m 
 
 
 y^§M^ ■ 
 
 E 4S8 
 
 :.:;:-..:';:!: : .:; : ; : i.;i'::- ;■:;■••!■ : 
 
 .1 
 .1464 
 
 : ■: - . : - 
 
 
 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 DDDDblHOTSb 
 

 <V . t • o . 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 W 
 
 '-\ /s$fe?°* /s<mkS+ ^>*afe;S s 
 
 °c 
 
 ^6* 
 
 • ^ ' \* .. + " *° 
 
 V .♦L^L'* c> 
 
 
 
 
 o* .- l ^L%*< 
 
 
 
 iV«* 
 
 <v> *^?T' ,G^ V •• • » • A 
 
 
 
 
 V . * • o. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 
 
 <^ *'Tv 
 
 <* *^TCT^, G*" ^ **o^.7* A- 
 
 "o? 
 
 
 > ^ V 
 
 Li L 
 
 
 * ^ '.' 
 
 _^ 
 

 
 
 *p** 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^•o' 
 
 *« 
 
 .♦ «> <^ •; 
 
 ..i^r. <^ 
 
 
 i v . t • 
 
 ^ **f/?* 4 A^ v <. '^f!^* .0^ ^ "•••7* ' A" <* **T7 
 
 r oV w 
 
 
 
 ^6' 
 

 SECESSION: 
 
 attu a Twrottt- 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 KING & BAIBD, No. 607 SANSOM STREET, 
 1 8 G 1. 
 
 0) 
 
 a 
 
 
 m 
 
 
M 
 
 SECESSION: 
 
 Hotlfe a»& a iSsrfnw 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 KING & BAIRD, PRINTERS, 607 SANSOM STREET. 
 
 1861. 
 

 X 
 
SECESSION: 
 
 A. FOLLY AND A. CEIME, 
 
 The present moment is full of omen and exciting 
 interest. None so critical has occurred in the event- 
 ful history of the country. It invites the earnest 
 reflection of every citizen. Experience furnishes no 
 guide for action, and the soundest judgment, left to 
 its own unassisted strength, can scarcely be relied 
 on. Impulses of an enlarged patriotism must be 
 earnestly invoked, and they may with the best assur- 
 ance be trusted for a rule ' of conduct. With a view 
 to present movements and future consequences, let 
 these supply the want of experience, and aid the 
 honest efforts of judgment. No theme can be so 
 important for discussion, or so well adapted to meet 
 the current of universal thought and duty, as that 
 which treats of the divided, disturbed and distracted 
 condition of the country. If a ray of light can be 
 shed upon the surrounding darkness ; if sentiment in 
 itself perfectly pure, yet unfixed in precise conclu- 
 sions, can be led to united and definite purposes ; if 
 
4 SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 
 
 tendencies towards seemingly minor differences of 
 opinion on collateral points involved in the general 
 issue, can be restrained, and all diversity can be cen- 
 tered in one universal test of concurring wisdom, in 
 which heart and mind, and hand, shall join their 
 several powers for the common good, the triumph of 
 principle, and the success of necessary conflict will be 
 secured together. 
 
 One great object absorbs the public mind. It is 
 the novel state of the Nation. All are alive to it, 
 and the degree of individual excitement depends 
 only on the greater or less extent of personal liability 
 to agitation. It has been familiarly said that no one 
 could think out of Shakspeare. It would puzzle 
 anybody to think of anything but rebellion. The 
 thoughts with unvarying devotion, are led merely to 
 the variety which prompts at once, or in rapid suc- 
 cession, to lament or to condemn on the one side, 
 and to encourage, to justify, and to serve on the 
 other. These are the necessary tendencies and espe- 
 cial duties of the hour. 
 
 There has rarely existed a great subject of interest, 
 in the minor details and incidents, of which there 
 were not differences of opinion, and each side sus- 
 tained by positive conviction of right. I cannot 
 suppose that there are not many of the rankest 
 secessionists who have brought themselves to believe 
 that their cause deserves to be sustained. A phrenzy 
 of delirium is not necessary to make the worse 
 
secession: a folly and a crime. 5 
 
 appear the better reason. Infatuation produces a 
 like result in a subject not otherwise unsound. In- 
 terest is often an ingredient of conviction, prejudice 
 forestals reflection, companionship influences opinion, 
 pride and passion are more powerful persuasives 
 than reason and good sense. Looking at moral 
 objects with the mind's eye, is like looking at natural 
 objects with bodily vision. The sight of each is 
 commonly true, yet in either it may be distorted, by 
 false medium, prejudice, or rage. Circumstances not 
 always to be explained, give color, shape, dimensions, 
 merit and defects of their own, either without any 
 actual existence, or so exaggerated as to assume 
 appearances perhaps the opposite of truth. Yet the 
 truth remains in the centre, and cannot be changed. 
 Religious antagonism at certain periods, has been the 
 most bitter of all, for conscience, even more than 
 judgment, has been sometimes a false guide, and 
 martyrdom has been accepted, in preference to con- 
 cession, even of abstract and perhaps immaterial 
 opinion. In the barbarous reign of Henry VIII. of 
 England, whose tyranny was not surpassed by that of 
 Nero or Caligula, massacres for mere opinion were 
 numerous. No less than nineteen Anabaptists for 
 example, born in Holland, were examined at one 
 time at St. Paul's Church, London, and condemned 
 to be burned alive, for believing, among other tilings, 
 that children born of infidels might be saved. 
 
