E458 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS D0DDbl4DE21i "^. -♦?fRff' ^^ •*^ >.* -NT ^^ -*^^: rj^ ^ \ '-Ni^^* ,*'' "^^ "^y^i^,- v5-^^\. -.^.^s^,- V \'^^???^\<^ <.;''fy'\cf' \'^m\^^ >,.^j^.* ^^ ^, AXJG-XJST 6, 1863. By JOHN N. MURDOCK, I). D. B O S TO N: WRIGHT & POTTER, PRINTERS. + SPRING lAXE. 18 6 3. OUR CIVIL WAR: ITS CAUSES AND ITS ISSUES, DISCOURSE DELIVERED IN THE BAPTIST CHUECII, BEOOKLINE. OCCASION OE THE NATIONAL THANKSGIVING, A.TJGHJST 6, 1863 By JOHN N. MURDOCK, D. D. BOSTON: WRIGHT & POTTER, PRINTERS, 4 SPRING LANE. 18 63. E45% 3 -m CORRESPONDENCE Bkookline, August 12th, 1863. Rev. J. N. MuRDOCK, D. D. : Dear Six*, — The undersigned having heard with great satisfaction the very able Discourse delivered by you in Brookline, August 6, 1863, on the occasion of the National Thanksgiving, desire of you a copy of the same for publication, believing as they do that the views therein expressed, if more widely diffused, would be of great service to the cause of the country. With assurances of high regard, "We subscribe ourselves, very truly, Your friends, Geo. F. Homer. R. S. Davis. Edw'd C. Wilson. D. H. Rogers. Moses Withington. E. Littell,. C. F. Huntington. James Edmond. Henry Wenzell. A. W. Benton. Rich'd L. Saville. Samuel Sutton. Wm. T. Eustis. Geo. S. Gushing. William Lincoln. Royal Woodward. Boston, August 18, 1863. Gentlemen, — Your very kind note requesting for publication a copy of my Discourse delivered in Brookline, on the 6th inst., has been placed in my hands. In spite of the diffidence which I really entertain in reference to the merits of the Discourse, I am constrained, by the opinion which you express, that its publication Avould be of great service to the cause of the country, to commit it to the press ; holding as I do that no citizen is at liberty, in such a time as this, to withhold any thing which may in any way subserve so great an interest. With sentiments of the highest regard I have the honor to be, gentlemen, Your obedient servant, J. N. MURDOCK. Messrs. George F. Homer, R. S. Davis, and others. y^(7 DISCOURSE. Psalms cxxix. 1, 2. MANY A TIME HAVE THEY AFFLICTED ME PROM MY YOUTH, MAY ISRAEL NOW SAY: MANY A TIME HAVE THEY AFFLICTED ME FROM MY YOUTH; YET THEY HAVE NOT PREVAILED AGAINST ME. The Psalmist, personating the Jewish Nation, declares in these words that Israel had been assailed from the earliest day, by those who afflicted and sought his ruin. His enemies had ploughed long furrows in his back, but the Lord in his righteousness had cut asunder the cords which had scourged and bound his people, so that the former had not prevailed against them. Scarcely had they broken the yoke of Egypt's bondage, ere they were brought into subjection to Egypt's idolatries. Their shoulders no longer bowed to the taskmaster's burden, nor smarted beneath the taskmaster's lash ; but their principles were assaulted by his corruptions, and their hearts lusted after his flesh-pots. The leaven of Egypt lingored long after the rod of Egypt was broken. And if the Lord had not been on their side, they would have been utterly wasted by the sapping of domestic evils, and the onsets of outward foes. But when men rose up against them, God stood up with them. When men sought to devour them, God interposed to save them. We may adopt these words of acknowledgment and thanksgiving as affording a proper starting point for a brief review of the dangers and deliverances of which our domestic history presents a record. We have been envi- roned with enemies from the very beginning of our civil life. We have been beset within and without by social and political antagonisms, which have chafed and fretted the web of our civil destiny, and which have been the occasion of unceasing anxiety to the patriot sages of our land. And the open and dire conflict in which we find ourselves engaged to-day, is only the kindling of the dry stubble which our essential antagonisms have prepared and mingled in our social state. It may help us to a clearer conception of the deliverances already wrought for us, and tend to give us stronger assurance of the triumph which is yet and soon to crown the cause of just govern- ment, if we trace in a discursive way the course of our political history under the distractions and aberrations occasioned by forces foreign to the true political instincts of our people. I hope I shall not be regarded as slighting the occasion which calls us together to-day, if I invite your attention to the Causes and the Issues of our present Domestic War. It is a very common error among our people to refer the causes of our present domestic troubles to the men and events of the last and the present generations. The theories of this or that statesman, the tendencies of this or that scheme of legislation, and the policy of this or that . party, and similar phenomena, have been pointed at as revealing the sources of our trouble. But all this is most unphilosophical and foreign from the matter. The error in the premises consists in nothing