATED TO MAN, THROUGH SOME OR- GANIC LAW ;" at once the decree and exponent of the popu- lar instincts and will. Upon such theory our fathers ordained a government, by and through a loritten Constitution ; the States ratified it, and it thus became the authoritative Bond of the Union. Having been thus adopted and ratified by the people, it stood as the symbol of their aggregated sovereignty ; as the pledge and assurance from one man to another, one to each, and each to all, that by and through this Bond alone, should governmental functions be exercised, "and for the PROTECTION OF LIFE, LIBERTY, AND PROPERTY." It thus became their covenant against anarchy and des- potism ; their deliberate oath and pledge that liberty should be assured to all, and perpetuated for oil. To the Constitution, then, as that which ordained the gov- ernment, and endowed it with specific parts and functions as a political organism — the source of all law and all power — the measure of civil right and justice — the law higher than the laws, and by wdiich they shall be tested; — to this, and this alone, is loyalty due ! As the standard of fealty, ru- ler and ruled, President and people alike, owe it allegiance. So considered its framers, for they stipulated therein, '■'■That the President, hefore he enter on the execution of his office shall take an oath, or affirmation, to preserve, protect, awr;^ DEFEND the Constitution o/" //ie United States;" And, "That Senators and llepresentatives in Congress, the mem- bers of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers of the United States, and the several States, shall take an oath or affirmation to support this Constitution. The military is subject to the same test. As between citizen, and citizen, there is an implied oath of fealty, and a higher })ledge — that of honor! If then, the Constitution be the standard of loyalty for all, president, legislator, and people alike, and the bond of the Union, the following may be affirmed as postulates : First: That want of fidelity to the Constitution is trea- son to the Union: Second: — That loyalty to a disloyal administration is treason, both to the Union and the Con- stitution. Third: That support is due from a loyal peo- ple, to a loyal administration, and such support is fealty to the Constitution : but, that to sustain and uphold an administration in the exercise of powers infractive of the organic law, is to become aiders and abettors of its trea- son ! Fourth: — That obedience to law, and acquiescence in the will of the majority are paramount obligations, only, when the law and such will come within the scope of the delegated power ; acquiescence beyond these limits is cowardly submission, and treason to the Constitution I Upon his induction into office as President, Mr. Lincoln took the prescribed oath — as supposed at the time — '^vith- OUT ANY mental RESERVATION OR EVASION, TO PERFORM IN GOOD FAITH, ALL THE DUTIES REQUIRED OF HIM," by the Constitution! Bow has he kept his oath? The people, confiding still, and yet patriotic, though forbid the use oi free speech; manacled hand and foot, and prone almost at the mercy of an imperious tyrant, begin to awake from their re])ose of , trust and confidence, to exclaim. Sir ! Mr. President ! How have you kept your oath ? And this voice, though ^'■still and small" at first, aug- ments in force and volume, as it reaches the ears of the usurper, is the premonition of "the hand-iuriting upon the loall," and the knees of "Honest Abe" shake with fear like unto Belshazzar's. The people exclaim, "the plea of a military necessity, will not exonorate you, Sir ! The Constitution teas equal to the emergency. You never have tested its powers ; you are not eniitied therefore to the privilege of the plea. Until this had been done your acts must he viewed as wicked, and loan- ton usurpations! Why did you not come before us ivith the practical demonstration of its inadequacy f Then had we listened to you! A Constitution unequal to the greatest emer- gency, is a frivolous thing — we are not prepared to believe that the patriots and statesmen of the Revolution understood so im- perfectly the loorlc they had to do, nor the adaptation of means to an end, as this would indicate ! But, suppose ive entertain your plea f — What then 1 It is a tacit confession. Sir, of the failure of the experiment. If this is the best that man can do in his own behalf, the demonstration is perfect ! He is incapable of SELF government ! Let us then no longer cheat or deceive one another, but conceding the fact, imitate the example of the fathers of the Kepublic, when under the Articles of Confederation, the Union proved a failure, — let the States fall back on their original sovereignty, and agree, if they (\ can, to adopt some other and better form of Confederation to be "binding only between the States uatifying the SAME ;" and, thus, shall we avoid the horrors of civil war, and the terrible retributions of universal anarchy. But, again, the people demand, ^^ Mr. President, Hoiu have you kept your oathf" And they respond for you. — ' ' Let your Bastiles ansicer !' ' Let the ivails and lamentations, the groans, and sighs of bereaved and broken hearts, ascending from every village and hamlet in the Union to heaven to bear witness against you