 Religious fury of a former time and in another 
 
6 secession: a folly and a crime. 
 
 sphere, has given way to political violence, not less 
 ferocious, among ourselves. We have seen, that in 
 certain portions of our own country, opinions, or the 
 bare suspicions of them, at variance with those of the 
 special latitude, have subjected the holders of them 
 to cruelties of every sort, and even to ignominious 
 and painful death. Martyrdom, it seems, must have 
 its victims, even without the excuse of conscience or 
 a holy cause. 
 
 These and other fearful atrocities had long been in 
 practice sanctioned and approved by eminent leaders. 
 They were demonstrations of hatred towards the 
 Northern portion of the country, still held in a spirit 
 of hollow alliance, which had succeeded to what had 
 become at last a nominal Union. They broke forth 
 at length into active organized and authoritative 
 hostility. Secession was proclaimed as the great end 
 and aim. It neither felt nor fancied complaint or 
 grievance from the general government, nor did it 
 suggest a desire for relief from definite, imaginary 
 wrongs. It was a spontaneous combustion. It ex- 
 ploded at its own selected time, m its own unpre- 
 cedented manner, under its own self-created circum- 
 stances, and with its own mad exploits offensively 
 and angrily resorted to. Had it been limited to 
 mere secession it might have been patiently endured, 
 however unjustifiable by constitutional law or natural 
 reason. No threat of coercion was ever made or 
 uttered against it. Any such design was instantly 
 
SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 7 
 
 disavowed by the still existing head of the govern- 
 ment. All that has ever been pretended to as a 
 rebel right might have been indulged with impunity 
 from all, and from many who would not weep for the 
 separation, with welcome. A compliment so much 
 desired and expected, was never paid in thought ©r 
 action. Had rebellion confined itself to mere seces- 
 sion, it could have been accomplished without a 
 struggle or an obstacle, the perpetrators would have 
 been simply delivered over to be buffeted of Satan in 
 the fulness of their own sins. They were too veno- 
 mous to be pitied, and too violent and mischievous 
 to be despised. 
 
 Yet the right of dissolving the Union is totally 
 denied to individual States. The continuance of it 
 was pledged as a cardinal ingredient from the begin- 
 ning to be perpetual. Bad taste and bad principle 
 were evident in the secession proceedings, as well as 
 bad feeling. They are unequivocally condemned 
 A regret too, that they should, under any circum- 
 stances, have been resorted to, from whatever pretext, 
 is for the most part felt. The actors in them were 
 probably quite surprised that such should be the 
 case. They expected measures of coercion, and they 
 met at first sorrow rather than anger. They seemed 
 to desire war, for which they had long been pre- 
 paring. Arms and men, they had been singing like 
 the Roman poet during several years. Great must 
 have been the disappointment that rebellion did not 
 
8 secession: a folly and a crime. 
 
 at once call them into active use. Secession, how- 
 ever, in itself, was not then, and is not now with us, 
 the principal point. The act itself was simply 
 unopposed. It was endured with a patience that 
 lulled the perpetrators of it into fatal error. It gave 
 encouragement to acts worse than itself. They who 
 chose to do the deed, and have executed it as they 
 believe effectually, will one day lament their folly, if 
 not their guilt. If they have any of the usual feel- 
 ings of a people which they now claim to be con- 
 sidered, they will feel keenly the loss of what they 
 have thrown away. A common fame derived from 
 the glorious deeds of a common and illustrious 
 ancestry, in what was supposed to be a common 
 cause, has heretofore been enjoyed by them as a rich 
 inheritance. This they have forfeited. They have 
 now nothing in history, and little in prospect, to claim 
 as their own. All is obscure in the past, as well as 
 dark and dreary in the future. A country vast in 
 geographical extent, limited only by oceans and 
 inland seas, and combining everything to minister to 
 the enjoyment of its inhabitants, was theirs. They 
 shared all the advantages of the States which were 
 separated in position, but closely connected by mu- 
 tual interests and every description of domestic tie. 
 They shared, and more than shared, in the benefits 
 of the Union. A large excess of representation for 
 actual citizenship, was secured to them by the con- 
 stitution in the National council. The manufactures 
 
secession: a folly axd a crime. 9 
 
 of the North were received at little cost, without 
 withdrawing local labor from its especial objects. 
 Visits of health and recreation were made at all 
 seasons, and particularly when a Southern climate 
 rendered absence indispensable to many ; and not 
 only did watering places become occupied by them 
 as friends, but hospitable doors were everywhere 
 thrown open to them. 
 