less than confounding phenomena with laws, and putting effects for causes. For these things are symptomatic rather than causative, pertaining to the incipient stages of the great conflict, rather than to the principles which underlie it. Some one has said of Luther that he was not the wind that raised the storm of the Reformation, but only the wave that was carried uppermost by it. And we may, with equal truth, say of the theorizers and agitators who have borne part in the great national controversy of the time, that, instead of being the originators of the tempest which rages around us, they are only the waifs borne onward by its breath. The real causes of our national disruption and civil war lie back of the schemings and plottings of agitators, back of the strifes of parties and the measures of administrations. We shall comprehend the crisis that is upon us only when we come to a truer mastery of the hidden sources from whence it springs. When Providence had brought the new Empire of the Western World to the birth, it was found that there were twins struggling for the precedence. Two forms of civili- zation at once projected themselves into the sphere of our civil life, and began to contend for the mastery. James- town and Plymouth represented on these shores the antagonistic principles of Cavalier and Roundhead, and renewed here the old struggle between chartered Preroga- tive and imprescriptible Right, which had raged for centu- ries, under various names and guises, in the mother Isle. The Cavalier brought with him those ideas of prescription and caste which had led him to battle, from the time of the Norman conquest, for aristocracy and absolutism. The Puritan brought with him those ideas of individual freedom and equality, which, though imperfectly compre- hended, and more imperfectly applied, at first, contained the germs of our Republican life. The former sought to build a state in which the many should be only the instru- ments of the few. The latter sought to rear a Common- wealth in which the few should rule by the will and voice ot the many. The one aimed at oligarchic forms, in which the personal will of the ruling class should be supreme. The other planted communities in which law was greater than the magistrate, and loyalty was transferred from the person of the ruler to the authority by which he ruled. One sought state, power, wealth and luxury for his class. The other labored for the public good, and sought the general well-being of the community by enforcing the claims of well-doing upon all its members. The first was chiefly anxious to maintain the privileges of an aristocratic order. The second was only intent on setting up free and self-ordering communities. The one spread himself over the virgin acres of the new territory, that he might swell farms into manors, restricting proprietorship while extend- ing the area of cultivation. The other enlarged the bounds of his habitation that he might increase the num- ber of owners of the soil, and diffuse the blessings of industry and its rewards among all classes. The one brought in the slave-ship to supply his broad lands with unpaid laborers. The other set up the school-house that his farms might be tilled by intelligent husbandmen. The one contented himself with chaining his laborers to the soil and compelling them to gather its riches for his use. The other yoked the mountain stream to his machinery, filled the land with the fruits of his invention and toil, and then harnessed the winds of heaven to his ships and com- pelled them to bear his productions beyond the seas. The ^ one wasted the richest soil on which the sun ever shone, and made it desolate and barren. The other converted a rocky and barren soil into a fruitful garden. The one extended his swa^over vast regions with a comparatively small increase of wealth or population. The other extended his sway, and wealth sprang from the earth, and the waste was peopled by busy and prosperous millions. The intercourse of trade, and tlie necessities of the com- mon defence, during the French and Indian Wars, undoubtedly did much to soften the ancient animosity between the CavaHer and the Puritan. But the jealousy of an essential antagonism was yet alive at the period of the commencement of the Revolutionary strife. This antagonism, which became sectional by position, was irreconcilable in principle. It revealed itself at almost every step in the course of the events which finally ripened into the War of Independence. The Southern people were slow to enlist in what they stigmatized as a New England quarrel. It required all the influence of such men as Jefferson and Henry, Carroll and Pinckney, Rutledge and Laurens, to induce the Southern Colonies to make com- mon cause with the North. It was avowedly to placate this jealous interest that John Adams proposed the name of George Washington, of Virginia, as the Commander-in- Chief of the patriot armies. But in spite of all the con- cessions that could be made to this traditional prejudice, a