LIBRARY OF CONGRESS II II lilii ill III 012 028 961 5 pH8^ ■^^^ SPEECH JOSEPH T. CEOWELL OF UNION COUNTY, SENATE OF NEW JERSEY, J JANUARY 22. 1863, ON THE MOTION TO POSTPONE INDEFINITELY THE ANTI-WAR RESOLUTIONS OFFERED BV Hon. I>^?LlSriEL HOLSMLA-IV. OF BERGEN O^ -^^e^f^^SS? LIBRORY OF CONGRESS Illlll!llir iiropnsitioii for an annistico between the now contending armies Norili and Soutli, ami the immediate couvucatiou of a convention of delegates from all the States which aclcnowledged themselves members of the Union in November, 1860, to the end that all dideronces may be peacefully adjusted, our land saved from bloodshed and re- stored to peace, concord and union. Similar resolutions were adopted at Peace meetings in our own State and Pennsylvania, and the organ of the Newark Democrac}'^ proclaimed itself for Peace, " because, if tlie North can conquer the South, our re- publican institutions and popular liberties will be swept away." The claim that the recent elections have proven that the people are opposed to a further prosecution of the war cannot be sustained. A combination of causes produced the political revolution in the North. Excessive taxation, extravagant expenditures, arbitrary arrests of politi- cal offenders, the alleged abandonment of the object of the war to in- augurate a new crusade by the emancipation proclamation — the military failures, and the general want of confidence in the administi-ation — these are the causes ; and to me it appears the hight of impudence for those anti-war men to assume the defeat of the administration as an approval of their Secessionism, or an endorsement of this Convention peace pro- gramme. But it is argued, a Convention is necessary to guarantee the people of the South all their rights under the Constitution. It is no wonder the rebels ask us if we " are all natural-born fools."' They told us when they seceded tliey would not remain in the Union if we would give them a blank sheet and let them dictate their own terms. The leaders of the rebellion have told us over and over that they had been working for disunion all their lives. In the House of Representatives, in December, 1860, when an eftort was being made to raise a committee with the view of compromising the difficulties which threatened the country, 'Mr. Haw- kins, of Florida, said he would not vote to raise a committee for that purpose, " for I am opposed, and I believe my State is, to all and every compromise." Mr. Singleton, of Mississippi, said : "I was not sent here to make any compromise, or to patch up existing difficulties." Mr. Miles, of South Carolina, announced that "South Carolina wouldgo out of the Union on the I7th instant." ^Ir. Pugh, of Alabama, said : " As my State of Alabama intends following South Carolina out of the Union by the 10th of Janu'-iry next, I pay no attention to any action in this body." During the same week, Alfred Iveso.v, a Senator from Georgia, an- nounced : " You may tinker the Constitution, if you please ; you may propose concessions ; you may suggest aiiditional legislation ; you may present additional constitutional securities ; you may attempt by all these ingenious devices to stay the storm which now rages in the Southern States, to prevent that people from marching on to the deliverance and liberty upon which they are resolved ; but, Sir, the words " too late" that ring here to-day will be reiterated from mountain to valley in all the South, and are now sounding the death knell of the Federal Union." The declaration of the notorious Yancey, in his speech in the State Convention of Alabama, is equally uncompromising. He said : "I avow myself as utterly, unalterably, opposed to any and all plans of reconstructing a Union with the Black Republican States of the North. No new guarantees, no amendments of the Constitution, uo peaceful resolutions, no repeal of offensive laws, can offer me any, the least, inducement to reconstruct our relations with the non-slaveholding States." All these declarations were made while the states in rebellion were preparing to secede. Two years have elapsed — two years of war, the most sanguinary. Thousands of lives have been sacrificed, and millions of treasure expended, and now a proposition is made for an armistice and a convention to discuss measures of amicable settlement. And how are these propositions received by thejlebels ? With con- tumely and scorn. They will recognize no propositions for peace except coupled with terms of separation ; and no one can read the recent speeches of Jefferson Davis, in connection with the editorials of the Southern press, without concluding that further proffers of pacific prop- ositions would be disgraceful and cowardly. Davis says they will not be the first to cry " hold, enough," and he must have had an inkling of these resolutions when he made the declaration. The Richmond Dis- patch speaks in reference to the Brooks programme in the following complimentary style : " Mr. Brooks appears to be in earnest in these extravagant i)ropositions, strange as it may nppear to any man who has possession of his senses; for, upon the occasion of presenting them, he made a long speech, and expressed himself confident of their success. Are the northern people uatural-born fools, or are they only stricken with that judicial madness which we are told the gods always inllict upon the victims of their wrath preparatory to their ruin ? « * ' ' // llie whole Yanlcee race should fall down in the dust to-morrotv and 2^>'ay its to he their mas- ters, iw would spurn them, even as