 Besides the many personal advantages liberally 
 enjoyed at all times, the South occasionally reaped 
 harvests of political triumph. In various agitated 
 questions, where differences of interest were found or 
 fancied, and differences of sentiment, which are no less 
 captivating, were certainly felt, the North gracefully 
 yielded their wishes, if not their rights. It was one 
 of the happy effects of the Union, that a majority in 
 numbers, in wealth, in cultivation, in seminaries of 
 learning, to say nothing of the possession of a better 
 climate, and the production of almost everything for 
 the support and comfort of human life and the pre- 
 servation of social intercourse, should concede so 
 much and so often to the wishes of a somewhat 
 capricious and always fastidious brotherhood. It 
 was all in vain. Gratitude is always a rare virtue. 
 Benefits are often felt like coals of fire upon the head 
 of pride. A long-cherished indulgence of resentment 
 towards the whole Northern States and people, for 
 supposed injuries offered by a few, and a desire 
 perhaps to quarrel with over pacific neighbors, reluc- 
 
10 SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A OBIME. 
 
 tant to the onset, at length found vent. The feeling, 
 if not innate, as it should rather seem to have been, 
 had at least been fostered so long that it was adopted 
 as if natural, broke forth into open and avowed rebel- 
 lion, and fierce and uncompromising war. Here 
 too, the South has gained the beginning of a gloomy 
 end. Upon her the responsibility rests. Like her 
 overtures in peaceful times, for good or evil, the gage 
 of battle has been accepted. There too, the North, 
 with a reluctant but not unbecoming assent, and now 
 general cordial concurrence, has at last acquiesced; 
 and the result is, not fair and civilized conflict on 
 both sides, but on the one, resort to piracy and 
 bloody ingratitude. 
 
 It would not be easy to detect a reasonable motive 
 for such acts of passion, which are not, as is usual 
 with so unreflecting a prompter, blindly, impetuous 
 and rash. These men pride themselves upon their 
 rashness. The long, lingering pretext of Northern abo- 
 litionism was too narrow in its scope, and too limited 
 and individual even in its region of local allegation, 
 to hold much longer. A better plea is unkenneled 
 in the correspondence of a British reporter, who 
 seems to have been greeted with open arms, notwith- 
 standing long indulged reproaches of the peculiar 
 Institution. That State which first unfurled the 
 banner of secession, which brought her ten thousand 
 to the conflict with the tens of Fort Sumter, which 
 set the fatal example to the less irritated rest, has told 
 
SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 11 
 
 her secret to the emissary of a foreign press. Ten 
 years ago she proclaimed in a Nashville Convention 
 her desires for separation but not the cause. A 
 speech from Langdon Cheves, who had formerly re- 
 moved from South Carolina to Philadelphia, and was 
 at one time President of the Bank of the United 
 States (hardly a secession corporation), declared that 
 the lead of Virginia alone was wanting then. The 
 old dominion herself, in broken integrity is now led, 
 and the lesson is taught by a younger sister, who 
 affects to assume and justify the responsibility. A 
 lesson is learned, and its teachings adopted, which 
 might call down the protesting shades of Washington 
 and Henry, of Marshall and Jefferson to save from 
 this double reproach, a perverted posterity. The 
 form of a Republic is acknowledged by their teachers 
 to have been among them an imposition. A high- 
 toned monarchy is the now developed hope. Do the 
 other republican forms of government, solemnly 
 guaranteed by the Constitution, following as they 
 have done the inglorious lead of lineal successions, 
 adopt the motive, and avow the royal desire and 
 tendency I Will they each seek a foreign prince to 
 reign over them in the pride of distinct and disunited 
 despotism'? Or will they, one and all together, 
 banded in a holy alliance of confederate treason and 
 disloyalty, bow down before a single domestic or 
 foreign throne X 
 
 It was to be looked for under such an impulse that 
 
12 SECESSION: A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 
 
 the means adopted should be of a corresponding kind. 
 Despotism is grasping in its character. Tyranny 
 and oppression, lawless usurpation and selfish seizure 
 of what rightfully belonged to others, without con- 
 sent or compensation, equivalent or return, have 
 marked the course of secession, as they are said to 
 do of unlimited, arbitrary government. It is not of 
 the bare secession that we complain. Bad as it is, 
 unlawful and unwise, it is their own affair, while it is 
 without incident or addition. Let them go in the 
 name of the Prince of Darkness and worship him if 
 they will. The essence of our complaint consists not 
 of the mere withdrawal, by whatever name. They 
 have done much more. In this, which is over and 
 above, naked secession, we have only too much con- 
 cern. It is in what they have said and done besides, 
 that we are grieved. Our solemn protest is the result 
 of positive wrong. They have not thought of the 
 rights of others in asserting what are alleged to be 
 their own. But claiming only the right to secede, 
 they have boldly, yet cunningly, expanded their de- 
 parture into a hardy seizure of property ; and with 
 equal hardihood, they demand from us at the can- 
 non's mouth, acknowledgment of their existence as 
 an independent nation. AVe condemn the acts with 
 which the separation has been accompanied and 
 matured, their reckless violence and unquestioned 
 wrong, and we assert in them over and above seces- 
 sion that there has been positive injury done to our- 
 