large body of the Southern people adhered to the royal cause, and became the open enemies of Washington and his brethren in arms. It is a significant fact that the single State of Massachusetts contributed more men and more money to the national cause than all the Southern States put together ; while the single State of South Caro- lina furnished more Tories than all the States north of Mason and Dixon's line. The debates in the Convention which framed the Federal Constitution are also indicative of the jealousy existing between the Southern and Northern sections of the country. It was for a long time believed that no union closer than a commercial and defensive league could be formed, owing to this recognized incompatible- ness of interest and feeling. The sentiment of the South 8 towards the Northern, and especially towards the New England States, was exacting if not arrogant. The Vir- ginian, the Georgian, the Carolinian, regarded themselves as belonging to a more select race, and the idea of associ- ating with an inferior class on terms of political and social equality, was repugnant to their pride. They were also chafed at the prosperous condition of the Northern people. They envied the wealth which the latter were acquiring, while they despised the means by which it was acquired. They soon persuaded themselves that the prosperous enterprise and increasing commerce which were enriching our people were somehow at their expense. Their statesmen set themselves in various ways to the establishment of an equilibrium between the two sections. The first high protective tariff imposed by the American Congress was a Southern measure, intended to check the commercial growth of the Northern and Eastern States. It was strenuously opposed by the commercial interest, which was chiefly in these States, but without avail. But when the policy of high imposts was once estab- lished by the National authority, our people submitted, and at once adjusted themselves to the new order of things. Foreign commerce was somewhat restricted, but domestic manufactures were greatly stimulated. And the result of this scheme was the building up of that vast manufacturing system, which has so multiplied the pro- ductive energies and the wealth of our people. Soon as it became apparent that the North was more benefited by high imposts than they had formerly been by free trade, the Southern leaders began to agitate for a repeal of the tariff. The chief argument for the repeal, as before it had been for the enactment of this tariff, was that the North was enriched and the South impoverished. This was the question on which Nullification showed its head in 1832. But for the energy and patriotism of President Jackson, we should have had then the conflict which is now upon us. South Carolina was then, as now, the leader in opposition to the Government, and she was as ready then for rupture and open war as now. But it did not suit the design of Providence to allow the old feud of caste and race to break out into the flame of war, on an issue so narrow as a law regulating impost duties, or on a theatre so limited as one insurgent State. Questions of more vital interest to the welfare of the race were to be brought into this issue, before it could be committed to the decision of that Ultima Ratio, the sword. The questions involved in the system of African slavery have been in debate among us from the begin- ning of our national life. At first it was not a debate of sections or States, so much as of sociologists and moralists, of different schools. Neither its advocates nor its impugners belonged to any section. North, South, East or West. It could find quite as many apologists in Connecticut as in Maryland, and as many opponents in Virginia as in Massachusetts. Tlie stipulations relating to it in the Federal Constitution, commonly called " the Compromises of the Constitution," were compromises between fundamental political and moral theories, held both at the South and at the North, and the existing slave system, rather than compromises between the Norths ern and Southern sections. It was a pact between free and slave labor, rather than between free and slave States. For with a single exception, all the States, whose people were parties to the Federal Constitution, were, at the time, slave States. And it was then the purpose and belief of the best men of all sections, that the system would come to a gradual but sure end. This expectation was soon realized in the Eastern and Middle States ; a result due in 10 part to economic considerations, but more to the quickened public conscience, which apprehended the essential wrong of the relation. The system was seen to be in conflict with the fundamental ideas of our political life, and with the laws of natural justice and Christian morality. But in the Southern States the system was less repug- nant to the social instincts of the people ; though many wise and good men did not fail to condemn it, as a wrong to the slave and a curse to