.3 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 111': V ■ ! I ii 11 I III III 012 029 020 4 pH8J ^1 M'f E 458 .3 .E96 Copy 1 T H E T R I A L DEMOCRATIC FORM OF GOVERNMEiNT. THE GREAT QUESTION NOW TO BE SOLVED: Is a Democratic Government a Possible Thing, Or must we have a Despotism P EXTRACT FROM A LETTER. THE TRIAL DEMOCRATIC FORM OF GOVERNMENT. THE GREAT QUESTION NOW TO BE SOLVED: Is a DeixLOcratic Grovernment a Possible Thing, Or must we liave a Despotism P PHILADELPHIA: C. SHERMAN AND SON. 18 63. ^ EXTRACT FROM A LETTER. Bethlehem, January 29, 1863. .... I CAN say most truly, that in the gloomy fore- bodings for the immediate future of this country I have great sympathy with you. During many years I have had serious fears, because I have had a keen sense of the degraded character of too many of the political leaders, and I have with sorrow beheld the increasing perversion of their ends and aims. I must, however, assure you, with all the sincerity of my heart, that I do not take the same view that you do of the causes or of the true remedies for these evils. This arises, perhaps, from my never having been united to any party ; neither have I the personal political asso- ciations which have grown up around you, and have in- volved all the generous and true devotion of your heart. These are some of the reasons why you and I may con- tinue to hold very different opinions : I regard all parties, composed of the same race and blood, as necessarily much alike. I think among us, all are far less good than they ought to be, and they are actuated almost entirely by partisan rather than by patriotic motives. Now you know that my sympathies have always been strongly on the side of old and true Democratic principles ; but of late years I could not but condemn very many Democratic 4 practices. Treason, on the idea that the Government of the United States was impotent and nnable to protect itself, was gravely promulgated by a Democratic Presi- dent in a message to Congress, December 3d, 1860. Fealty to party undoubtedly led to this recreancy. I have been an opponent of the Republican movement in the main, from the very beginning, and I can now only consider the Republican party merely as the lawful occu- pant of the governing power of my country for the time being, which is a transient and necessary evil. The men chosen by the people to make the laws and to execute them, deserve my lawful support. This is true Demo- cracy, the loill of tlie people. Anarchy, disintegration, rebellion are sure to follow, if ever this solid Democratic stand-point should be abandoned by the people. I think everything grows from a seed. I do not be- lieve the Republican party was a " spontaneous genera- tion," but rather that it was generated out of what went before : and I am far more inclined to think it has been the inevitable result of previous factions and of extreme movements, rather than a purely spontaneous growth, and therefore not entirely responsible for its own exist- ence or consequent misdeeds. My conviction is very strong, that our present misera- ble condition is mainly the inevitable result of forces, moral and physical, set in motion far too recklessly, and a long time ago. Calhoun Democracy, Nullification, State Sovereignty, Southern Rights, and State Rights, have demoralized the Democratic party, and seriously threaten our republican form of government. Bad, however, as the posture of affairs actually is, I am not so much dis- tressed by it as I am alarmed by the great question immediately to be solved: Is A Democratic Govern- ment A POSSIBLE THING, OR MUST WE HAVE A DESPOTISM '? If that must be, I hope neither I nor child of mine shall live to see it. Now, my friend, this question oppresses me, because I consider that the present occurrences are the product of a train of events long ago initiated, designed to divide and sever the Union. This country has been for a long series of years, previous to March 4, 1861, entirely in the hands of a powerful party, Southern in all its pro- clivities, who have swayed and developed its destinies. For two years they have been in open rebellion and war, bent on destroying the Union. Can we conquer them I In the Northern wing of that party, is there enough of virtue, intelligence, and love of the old Union remain- ing to save it? That there is, I trust and hope. This is my prayer, now and forever. I cannot grant the Democratic peace party absolution on the ground of their cry, that " this all comes of New England pressure ;'* for at this moment, and during all previous times, a very large numerical proportion of New England acted with, and formed an integral part of the old dominant party ; so that if we confess that the malign influence of the remaining portion of New England, which, all told, at this day numbers only 3,111,000, we ought to feeLy?