secession: a folly and a chime. 13 
 
 selves. If they must go, why not go in peace, and 
 without committing personal as well as political 
 crime 1 Some of their leaders have declared that 
 they ought not to have declared war. It did not 
 matter much. The blow in reality came before the 
 word, and the blows have been made signal without 
 a word to this hour, in defence of their extremity. 
 
 Property of every description was seized and is 
 withheld by force and fraud. Money and goods, forts 
 and arsenals, debts and claims, mints and their con- 
 tents, rights, some of which might have been regarded 
 perhaps as held in common, and rights exclusively 
 belonging to the general government. All have been 
 taken alike, violently and, without applying the term 
 with undue severity, or in any but its technical sense, 
 feloniously ; and they are held without any expla- 
 nation offered or pretended to on this point, in de- 
 fiance of every principle of law, human and divine. 
 One or more States have repudiated in their sovereign 
 capacity. They have refused payment of interest on 
 their bonds in which citizens of other States had 
 made investments in an evil hour of unsuspecting 
 confidence. Modern usage, it is believed, is for this 
 without a precedent, in time of however flagrant war. 
 Private debts have been ordered to be withheld from 
 payment to the rightful creditor, and are directed to 
 be paid into the State Treasury, there to abide the 
 issue of the contest and the possibility of redemption. 
 
 These facts have made the great issue between the 
 
14 SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 
 
 North and the South, and the latter seems altogether 
 willing to overlook any such facts and issue. The 
 former does not consent to be robbed, and tamely 
 submit to the loss, and then have farther concessions 
 required. This is in a word, our side of the question. 
 The South holds to its illegal gains without an offer 
 to restore, or to submit the point to an umpire, or to 
 reason upon the pretext of all this wrong. That 
 is their side of the question. They avoid the point 
 solely cared for by the North, and ask in effect that 
 it should be waived, and that every thing else should 
 be tamely surrendered. Avoiding unnecessary harsh- 
 ness of language, and even the use of appropriate 
 epithets in their extent and fulness, we present this 
 as the real state of the issue between us, a difference 
 of moral as much as political law. With all in their 
 hands that they could contrive to take by force, they 
 ask more, as if there were only one party to the 
 bargain. As things stand, this would be to acknow- 
 ledge robbery to be right and to abandon a sacred 
 trust committed to the government as guardian of the 
 nation. As things now stand, their daring demand 
 of unconditional recognition is a mere insult, an in- 
 dignity that is often worse than an injury— a thing 
 that could not be listened to without loss of self re- 
 spect. With hands polluted by spoils, with such 
 wrongs done and unatoned by word or deed, they 
 desire that we shall change them from individuals 
 who have souls to perish, into corporations that have 
 
SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 15 
 
 no moral or spiritual responsibility. They do more, 
 they ask us and pretend to expect us to receive them 
 as a power fit to govern in itself, and to stand upon 
 the elevated ground of equality with a fraternity of 
 honorable nations. The first step after committing 
 wrong, should be repentance. The next, that re- 
 pentance should be made practical, by a return of 
 things wrongfully taken. Not a step is taken towards 
 being in statu quo. No offer to give up in part or in 
 whole, even no mediation of this point of right or 
 wrong, or a thought that such a point exists. Like 
 veteran depredators, delighted or at least satisfied 
 with their unlawful trade, they stand up in boldest 
 confidence, and demand like the professional high- 
 waymen, delivery with a pistol at the breast of the 
 traveller. They have been used to submission from 
 the North. The triumphs over the Missouri compro- 
 mise, and the different concessions of 1850, must be 
 re-enacted into a new chapter of mistaken delicacy 
 and forbearance on the one side and proud assumption 
 on the other. No ! no ! The pitcher has gone to the 
 well too often, and it is at length broken. The 
 North, after a patient and somewhat ignoble slumber 
 of years, has at length awakened to a sense of self- 
 respect, and its thousands and tens and hundreds of 
 thousands of patriots devoted to the Union and the 
 Constitution, animated by one feeling of disdainful 
 readiness, are rallying to the rescue. 
 