society. Soon, however, it became the source of enormous profit to the planters, and grew into a vast class interest. Now it began to be cher- ished with the tenacity which interest always inspires. Protests against its wrongfulness became less welcome to Southern people, and so less frequent. From the general admission that slavery is a great evil, they passed to the general assertion that it is a great blessing. It came to be openly claimed that some men were born not only to serve others, but to be owned by them. The relation was no longer regarded as an anomaly, but as pertaining to the natural order of society. With these views the Northern people did not, and could not coincide. But chiefly to keep terms with the Southern people, and to enjoy the benefits of their trade, no general or effective disclaimer was ever put forth. The first appearance of any thing like a concerted protest, on the part of the North, was in reference to the admission of Missouri into the Union as a slave State. The North resisted, but were finally worsted in the conflict. From that day slavery became a political power, and was, in fact, dominant in the Govern- ment. It demanded for successive Presidential incum- bents Southern men, or Northern men subservient to Southern views and interests. Like a great ulcer, which gathers into itself all the other foul humors of the body, slavery gradually came to absorb all the other sources of 11 animosity cherished by the descendants of the Cavaliers against the descendants of the Puritans. Opposition to slavery was stigmatized as the old Puritan fanaticism. It was claimed for it that it must not only live unquestioned, but live wheresoever it would. It must be legalized in all the territories of the United States. It must be protected in the National Courts of judicature throughout the North. Northern citizens must become the captors and persecu- tors of fugitives from its bonds. They must cease to question its morality, or to discuss the social questions involved in it. In short, slavery was put forward as a symbol and test of the supremacy of the Southern people in the Government. They used it as a means of ruling. Long as the Northern people would submit to their dicta- tion, they were content to remain with us ; while the least show of independence would at once bring the threat of disunion. The alternative which they have presented to us, for the last generation, has been, subjection or separa- tion : if not one relation, then the other. And the war which is upon us to-day is simply the effort of these would-be-masters to divide the country which they could no longer rule — to subvert the Government which they could no longer control. It was not the question of slavery or no slavery which incited the Southern revolt against the Government. Neither the Northern people, nor any considerable portion of them, have ever presented such an issue. The Southern leaders knew that they could enjoy slavery where they had planted it, and that they could extend it at will, limited only by their power of propagation. Slavery has been the pretext rather than the cause of separation. It was chosen simply because it was a more effective wedge than the tariff, or the sub- treasury. It was more involved in Southern interest and prejudice, on the one hand, and more repugnant to the 12 Northern conscience, on the other. But nothing that you could have done for slavery would have prevented the rupture : nothing that you can do in this line will heal it. The oracles of the rebellion have over and over again declared that they would themselves destroy every vestige of slavery, if such a measure should become necessary, to effect their final separation from the Northern people. They despise us as a base and ignoble rabble. They hate us as thwarting their will and obstructing their power. This contempt and hate have been working for years ; and they have at last broken forth in the awful flame of war. They were carefully fanned by every consideration that could excite a fiery and impetuous race. Loose theories of government have been inculcated and kept before the people. The sovereignty of the State has been magnified, and that of the Nation eclipsed. It was insisted that the State was to be obeyed, whatever it might require. Thus the very foundations of authority were undermined, and a whole people were prepared for revolt and civil war. I by no means intend to belittle the agency of slavery in bringing upon us the present crisis. It must be held as an evidence of the utter viciousness of the system, that it has fostered the arrogance, and nursed the prejudice, and entailed the ignorance which have worked together for our national undoing. It has hastened the crisis. It has given unity to our enemies. It has furnished them the means of subsistence. It has been set forth as the pretext for war against the government and people. But he sadly mistakes the temper of the leaders of Southern opinion, and the whole tendency of Southern civihzation, who thinks there