slaves. Our only wish is to bo separated from them finally anil forever— never to see the face of one of them again— never to hear the voice of another Yankee on the .south side of the Potomac or the north— to have no traffic and no iutercour.se of any description whatever with them. Weare fighting for separation, and we will have it, if it cmts the life of ei'erij man in the Confeilerate States. " Wo are aware that many [jorsons believe that the i)arty of which Brooks and Van Buren are representatives, desire and design to restore peace, and that at present they dare not to speak out their real sentiments, which are in favor of separation. Theylook only to their pocketn when they prcarh if reamcilialinn and restoration. If the same object could be effected by en- tirely destroying the people of the southern states, and they thought it as easy to do, they would recommend it as the best of all possible policy. I-et them be eatlsQod, however. President Davis expressed the soiitimeDt of the entire Confederacy in his Bpoocli the other uight, when he said the people would .sooner unite with ii nation of hyenas than with the di- testable and detested Yankee nation. Anything but that. Engll.sh colonizatiou, Krom-h vas.salage, Russian serfdom, all, all are preferable to any association with the Yauki-cs." This is a strong dose, but Davis gives it to lliem just as strong, in language equally refined. From his speech to the Mississippi Legisla- ture I quote the following choice extract : Were it ever to be proposed again to enter into a Union with such ii people, I could no more consent to do it than to trust myself in a den of thieves. U-t no man hug the delusion that there can be renewed association between them. Our enemies are a traUitionless and home- less race ; from the time of Cromwell to the present moment they have been disturbers of the peace of the world. Gathered together by Cromwell from the bogs and fens of the North of Ireland and of England, they commenced by disturbing the peace of their own country ; they disturbed Holland, to which they fled, and they disturbed England on their return. They per- secuted Catholics in England, and they hung Quakers and witches in America. Mr. Holsman again arose and protested that the Senator from Union was not in order. Mr. Crowell contended he teas in order, and in accordance with the decision of the Chair. That the Senator from Bergen was out of order in making a second objection after the decision of the Chair had been announced, and no appeal talven. The President, however, entertained the appeal at this stage, and put the question. The vote being taken, the decision of the Chair was not sustained, the Eepubhcans, with Mr. CroweU, voting to sustain the decision of the chair, and every Democrat voting against the decision. Mr. Crowell said he must submit to the decision of the Senate. It was a re- markable thing for a point of order to be decided by a strict party vote. It was something new for the gag law to bo applied in the Senate of New Jersey. He should not trouble the Senate further on these resolutions. Ho would, how- ever, publish to the peo^jle of New Jersey, what he was not allowed to speak in the Senate. The following is the concluding portion of the Speech, and which was not de- livered in the Senate : The newspapers of the South as well as the Secession papers of the North, are abusing Governor Seymour for not commencing war on the Government at Washington; and they will now probably open their pa- per batteries on Governor Parker. I cannot avoid giving another short extract from the Richmond Whig, for the edification of these peaco-at- any-price patriots : " The Yankees are very little better than Chinese. They lay the sam? stress on the jingle of their dollars that the Celestials do on the noise of their gongs. Originally endowed with no single amiable trait, they have cultivated the arts of money-getting and cheating, until gain has become their god, and they imagine it to be omnipotent. With money in their pockets won from a generous and chivalrous race, and multitudinous as Norway rats, they are swollen with conceit, and they fancied they were fit for empire. And yet they do not possess one gen- tieniauly attribute, nor a single talent that qualifies them for w;ir.'" At Vicksburg a public speaker warns the people against the North- ern Conservative Editors, by telling them that : " When poiico is dccluri-il you will see Uumii lamliiig by liundreils al yuur levee, with their editorials ami speeches in their bamls ; they will swarm through our land like locusts, eat up our substance, ami elbow one side the noble patriots who have sacrificed all for the cause. While we are sheddini; our blood, lliey are sitting in their easy chairs : let them remain there." And how, Sir, do these deliant leaders, raise tlieir;u-inies ? We would suppose that the men liable to military duty would in mass volunteer, if this ferocious spirit was so universal. But look at the reality. A des- potic conscription act has been enforced over a year ; and no man es- capes unless he has a protedioji paper from the Consul of a foreign na- tion, or an exemption pass from the enrolling officers in his pockets. The bayonet performs the functions of recruiting officer for Jefferson Davis, as the guillotine did in France during the reign of blood. Sen- tinels are posted at the corners of the streets in Southern cities to kid- nap every man who cannot give an account of himself and produce instantaneous proof of exemption. The Richmond Whig of June 9, makes merry over the manner in which men are caught to fight : " Citizens of ' conscription age ' have at length had the horrors of war brought home to their own doors, or, at least, if they venture a few steps outside their doors they find themselves surrounded by fearful bayonets and in danger of being carried off into captivity, with a pleas- ing prosiH'cl of $11 a month and rations of bread and beef. Jleu of war are posted at the street corners, at hotel entrances, at the theatres, at every public place, and as the citizen comes along, intent upon business or pleasure, ho is saluted with a peremptory " Halt ! show your papers 1" and if he can't produce them, off he goes to the rendezvous of patriots, to re- ceive the first les.=ons in the art of serving his country. Thus " papers" have become quit^ an important item in the affairs of men, and wo be to him who has failed to secure this evi- dence of his right to .stay at home. There is, I know, a feverish anxiety in the public mind in reference to the prosecution of the war, because of a want of confidence in the present managers to accomplish any result. Many honest patriots are led to believe that we cannot subdue the rebel States, and therefore might as well let them go. These men have not studied history or hu- man nature. It would be better in the end for us to fight for twenty years, and either exterminate the rebels or be ourselves exterminated, than to consent to a temporary peace by separation. If we could not live amicably as one nation, with a Constitution guaranteeing the rights uf all, how could we live divided without forever fighting about slaves, tarifl's, boundaries, and a thousand matters of dispute that would inevi- tably arise between nations having fifteen hundred miles of borders. An army of one hundred thousand men would be constantly required to protect our capital. Free Trade would be the policy of the Southern Confederacy, and another army would be necessary to guard our bor- der.s from smugglers. We should be involved in disputes with the nations of Europe, and be compelled to humiliate ourselves by submit- ting to degrading indignities or exhausting our resources in mutual con- flicts. Tliere is but one course for us — we must fight this thing out : In the language of the patriot Jackson, " at every liazard ami at every sacrifice, this Union must be preserved." The idea that we shall have a lasting peace by acknowledging the In- dependence of the Rebels may be entertained by some, but Jkffkrson Davis is not one of them. In all his speeches before the people and in his messages he energetically lu'ges military preparations on a largo scale, for future security. '• Cast your eyes forward," he says in his speech in Mississippi, " to that time at the end of the war when peace shall nominally be proclaimed— /or peace between us and our hated enemij ivdl be liable to be broken at short intervals for many years to come — cast your eyes forward to that time, and you will see the necessity for contin- ued preparation and unceasing watchfulness." But we may be told that it will be impossible to raise more troops, and that an attempt to enforce a draft will result in resistance on the part of the people. So far as New Jersey is concerned, I have no appre- hensions on that score. If the patriotism of our people had not been chilled by the same causes which produced the recent political revolu- tion, New Jersey would have kept up her credit balance on the muster rolls of the army. She is now far ahead of her sister States, New York and Pennsylvania. And when Joel Parker calls upon the people of New Jersey to furnish her quota of a new requisition, to be raised in compliance with Constitutional requirements of the General Government, and in accordance with the laws of our State, that call will be responded to, and those laws enforced. The North is now a house divided against itself on this vital (piestiou. But this division is not caused by any material change in public senti- ment in reference to the prosecution of the war against the rebels. It is not caused by a desire to give up the contest, and submit to a dis- memberment of our country ; it is not caused from despondency occa- sioned by the failure of our campaigns ; it has been caused by the dissensions and jealousies in the cabinet and in the field ; by the vacilla- ting course of the President; by neglecting to pay our volunteers, leaving their families to starve or exist on the cold charity of the world ; by sending our troops on dangerous voyages in unseaworthy hulks, to be cast away on inhospitable shores ; by withholding news of battles, and sending false reports of pretended victories ; by keeping colonies of troops and civilians in idleness at enormous expense cin the Southern coasts ; and by a general mismanagement in almost every department of the service. The people of New Jersey having given an emphatic verdict against the Administration, the original anti-war Democrats claim the result as a peace triumph and ask an armistice. They do not embrace one tenth of the members of the party, for the great mass are for prosecuting the 8 war until the rebels submit to the authority of the laws, and will stand by the Government in all lawful means to crush the Traitors. Yet these infatuated and disloyal men are among us, appealing to the people to stop the war and let the rebels have full sway. If Jeffersox Davis should enter Washington to-day with an invading army, many of these peace men would hold high carnival to-night and rejoice over the smok- in