 If the past has been marked with acts of violence, 
 
16 SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 
 
 still greater efforts of rage are denounced in un- 
 measured terms for the coming hour. These denun- 
 ciations are not the utterance of mere humble 
 apprentices in the new trade of secession. They are 
 heard in tones of thunder from master workmen in 
 rebellion, from the heads of separate conspiracies. 
 Governers and ex-Governers — each in his different 
 phrase, but each in a spirit not to be mistaken, vie 
 with one another in the assault. It is now not 
 against individual, but a people, not the angry tone 
 of intended separation but the carnal-minded display 
 of the unsheathed dagger. 
 
 We have read in fiction of attempts to urge the 
 confederates of treason to dye their hands deep in the 
 blood of their promised victims. Such is the urgency 
 of the basest of the band represented by the poet 
 Otway in the conclave of a Venetian conspiracy. Be 
 sure, says this desperado, that you shed blood enough. 
 Seldom, until now, have the countersign and the 
 watch-word of civil war in actual life, been inscribed 
 in crimson. Civilized nations have carried on war in 
 the hope indeed of conquest, but without unnecessary 
 effusion of human blood. Here, the red flag of piracy 
 is unfurled and its every fold floats to the breeze in 
 warning or alarm for all who by the chance of war 
 may fall into the hands of this new-fashioned foe. 
 Coming from sources of clear authority we are not at 
 liberty to doubt the genuineness of these threats, or 
 the entire cordiality with which they will be executed 
 
SECESSION: A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 17 
 
 A public meeting was addressed by the so-styled 
 President of the New Confederacy, and in his pre- 
 sence by an ex-governor of one of our neighboring 
 States. These are necessarily to be received as 
 official declarations, in the absence of all others, both 
 of the war and the manner in which it is to be car- 
 ried on. The speeches have been published every- 
 where in all their horrors. They are not private 
 and individual remarks, but public documents, in- 
 tended, no doubt, and certainly calculated to have 
 due influence in inspiring followers with like deter- 
 mination, and in warning opponents against the 
 wrath to come. A crowded audience is told, " You 
 want war, fire, blood, to purify you ; and the Lord of 
 hosts has demanded that you should walk through 
 fire and blood. You are called to the fiery baptism. 
 * Though your pathway be through five or 
 through a river of blood, turn not aside." Then after 
 being told to " take a lesson from John Brown," who 
 became a Southern example, they are informed, "your 
 true-blooded Yankee will never stand still in the face 
 of cold steel." It was a like spirit which proposed 
 in the name of God and nature, in the British House 
 of Lords, to employ the savage Indians against our 
 fathers, and called forth the rebuke of Lord Chat- 
 ham's eloquence. That early friend of our infant 
 country, denounced the idea of enlisting against their 
 brethren of America, the cannibal savage, thirsting 
 for blood. He could not tell what ideas of God and 
 
18 SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 
 
 nature the noble lord entertained, but this he knew, 
 that such principles were equally abhorrent to religion 
 and humanity. We are told, too, for the first time, 
 that our eastern brethren are cowards ! that they will 
 not stand still in the face of cold steel. This reproach 
 alone was wanting to rouse their indignant energies 
 and doubly stimulate them to the encounter. One 
 of the most estimable officers of the war of 1812, 
 himself a South Carolinian, who left that State, it is 
 believed, because of its disunion sentiments, Colonel 
 Drayton, declared that the best soldiers of that war 
 were the northern men. Is the 17th of June, '75, 
 the day of the battle of Bunker Hill, forgotten ? Or 
 is it supposed that the men of that day have degene- 
 rated 1 When General Gage, through his telescope, 
 discerned the manly figure of Colonel Prescott walk- 
 ing the parapet, and encouraging his men, he asked 
 quickly, "Will he fight f "Yes, sir," was the 
 answer, of one who knew him, " to the last drop of 
 blood." W T hen the scanty stock of American arms, 
 which had done its fearful execution, was exhausted, 
 and it was necessary to retire slowly, Colonel Prescott 
 was one of the last to leave the redoubt, parrying 
 with his sword, bayonets which had pierced his cloth- 
 ing, like a true-blooded Yankee, fearless of " the face 
 of cold steel." 
 
 Whenever the country has required the best com- 
 bination of skill and courage, it has been found in the 
 Eastern soldier. Greene was the selected and ap- 
 
secession: a folly and a crime. 19 
 
 proved reliance of Washington. A braver or a better 
 general did not grace the annals of the revolution on 
 land. In the war of 1812, the water too was witness 
 to the merits of the Yankee, on the ocean and the 
 lakes. Hull and Morris, in the Constitution, after 
 out-manoeuvring a whole squadron of enemies, dis- 
 played successful valor in the earliest of a line of 
 naval victories which astonished the civilized world 
 It was the utterance of a fervent wish of the great 
 chieftain of England, the conqueror of Waterloo, that 
 "they could take one of those damned (American) 
 frigates." An Eastern youth, too, reported his victory 
 over a British squadron, in terms almost as concise as 
 those which have contributed to immortalize Julius 
 Caesar, "We have met the enemy," was the despatch 
 of Perry, " and they are ours." 
 
 These are signal instances of thousands of disproofs 
 of the reproach of a Confederate ex-governor, of Yan- 
 kee mettle; and the proclamation of a Confederate 
 General is scarcely less extraordinary. It announces 
 that a reckless and unprincipled tyrant has invaded 
 the soil, and has thrown in his Abolition hosts, who 
 are murdering and imprisoning citizens * * and 
 committing other acts of violence and outrage too 
 shocking and revolting to humanity to be enumerated, 
 Their war-cry is declared to be beauty and booty— 
 and all that is dear to men, their honor and that of 
 their wives and daughters, their fortunes and their 
 lives, are said to be involved in the momentous con- 
 
20 secession: a folly and a crime. 
 
 test ! This specimen of military rhetoric is here 
 recorded for consideration. It has been contrasted 
 with the dignified sobriety of tone of proclamations of 
 military commanders, on the Union side. The hope 
 has been expressed that it is not genuine, but has 
 been foisted upon the public by some enemy of the 
 officer whose name is subscribed. 
 
 These bloody threats from the South have been 
 alluded to, not for the purpose of creating uneasi- 
 ness or alarm. Such an effect would be ill-adapted 
 to the principles and practice of those against whom 
 they are uttered. Much less under the belief that 
 there are dormant energies to be aroused which in 
 the day of trial seldom slumber. Let it be com- 
 mended to the notice of all, not for the purpose of 
 exciting a counteracting spirit, which in a Christian 
 latitude could not exist, much less to echo the vain 
 threats of what could find no trembling heart or ear. 
 It is intended only to show the character of the war 
 waged against us. It discards the established princi- 
 ples of civilized hostility which teach forbearance 
 from savage cruelty, and the exercise of force only as 
 the necessary means of honorable conquest, in the 
 full practice of Christian humanity. If the difference 
 between us is to be this, let heaven and earth look 
 upon the contest as it deserves, and let its conduct at 
 least be handed down to a discriminating posterity, 
 for approval or for frowning condemnation. Enough 
 perhaps has appeared already to show that the an- 
 
SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CHIME. 21 
 
 nouncements under the red nag of Barbary are not a 
 mere theory. Inhumanity has already marked the 
 progress of the Southern war, and it will show its 
 hideous front again when it can do so with safety 
 under such fatal influences. When the contest was 
 over at Great Bethel, and the humane survivors of 
 the gallant Greble were removing the wounded and 
 dead from the spot where they had fallen, they were 
 
 i 
 
 fired upon and murdered by the garrison that had 
 been saved probably by the alleged mistake of an 
 inexperienced Federal commander. Let these be les- 
 sons of the tender mercies of the leaders and their (it 
 may be reluctant) followers of a great section of a 
 common country, with which we have been drawn 
 not willingly at first into a fraternal war. Not even 
 a choice of suffering is left to prisoners and wounded 
 men. Not a hope or chance of alleviation is held 
 out, and the worst forms of fatal infliction are at 
 hand. 
 
 It is some comfort to outraged humanity to con- 
 trast such sentiments and the expression of them with 
 those of a far different kind. They proceed from a 
 commonwealth where friendship seems to be with- 
 drawn from the general cause, but where a gallant 
 bearing has always shown the teaching of that noble 
 statesman, the pride of Kentucky and the country, 
 now no more. As North and South united to acknow- 
 ledge Henry Clay, as more than a mere party leader, 
 his friends and associates who survive him for the 
 
22 SECESSION: A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 
 
 most part emulate his devotion to the Union. One 
 of these, Garret Davis, upon being called upon for 
 certain information gives it in a strain of earnest 
 patriotism. He knows his duty to his State and will 
 not fight against her, but he knows his duty to the 
 Union and will continue steadfast in his allegiance. 
 These are some of the seemingly difficult purposes to 
 reconcile, brought about everywhere, and especially 
 in the Border States, of proper feeling towards a 
 long-cherished, local home, with the all-controlling 
 influence of the great and glorious republic, which 
 has sheltered the whole nation and imparted an equal 
 portion of renown to every commonwealth. Garret 
 Davis is one of those estimable men who knows his 
 duty and dares maintain it. Few are as able and 
 none more willing to serve their country faithfully. 
 
 Now, what have the United States done to call out 
 Southern hostility and hatred 1 Nothing before the 
 outbreak of rage, for nothing that was definite against 
 them has been seriously alleged. Since the opening 
 of rebellion they have at first faintly hoped, and more 
 recently manfully endeavored to retain in a certain 
 latitude the little that the fury of secession was 
 unable to take from them. On the 29th of October 
 rebellion was yet immature in action, restricted in 
 position, and scarcely developed in general design. 
 On that day our gallant commander wrote to Mr. 
 Buchanan, officially recommending that the garrison 
 of Fort Sumter should be strengthened. Had this 
 
SECESSION: A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 23 
 
 step been taken it would probably have prevented 
 the first and the costing step against the country. 
 Then all the blood that has been shed and the 
 property that has been destroyed might happily 
 have been saved. The firmness and capacity of the 
 General, met no corresponding firmness or capacity 
 in the Executive. An imbecility beyond example 
 hugged itself up in moth-consuming sloth. He 
 differed from the General in every thing. The little 
 nucleus of a garrison was left to its own unsupported 
 valor ; and it fell with honor, and without loss of life. 
 May we not trust that a special Providence befriended 
 the just cause, when a protracted attack from ten 
 thousand enemies, directed by sufficient experience, 
 left all that was human in the Fort essentially un- 
 harmed 1 The loss of the assailants has been care 
 fully concealed. 
 
 Rebellion needed no signal for active war. It had 
 long been meditated, and was already, in many 
 respects, prepared. Loyalty was slow to believe 
 the sad reality. The chief magistracy was still 
 inadequately filled. Time and the election brought 
 about a change. The standard was reared in every 
 quarter, and in every quarter the people rallied to its 
 support. Future events are necessarily a mystery. 
 But if recent ones have made their due impression, 
 and experience has brought wisdom in its train, a 
 correction of errors so palpable and so pernicious as 
 they have proved to be, can scarcely escape the most 
 
24 SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 
 
 negligent or unwise, or avoid correction in council and 
 in the field. 
 
 Up to the present moment, but one alleged griev- 
 ance has been heard from the rebellious crew. The 
 government would not listen to their appeal! Enough 
 has been made known of the character of that in- 
 tended appeal. It is understood to have been a mere 
 naked demand of recognition, and nothing more ! 
 And this would not be received ! There was a time, 
 no doubt, when such a call would have been atten- 
 tively heard. That was before it was mixed with 
 other ingredients, now made inseparable from its 
 nature, and aggravating its enormity. Before vio- 
 lence had been resorted to, and property seized, a 
 becoming proposal from a proper source might 
 have been listened to, even without absolute dis- 
 respect. Such a source, indeed, it might not have 
 been easy to find. If we are rightly informed, a 
 small minority only of the people in the whole has 
 in any way given consent or expressed concurrence. 
 The masses in almost all of the seceding States are 
 believed to be unrepresented by their blood-thirsty 
 rulers. If fully authorized by prince and people too, 
 what was the basis of their proposal? It contained 
 no compromise. It suggested no equivalent. It 
 offered nothing in return. With hands full of ill- 
 gotten gains, nothing seems to have been thought 
 of restoration of what was taken, much less of atone- 
 ment for the wrong. No denial of the fact. No 
 
SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 25 
 
 extenuation of the iniquity. Not even an offer to 
 submit to a third party either the question of their 
 recognition or their liability to give up their prey. 
 Why not make an offer which could have been 
 listened to with some little self-respect, or at least 
 not in a shape proudly censorious and less traitorously 
 assuming and unfair'? Some equivalent was surely 
 due ; something to give as well as take. But none 
 appeared. The suppliant and the tyrant were one. 
 
 There may possibly have been a transparent veil 
 thrown over the belief that the desire of the only 
 valuable production of the South in adequate supply 
 might reconcile any indignity. The North knows 
 its interest, but its knows its dignity and honor too. 
 Cotton may perish, and its convenience be forgotten, 
 rather than the North should forget what it owes to 
 itself and to the Union. Sackcloth and ashes would 
 be better, if worn with the pride of patriotism. 
 Sympathy with our erring brethren is perfectly con- 
 sistent with a determination to preserve, if possible, 
 untarnished devotion to the country. Our hearts 
 and arms may be open to receive them, when they 
 are true to us and to themselves. Honorable peace 
 is desired. But it cannot be made at the sacrifice of 
 principle, or of the best interests of a large majority of 
 the people of the United States. 
 
 It did not need the inflammatory language of seces- 
 sion speeches, and proclamations, to kindle the fiercest 
 fires of civil war. It is in itself a fearful evil. Friends 
 
26 SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 
 
 and brothers, fathers and children are arrayed in un- 
 natural conflict with each other. Ordinary war is 
 peace compared with it. No caution can prevent, no 
 courage defeat its effects. Distance is no protection, 
 and watchfulness is no guardian. A fatal blow may 
 be aimed by an unsuspected neighbor, and the long- 
 arm of treacherous friendship may, from remote 
 places, reach the kindred heart. It was reserved for 
 our prosperous country, and our happy and enlight- 
 ened age, to invite and encourage practices that would 
 have been a shame to the darkest period of the most 
 uninstructed people. Yet the blame is not with us. 
 