would have been no rupture if there had been no slavery. It might not have been during this generation, or the next, but sooner or later it would have burst forth. The aristocratic and democratic elements in 13 this government were destined, in the course of events, to come into open conflict. Nor is the conflict likely to be confined to the South. We have men among us who think that democratic insti- tutions are a failure. They look with undisguised satis- faction on the different order of things which the Southern leaders have set ovit to inaugurate. You. may see this tendency alien to liberty in the liveries and armorial bearings daily sported in our large cities and fashionable watering places. You may see it in the effort of a late President of the United States to have his name printed among reigning princes of the earth. You may see it in the open sympathy shown for the rebel leaders. You may hear it in the assertion that the rebellion cannot be put down by arms. It crops out in the proposal to amend the Constitution and change the basis of Government, in a way that will make it less favorable to freedom, and more acceptable to slave masters. There is a conspiracy to-day in the North for the betrayal of the Government, and for the denial of the people's interest in its provisions. Here, as in the South, the party of revolution consists of a few cultivated and scheming aristocrats, and an ignorant rabble, who scarcely know their right hand from their left. The Philistines be upon us, and among us. And unless we are swift and strong to check these sinister tendencies, the true character of this war, as a social, rather than a civil war, will be revealed in the blood which will flow upon our own hearth-stones. The riots which have recently raged in several of our cities were no hasty and fortuitous outbursts of passion, but the carefully prepared results of measures which have been pursued by certain persons and presses for months past. The men who pre- tend to stand by the Government, and yet make systematic war on the Administration ; the men who insist that pro- 14 cesses intended for a time of peace, and suited only to a time of peace, shall be scrupulously observed in a time of civil war, that the ship shall be worked in the storm just as it was worked in the calm, that you shall fight rebellion with the paper pellets of the courts instead of the sum- mary processes of military law ; the men who make a louder outcry against the occasional mistakes of govern- ment officials, than against organized, armed and bloody rebeUion ; the men who hurl their anathemas at the head of the " tyrant Lincoln," and yet have no words of con- demnation for the rebel Davis ; the men who under the specious claim of the freedom of speech and of the press, preach and print treason, and incite the ignorant to resist- ance against the Government ; the men who deliberately proclaim their purpose to resist the Government unto blood, if it shall undertake to restrain their adverse speech and action ; the men who openly pronounce for immediate peace with traitors, when the only basis of peace is sub- mission to tliem or separation from them ; these men are enemies to the Government, and enemies to the social order which it estabUshes, guards and defends. They are in league with traitors for the overthrow of the best gov- ernment on which the sun shines. I care not what party name they take, I care not what rights they pretend to guard, or what public policy they ostensibly pursue, their work, and the fruit of their work, is simple, bald, skulking treason. " Their throat is an open sepulchre ; with their tongues they have used deceit ; the poison of asps is under their lips : their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood : destruction and misery are in their ways." I have dwelt at such length on the causes of the war, because it seemed necessary in order to disclose the true 15 issues of the conflict and the duty of the hour. These points must be disposed of in a summary way, and your patience shall be relieved. The issue presented for solemn adjudication to-day, is not whether we shall conduct this war without any refer- ence to slavery. You might as well claim that powder and cannon shall have nothing to do in the settlement of our conclusions. Slavery is in the war, put in by the deliberate act of its friends. Its claims are to be adjudi- cated. It has been put into such relations to this contro- versy that you cannot strike a blow or fire a shot without hitting it. The establisliment of the Government must be its overthrow. The subversion of the Government will be its triumph. You have got slavery in hand, and you must settle it as you settle the war. Nor is the issue presented to-day whether we shall ^ake concessions to slavery or have protracted war. No con- cession you can make in the interest of slavery will avail to check this strife. You may decree to-morrow that slavery shall be the law of the land from Maine to Cali- fornia, and from the Northern Lakes to the Mexican Gulf, and you will be no nearer peace than you were before. There is only one concession that will satisfy our enemies. Concede the nationality and independence of their self- styled Confederacy, consent that they shall hold the forts and arsenals they have usurped, yield the territory they have divided from your magnificent domain, allow that your Constitution is a rope of sand, and that your Govern- ment is at the mercy of the popular will, — concede these things, and you may have peace till it shall please your enemies to make some new demand upon you. And depend upon it, if you are weak and base enough to make such a concession as this, the new demand will not long be wanting. 