when God shall judge the earth — answer." Let — bloody battle-fields — the groans of the dying — the silence of the dead — answer/ Let family altars desecrated — hearthstones rediuith the life blood of mothers — in- nocent children, and helpless old men — answer. Let tvhole regions of country — recently teeming loith a laughing and joyous jjopulation—noio silent and desolate as if the '^scourge of God" had sioept over them, leaving neither tree nor shrub, nor blade of grass, nor one echo of the human voice, save that of lamentation and wo — answer.'' Let a muzzled press — lohite men denied the right of free speech^ dissevered and sub- jugated sovereign States, and a ballot box degraded to the point of the bayonet — answer ! ^^Let the appaling future, prophetic and awful, bearing bach to us the loildest shrieks ever borne upon the air, or heard by human ear ; and unheed- ed prayers for mercy, agonized by millions of loomen and children, in horror and despair, as they plead for death ratlier than dishonor from brutal and maddened slaves, turned loose by a proclamation fiendish and infernal — answer ! Whole States thus to be desolated, their entire popidation of noble, intelligent, refined Christian people, murdered, beggared, ex- iled, driven to mountains and swamps, from home and fire- side, to die of loant ; — let these answer ! and may God have mercy on such a monster ! History has its parallels, and its prophetic characters, in which the distinctive duality of Heaven and Hell— the good and the monstrous — is typified. Of the exalted type, full of the manhood of perfection and nobility, stand Moses and Solomon, Napoleon the Great, and the immortal Washington. Of the inferior, inferno type, history has furnished but two parallels, Caligula! and Abraham Lincoln! ! But — a new era has dawned upon the American people, and new lights have sprung up. The Constitution is no lon- ger the standard of loyalty. We must now ^^ sustain the ad- ministration," and the ^^administration is the government !" "He who sustains not the administration, sustains not the government, and is disloyal." What government? Not that of the Constitution, for it assumed only to exercise delegated powers. That was a republican government. — The one to which, loyalty is now demanded is an unre- stricted and imperious despotism, in which ^^ security to life, liberty and proj^erty ," is held only by the tenure of its omnipotent will. In all governments allegiance is due somewhere, and to something, and as the Constitution has been consigned to a place among the old garret lumber of the past, the pa- triotic aspiration of the dear people should not be permit- ted to rest in abeyance ! Why may they not, in humble obedience to the authoritative mandate of the President, and his Cabinet, tender homage and loyalty to their be- trayers ? Dogs licks the hand that smites them, and may AaA not the people demean themselves as dogs ? ''> But, who is this President who thus so pretentiously demands of men once free, now subjects, loyalty ? — A mere agent of the people — A hireling working for pay during a term of four years under the sanction of an oath to do their will as expressed in the bond — a mere segregated atom of sovereignty — the one 30,000,000 part of the ag- gregate body politic — an infinitesimal quantity so small in comparison with the whole as to be imperceptible, ex- cept microscopically, demands for himself and ^^ Head clerks,"— fealty ! If given — in what to end? The sub- version, inevitably, of the liberties of the people, and per- ^^ petual disunion. Coercion defeats its own purpose, and, if fealty to the administration, demands a blind and unquestioning obe- dience to its mandates and its policy, then must the people uphold it in its war of subjugation, emancipation and ''Freedom for all" (except for tfie subjugated.) To repeat, Coercion defeats, inevitably, its own object and purpose. To the demonstration : "J'/ie Constitution," according to Webster, "{« the sole Bond of Union betiveen the States. To surrender the Consti- tution, is to surrender the Union." It is the compact between sovereign States voluntarily entered into. The States being Sovereign were equal, and herein consisted the beauty of the Confederation, Consent AND Equality. Destroy these, — and the soul and spirit of the whole is marred. It becomes an unseemly and mis-shapen structure, devoid of symmetry and beauty. If coercion be successful, immediately the condition of Conqueror and conquered, superior and inferior, arises. The unrestricted rule of the majority over the minority is inaugurated, and the vital principle of the Eepublic is destroyed forever. No Consent ! No Equality ! This is as natural a sequence from the law of force, ap- 8 plied to the restoration of the Union, as exists between cause and its effect. In the end of this struggle, if the North shall be successful, there will be no liberty for the South, — the Constitution ignored, — none for the North. If so, what are we fighting for? To hold the States fo- gether as one huge, vast despotism f and is this the humili- ating mission of Americans? But, must we allow the right of secession ? Yes, for a time, 'till the passions cool and reason resumes her sway. "This will be," says coercionist, to render the Union