 It was a striking fact, that in Fort Sumter, 
 attacked as it was by an overwhelming force, and 
 assailed by every description of arms, not one of the 
 heroic band of defenders suffered. Buildings were 
 burned, fortifications were destroyed, every kind of 
 injury was done to material defence, but officers and 
 men were unharmed. Is it presumption to suppose 
 that the first efforts of a just cause received the 
 smiles of Heaven 1 The loss sustained on the other 
 side is still a mystery, and the truth will long be 
 concealed. If, in the progress of events, when upon 
 each succeeding occasion, manly valor has been dis- 
 played, death has been sustained from ill-advised 
 exposure by inexperienced command ; there, too, the 
 caution which Providence might have suggested, was 
 neglected, and suffering was the consequence. It 
 was one of the wise maxims of the best of Americans 
 
SECESSION: A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 27 
 
 and of men, that a due preparation for war, was the 
 best security of peace. But the wisdom that prompted 
 the assertion, never forgot the necessity of caution 
 and foresight in advancing into places of danger, or 
 neglected the provision of scouts and outposts as the 
 elementary instruction of military theory and prac- 
 tice. Unnecessary exposure has cost the country 
 dearly already, in the lives of some of its cherished 
 sons. Among those who have suffered, and those 
 who are in full pursuit of the Nation's honor and 
 their own, it must be our just pride that some of our 
 immediate fellow-citizens have been especially dis- 
 tinguished. When Greble, in the midst of perils 
 was advised to stoop down and avoid the bullets that 
 whistled around him, he knew too well the value of 
 example, to sacrifice it for life, and he fell gloriously 
 in displaying the one, and in heroic disregard of the 
 other. He verified a remark that was once applied 
 by Commodore Decatur to Captain Lawrence, that 
 there was no more dodge in him than in the mainmast. 
 He suited the action to the word, and bequeathed at 
 once an example and a watchword to his countrymen. 
 We shall not arrogate anything to ourselves, in 
 claiming this early victim of dauntless bearing in the 
 civil war, as a Philadelphian. A happy relief from 
 fatal consequences, through bodily injury and bold 
 exposure, has distinguished another of our immediate 
 brethren. Kelley lives to gain new laurels and to 
 embellish by future deeds a reputation earned with 
 
28 SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 
 
 blood. In still more elevated rank than those, is a 
 native of our city, whose daily exhibitions of military 
 science, and eloquent instruction, do credit to his 
 birth place, and secure to him the respect and con- 
 fidence of the country. The recent proclamation of 
 General McClellan is a model of propriety. Its 
 language and sentiments are equally worthy of praise. 
 With the firmness of the soldier, it breathes a spirit 
 of gentleness and mercy where occasion may become 
 them. It will live in brilliant contrast with a pro- 
 duction from the rebel camp full of Billingsgate 
 invective. If " wives and daughters" had been in- 
 sulted, proclaim the instances to a proper authority, 
 and no Northern man, however accused, will escape 
 condign punishment. Women of rebel association, 
 it is said, have proffered hospitality with smiles to 
 unsuspecting officers, and then treacherously betrayed 
 them. Of this, the testimony is, it would seem, 
 unquestionable. They have, perhaps, deceived their 
 own officers into an assertion without foundation, as 
 they did strangers into a confidence which was mis- 
 placed. Generals Patterson and Cadwalader, also 
 our gallant townsmen, have been tried in battle and 
 in peace. 
 
 It must be borne in mind, with conscious pride, 
 that whatever may have been the kind of effort in 
 which the Federal soldiers have thus far been en- 
 gaged, whether happily suggested or unwisely led, 
 the conduct of the inexperienced troops has been 
 
SECESSION : A FOLLY AND A CRIME. 29 
 
 uniformly brave. Every one has proved himself 
 manly and heroic. Whether to die or to succeed, 
 his conduct has been a glorious example. The 
 material of the army from almost every quarter has 
 been sharply tried, although no great battle has been 
 fought. In any condition or exposure that may 
 occur, the country is now assured that the character 
 already stamped upon its gallant sons, will be a cer- 
 tain passport to glorious victory or honorable death. 
 
 Philadelphia, July 4//j, 1861, 
 
V 
 
a* .•*'•• "*c 
 
 ^ ' \* .. **» *" *° 
 
 
 
 *°«* .i 
 
 
 < 
 
 V ^JJBK: >*** • 
 
 'bK 
 
 
 ar* v 
 
 rf<k .1 
 
 ^ .* 
 
 V • 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 <> ♦'T. 
 
 
 
 
 v*o^ 
 
 
 • ^ 
 
 A ^» 
 
 % • - ° a° 
 
 ^S V 
 
 
 
 .0 ^ "■• .v 
 
 ■4* 
 
 :7;, ^ & °* •••".*< v ..... v '« f ..... -*„ 
 
o 
 
 
 aJr> •a? •«<» ■ 
 
 w r 
 
 ^ 
 
 - V °^ * • - ° A? <P> " , v * °**> * " ° A 
 
 
 (] BOOKBINDINC ■ 
 
 
 1 . 1* .\ <-.