16 The first great issue to be settled by this war is whetlier we have a Central Government of the peoi^le, or only a loose league of States. Our fathers meant to form a General Government, supreme, stable and enduring. They set it up, not in the name of the States, but in the name and by the authority of the people. " We, the People of the United States,"— such is the official desig- nation of the parties to the great covenant of our Union. The Union of the States was grounded on the Unity of the people. The States did not formally appear, either in the formation or ratification of the Constitution. It was desirable, indeed, that their organic life should be recog- nized somewhere in the Government ; hence the plan of State representation in the National Senate, this body being composed of representatives of the States, while the House of Representatives represents the People. The Union was intended not as a Union of the States, but as a Union of the People. It was meant that the Govern- ment should be supreme. All questions relating to the currency, all regulations affecting commerce, all postal arrangements, all treaties with foreign powers, all deci- sions of peace and war, and all matters of controversy between the respective States, were expressly committed to this central power. In fact the national authority extends to every department of the public life. With the exception of local and municipal affairs, the power of the Government touches every part of the political system. Yet the theory has been set up that the Constitution is only a league between the States, and that the Union is simply a loose confederation of organized communities. It is claimed that the State has only to retract the consent by which it bound itself to the Union, and it goes out with all its original rights ; carrying with it, moreover, all forts, arsenals, custom houses, post offices and post roads, which 17 the General Government may have established within its bounds. This is the theory which has been adopted by the seceded States, in pursuance of which they have assumed to carry themselves out of the Union. This theory is also accepted by portions of the Northern people. Mr. Buchanan refused to take any decided measures for the suppression of the present rebellion, on the plea that the General Government has no power to coerce a State. The cry that has been recently raised against the assumed encroachments of the General Government on the rights of the States, is simply a part of the plan for the disinte- gration of the Federal power. The oration delivered before the civic authorities of Boston, on the Fourth of July, 1862, set up a theory of State prerogative which involves the whole principle of secession. And the orator of that day is understood now to be a leading member of an association in the city of New York, whose avowed object is the dissemination of this theory, alien to the public life of the nation. These gentlemen deny the power of the General Government to raise an army by conscription in the States. They claim to restrict the war powers of the President by State laws. They seek to interpose the' State authorities between the people and the Federal power. Their leading organ openly teaches that the President can act in the States, (excepting only the custom houses, forts and arsenals within their limits,) only in subservience to the Governors of the States. The Governor, it declares, is the commander-in-chief of the militia of the State, ignoring the constitutional provision that the President shall be recognized as the commander- in-chifef of the Governor. If this theory be generally accepted, it will follow that this war is a guilty and bloody piece of aggression on the part of the Federal Government. It will follow, also, that 18 there is not enough substance in the Government to make it worth fighting for. If the Central Government be thus at the mercy of the States, it is not worth the parchment on which its charter is written. And the solemn question which you are trying to-day is whether your National Government is Sovereign or Subject — whether it is supreme in the sphere of its ordination, or whether it is dependent on the caprices of the people or the authorities of the States. This is the issue which you are to try faithfully and well