a "■rape of sand!" And what is the demonstration pre- sented to our eyes by the fearful and bloody events of the hour ? Secession loill he successful! — mark the prediction! — and the rope you intended should have been of steel, proves to be more brittle than glass, and has entailed upon us, and for our posterity, a debt so enormous that repudiation will surely cancel it, and deluged a prosperous and happy land with fraternal blood. Within Constitutional limits, ours is the strongest and best government ever devised by the wisdom of man. — Beyond these — thank Heaven! — the weakest — Strong for good — impotent for evil! In our foolish and mad attempt to w^ork miracles, and perf^l-m impossibilities, we have disgraced ourselves before the world, and the name of American will become a by- word and reproach among men. Compromise and concil- iation might have saved the greatest government ever in- stituted by man from destruction ; but unfortunately for the cause of human liberty, the era of great events and small men had come, and — God sent no angel to deliver us. We had a great ancestry, a Washington, a Jefferson, an Adams, a Franklin, a Patrick Henry, a Madison — the signers of that immortal document, the Declaration of Amer- ican Independence. These are our ancestry ! Oh ! with our dwarfed intellects — our puerile concep- tions ; could we at the beginning of this terrible era, have risen to half the altitude of theii' patriotism and honesty, this immeasurable calamity and national disgrace, had not fallen upon us. But no ! we preferred to cheat, and trick, and devour one another, and God seems to have let loose the animal instincts for our mutual destruction. When He rules not in us by the demonstrations of reason and of logic, we are no longer men ^^ created in the image of God ;" but venomous reptiles, hyenas, tigers, ravenous wolves, horrible monstrosities, like unto that animal mother which devours her own young ; and like her, we are mak- ing hellish meals of each other. Before God and man, this is the altitude and moral status of the American people this day ! 9 People of the North be no longer deceived ; pause and reflect. The whole character and purpose of this war has been changed. At first the avowed object was to re- store "the Union as it was, the Constitution as it is." — For this object you gave of your treasure and of your lives freely. It is now an abolition war, a war to turn loose upon society four millions of slaves, either to starve, or to live on the labor of your hands. If accomplished, the act is usurpation. Lincoln ought to be good authority on this point. In his Inaugural, he said : yi have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it ex- ists. I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no incli- nation to do so." On the 11th of February, 1861, the House of Kepresen- tatives, by nearly a unanimous vote, passed the following resolutions : '■'Resolved, That neither the Federal Government nor the people of Governments of the non-slaveholding States have a purpose or a Constitutional right to legislate upon or interfere with slavery in any of the States of the Union." " Besolved, That those persons in the North who do not subscribe to the foregoing projjosition are too insignificant in number and influence to excite the serious attention or alarm of any portion of the people of this Republic, and that the increase of their numbers and influence does not keep pace with the increase of the aggregate population of this Union." How stands the question to-day ? The slave is not only declared, by a law of Congress, approved by the Pres- ident, free, but, a Bill is introduced to raise and arm one hundred and fifty thousand negroes, to aid in this war of aggression, subjugation and plunder^ which, if passed, will receive the prompt app'roval of the President, notwith- standing his avowal in 1861, that he had no purpose or legal right to interfere with slavery in the States. A more enormous wrong and outrage could not be perpetra- ted against the poor negro, or the material interests of the North. The act is one of treason against the Constitution, against humanity, and against all that is just and right. That you have been cheated and deceived up to this hour, is the fault of wicked rulers. Now that their schemes are fully developed, if you give aid or countenance further, the fault is yours. It was oracularly proclaimed in the beginning, that with 75,000 men, and one hundred millions of dollars, 10 the rebellion would assuredly be ^^ crushed out" in sixty, and at farthest, ninety days. The war ha6 continued near seven hundred days, a debt of over three thousand million dollars has been contracted, and an army of over a million of men, now reduced, according to a recent speech in Con- gress of the Hon. Thaddeus Stevens, not more than live hundred thousand. It has melted away, and soon you will be conscripted to supply the vacuum, and to take your stand in the ranks beside the irrepressible nigger. Yet, with all this sacrifice of life and treasure, what has been accom- plished? Literally nothing — McClellan, Pope, Burnside, have successively attempted to take Richmond, and each, in turn, were defeated and driven back. The last ef- fort under Burnside, proved so disastrous that his army refused to respond to the " Ow to Richmond!" move, and became so demoralized and disorganized, that it became a matter of absolute necessity, to disintegrate it, and ineor- I^orate the fragments with troops less demoralized by over- wlielming defeats. But why continue the war ? The facts before you prove conclusively that you cannot subjugate the South. Will you give your lives to free the negro, to enrich contractors, and to entail upon yourselves and posterity a debt, which at the end of next year, cannot be less than four thousand million dollars? And not only this, but to inaugurate over yourselves a despotism ? Congress is about to give the President immunity for all his acts, legal and illegal, and to confer upon him supreme control over the Militia of the several States ; and in a short time, he will demand a repeal of all laws passed by State legislatures excluding the '^Atnerican citizen of African descent" from their bor- ders ; a refusal to do so will be denounced as treason, mil- itary governors will supercede your State legislatures and governors, and the down trodden African will luxuriate in your midst, as a ^'choseji people"! Lincoln has ignored the Constitution, and thereby revo- lutionized the government. We are not now living under that of our fathers. The will of an accidental majority rules, not the Constitution. There is a revolution in the North ; it preceded and compelled that in the South. Self preservation, the first law of nature, impelled the South to withdraw from the Union, as the only mode of escaping the domination of Northern aggression and usurpation.^ — In violation of the Constitution, Congress and the Presi- dent have made paper currency a legal tender. What shall constitute a legal tender is left to the States to de- 11 cide, not to Congress. The federal Constitution gives to Congress the ^ Wight to coin money and regulate the value thereof." Gold and silver are coin, paper is not. In spite of Congressional enactments, gold and silver still remain the standard of value, and greenbacks are fifty per cent, under jjar. In less than one year they will fall to more than one hundred per cent, below the standard : — in two years to one, and two thousand per centum. Then, we shall have arrived at an era similar to the old continental period, when the rich man of to-day will be the beggar of to-morrow, and utter ruin will stare every one in the face. "Coming events cast their shadows before" too plainly now, to leave any doubt as to the motives and purpose of the ruling powers, for the future. Recollect there is but one step between constitutional liberty and despotism. Be ye not deceived. You are not fighting for the Union, nor the "Stars and Stripes," but for your own enslave- ment, and the disgrace of the banner of Constitutional freedom. If you would have peace, and Union again, come back to the Constitution. It is the chart of your liberties, the ark of your safety. If you will not heed the living, listen to the dead. Thus speaks the father of his country, and Madison, the father of the Constitution. Hear them! Washington's warning against destroying the constitution. "It is important, likewise, tliat the habits of thinking, in a free country, should inspire caution in those intrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding, in the exercise of the powers of one department, to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, what- ever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in trie exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories and constituting each the guardian of the public weal, against invasion by the others, has been evinced by experiments, ancient and modern ; some of them in our own country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the dis- tribution or modification of the constitutional powers be, 12 in any particular, wrong, let it be corrected by an amend- ment IN THE WAY WHICH THE CONSTITUTION -DESIGNATES. But let there be no change by usurpation ; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the cus- tomary weapons by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance, in perma- nent evil, any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield." — [George Washington. Madison's views of constitutional limitations. * * * "To hold the union of the States as the basis of their peace and happiness ; to support the Constitution, which is the cement of Union, as loell in its limitations as in its authorities ; to respect the rights and authorities reserved to the States and to the people, as equally incorj)orated loith, and essential to the success of the general system ; to avoid the slightest interference loith the rights of conscience, or the functions of religion, so wisely exempted from civil jurisdic- tion ; to preserve, to their full energy, the other salutary provisions in he\\B\i oi private and personal rights, and of the freedom of the press. As for as sentiments and inten- tions such as these can aid the fulfillment of my duty, they will be a resource which cannot fail me.'" — [President James Madison. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS II II II I II I II I nil lllll ill'i 'III' "I" "" "' 012 026 671 8 9 \ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 012 026 671 8 ^ J