&^^7a,<^ humiliated at the base recreancy of the rest of the coun- ^ >nO)ciu. try, in which Democratic Pennsylvania alone counts 2,311,000, and New York is not less than 3,887,000. I find it equally impossible to admit the new-fashioned cry, that New England holds undue Senatorial power ; for in six of the Southern States^he entire iDhite popu- lation (who alone are the intelligent voting and repre- sented portion, and thus the only portion here to be computed), I can only find the aggregate is 1,500,905, in the figures of the last census. These facts afford a glimpse at the fundamental reasons why I cannot accept the theoretical views you adopt for the causes of the present deplorable results. I think, too, you make a great mistake in placing the responsibility all where you do, — upon the Northern side. I am convinced that Mr. Rhett in the South Carolina Convention admitted only the truth when he uttered these words: ^^ Neither the election of Mr. Lincoln nor the non-execution of the fugitive slave laiv, had anything to do with bringing about the separation. It is a thing which has been growing and Ijreparing these thirty years." And A. H. Stephens, on the 21st of March, 1861, said at Savannah: " — African slavery, as it exists among us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the imme- diate cause of the late rupture and present revolationr Now add to all this the fact that either Cobb or H. V. Johnson, when canvassing for the Vice-Presidency, said in the State House Yard at Philadelphia : " We thinh capital ought to own labor.'^ This was said during the very canvass, one of the very hinges of which was the expansion of '■'■ ownea labor'' into the national domain. Now, the next extract I must cite, comes from a letter deliberately published by a very high authority, the Charleston Mercury of 13tli February, 1861, over the signature of L. W. Spratt. He says, " The people of the Cotton States want labor ; tliey knoio that whites and staves cannot icorh together. "" I have merely cited these authentic words, because they happened to be at hand, and they all come from men whose veracity in uttering them I do not question ; though I cannot admire their policy. These references are merely characteristic of a wide sectional sentiment, which did not often utter its inten- tions so plainly, although their actions, in my honest judgment, had long proclaimed their sentiments. I will now freely confess to you, that I think a large share of our present misfortunes arises from very foolish and very impolitic conduct; and I should be a very bad scholar in the ways of mankind, if I allowed myself to believe that all the bad policy could be practised by only one side. For a long time, with a very sad heart, I have listened to the recriminations of one side, which plainly suggest the following questions : Has not the South utterly refused to hear any argu- ment, even in a constitutional shape, about their institu- tions % Do they not deny freedom of speech upon the subject? Do they not forget the right to alter and amend tlie Constitution itself, and that a method is provided to do so, by their own agreement'? Do thev not fors^et that neither Constitution nor laws declare it a crime, or even a wrong, to endeavor, by law- ful means, to change or reverse a decision or even a dictum 8 of any court ? Nay, it is even not wrong nor criminal to endeavor to change the law, or to amend the Constitu- tion upon which dicta or decisions are founded ! Is a man who maintains that so long as a decision stands it ought to be obeyed, a criminal if he say that he yet verily believes it is wrong and ought to be recon- sidered, reargued, and reversed ] Is there any Article, or any law, which denies liberty of conscience in forming opinions, or forbids freedom of speech in uttering them 1 Shall the majority govern, or shall the ballot-box be closed forever 1 By what power and upon what principles besides the fundamental law and the ballot-box, do men hope for this Government to exist and continue 1 Now, my old friend, paiii/ spirit could put in some side thrusts to these serious questions ; still they are fair and pertinent questions, and the only straight and direct replies to them grow out of the power to assert, that they might relate to rights — yes rights — and nothing less, which policy, perhaps, would not loudly assert. I do not expect that in the atmosphere in which you have passed your recent years, and even guided by all your nobleness of soul, that even you will look at these absorbing ques- tions as I do. But I should feel heartily glad, if by anything I can do, or say, I might separate you from the organized party with which I am afraid you are acting. I say, afraid, because it appears to me that it is moving in a direction you do not at all appreciate, and in which I am entirely unable to perceive any object whatever, beyond the merest factious opposition. While I think there exist good grounds for a legitimate, noble, decided and patriotic opposition, I am pained to think that not one of the stronger grounds is taken in a patriotic way; and I think, during a time of public calamity and most pressing danger, that it would be far more wise and patriotic to suggest improvements, and to devise better projects, than to indulge in the mere denunciation of bad ones ; that it would be wiser to exert the utmost efforts to unite and join the people in one whole, rather than to use all endeavors to create wider and more irreconcila- ble breaches among ourselves, or than to develop still fiercer hatred, and to break down and utterly destroy all bond of union, not only between sections or States, but in the very heart of communities, and in the midst of towns and villages ! Listen to the insane ravings of Mr. Cox, in New York, who urged the exclusion of New England. What for '? To throw her, with her skill, in- dustry, and consumption of breadstuffs, into the arms of Canada, which is quite able to feed and furnish her with coal and iron. When this is done, how is New York herself to grasp the gUttering prize, that great trade of the West, which is the tempting bait this patriotic soit of Ohio offers to her greed 1 She hopes to seize it in its track across the lakes, or through Ohio and Pennsylvania. Blind guide, he forgets that Canada and her new ally will then hold the Welland Canal, and that Pennsyl- vania will chop off the track at Erie ; and after that, there will be plenty more competitors, beginning at Baltimore and stretching out their railroad arms all the way to the 10 Gulf, each one seeking to hold all the trade for himself! Is not this worse than a modern Babylon prospect \ It is grievously mortifying to believe that " the Demo- cratic party," as exhibited in recent speeches and in its journals, should be so credulous and ill-informed. Fer- nando Wood and sundry others prate to it, " Only let us get into power, and the South will come back, and we shall live all together like doves." Can you believe this 1 Wood said it in substance six or eight weeks ago. Can I believe it] Who can believe it] It was the census of 1860 which alarmed the South; and most adroitly did its partisan leaders deliberately attempt to gain an advantage by their skill and cunning, over their de- voted Democratic friends all over the country. Its tyrannical nature is developed in its effort, by a cotton famine, to coerce Europe into intervention. There is not much brotherhood shown for its former friends by this effort, made to subject them to a foreign lash. It is impossible for me to believe that on the 6th of November, 1860, there could be a particle of love or respect for their Northern friends and coadjutors in the heart of the Southern leaders. Mind, I do not say there was none in all the Southern people. It is deeply to be deplored that the people should be so deceived and maddened, and finally made the destroyers of the free institutions under which we live. The art of demagogues has forced an unwilling war upon the whole country. It has greatly injured the entire North and West, while it has almost destroyed the South. War is simply despotism, tyranny, brute force of the worst kind, and both sides must suffer 11 its full penalties while it lasts. For the time, it must virtually overthrow all other rule. Let us theorize as we like, it must be so ; and believe me, whether Republican or Democrat stand at the helm, we shall find great vio- lence done for the time to our feelings and even to our principles. I willingly say with you, — then let there be as little evil as possible ; and I unite in urging, that if it be possible, no man's life or liberty should be risked or imperilled without a trial, and when found guilty let the wicked be severely punished. I regret and deplore much which appears to have been done. Yet, 1 do not believe that every one who has been arrested was either the most innocent man or purest patriot in the land. It is, how- ever, impossible for every man to restrain his natural suspicions against certain leaders, who just before the rupture were in closest affiliation with those individuals who " for thirty years were seeking to destroy the Govern- ment." Is it not monstrous, that these same Northern partisans, not a bit abashed at what grew up under their management, in this hour of danger, still demand that we shall look up to them as our prophets and our trusty leaders'? This is surely not good policy. I cannot admire or approve the leaders, nor yield my confi- dence to those who follow them blindly. I must wind up my homily, by repeating what I say almost every day, — that I have as many friends who are Democrats as of any other party, and among the Demo- crats are some of the noblest and purest men on earth, and among the very best of these I like to reckon you. Still, my old friend, with all the sincerity your letter 12 courts, I would express to you my anxiety that you look with the utmost care and forethought, lest you are misled, and may be carried much too far by party zeal ; and I urge upon you with all my affection, not to allow your fervent feelings to commit you to ultra proceedings, which one day we must all deeply, yes, deeply deplore. Things around us, for a long time, have looked very serious, and therefore, I adjure you to reflect calmly upon this hasty letter, inspired by a friendship reciprocal with your own, which so solemnly urges you to review the great causes which may have conduced to present results. Perhaps such reflections and second thoughts may do us all good; and I hope at least you may be led to fear, as I do, that Democratic institutions must be a contemptible failure (/' such results belong to them, rather than to the mismanagement of a long dominant party ; for it is true, that the long-dominant party reacts always most powerfully upon the entire nature and tendency of its confronting opposition; and so it really is in no small degree responsible for its nature and shape, which is the reciprocal of its own, if indeed it be not its own legitimate oftspring. Notwithstanding, my dear friend, I am for the Union ; above all and over all, I am for the perpetuity of our re- publican form of government ; I am " for all things that are for the Union, against all things that are against it." Your patience I hope I have not overtasked, and above « all, that I may not have pained you. It is my desire to caution you, as aflection and undying friendship ought to caution the friend of my lifetime. P. I TRRftRY OF CONGRESS Hi 012 029 020 4 i. *,. ... i-^ ^^ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 012 029 020 4 ^ peRnulip6« pH8J