between the Government and the men who have lifted up the standard of revolt. If you yield this point to your enemies, not only the supremacy, but the very existence of the Government is at an end. On this point the history of confederated governments is full of instruction and warning. The celebrated League of Lombardy, which was powerful enough in the latter part of the twelfth century to resist and overthrow the vast military power of Frederic Barbarossa, one of the greatest and most enterprising of the German Emperors, came to a speedy and ignominious end. In less than a century from the Treaty of Constance, by which its independence was confirmed, this powerful League melted out of the political map of the world. The bond of union between its mem- bers was unequal, as a union of states, some larger and more populous than the rest, must of necessity be. The larger states not only exercised an overshadowing control in public affairs, but they oppressed the weaker ones. When questions arose between the states, the Central Government had no power to adjust them. It had no common head, no supreme appellate power for the adjudi- cation of mutual differences. When the policy of any^state came into conflict with the claims of the League the latter were disregarded, unless the enmity or jealousy of other states cooperated with the confederate authority. In short, 19 this League was substantially what the seceded States and their sympathizers would make our Government — a loose agglomeration of States, which must fall to pieces from the clashings of interest, or from the shocks of faction. If you fail to carry the authority of your Government into the States which have been temporarily wrested from its sway ; if you fail to reestablish its beneficent authority over the people of those States, your end will be like unto theirs, and a long night of anarchy and oppression shall be the inheritance of your children. The question which we have submitted to the ordeal of battle is whether our Govern- ment shall be stable or ephemeral — whether it shall mould the future or be buried in the past. Let the solemn adjudi- cation of the people's interest in the blessings of good and stable government go on. Let no one consent to a stay or arrest of proceedings till the verdict of history shall be pronounced, and the authority of the Nation shall be fully and forever vindicated. There is one other great issue being tried and settled by the war which we are waging, namely: Whether our Government be grounded simply in motives of commercial interest and political power, or whether it contemplates the essential rights and interests of humanity. Here, too, it becomes us to read and ponder well the teachings of his- tory. A case in point is furnished by the German Hansa, commonly called the Hanseatic League. This confedera- tion was structurally much more perfect than the League which wrested independence from the iron hand of Frederic Barbarossa. Its legislative functions were confided to a general diet, the members of which were chosen in a given ratio ])y the several cities. The authority of this diet extended to all matters of public well-being. Its constitu- tion seems to have secured unity and effectiveness in the 20 public administration. The government appears to have been marked by equal prudence and force. It included eighty-five free cities, and reached a pitch of power which no maritime nation, not even Tyre, had before attained. But this League was marked by an inherent and fatal defect. It rested solely on views of commercial advantage, instead of those interests of society which are fundamental and permanent. It aimed not at the freedom, intelligence and advancement of the people, but merely at the increase of trade and the accumulation of material wealth. Hence when these interests began to wane, and the channels of commerce were turned in other directions, this great League began to crumble away. This result sprung from the very nature of things. A confederation simply for purposes of gain, or any other material or transient advantage, will reach its limit and surely come to an end. Like a business partnership, it will determine when its object is accomplished, or when it ceases to be profitable. No community will permanently hold together on a basis so narrow and sordid. Unless it be bound up in the sub- stantial interests of mankind, and respect the imperishable ' rights of our common nature, it will decay. A union which has no higher aim than to secure material benefits, to foster commerce, to promote manufactures, and to aggrandize political power ; a union of trading guilds for the purposes of traffic and barter ; a union which is blind to wrongs and regardless of rights ; a union which does not enfold and enshrine the progress and the hopes of human- ity, is only a temporary thing, an expedient of a day, and not the glory and joy of all time. Only those compacts which respect that essential justice which guards the rights and liberties of mankind ; which spread their shield before the rich and the poor, the defenceless and the strong alike, so grounding themselves on what is permanent and pro- 21 gressive in the social and political life of the race, — only such compacts have the elements of an enduring vitality in them. And such a union will live. It may be visited by storms ; faction may assail it ; the floods of the people may lift themselves against it ; but the storm shall cease, the flood shall subside, and that sacred ark of humanity shall remain, resting securely on a basis more enduring than the everlasting hills. It is the glory of our National Constitution that it bases itself on the sacred rights of human nature. It recognizes the divine foreordination of freedom for all men. Chief among its objects vt^as to promote the general welfare, and to secure the blessings of freedom to posterity. And though it has been perverted and thwarted by men whose aims were alien to its spirit, it has at last been wrested from their hands, and freedom is now proclaimed under the broad shield of its authority, throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof. Hitherto its exceptions have been exalted above its leading design. Its temporary provisions have been set in opposition to its fundamental principles. But at length the exceptional wrong has given place to the essential right. If the people have only the virtue and firmness to stand upon its noble aims, and the public policy just inaugurated in pursuance of them, the clouds will soon clear away, and a new day of freedom and prosperity will dawn on the land. The Constitution shall at last be recognized as the bond, while the Flag shall be the symbol, of Universal Freedom. And out of this chaos of blood and strife a new order of equality and justice shall emerge, and the rejoicings of the free shall be like the song of the sons of the morning in the dawn of creation. We must not tliink, however, that the present conflict is to end in the total displacement of one or the other form 22 of the prevalent civilizations, or in the complete triumph of either. It were better that the dross of both should be burned away in the " divine white heat " of national trial, and the good that is in each should be fused and welded by the furnace and anvil of God's Providence to a nobler substance and firmer strength. Like the amalgam known as Corinthian Brass, the toughest of metals, which was first revealed through a providential conflagration, the true American civilization, the type and end of all civili- zations, is to be the product of this fiery trial which has been kindled upon us. There are qualities in the Southern character which are necessary to the fulness and perfection of our social life. There are qualities in the Northern character which need to be refined away, or to be modified by complemental elements in the Southern temper. Where we are close, they are open. Where we are crafty, they are simple. Where we are narrow in our feelmgs, they are broader and more generous. Where we are steady, they are impulsive. Where we are provident, they are prodigal. Where we are enterprising, they are thriftless. Where they are full in their social develop- ment, we are restricted and isolated. With them culture is broader and more refined ; with us, if less thorough, it is more' widely diffused. We have juster notions of personal rights, while they have higher views of personal dignity. With us the voice of conscience is more clear ^and potent ; with them the sense of honor is more quick and vital. We furnish the complemental parts of each other's character. God meant us for each other, as he meant the diamond for the working of the diamond. The currents of His Providence are grinding us upon each other, as stones are worn smooth by the flow of the stream. He is using us to wipe out the stain of their oppression. He is using them to lift us out of the ruts of our sordid 23 love of gain. We may fail to subdue them by arms ; they may not hurry us into a base and unworthy peace. But we shall mutually assimilate to each other in a renovated form of character, when through the strenuousness of the strife they have forced upon us, we shall come to glow and shine in the predestined nobleness of our national life. Then the old vision of prophecy shall be fulfilled, and the lion and the lamb shall lie down together. Then shall the land enter into the blessedness of an enduring Sabbath. Then shall our officers be peace, and our exactors right- eousness. Then shall our wide and glorious domain smile under the hand of enlightened industry, while the laborer shall rejoice in its rewards. And the hum of our multi- plied activities shall blend with the voice of our people on the land and on the sea, in strains of thanksgiving to the all-planning and invincible Worker, for Freedom Realized, Prosperity Augmented, and Faith Yictorious. Mi '^9 ,♦• «• »a\Va.' ^^^^.^-^ .♦j^i^V %^** .'^ 'bV . •. --^u-o^ : .-^ .^.Slfei'. ^^^^^* :mii\ \f :^^' "^ 5> » ^ « * ^^40, '^- ^'^t. . -: