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THE 
 
 Three Secession Movements 
 
 IN THE 
 
 UNITED STATES. 
 
 SAMUEL J. TILDEN, 
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY; 
 THE ADVISER, AIDER AJSTD ABETTOR 
 
 OF THE 
 
 GREAT SECESSION MOVEMENT OF I860; 
 
 AND ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF THE 
 
 INFAMOUS RESOLUTION OF 1864. 
 
 HIS CLAIMS AS A STATESMAN AND REFORMER 
 CONSIDERED. 
 
 H\r ^% 
 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON 
 
 1876. 
 
 % 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Secession in the United States 8 
 
 Mr. Tilden's Pamphlet of 1860 3 
 
 The Year 1860 the Great Crisis in our History 3 
 
 The Authors of the War of tlie Rebellion 3 
 
 The Government of the Unit#d States. — Is it a Confederation or a Nation ? 3 
 
 The Resolutions of 1798-99 3 
 
 Report of Mr. Madison on the Resolutions of 1798-99 3 
 
 Acts against which these Resolutions were Directed. — The Alien and Sedition Laws . 4 
 Washington's Opinion of the Character of these Resolutions and Laws. — Letter to Pat- 
 rick Henry 4 
 
 Questions raised by the First Secession Movement 6 
 
 The first Movement allayed. — Election of Mr. Jefferson to the Presidency 6 
 
 Revival of the Secession Movement in South Carolina, under pretext of the Tariff Laws 6 
 
 Ordinance of Nullification and Secession by that State 6 
 
 Counter Proclamation by General Jackson. — He declares that the Promoters of Secession 
 
 will be held in Eternal Infamy 7, 8 
 
 The two Attempts at Secession identical in Spirit and Doctrine 8 
 
 South Carolina persists. — The Force Bill passed and Secession abandoned 8 
 
 Cause and Progress of the third Movement towards Secession 9 
 
 The Two-thirds Rule 9 
 
 The Secession Resolution of 1840 , 10 
 
 Complete Triumph of the Secessionists in the Convention of 1852 10 
 
 Mr. Tilden comes to the Front in 1860 and proclaims the Right of Secession. — His Let- 
 ter to Hon. William Kent 10 
 
 The South secedes, South Carolina leading as in 1832 11 
 
 The South right in seceding, according to Mr. Tilden and the Northern Democracy . . 11 
 
 Franklin Pierce asserts the Right of the South to secede 12 
 
 President Buchanan asserts the Right of the South to secede 12 
 
 J. S. Black, Buchanan's Attorney-General, asserts the Right of the South to secede . . 13 
 
 Fernando Wood asserts the Right of the South to secede 13 
 
 Rodman M. Price asserts the Right of the South to secede 14 
 
 Leaders of the Northern Democracy responsible for Secession 14 
 
 Buchanan, Tilden, and others contrasted with Jackson 14 
 
 Mr. Tilden's infamous Resolution in the Chicago Convention of 1864 15 
 
 Proceedings of the Convention of 1864 in reference to this Resolution . , ' 15 
 
 Endorsement of the Resolution by tlie " New York World " IG 
 
 The War proceeds, and the South coerced into the Union 17 
 
 Mr. Tilden's Arraignment of the licpublican Party on the Slavery Question 17 
 
 Wisdom and Necessity of the Republican Organization 18 
 
 Mr. Tilden declares that it must end in utter Failure and Disgrace 19 
 
 The Success achieved 19 
 
 Utter Failure of all Mr. Tilden's Predictions 19 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's and Mr. Tilden's Statesmanship compared 20 
 
 Mr. Tilden the most obnoxious Person in the Nation to all Principles of Order and Good 
 
 Government 20 
 
 Mr. Tilden, the Political Reformer 21 
 
 Letter of Mr. Greeley to Mr. Tilden. — " Letter to a Politician " 22 
 
 Mr. Tilden the Reformer of Municipal Corruptions 22 - 
 
 Is Tilden the fit Man for President of the United States ? 23 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by 
 
 W. P. Rogers, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
SECESSION IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 ^ 
 
 MR. TILDKn's pamphlet. 
 
 The letter, a facsimile copy of which is an- 
 nexed hereto, was publislied on the eve of the 
 Presidential Election of 18fi0, by Mr. Samuel 
 J. Tilden, at this time candidate for the Presi- 
 dency of the United States, and scattered broad- 
 cast by him, in the vain hope of defeating the 
 election of Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 THE TEAR 1860 THE GREAT CRISIS IN OUR 
 HISTORY. 
 
 The year 1860 was the great crisis in our his- 
 tory. With the election of Mr. Lincoln began 
 the desperate military struggle for the mainten- 
 ance of our national unity. It had for some 
 time been evident that the North was about to 
 pronounce against the creation of new Slave 
 States. The exercise of such a right or power 
 was met on the part of the South by threats of 
 secession ; the election of Mr. Lincoln, whose 
 triumph foreshadowed that of tlie cause of free- 
 dom, to be the signal for their movement. It is 
 unnecessary again to go over tlie ground so often 
 gone over. The South seceded in a body. War 
 followed with infinite waste of blood and treasure, 
 and with all the pangs and heart-rendings that 
 the death, in camp or in field, of half a million of 
 men could cause. 
 
 THE AUTHORS OF THE WAR OF THE REBELLION. 
 
 Who were the authors of tliis war, with all its 
 waste of treasure and of life ; which bereft almost 
 every family in the land of some one of its mem- 
 bers, and which turned the whole nation into a 
 house of mourning'? Those at the North who 
 instructed the Southern States that secession was 
 a right secured to them by the Constitution, and 
 that tliey were the sole judges of the occasion, 
 as well as the mode in which it was to be ac- 
 complished. Among the most conspicuous and 
 criminal of them stands Mr. Tilden, who now 
 asks tlie people to honor him with the higliest 
 office in their gift. 
 
 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES — 
 IS IT A CONFEDERATION OR A NATION ? 
 
 The question always asked, from the adoption 
 of the Constitution in 1788 to the present time, 
 has been, " What is the nature of the govern- 
 ment of the United States 1 Is it a confederation 
 from which each State, as an integral party, 
 may witiidraw at pleasure ; or is it a govern- 
 ment of paramount powers from which no State 
 
 can withdraw but by the consent of the whole f " 
 Although the question had in itself nothing to do 
 with geographical distinctions or boundaries, the 
 South very soon came to give one answer, the 
 North another, and each differing wholly and 
 totally in kind. That of the South was formu- 
 lated on the famous Virginia and Kentucky res- 
 olutions of 1798-99, directed against the Alien 
 and Sedition laws, and of which Mr. Jefferson, 
 though not a member of the Legislature of either 
 State, was the autlior ; and in the Report made 
 by Mr. Madison upon the same to the Legislature 
 of the former State. These Resolutions, among 
 other things, declared : 
 
 THE RESOLUTIONS OF 1798-99. 
 
 " That the several States composing the 
 United States of America are not united on the 
 principle of unlimited submission to their gen- 
 eral government, but that by a compact under 
 the style and title of the Constitution for the 
 United States, and of amendments thereto, 
 they constituted a general government for spe- 
 cial purposes ; delegated to that government 
 certain definite powers ; reserving, each State to 
 itself, the residuary measure of right to their own 
 self-government ; and that, whensoever the gen- 
 eral government assumes undelegated powers, 
 its acts are unautlioritative, void, and of no 
 force ; that to this compact each State acceded as 
 a State, and is an integral party ; that the gov- 
 ernment created by this compact was not made 
 the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the 
 powers delegated to itself, since that would have 
 made its discretion, and not tlie Constitution, the 
 measure of its powers ; but that, as in all other cases 
 of compact among parties having no common judge, 
 each partt/ has an equal right to judge for itself; as 
 well of infractions as of the mode and measure of re- 
 dress, ..." and that a mdlification by those sover- 
 eignties of all unauthorized nets done under the color 
 of that instrument is the rightful remedy." 
 
 The Resolutions adopted by both States were 
 similar in spirit, and, substantially, in form. 
 Those submitted to, and finally passed by, the 
 Legislature of Virginia were referred to a Com- 
 mittee, of which Mr. Madison was Chairman, 
 who submitted an elaborate Report in their 
 support, from which the following extract is 
 given : — 
 
 REPORT OF MR. MADISON ON THE RESOLUTIONS 
 
 OF 1798-99. 
 
 " It appears to your Committee to be a plain 
 principle founded in common sense, illustrated 
 by common practice, and essential to the nature 
 of compacts, that wliere resort can be had to no 
 
tribunal superior to the authority of the parties, 
 tlie i)arties themselves must be the rightful 
 judges, in the last resort, whether the bargain 
 made has been pursued or violated. The Con- 
 stitution of the United States was formed by the 
 sanction of the States given by each in its 
 SOVEREIGN capacity. The States, then, being 
 parties to the constitutional compact, and in 
 their sovereign capacity, it follows of neces- 
 sity that there can be no tribunal above their 
 authority to decide on the last resort whetlier 
 the compact made by them be violated ; and, 
 consequently, tiiat, as parties to it, they must 
 themselves decide in the last resort such ques- 
 tions as may be of sufficient magnitude to re- 
 quire their interposition." 
 
 The preceding extracts sufficiently set forth 
 the language and spirit of those Resolutions and 
 that Report, which have exerted such a tremen- 
 dous and baleful influence over the history and 
 fortunes of the country. They include all that 
 can be said in support of the interpretation of the 
 Constitution by the Southern States, and by tlieir 
 adoption by the Democratic Party, as a funda- 
 mental article of its creed, prepared the way to 
 their ultimate secession from the Union. 
 
 ACTS AGAINST WHICH THESE RESOLUTIONS WERE 
 DIRECTED ALIEN AND SEDITION LAWS. 
 
 And what were the acts against which these 
 Resolutions were directed, and wliich were re- 
 garded as sufficiently grave in their character to 
 warrant the dissolution of the Union ? There were 
 four in all, the first three being termed the "Alien 
 Acts," and the fourth, the " Sedition Act ; " all 
 passed in the summer of 1798. The first act pro- 
 vided for a residence in the country of fourteen 
 years, as a condition of naturalization. The sec- 
 ojid, of wliich the continuance was limited to two 
 years, gave the President authority to order out 
 of the country all such aliens as he miglit judge 
 dangerous to the peace and safety of the United 
 States, or to be concerned in any treasonable or 
 secret machinations. The third provided, that, 
 in case of a declaration of war, or an invasion of 
 the United States, all resident aliens, natives or 
 citizens of the hostile nation, might, upon a 
 proclamation to that effect, to be issued at tlie 
 President's discretion, be apprehended, secured, 
 or removed. The fourth, the Sedition Act, 
 made it a high misdemeanor, punishable by a 
 fine not exceeding $5,000, imprisonment from 
 six months to five years, and binding to good 
 behavior, at the discretion of the court, for any 
 persons unlawfully to combine and conspire to 
 getiier, with intent to oppose any measures of 
 the Government of the United States ; or to in- 
 timidate or to prevent any person holding office 
 under the Government of the United States, 
 from executing his trust; or, with like intent, to 
 
 commit, advise, or attempt to procure, any in- 
 surrection, riot, unlawful assembly or combina- 
 tion : and to punish by a fine not exceeding 
 $2,000, and imprisonment, not exceeding two 
 years, the prmting or publishing of any false, 
 scandalous, and malicious writings against the 
 government of the United States, or either House 
 of Congress, or the President, with intent to de- 
 fame them, or to bring them into contempt or 
 disrepute, or to excite against them tlie iiatred 
 of the good people of the United States ; or to 
 stir up sedition, or witii intent to excite any un- 
 lawful combination for opposing or resisting any 
 law of the United States, or any lawful act of the 
 President; or to excite generally to oppose or 
 resist any such law or act, or to aid, abet, or 
 encourage any hostile design of any foreign na- 
 tion against the United States. In all prosecu- 
 tions, however, under the last act, the truth of 
 the matter stated might be given in evidence as 
 a good defence, tlie jury being made judges both 
 of law and fact. 
 
 All these acts may have been very weak and 
 foolish expedients, but they formed no better 
 ground for the dissolution of the Union than the 
 erection of a new collection district in any one 
 of the Southern States. The utter absurdity of 
 the pretexts put forth well illustrates the feeble- 
 ness of the tie which, in the opinion of those 
 who urged them, held the States together. The 
 reason for the passage of the obnoxious meas- 
 ures was the great number of French and Irish 
 emissaries then in the country, seeking to em- 
 broil it in a war with Great Britain. It would 
 probably have been much better to have borne 
 with tiieir interference and impertinence, no mat- 
 ter how irritating or mischievous. They were, 
 almost without exception, reckless adventurers, 
 at war with all peace, order, and property in any 
 community in which they might happen to be 
 placed, and who would have soon become com- 
 paratively powerless, by the disgust created for 
 them in the minds of all well meaning citizens. 
 
 Washington's opinion of the character of 
 these resoldtions. letter to patrick 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 The publication of Mr. Jeffferson's Resolutions, 
 with the Report of Mr. Madison, created pro- 
 found impression and alarm, and on the part of 
 no one more than Washington. He regarded 
 them as deliberate attempts to destroy the Union 
 which he had labored so earnestly and untiringly 
 to form and maintain, and wliose preservation 
 was always uppermost in his mind. Although 
 he was in the last year of his life, and had sought 
 to retire wholly fi:om the turmoil of political life, 
 
he at onoe returned to it, and directed all his 
 etibrts to arouse tlie country to a sense of its 
 dangers, ami to urge men of character, experi- 
 ence and influence, to come forward to its res- 
 cue. Immediately upon tlieir publication, he 
 addressed a letter to the celebrated Patrick 
 Henry, which, in earnestness of expression, zeal 
 for the public welfare, appreciation of the dan- 
 gers whicli tiireatened, and for the practical 
 wisdom displayed, was never exceeded by any 
 thwig that came from his pen. As it is a docu- 
 ment of the greatest value, not only as illustrat- 
 ing tlie history of the time, but of the whole 
 career of " nullification," and should be in the 
 hands, and uppermost in the minds, of every 
 voter, it is here given in fuU.i 
 
 " Mount Vernon, 15th of Jan'y, 1799. 
 
 "Mr DEAR Sir, — At the threshold of this 
 letter, I ought to make an apology for its con- 
 tents ; but if you will give me credit for ray 
 motives, I will contend for no more, however 
 erroneous my sentiments may appear to you. 
 
 " It would be a waste of time to attempt to 
 bring to the view of a person of your observa- 
 tion and discernment the endeavors of a certain 
 ■partji'^ among us to disquiet tiie public mind with 
 unf<juniled alarms ; to arraign every act of the 
 admmistration ; to set the people at variance 
 with their government, and to embarrass all its 
 measures. Equally useless would it be to pre- 
 dict what must be the inevitable consequences of 
 such a policy, if it cannot be arrested. 
 
 " Unfortunately, and extremely do I regret it, 
 the State of Virginia has taken the lead in this 
 opposition. I have said the State, because the 
 conduct of its Legislature in the eyes of the world 
 will authorize the expression ; and because it is 
 an incontrovertible fact, that the principal leaders 
 of the opposition dwell in it, and that, with the 
 lielp of the chiefs in other Slates, all the plans are 
 arranged and systematically pursued by their fol- 
 lowers in other parts of the Union ; though in 
 no State except Kentuck}', that I have heard of, 
 has legislative countenance been obtained be- 
 yond Virginia. •* 
 
 " It has been said that the great mass of the 
 
 1 See Sparks' Life and Writings of Wasliington, 
 Vol. XI. 1.. 3S7. 
 
 2 Mr. Jeti'erson. 
 
 3 Tbe States of Delaware, Rhode Island, Massachu- 
 setts (then including Maine), New York, Connecticut, 
 New Hampshire, and Vermont immediately and ear- 
 nestly protested, in resolutions addressed to Virginia, 
 against the doctrines put forth by th.at State. The 
 Resolution adopted by the State of Delaware may be 
 given, as briefly expi-essing the sentiment of all : — 
 
 " Resotced, By the Senate and House of Representa- 
 tives of the State of Delaware, in General Assembly 
 met. that they consider the Resolutions from the State 
 of Virginia as a very unjustifiable interference with the 
 general government and constituted authorities of 
 the Uniteil States, and of dangerous tendency, and 
 therefore not a fit subject for the further consideration 
 of this Assembly." 
 
 citizens of this State are well affected, notwith- 
 standing, to the general government and to the 
 Union ; and I am willing to believe it, nay, do 
 believe it; but how is this to be reconciled with 
 their suffrages, at the election of Representa- 
 tives, both to Congress and their State Legisla- 
 tures, who are men opposed to the former, and by 
 the tendency of their measures would d<-s!roi/ the 
 latter? Some among us have endeavored to 
 account for this inconsistency, and though con- 
 vinced themselves of its truth, they are unable 
 to convince others who are unacquainted with 
 the internal policy of the State. 
 
 " One of the reasons assigned is, that the most 
 respectable and best qualified among lis will not 
 come forward. Easy and happ}' in their circum- 
 stances at home, and believing themselves secure 
 in their liberties and property, they will not for- 
 sake their occupations and engage in the turmoil 
 of public business, or expose themselves to the 
 calumnies of their opponents whose weapons are 
 detraction. 
 
 " But at such a crisis as this when every thing 
 dear and valuable to us is assailed, when this paray 
 hangs upon the wheels of government as a dead 
 weight, ofjposing every measure that is calcu- 
 lated for defence and self-preservation, abetting 
 the nefarious views of another nation upon our 
 rights ; preferring, as long as they dare contend 
 openly against the spirit and resentment of the 
 people, the interests of France to the welfare of 
 their own country, justifying the former at the 
 expense of the latter; when every act of their 
 own government is tortured by constructions 
 they will not bear, into attempts to infringe and 
 trample upon the Constitution with a view to 
 introduce monarchy; when the most unceasing- 
 and the purest exertions which were making to 
 maintain a neutrality proclaimed by the execu- 
 tive, approved unequivocally by Congress, by the 
 State Legislatures, nay, by the people themselves 
 in various meetings, and to preserve the country 
 in peace, are charged with being measures cal- 
 culated to favor Great Britain at the expense of 
 France, and all those who had any agency in it 
 are accused of being under the influence of 
 the former, and her pensioners ; ivhen measures are 
 stjstemalicaili/ and pertinaciottsli/ pursued whinh must 
 eventually dissolve the Union or produce 
 COERCION ; I say, when these things have become 
 so obvious, ought characters who are best able to 
 rescue the country from the pending evil to re- 
 main at home ^ Katlier, ought they not to come 
 forward, and by their talents and influence, stand 
 in the breach which such conduct has made on 
 the peace and liap|)incss of this country, and 
 oppose the widening of it? 
 
 " Vain will it be to look for peace and hap- 
 piness, or for the security of liberty or prop- 
 erty, if civil discord should ensue. And what else 
 can result from the policy of those among us who, by 
 all the measures in their power, are driving matters 
 to extremity, if they cannot be counteracted effect- 
 ually? The views of men can only be known, 
 or guessed at, by their .words or actions. 
 Can those of the leaders qf this opposition be 
 mistaken, then, if judged by this rule? Tiiat 
 they are followed by numbers who are xinac- 
 
qnainted with their rlcsigns, and suspect as little 
 the tendency of tlieir principles, I am fully per- 
 suadeil. But if their conduct is viewed ivith indif- 
 ference ; if there are activitij and misrepresentation on 
 one side, and SHpine7iess on (he other, their numbers 
 accnnitdated hi/ intriipiinfj and discontented foreicjners 
 under proscription, icho are at war with their own 
 governments, and the greater part of them ivith all 
 governments, they tvill increase, and nothing short of 
 ihiiiscience can foretell the consequences. 
 
 " I come, now, my good sir, to the object of 
 my letter, which is to express a hope and an 
 earnest wish that you should come forward at 
 tlie ensuinir elections, (if not for Congress, which 
 3'ou may think would talce }"ou too long from 
 home), as a candichite for Representative in the 
 General Assembly of this Commonwealth. 
 
 " There are, I have no doubt, ver^' many sensible 
 men who oppose themselves to the torrent thatcar- 
 ries away others wiio liad rather swim witli tlian 
 stem it without an able pilot to conchict them ; 
 but tiiese are neither old in legislation nor well 
 known in the community. Your weight of cliar- 
 acter and influence in the House of Representa- 
 tives would be a bulwark against such dangerous 
 sentiments as are delivered there at present. It 
 would be a rallying-point for the timid, and an 
 attraction to the M'avering. In a word, I con- 
 ceive it to be of the utmost importance at this 
 crisis that you should be there ; and I would fain 
 hope that all minor considerations will be made 
 to yield to the measure. 
 
 " If I have erroneously supposed that your 
 sentiments on these subjects are in unison with 
 mine; or if I have assumed a liberty which the 
 occasion does not warrant, I must conclude as I 
 ■ began, with praying that my motives may be re- 
 ceived as an apology. At 1/ fear that the tranquillilg 
 of the Union, and of this Slate in particular, is has- 
 tening lo an awful crisis, has extorted them from me. 
 (Signed) Geo. Washington." 
 
 QUESTIONS RAISED BY THE FIRST SECESSION 
 MOVEMENT. 
 
 The Resolutions of 1798 and 1709, and the Re- 
 port referred to, on one side, and the letter of 
 Generwl Wasliington, on the other, presented the 
 first issue tluit was formally made after the adop- 
 tion of the Constitution, as to the nature of the 
 government of tlie United States ; the former 
 denying that it constituted a nation, and declar- 
 ing that States might, at will, nullify any Act of 
 Congress, and secede : the latter taking ground 
 precisely tlie opposite, — that we were a nation, 
 and that all refractory subjects. States as well as 
 individuals, could be coerced into obedience to 
 it. The issue joined was perfectly simple and 
 intelligible, and went to the very root of tlie mat- 
 ter. It transcended all reasoning or argument. 
 If we were not a nation, only a confederation, 
 then no obedience to it could be enforced. If we 
 were a nation, then disobedience to it became a 
 crime which might be punished by taking the 
 property or life of the offender. 
 
 THE FIRST MOVEMENT ALI.ATED. — ELECTION OF 
 MR. JEFFERSON TO THE PRESIDENCY. 4 
 
 The movement in 1798-99 for a dissolution of 
 the Union, which created such wide-spread alarm, 
 ended with the e.xpiration, or repeal, of the ob- 
 noxious acts, and by the election of INIr. Jeffers6n 
 to the Presidency in 1800, which, to use his own 
 words, " was as real a revolution in the principles 
 of our Government as that of 1776 was in its 
 form." 
 
 REVIVAL OF THE SECESSION MOVEMENT BT 
 SOUTH CAROLINA, UNDER PRETEXT OF THE 
 TARIFF LAWS. 
 
 Secession slumbered till 1832, when South 
 Carolina made her first famous attempt to dis- 
 solve the Union, the alleged cause being the 
 Tariff. In November of that year, she issued an 
 Ordinance which, after reciting the grievances 
 that led to its adoption, declared, among other 
 things, — 
 
 ORDINANCE OF NULLIFICATION AND SECESSION 
 BY THAT 6TAT.E. 
 
 " Tliat the several Acts of the Congress of the 
 United States, purporting to be laws for the im- 
 posing of duties and imposts on the importation 
 of foreign commodities, and now liaving actual 
 operation and effect within tiie United States ; 
 and more especially 'an Act in alteration of the 
 several Acts imposing duties on imports approved 
 lOtli Ma.y, 1828;' also, an Act to amend the sev- 
 eral acts imposing duties on imposts, passeil 14th 
 July, 1832,' — are unauthorized by the Con- 
 stitution of the United States, and violate the 
 true intent and meaning thereof; and are null, 
 void, and no law binding upon this State, its 
 officers or citizens ; and all promises, contracts, 
 and obligations made or entered into, or to be 
 made or entered into, with the purpose to secure 
 tlie duties imposed by said Acts; and all judicial 
 proceedings which shall hereafter be had in 
 affirmance thereof, — are and shall be held utterly 
 null and void. 
 
 "And we, the people of South Carolina, to the 
 end that it may be fully understood by the Gov- 
 ernment of the United States, and the jieople of 
 the CO States, that we are determined to maintain 
 this our orilinanco and declaraticm, at every 
 hazard, do further declare that we will not sub- 
 mit to the application of ,/brcp on the part of the 
 Federal Government to reduce this State to 
 obedience; but will consider the jiassage by Con- 
 gress of any Act authorizing the employment of 
 a military or naval force against the State of 
 South Carolina, her constitutional authorities or 
 citizens ; or any Act abolishing or closing the 
 ports of the States, or any of them, or otherwise 
 obstructing the free ingress or egress of vessels to 
 and from the said ports ; or any other Act on the 
 part of the Federal Government to coerce the 
 State, shut up her ports, destroy or harass her 
 commerce, or to enforce the Acts hereby declared, 
 to be null and void, otherwise than through the 
 
civil tribunals of tlio country, as inconsistent with 
 the longer rontinuMMce nt Soutli Carolina in tiie 
 I'liiiin ; anil that tiie people of this State will 
 thenceforth hold themselves ahsolved from all 
 fun her ohiigation to maintain or preserve their 
 political connection with the people of the other 
 States, and will forthwith proceed to organize a 
 sei)arate government, and do all other acts and 
 things which sovereign and independent States 
 niaj of right do." 
 
 Such was a part of the famous Ordinance of 
 Nullification of South Carolina in 1832. It was 
 instantlj' met by a proclamation against it by Gen- 
 eral Jackson, as President of the United States, in 
 which, among other things, he said : — 
 
 COITNTER PROCLAMATION BY GENERAL JACKSON. 
 
 " This right to secede is deduced from the 
 nature of the Constitution, which, they say, is a 
 compact between sorercij/n States, who have pre- 
 served their whole sovereicjnli/, and, therefore, are 
 sul)ject to no superior ; that, because tliey made 
 the compact, tiiey can break it when, in their 
 opinion, it has l!)een defiarted from by the other 
 Slates. Fallacious as this course of reasoning is, 
 it enlists State pride, and finds advocates in the 
 honest prejudices of those who have not studied 
 the nature of our Government sufficiently to see 
 the radical error on which it rests." 
 
 "The [)eople of the United States formed the 
 Constitution, acting through the State Legislat- 
 ures in making the compact, to meet and discuss 
 its provisions, and acting in separate Conven- 
 tions when they ratified those provisions ; but 
 the terms used in its construction show it to be a 
 government in which the people of all the States 
 col led ire!// are represented. We are one j)eople 
 in the choice of the ['resident and Vice-President. 
 Here the Slates have no other agency than to 
 direct the mode in which the votes sliall be given. 
 Candidates having the majority of all the votes 
 are chosen. The electors of a majority of States 
 may have given their votes for one candidate, 
 and yet another may be chosen. The pco/i/e, 
 then, and not the States, are represented in the 
 executive branch." . . . 
 
 " The Constitution of the United States, then, 
 forms a government, nnt a lear/ne; and wliether 
 it be formed by compact between the States, or 
 in any other manner, its character is the same. 
 It is a government in which all the people are 
 represented, which operates directly on the peo- 
 ple individually, not upon the States, — they re- 
 tained all the power they did not grant. But 
 that each Slate, having expressly parted with so 
 many powers as to constitute, jointly with the 
 other States, a single nation cannot, from tliat 
 period, possess any right to secede, because such 
 secession does not break a league, but destroys 
 the unity of a nation; and any injur}' to that 
 unity is not only a breach which would result 
 from the contravention of a compact, but it is an 
 offence against the iv/io/e Union. To say that 
 any State may at pleasure secede from the 
 Union, is to say that the United States are not a 
 nation, because it would be a solecism to contend 
 that any part of a nation might dissolve its con- 
 
 nection with the other parts, to their injury or 
 ruin, without committing any oifencc. Secession, 
 like any other revolutionary act, ma}' be morally 
 justified by the extremity of oppression ; but to 
 call it a constitutional right is confounding the 
 meaning of terms; and can be only done through 
 gross error, or to deceive those who are willing 
 to assert a right, but would pause before tiiey 
 made a revolution, or incur the penalties conse- 
 quent on a failure. 
 
 " The dictates of a high duty oblige me solemn- 
 ly to announce that you cannot succeed. The 
 litn-s of the United Stales must be executed. I hare no 
 discrelionnrij powers upon the siibject ; my ditti/ is 
 emjiliaticidli) pronounced in the Constitution. Those 
 who told you that you might peaceably prevent 
 their execution deceived you; they could not 
 have deceived themselves. Their object is 
 DISCNION. Be not deceived by names. Disunion 
 bjj armed force is treason ! Are you ready to in- 
 cur its guilt "? If you are, on the heads of the 
 instigators of the act be the dreadful consequences 
 — on their heads be the dishonor, but on yours 
 may fall the punishment. The chief magistrate 
 of the nation cannot, if he would, avoid the per- 
 formance of his duty. 
 
 " Look back to what was first told you as an 
 inducement to enter into this dangerous course. 
 The great political truth was repeated to you, 
 that you had the revolutionary right of resisting 
 all laws that were palpably unconstitutional and 
 intolerably oppressive ; it was added that the 
 right to nullity a law rested on the same princi- 
 ple, but that it was a peaceable remedy ! This 
 character which was given to it made you re- 
 ceive with too much confidence the assertions 
 that were made of the unconstitutionality of the 
 law and its o[)pressive effects. Mark, my fellow- 
 citizens, that, by the admission of your leaders, 
 the unconstitutionality must be palpable, or it will 
 not justify either resistance or nullification ! 
 What is the meaning of the word " palpable," in 
 the sense in which it is here used ? That which 
 is apparent to every one; that which no man of 
 ordinarj- intellect will tail to perceive. Is the 
 unconstitutionality of these laws of that descrip- 
 tion ? Let those among your leaders who once 
 approved and advocated the principle of protec- 
 tive duties, answer the question ; and let them 
 choose whether they will be considered as inca- 
 pable, then, of [lerceiving that which must liave 
 been apparent to every man of common under- 
 standing, or as imposing upon your confidence, 
 and endeavoring to mislead you now. In either 
 case, they are unsafe guides in the perilous path 
 they urge you to tread. Ponder well on this cir- 
 cumstance, and you will know how to appreciate 
 the exaggerated language thej' address to yoa 
 The}' are not champions of liberty, emulating the 
 fame of our revolutionary fathers ; nor are you 
 an oppressed people, contending, as they repeat 
 to you, against worse than colonial vassal- 
 age." . . . 
 
 " I adjure you, as you honor their memory ; as 
 you love the cause of freedom, to which they dedi- 
 cated their lives ; as you prize the peace of your 
 country, the lives of its best citizens, and your 
 own fair fame, — to retrace your steps. Snatch 
 
from the archives of your State the disorganizing 
 edict of its Convention; bid its members to reas- 
 semlile, and promulgate the decided expressions 
 of your will to remain in the path wiiicli alone 
 ctn conduct you to safety, prosperity, and honor. 
 Tell tliem, that, compared to disunion, all other 
 evils are Hgiit, because that brings with it an 
 accniiiuldtiiiii <if all. Declare that yon will never 
 take the fidd unless the star-spanr/led banner of 
 yonr coiinlnj shall Jlaat oner i/on ; that you will 
 not be stigmatized when dead, and dishonored 
 and scorned luhile yon lice, as the authors of the 
 first attack on tlie Constitution of your countr3^ 
 Its deshoi/ers yon cannot be. You may disturb 
 its peace ; you may interrupt the course of its 
 ])rosperity ; you may cloud its reputation for sta- 
 bility ; but its tranquillity will be restored, its 
 prosperity will return, and the stain upon its 
 national character will be transferred, «/)(/ rpHia/n 
 an eternal blot on the memory of t/iose who caused the 
 disorder. 
 
 '• Fellow-citizens of the United States, the 
 threat of unhallowed disunion, the names of those, 
 once respected, by whom it is uttered, the array 
 of military force to support it, denote the ap- 
 proach of a crisis in our affairs, on wliicli the con- 
 tinuance of our unexampled prosperity, our 
 political existence, and, perhaps, that of all free 
 govermnents, may depend. The conjuncture de- 
 manded a full, free, and explicit enunciation, not 
 only of my intentions, but of my principles of 
 action ; and, as the claim was asserted of a right 
 by a State to annul the laws of the Union, and 
 even to secede from it at pleasure, a frank ex- 
 position of my opinions in relation to the origin 
 and form of our government, and the construc- 
 tion I give to the instrument by which it was 
 created, seem to be proper. Having the fullest 
 confidence in the justness of the le^al and consti- 
 tutional opinion of my duties which has been 
 ex[)ressed, I rely, with equal confidence, on your 
 undivided support in my determination to exe- 
 cute the laws ; to preserve the Union by all con- 
 stitutional means ; to assert, if possible, b^' 
 moderate but firm measures, the necessity of a 
 recourse to force ; and if it be the will of Heaven 
 that the recurrence of its primeval curse on man 
 for the shedding of a brother's blood should fall 
 upon our land, that it be not called down by any 
 offensive act on the part of the United States." 
 
 THE8E ATTEMPTS AT SECESSION, IDENTICAL IN 
 SPIRIT AND DOCTRINES. 
 
 It will be seen that this second attempt at seces- 
 sion took precisely the same ground, and repeated, 
 on both sides, the language of the first. On one 
 siile It was claimed that the States did not con- 
 stitute a nation ; were independent sovereignties, 
 and could not be coerced ; on the other, that the 
 people of the States did constitute a nation ; that 
 so far the sovereignty of the States was lost or 
 merged in it, and that it could not be attacked 
 or dissolved by any party or parties to it; and 
 that such an attack was treason, and carried 
 with it all the penalties attached to that great 
 crime. 
 
 SOUTH CAROLINA PERSISTS. THE FORCE BILL 
 
 PASSED, AND SECESSION ABANDONED. 
 
 The State reiterating its intention to dissolve 
 the Union, in the event of the enforcement of 
 the obnoxious laws. Congress speedily passed 
 what was termed the Force Bill, and General 
 Jackson, with that promptitude which character- 
 ized all his actions, particularly in military 
 affairs, filled the forts and military posts of the 
 State with troops and munitions, anchored a 
 naval force off Charleston, and stood ready on 
 the first act of resistance to the laws to " cry 
 havoc, and let slip the dogs of war." It was 
 well known that he made no secret of his in- 
 tention to arrest Mr. Calhoun and all others 
 implicated on the charge of high treason the 
 moment any overt act was committed. He 
 swore, as was his wont, "by the Eternal," that 
 he would hang the first man who raised his im- 
 pious hand against the Union ; " would shoot the 
 first man who pulled down the American flag." 
 He made no secret in after years of declaring that 
 he ought to have hung Mr. Calhoun. ^ He was 
 right. The seasonable example made of one man 
 might have saved half a million of lives. The 
 immunity accorded to Calhoun discharged every 
 one who chose, from all sense of duty to his 
 country and to his fellows, from all respect for 
 law, and is the cause of no small part of the evils 
 under which the nation is now laboring, and the 
 demoralization witnessed on every side. 
 
 While no man was more loyal, no man ever 
 penetrated the designs of the secessionists more 
 clearly and thoroughly than General Jackson. 
 Although he put down the rebellion with a 
 high hand, he plainly saw that he had only 
 " scotched " the snake of secession, not killed 
 it. He knew that the Tariff" was a mere pretext, 
 and that slavery would be the next one as soon 
 as the way could be prepared.^ He even lived 
 
 1 "The oltl Jackson men of the inner set still speak of 
 Mr. Calhoun in terms that show that they consider him 
 at once the most wicked and the most despicable of 
 American statesmen. He was a coward, conspirator, 
 hypocrite, traitor, anil fool, say tliey. He strove, 
 schemed, dreamed, and lived only for the Presidency; 
 and when he despaired of reaching that office by honor- 
 able means, he sought to rise upon the ruins of his coun- 
 try, —thinking it better to reign in South Carolina than 
 to serve in the Uinted States. General Jackson lived 
 and died in this opinion. In his last sickness he declared 
 that, on reflecting upon his administration, he chiefly 
 regretted that he had not had John C. Calhoun ex- 
 ecuted for treason. ' My country,' said the General, 
 ' would have sustained me in the act, and his fate 
 woulil have been a warning to traitors for all time to 
 come.' " — Parton's Life of Jackson, vol. iii. p. 447. 
 
 2 " My dear Sir, — . . . I have had a laborious task 
 here ; but nullification is dead, and its actors and 
 coui-tiers will only be remembered by the people to be 
 
9 
 
 to witness the beginning, under the administra- 
 tion of Mr. I'olk, of the movement which was 
 to end in an attempt to brealc up the Union 
 by force, and to find himself deserted and de- 
 ceived by tlie very man in whom lie had so 
 confided, and who, upon his election to the pres- 
 idency, turned his back upon his old patron, and 
 allied himself to that section of the party whose 
 disunion scheme Jackson had so earnestly and 
 persistently combatted. Under Pierce the tri- 
 umph of the secessionists became complete, and 
 their exactions, particularly in reference to the 
 extension of slavery, so intolerable, that all the 
 Northern Democracy that had any idea of jus- 
 tice, manliness, or shame left in them, broke 
 from the party, and joining the best part of the 
 old National Whigs, formed a new party, the 
 Kepublican, which hurled the traitors from 
 power, and saved the Nation. 
 
 CAUSE AND PROGRESS OP THE THIRD MOVEMENT 
 TOWARDS SECESSION. 
 
 The occasions which led to the threatened 
 secession of 1798-99 and to that of 1832 were 
 accidental in their character. The laws com- 
 plained of might be injurious or beneficial, 
 depending upon the ideas or fancy of those 
 afTected by them. Their expiration or repeal 
 might remove all cause of complaint. Not so 
 with the question of slavery, wliich was the 
 cause tiiat first carried the doctrine of secession 
 to its overt act. This was really the immi- 
 nent one from the very foundation of the Gov- 
 
 execrated for their wicked designs to rise and destroy 
 the only good government on the globe, and that pros- 
 perity and happiness which we enjoy over every other 
 portion of the world. Hainan's gallows ought to be the 
 fate of all such ambitious men who would involve their 
 country in civil war and all the evils In its train, that 
 they might reign and ride in the whirlwind, and direct 
 the storm. The free people of these United States have 
 spoken, and consigned these wicked demagogues to 
 their proper doom. Take care of your nuUifiers: you 
 have them among you Let them meet the indignant 
 frowns of every man who loves his country. Tlie Tariff, 
 It is now known, was a mere pretext: Us burden was on 
 your coarse woollens. By the law of July, 1832, coarse 
 woollen was reduceil to five per cent for the benefit of 
 the South Mr. Clay's bill takes it up and classes it with 
 woollens at fifty per cent, reduces it gradually down to 
 twenty-five per cent, and there it remains; and Mr 
 Calhoun and all the nuUifiers agree to the principle. 
 The cash duties and home valuation will be equal to 
 fifteen per cent more; and, after the year 1842, you pay 
 on coarse woollens thirty-five per cent. If this is not 
 protection, I cannot understand; and, therefore, the 
 Tariff was only the pretext, and disnnl(m and a South- 
 ern Confederacy the real object. Tlie next pretext wilt 
 be the negro or slavery questum, 
 
 (Signed) Andrew Jackson. 
 
 [Ree letter to A. J. Howard, dated May 1, 1833, 
 McPherson's Hist. KebelUon, p. 389.] 
 
 ernment. It was the greatest obstacle to the 
 formation of the Constitution. At that time, 
 through its influence, two nations were upon 
 our soil, separated by a sharp and well-defined 
 line. The two were very nearly equal in num- 
 bers, and not very unequal in territory and 
 natural resources. Totally dissimilar in ideas 
 and institutions, they naturally viewed each 
 other with jealousy; or rather the South the 
 North, as the latter had nothing to fear from 
 the former, while the former had a great deal to 
 fear from the latter. Institutions and society at 
 the South rested on force, — not on right. Should 
 these become dislocated from any cause, no 
 matter how accidental, they miglit never be 
 restored. Those of the North, resting on nat- 
 ural laws, could never be imperilled by mere 
 outward pressure. The North therefore freely 
 committed itself to the influence and gui<lance 
 of ideas, no matter the direction in which they 
 might lead, confident tliey could only lead to 
 good ; and eagerly welcomed, and made the 
 most of every suggestion, improvement, and 
 invention, which promised to increase its wealth, 
 its comforts, and its power. It allied itself 
 with natural laws, — with steam and electricity, 
 — and by such alliance acquired more than 
 human strength. The South blindfolded labor, 
 cut itself off from the spirit of progress, and 
 deprived itself of the use of all those contriv- 
 ances and inventions which, within the mem- 
 ory of man, have changed the whole face of 
 society ; and as a necessary consequence it soon 
 fell far behind the North, so far as numbers 
 were concerned, in the race for supremacy. 
 It viewed with constantly increasing dread 
 that mighty power which loomed up so majes- 
 tically in the distance, and wiiich might, some 
 day, be directed against that institution upon 
 which rested all its material interests. Con- 
 scious of its impotence to compete in numbers 
 and wealth, its whole energy and skill were 
 directed to compensate for their want by politi- 
 cal finesse, and by the control of the govern- 
 ment, so as to use it as the instrument for its 
 own protection. It allied itself with the great 
 Democratic party, which was dominant in most 
 of the Northern States, and which, almost cer- 
 tain of remaining in power through the aid of its 
 Southern allies, was content, for the privilege of 
 the spoils, to concede any interpretation wliich 
 the South might put upon the Constitution, and 
 the direction and control of the party machinery. 
 
 THE TWO-THIRDS VOTE. 
 
 With such concessions, the Southern people 
 proceeded slowly but surely in their plans of 
 
10 
 
 cornmitting the Democratic party, and through 
 it the country, to tlie Resolutions of 1798-99. 
 In the Convention of 1835, wliich nominated 
 Mr. Van Buren for the Presidency, it secured 
 an immense advantage l)y the adoption of a rule 
 which required a two-thirds vote for the nomina- 
 tion of a candidate for the Presidency. By this 
 rule, the whole form and spirit of our politi- 
 cal institutions were changed. An oligarchy 
 was substituted for the rule of the majority. 
 This rule which has since prevailed in every na- 
 tional Democratic Convention, which has become 
 a cardinal principle with the party, and which 
 always enables a few adroit and unscrupulous 
 managers to control the Conventions, gave to 
 the Southern States the power to prevent the 
 nomination of any person who was not fullj' 
 committed to their interests, and in whom they 
 could not implicitly confide. 
 
 THE SECESSION RESOLUTION OF 1840. 
 
 In the Convention wliich renominated Mr. 
 Van Buren in 1840 another important step was 
 gained by the adoption of a resolution which 
 declared : — 
 
 " That the Federal Government is one of lim- 
 iled powers, derived solely from the Constitution, 
 and the grants of power shown tlierein ouglit to 
 be strictly construed by all the departments and 
 agents of the Government; and that it is inexpe- 
 dient and dangerous to exercise doubtful consti- 
 tutional powers." 
 
 COMPLETE TRIUMPH OF THE SOUTH IN 1852. 
 
 This resolution was repeated at the Conven- 
 tions of 1844 and 1848. At the Convention of 
 1852, the South accomplished its grand purpose 
 by committing the whole Democratic Party to 
 the doctrines, in all their length and breadth, of 
 the right of secession by the adoption of a resolu- 
 tion which declared, — 
 
 " That the Demor.rntic Party will faithfully abide 
 hy and uphold the principles laid down in the Ken- 
 tucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and 1799, 
 and in the Report of Mr. Madison to the Virginia 
 Legislature in 1799 ; that it adopts those principles 
 as constituting one of the main foundations of its 
 political creed ; and is resolved to carry them out in 
 thtir obvious meaning and import." 
 
 By the adoption of tlie two-thirds rule, and the 
 resolution last recited, the South secured to itself 
 a position in which it could with safety remain in 
 the Union, so long as the Democratic Party could 
 elect a President, always to be designated by it- 
 self; or could leave it so soon as it could no longer 
 control its policy and action. 
 
 The election of Mr. Pierce by an almost unani- 
 mous vote in the Electoral College, only four 
 States voting against him, and by an overwhelm- 
 ing majority of the popular vote, was of itself 
 
 received as full evidence of the entire acceptance 
 by the North of the doctrine of the right of peace- 
 able secession. It was reiterated and indorsed in 
 all the States and in all the local ratifying Conven- 
 ntions ; in all those held for tlie nomination of State 
 ofHcers and Members of Congress ; so tliat there 
 was hardly a Democrat in the whole United States 
 who did not, in tlie course of the canvass, give 
 repeated and emphatic " Ayes " to the secession 
 doctrine. Well might Mr. Calhoun, had he lived 
 till then, have exclaimed, " Now let tliy servant 
 depart in jieace ! " for the defeat of the National 
 Whig Party, in 1852, was a virtual annihilation 
 of all etfective opposition to the complete ascend- 
 ancy of the Democratic Party, wliich ruled su- 
 preme till the organization of a new party, — the 
 Republican, — upon the basis of Freedom, and 
 its final triumph by the election of Mr. Lincoln, 
 in 1860. 
 
 MR. TILDEN COMES TO THE FRONT, AND PRO- 
 CLAIMS THE RIGHT OF SECESSION. HIS LET- 
 TER TO HON. WILLIAM KENT. 
 
 As the secession resolution of 1852 was repeated 
 in 1856, and by both wings of the Democratic 
 Party in 1860, — that which nominated Mr. 
 Douglas at Baltimore, and that which nominated 
 Mr. Breckenridge at Richmond, — the South, as 
 far as the Democratic Party was concerned, was 
 left, upon the election of Mr. Lincoln, free to 
 choose whether it would remain in the Union, or 
 peaceably secede from it. It was at this crisis that 
 Mr. Tilden tirst became conspicuous in political 
 affairs. His zeal and activity knew no bounds. 
 His eloquence flamed, in the canvass, from every 
 rostrum and stump. He asserted that the South 
 had as much at stake in slavery as the North had 
 in freedom; that it had as much right to pollute 
 the Territories with its institutions as the North 
 had to adorn it with its own ; and that, unless 
 the South was gratified in all its demands, it 
 might and ought to retire from the Union; that 
 there was no tie to hold it, no power to coerce it. 
 His views were fully and carefully elaborated in 
 the letter to the Hon. William Kent, already re- 
 ferred to. In that letter he says : — 
 
 " Each section is organized into States with 
 complete governments, holding the power and 
 wielding the sicord. They are held togetlier 
 onli) by a compact of confederation. . . . The 
 single, slender, conventional tie which holds the 
 States in confederation has no strength compared 
 with the compacted intertwining fibres which 
 bind the atoms of human society into one forma- 
 tion of natural growth. . . . The masters in 
 political science who constructed our system pre- 
 served the State Governments as bulwarks of the 
 freedom of individuals and localities against op- 
 pression from centralized power. They recog- 
 
11 
 
 n'zcd no rijjlit of constitutional secession ; but 
 
 TIIKY LKFT K K VOLUTION OHGAN'IZKD WHKNKVEU 
 IT SHOULD HI': DKMANDUD HV TIIH PUHLIC OI'IN- 
 lON OK A StATK, — LEFT IT, WUFH THK POWER 
 TO SXAP THE TIE OF CONFEDERATION AS A 
 NATION MIGHT BREAK A TREATY, AND TO REPEL 
 COEKCION AS A NATION MIGHT REPEL INVASION. 
 
 IMiey causeil us to depend in great measure upon 
 tlie public opinion of the States, in order to main- 
 tain a confederated union." 
 
 Again (page 7) : — ■ 
 
 " As a rule of right and duty, for the construction 
 and execution of tlic Constitution, tlie theory 
 maintained l)y Mr. Seward, and too e.xclusivcly 
 accepted (tiiat the Government could exclude 
 slavery from the Territories), is entirely falla- 
 cious. No contract governing complicated trans- 
 actions or relations between men, and applying 
 permanently tluough the changes inevitable in 
 hum.tn affairs, can be effectual if either party in- 
 tended to be bound by it is at liberty to construe 
 or execute its i)rovisions in a spirit of hostility to 
 tiie substantial objects of those provisions, — 
 expeciallij is l/iis true of a compact of confederation 
 hetiveen the Slatex, where ifiere can be no common 
 arbiter invested with nnthorities and powers equally 
 capable with thnxe which courts possr'ss between indi- 
 viduals for determining and enforcing a juat con- 
 struction and execution of the instrument." 
 
 It will- be observed that the latter part of the 
 quotation reiterates almost in terms the language 
 used by Mr. Madison in his report as to the 
 want of a common arbiter between the States ; 
 and that each State, consequently, must be the 
 sole judge of the emergency in which it may be 
 called upon to act. The first part is even more em- 
 phatic than the secession Resolutions themselves 
 in declaring, that, upon its mere motion, "a 
 State may snap the tie of confederation as 
 a nation might break a treaty, and repel 
 coercion as a nation might eepel inva- 
 SION." 
 
 THE SOaTH SECEDES, SOUTH CAROLINA LEAD- 
 ING AS IN 1832. 
 
 These words of encouragement and instruction 
 for tlie Southern States had hardly fallen from 
 Mr. Tilden's lips, than they proceeded to put 
 them in practice. At that time Jackson no 
 longer stood with flaming sword to bar the way. 
 On the sixth day of November, 1860, before the 
 election of Mr. Lincoln, tiie Legislature of the 
 State of South Carolina assembled, and received 
 a message from the Governor, in which he ex- 
 pressed his opinion that the only alternative left 
 to it was secession from the Federal Union. On 
 the 7th of November, the Postmaster, Collector, 
 and other Federal officers in Charleston resigned 
 their respective positions. On the 10th of Novem- 
 ber, the Senators from that State, in Congress, 
 resigned. On the 13th of November, the collec- 
 
 tion of debts due to citizens of non-slaveholding 
 States was prohibited. On the same day, Francis 
 \V. Pickens was elected Governor, and appointed, 
 as a Cabinet, A. G. McGrath, Secretary of State ; 
 David F. Jamison, Secretary of War ; C. G. 
 Menuninger, Secretary of the Treasury ; William 
 W. Ilarllee, Postmaster General ; and Albert C. 
 Garlington, Secretary of the Interior. On the 
 17th of the same month, the ordinance of seces- 
 sion was unanimously adopted by a convention 
 of delegates called for that purpose. On the 21st 
 of November, commissioners were appointed to 
 proceed to Washington to treat for the delivery to 
 tlie State of the property of the United States with- 
 in its limits. On the 21th of November, the Rep- 
 resentatives of tiie State in Congress resigned tlieir 
 seats. And, on the 20th of December, 1850, tiie 
 Governor of the State announced the repeal, by 
 the people of South Carolina, of tiie ordinance 
 (of the adoption of the Constitution) of May 23, 
 1788, and the dissolution of the Union between 
 the State of South Carolina and other States, 
 under the name of the United States of America ; 
 and proclaimed to the world that " the State of 
 South Carolina is, as she has a right to be, a 
 separate, sovereign, free, and independent State; 
 and, as sucii, has the right to levy war, to con- 
 clude peace, to negotiate treaties, leagues, or 
 covenants, and to do all acts whatsoever right- 
 fully appertaining to a free and independent 
 State-" 
 
 The history of one seceding State will do for 
 all. All the Southern States, as speedily as pos- 
 sible, followed the example of Soutii Carolina, 
 adopting her language and acts as precedents 
 for theirs ; so that, before Mr. Lincoln came to 
 the Presidential Chair, nearly all of the Southern 
 States had asserted, and apparently effected, the 
 right of secession which Mr. Tilden proclaimed 
 for them on every stump, and which he did all 
 that lay in his power to forward. 
 
 the SOUTH RIGHT IN SECEDING, ACCORDING 
 TO MR. TILDEN AND THE NORTHERN DEMOC- 
 RACY. 
 
 In looking back to this time, was not the con- 
 duct of the Southern States, from all the lights 
 they could gather, perfectly justifiable and' 
 proper? A great party, existing from the foun- 
 dation of the Government and embracing a large 
 majority of the population of the Free States, 
 had in almost every possible form declared their 
 rights to be what by the act of secession they 
 assumed them to be. It was not to be expected 
 tiiat they should recognize anj'duty of allegiance 
 to the Republican Party, in case the latter came 
 into power. It would be, in their view, the 
 
12 
 
 devotion to destruction of their dearest interests. 
 The Republican Party proclaimed the incom- 
 patibility of Slavery with a free government ; 
 that the nation must, in time, become " all free 
 or all slave." Tlie South appreciated this great 
 truth as well as the North. Such assumption 
 rested not upon opinion, but upon natural law. 
 They were content to remain in the Union so 
 long as it could be made to protect slavery, and 
 not a moment longer. They could judge of the 
 sentiment of the North — of the Democratic 
 party — only througli its leaders, — througli its 
 exponents, among whom Mr. Tilden took a fore- 
 most rank. These leaders were unanimous as 
 to the right of the Southern States to secede ; 
 and the multitude spoke only through them. 
 
 FRANKLIN PIERCE ASSERTS THE RIGHT OF THE 
 SOUTH TO SECEDE. 
 
 Mr. Pierce, President of the United States 
 from 18G2 to 1856, wrote to his old friend, Jeffer- 
 son Davis, bis former Secretary of War, and the 
 future President of the slave republic, under 
 the date of Jan. G, 18(50, nearly a year before 
 the election of Mr. Lincoln, in the following 
 strain : ^ — 
 
 " I have just had a pleasant interview with 
 
 Mr. , whose courage and fidelity are equal 
 
 to his learning and talents. He says he woidd 
 rather fight tlie battle under you as a standard- 
 bearer in 1860, tlian under the auspices of any 
 other leailer. The feeling and judgment of Mr. 
 
 is, I am confident, rapidly gaining ground. 
 
 Our people are looking for the 'Coming Man,' 
 one who is raised by all tlie elements of his char- 
 acter above the atmospliere ordinarily breathed 
 by politicians ; a man really formed for this 
 exigency, by his ability, courage, broad states- 
 manship, and patriotism. Colonel Thomas 
 H. Seymour arrived here this morning, and 
 expressed his views in this relation in almost 
 
 tiie identical language used by Mr. . . . . 
 
 I do not believe tliat our friends at the South 
 have any just idea of the state of feeling, hurry- 
 ing at this moment to the pitch of intense 
 exasperation, between those who respect their 
 political obligations and tliose who have appar- 
 ently no impelling power but that which the 
 fanatical passion on the subject of slaver}' im- 
 parts. Without discussing tlie question of right, 
 of abstract power to secede, I have never be- 
 lieved that actual disruption of the Union can 
 occur without blood ; and if through the 
 
 MADNESS OF NORTHERN ABOLITIONISM, THAT 
 DIRE CALAMITY MUST COME, THE FIGHTING 
 WILL NOT BE ALONG MaSON AND DiXOn's 
 LINE MERELY. It WILL BE WITHIN OUR OWN 
 BORDERS, IN OUR OWN STREETS, BETWEEN THE 
 TWO CLASSES OF CITIZENS TO WHOM I HAVE 
 REFERRED. ThOSE WHO DEFY LAW, AND SCOUT 
 CONSTITUTIONAL OBLIGATIONS, WILL, IF WE 
 
 1 See McPherson'8 History of the Rebellion, page 391. 
 
 EVER REACH THE ARBITRAMENT OF ARMS, FIND 
 OCCUPATION ENOUGH AT HOME." . . . 
 
 (Signed) " Franklin Pierce." 
 
 " To Hon Jefferson Davis, Wasliington, D. C." 
 
 BUCHANAN ON THE RIGHT OF THE SOUTH TO 
 SECEDE. 
 
 Mr. Buchanan, in his last message to the Con- 
 gress of the United States, delivered on the 4th 
 of December, 18G0, and after the secession of 
 South Carolina, took precisely the ground of 
 Mr. Tilden, that the Federal Government could 
 not coerce a seceding State. — 
 
 " The question fairly stated," said Mr. Bu- 
 chanan, in the message referred to, "is: Has- 
 tlie Constitution delegated to Congress the 
 power to coerce a State into submission which 
 is attempting to withdraw, or has actually 
 withdrawn, from the Confederacy 1 If an- 
 swered in the affirmative, it must be on the 
 principle that the power has been conferred on 
 Congress to declare and to make war against a 
 State. After much serious reflection, I have 
 
 ARRIVED AT THE CONCLUSION TH.\T NO SUCH 
 POWER HAS BEEN DELEGATED TO CONGRESS 
 NOR TO ANY' OTHER DEPARTMENT OF THE FED- 
 ERAL Government. It is manifest, upon an 
 inspection of the Constitution, that this power 
 is not among the specific and enumerated powers 
 granted to Congress ; and it is equally appar- 
 ent that its exercise is not necessary and prop- 
 er for carrying into execution any one of its 
 jjowers. . . . 
 
 "But, if we possessed this power, would it be 
 wise to exercise it under existing circumstances 1 
 The object, doubtless, would be to preserve the 
 Union. War would not on/i/ prespiit the viost effect- 
 ual means of (lestroi/inf! it, but would Jinish all hopes 
 of its peace fid reconstruction . 
 
 " The fact is, that our Union rests upon PUB- 
 LIC OPINION,' and can never be cemented 
 
 1 "With Mr. Tilden, Mr. Buchanan, and the like, 
 influence is govertunent. Let us see what Washington 
 said about influence being Government. 
 
 "The picture whicli you have exhibited, and the 
 accounts wliich are published of the commotions and 
 temper of numerous parties in the Eastern States, pre- 
 sent a state of tilings equally to be lamented and 
 deprecated. They exhibit a melancholy proof of what 
 our transatlantic foe has predicted; and of another 
 thing, perhajis, which is still more to be regrette<l, and 
 is yet more unaccountable, that mankind, when left to 
 themselves, are unlit for their own government. I am 
 mortified beyond expression when I view the clouds 
 that have spread over the brightest morn that ever 
 dawned upon any country. In a word, I am lost in 
 amazement when I behold what intrigue, the interested 
 views of desperate characters, ignorance, and jealousy 
 of the minor part, are capable of effecting, as a scourge 
 on the major part of our fellow-citizens of the Union; 
 for it is hardly to be supposed, that the great body of 
 the people, though they will not act, can be so short- 
 sighted, or enveloped in darkness, as not to see rays of 
 a distant sun through all this mist of intoxication and 
 folly. 
 
 " You talk, my good sir, of employing influence to 
 
13 
 
 by the blood of its citizens, shed in civil war. 
 If it cannot live in the affections of the people, it 
 must one day perish. Congress possesses many 
 means of preserving it by conciliation ; but tlie 
 sword was not placed in their hands to preserve 
 it by force. 
 
 " In this conclusion, I shall merely call atten- 
 tion to the few sentences in Mr. Madison's Justli/ 
 celebrated Report in 1 71^)0, to the Lec/islature of 
 Virginia. In this he ahl ij and conclnsirely defended 
 the Resolutions of the preceding Legislature (of 17!>8) 
 against the strictures of several other State Legislat- 
 ures. These were wainli) founded upon the protest 
 of the Virginia [jegislatnre against the Alien and 
 Sedition Laws, as palpable and alarming itifractions 
 of the Constitution. In pointing out the peaceful 
 and constitutional remedies, and he referred to 
 none other, to which the States were authorized 
 to resort on such occasions, he concludes by 
 saying tiiat the Legislatures of the States 
 might have made direct representation to Con- 
 gress witli .a view to obtain a rcscimling of the 
 two offending acts ; or tliey might have repre- 
 sented to their respective Senators in Congress 
 their wisli that two-tinrds thereof would propose 
 an explanatorj' amendment of the Constitution; 
 or two-thirds of themselves, if such had been 
 their option, might, by an application to Con- 
 gress, have obtained a Convention for the same 
 object." 
 
 It will be observed that Mr. Buchanan had 
 " fully adopted the Resolutions of 1798 and 
 179y, and the Report of Mr. Madison ' to the 
 Virginia Legislature in 1799 ; and that he 
 adopted the principle contained therein as con- 
 stituting one of the main foundations of the 
 
 appease the present turmoils in Massachusetts. I know 
 not wliere that influence is to be found; or, if attain- 
 alile, that it would be a proper remedy for the disorders. 
 Influence is xot Government. Let us have a 
 government by which our lives, liberties, and prop- 
 erties will be secured, or let us know the worst at once. 
 Under these impression.s, ray humble opinion is, that 
 there is a call for decision. Know precisely what the 
 insurgents aim at. If they have real grievances, re- 
 dress them if possible; or acknowledge the justice of 
 them, and your inability to do it at the moment. If 
 they have not, employ the force of government against 
 them at once. If this is inailequate, all will be con- 
 vinced that the superstructure is bad. or wants sup- 
 port. To be more exposed in the eyes of the world, 
 and more contemptible than we already are, is hardly 
 pos.sibIe. To delay one or the other of these expedients, 
 is to exasperate on the one hand, or to give contidence on 
 the otlier, and will add to their numbers ; for, like 
 snowballs, such bodies increase by every movement, 
 unless there is something in the way to obstruct and 
 crumble them before their weight is too great and 
 irresistible." (See Letter to Henry Lee, Wash. Works, 
 (Sparks' ed.) vol. ix., p. 203.) 
 
 ' It is proper to state, that, later in life, Mr. Madi- 
 son fully recanted the doctrines of his Report, and the 
 Resolutions of 1798-99. Mr. Jcfterson adhered to them 
 to the last, and even repeated them in 18 .'4 with more 
 emphasis than ever. Mr. Madison's recantation brought 
 down upon him the most violent attacks and abuse 
 from the nullilicatioa party. 
 
 political creed of the Democratic Party, and had 
 Tesolved to carry them out in their obvious 
 meaning and import." And well did he carry 
 them out. He folded his hands in impotent 
 despair, and allowed the rebels to seize nearly 
 every stronghold in the South, which were onlj' 
 regained by a cost of almost infinite blood and 
 treasure. 
 
 J. s. BLACK, Buchanan's attorney-general, 
 
 ON THE RIGHT OF THE SOUTH TO SECEDE. 
 
 Mr. J. S. Black, Attorney-General of the 
 United States under Buchanan, in reply to an 
 inquiry as to the riglit of the govermnent to 
 coerce the seceding States, replied in a similar 
 strain. 
 
 " If it be true," he said, " that war cannot be 
 declared [as he had attempted to sl\ow in his 
 letter tiiat it coidd not], nor a system of general 
 liostilities be carried on by the central government 
 against a State, tlien it seems to follow that an 
 attempt to do so would be ipso ficto:\n expulsion 
 of sucii State from tlie Union. Being treated as 
 an alien and an enemy, she would be compelled 
 to act accordingly. If Congress should break 
 up the present Union, by unconstitutionally put- 
 ting strife, and enmity, and armed hostility, be- 
 tween the different sections of tiie country, 
 instead of 'domestic traiK/uiltitg,' which the Con- 
 stitution was meant to insure, will not all the 
 States be absolved from their Federal obliga- 
 tions ■? Is anj' portion of the people bound to 
 contribute their money or their blood to carry 
 on a contest like this? 
 
 " If this view of the suliject be as correct as I 
 think it is, then the Union must perish, utterly 
 perish, at the moment when Congress shall arm 
 one portion of the people against another, for 
 any purpose beyond that of merely protecting 
 the General Government in the essence of its 
 proper constitutional functions." 
 
 FERNANDO WOOD ON THE RIGHT OF THE SOUTH 
 TO SECEDE. 
 
 In 1861, at the outbreak of the rebellion, Mr. 
 Fernando Wood was mayor of the City of New 
 York. At such a crisis, no position in the United 
 States could be more important to the cause of 
 nationality and freedom. He not only took the 
 groimd that the Union was rightfully and irrep- 
 arably dissolved, but he was already forecast- 
 ing the section or party with which the City of 
 New York should cast its fortunes. That city 
 was not only dissolved from allegiance to the 
 Nation, but the State. On the 6th of May, 1861, 
 he sent a message to its common council, in 
 which he used the following language: — 
 
 " It would seem the dissolution of the Fed- 
 eral Union is inevitable. Having been formed 
 originally on the basis of general mutual pro- 
 tection, but separate local independence, — each 
 
14 
 
 State reservinoc the entire and absolnte control 
 of its own domestic afE;iirs, — it is eriden/li/ impos' 
 sible to kfep them toqi-ther longer than ilietj deem theiil- 
 xilres fuirlfi treated hji each other, or loni/er than the 
 iiiterexltt, honor, and fraternitji, of the people of the sev- 
 eral Slates ore satisjied. Being a government created 
 hi/ OPiNio>f, its continuance is dependent upon the 
 continuance of the sentiments ichich formed it. It 
 cannot be preserved bg coercion, or held together by 
 farce. A resort, to this lust dreaded alternative 
 icould, of itself, destroy not only the government, but 
 the lives and property of the people. 
 
 " If tliese forebodinfis should be realized, and 
 a separation of, the States shall occur, momen- 
 tous considerations will be presented to the cor- 
 porate authorities of tliis city. We must provide 
 for new rehui(;ns, which will necessarily grow 
 out of the new condition of jjuhlic affairs. 
 
 " It will be not onl^' necessary for us to settle 
 the relations which we shall hold to the other 
 cities and States, but to establish new ones, if 
 we can, with a poutiox of our own State. . . . 
 
 " California, and her sisters of the Pacific, 
 will no doubt set up an independent Republic, 
 and husband their own rich mitieral resources. 
 The Western States, equally rich in cereals and 
 other agricultural products, will probably do the 
 same. Then it may be said, ivhi/ should not New 
 York City, instead of supportinij bi/ her contributions 
 in revenue two-thirds the expenses of the United 
 States, become also equally independent "? As a free 
 city, witli but nominal duty on her imports, her 
 local government could be supported without 
 taxation upon her people. Thus we could live 
 free from taxes, and have cheap goods, nearly 
 duty free. In this she would have the whole 
 and united support of tiie Southern States, as 
 well as all the other States to whose interest 
 and rights under the Constitution she has always 
 been true." 
 
 KODMAN M. PRICE ON THE RIGHT OF THE SOUTH 
 TO SECEDE. 
 
 In the spring of 1861, Mr. Rodman M. Price, 
 who had recently been Governor of the State of 
 New Jerse}', in a letter addressed to Mr. L. W. 
 Burnett, of Newark, in answer to the question, 
 "What ought New Jersey to do?" replied: 
 
 " I believe the Southern Confederation perma- 
 nent. The proceeding has taken place with 
 foretliought and deliberation ; it is no hurried 
 impulse, but an irrevocable act, based upon the 
 sacred, as was supposed, equality of the States; 
 ami, in my opinion, every Mave State will, in a 
 short period of time, be united in one Confed- 
 eracy. Before that event happens, we cannot 
 act, however much we may suffer in our mate- 
 rial interests. It is in that contingenc3', then, 
 tliat I answer the second part of your question. 
 What position for New Jersey will best accord 
 with h.er interests, honor, and the patriotic in- 
 stincts of her people 1 I say, emphatically, she 
 would go with the South, from every wise, pru- 
 dential, and patriotic reason." ^ 
 
 1 See jMcPherson's Hist, of the Bebellion, p. 390. 
 
 LEADERS OF THE NORTHERN DEMOCRACY RE- 
 SPONSIBLE FOR SECESSION. 
 
 The preceding examples of the position of the 
 leaders of the Northern Democracy at tiiat time 
 upon the subject of secession might be repeated 
 without limit. The Southern people were told 
 to go — were literally driven — out of the Union 
 by their friends. They never would have raised 
 the standard of the rebellion had they possessed 
 the least idea of the real sentiment of the North. 
 IIow could they get at that sentiment ? Not 
 through the Republican Party, which represented 
 only a small majority of the North, and which, 
 if war arose, was to be confronted by the Demo- 
 crats in arms on their own soil. If fifty persons 
 of the class we have quoted from had told 
 the Southern people that they had no right to 
 secede, that the attempt would be met by armed 
 force, that the days and spirit of General Jack- 
 son were still remerVibered and revered, and that 
 his denunciations of secession would become the 
 watchwords of freedom, the South would never 
 have taken the first step in rebellion. 
 
 What an infinite number of murders, of 
 deaths in battle and camp, are to be laid to the 
 charge of such men as Tilden, Buchanan, Wood, 
 and the old leaders of Democracy, but for 
 whom" secession would have been but a dream! 
 And one of these very men whose garments are 
 most deeply dyed in the blood of his fellows is 
 now to be made President of the United States, 
 — to administer a government which he has 
 spent a lifetime in attempting to undermine and 
 overthrow ! 
 
 UUCHANAN, TILDEN, AND OTHERS CONTRASTED 
 WITH WASHINGTON AND JACKSON. 
 
 When we contrast the conduct of Mr. Buchanan 
 and his government, in the third attempt at se- 
 cession, with that of Washington and Jackson in 
 the two preceding attempts, we can get some idea 
 of the depth of the abyss of degradation into 
 which the leaders of the Northern democracy 
 had fallen. From the proclamation of General 
 Jackson, in 1832, to the last message of Buchatian, 
 in 1860, was a period of only twenty-eight years. 
 Yet the conduct of the actors at these two periods 
 was as unlike as if there had been centuries be- 
 tween them. One cannot imagine such a man 
 as Jackson to belong to the same race with such 
 as Buchanan, Tilden, Wood, and Franklia 
 Peirce ; one so patriotic, with such consciousness 
 of the magnitude and importance of the issue 
 before him, not only for his own people, but for 
 mankind; knowing no duty for the moment but 
 the preservation of the Union ; the others so 
 traitorous, so utterly lost to all sense of patriot- 
 
15 
 
 ism and humanity, that they wouhl break up tlie 
 government unless it could be niade the instru- 
 ment of polluting our virgin soil with slavery, 
 and be made to minister to ihe ambitions and pas- 
 sions of those whose characters were tne product 
 of this accursed system. " Our Federal Union, it 
 must be preserved," was Jackson's famous toast 
 which, at the time, sent such a thrill through the 
 hearts of his countrymen. Had secession be- 
 come an overt act, he would have put into the 
 field the last num, would have fired the last shot, 
 and freely given up, if need be, his own life. 
 What did Washington say in the letter to Henry 
 Lee, already quoted? "If they (the malcon- 
 tents in Massachusetts) have real grievances, 
 rtdiess them. If they have not, emploij the Juice 
 of government against them at once!" Contrast 
 Wasliington and Jackson with such a wretched, 
 sneaking, imLeciie creature as Buchanan, who, 
 wiien his trial came, sat motionless with terror, 
 pleading as the excuse for his cowardice and in- 
 action the Resolutions of 1798 ! Certainly, the 
 great Revolution, which would have consigned 
 sucli creatures to eternal obscurity, but for the 
 infamy attached to them, came not a moment 
 too soon. To what was that tall, which has no 
 parallel in history, due 1 To slavery. The great 
 reaction under the Stuarts, which seemed for a 
 time to debauch all England, cannot for a mo- 
 ment compare with the utter demoralization ot 
 our public men in the time of Buchanan. The 
 English soon became ashamed of their excesses, 
 which were an accidental phase, partly due to 
 the previous pressure and restraint. One reac- 
 tion simply followed another. But slavery knew 
 no change, and tolerated no compunctions or re- 
 morse. It exacted tlie daily sacrifice upon its 
 altar of the little humanity or patriotism which 
 the leaders of the Northern Democracy might still 
 be supposed to feel. Without moral or political 
 sense on the part of our rulers, the machinery of 
 government refused to move longer. The very 
 existence of society was threatened; and, but for 
 the rise of the Republican Party to rescue the 
 Government from the hands of traitors and imbe- 
 ciles, we should already be repeating the exam- 
 ples of Mexico and those South American Re- 
 publics where anarchy and rapine are not the 
 exception, but the rule. 
 
 MR. TILDEN's infamous RESOLUTION AT THE 
 CHICAGO CONVENTION OF 1864. 
 
 The war into which the Nation was plunged 
 by Mr. Tilden and his associates went on. In 
 the dark days that followed, he gave to the cause 
 of freedom and the Union no aid, no sympa- 
 thy, no cheer. It was an unholy cause, an un- 
 
 righteous war. Instead of going to the front, to 
 encourage and sustain our soldiers, everywhere 
 imperilling their lives, and fading in the cause of 
 freedom, of humanity, and of the Union, he re- 
 nniined at home, far from danger, craven and 
 terror-stricken, and hoarse with the cry of i'eace! 
 I'eace ! He wouhl give up all for wliich so much 
 life and treasure had been sacrificed, and for 
 which so much had been suffered, and place the 
 country still more under the feet of those who 
 had poured contempt upon the Union, and upon 
 the Northern Democracy, and upon none more 
 than on those wlio, like Mr. Tilden, were traitors, 
 not only to the supreme government, but to their 
 own soil. The Convention at Chicago, in 18tj4, 
 which nominated Mr. McClellan for the Presi- 
 dency, again, as in 18G0, became his O[)portunity. 
 As a member of the Convention, he moved for 
 the appointment of a Committee on Resolutions, 
 and was made one of its members. This Com- 
 mittee reported, among others, the Infivuous 
 Resolution, reiterating, in terms, the doctrines of 
 his letter, of which the following is a copy : — 
 
 " Resolved, That tin's Convention does explicitlif 
 declare, as Ihe sense of ihe American people, tlnit, 
 after four years of failure to restore the Union hj the 
 experiment of war, — durimj which, under ihe pre- 
 tence of milHani necessiiif, or war /xnv-r, higher than 
 the Conslitulion, tlie Conslilntion itsflf has liren disre- 
 garded in ererij port, and public liberty and private 
 life alike trodden doirn, and the materinl prosperiti/ of 
 the coiiiitrg essentiidlij impaired, — justice, hamitnittj, 
 libertij, and the public welfare, demand that imim-diate 
 efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a 
 view to an ultimate convention of the Stales, or other 
 peaceable means, to the end, that, at the earliest prac- 
 tical moment, peace may be restored on the basis of 
 the Federal States." 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONVENTION OF 18GI IK 
 REFERENCE TO THIS RESOLUTION. 
 
 The Democratic National Convention of 18G4, 
 for the nomination of a candidate for the Pres- 
 idency, met at Chicago, August 29. The follow- 
 ing accounts of the proceedings, as far as relates 
 to the matter of Resolutions or Platform, are 
 copied verbatim from the Report of the same, 
 transmitted to and published in the "New York 
 World" of August 30 and August 31 : — 
 
 " Mr. Tilden, of New York, moved (Aug. 29) 
 that one delegate be appointed by each delega- 
 tion, to report Resolutions for the consideration 
 of the Convention, and that all Resolutions be re- 
 ferred to said Committee without debate. Car- 
 ried." 
 
 " Mr. Guthrie, Chairman of the Committee on 
 Resolutions, stated (Aug. oO) that several Reso- 
 lutions offered to said Committee, yesterday, 
 have been referred to a sub-Committee, and 
 there was reason to believe that they would be 
 ready to report this afternoon ; and, furthermore, 
 
16 
 
 that there was a fair prospect of arriving at a 
 harmonious conclusion." 
 
 " Mr. Tiltlen, of New York, said that tlie Chair- 
 man of the sub-Connnittee, General Jolin B. 
 Weller, would probably be ready to report at 
 four o'clock, P.M. ; that Mr. Vallandigbam was 
 ot opinion that they would not be ready at tiiat 
 hour, and tliat Mr. Guthrie hoped to be ready." 
 
 " A motion was made to take a recess till 
 four o'clock." 
 
 " Mr. Cass moved to adjourn until to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 Mr. Brown, of Delaware (a member of the 
 Committee), said there was no differen'ce of 
 
 OPINIO>f AMONG THE MEMBERS OF THE Co.MMIT- 
 
 tee; nothing but a disposition, perhaps, on tiie 
 part of a few to procrastinate ; and tliere was 
 no good reason why they should not be ready to 
 report this afternoon. 
 
 " Mr. McKeon said he would be in favor of in- 
 structing tlie Committee to report liiis afternoon. 
 There was no need of furtiier delay. The senti- 
 vients of the members were alike; and, if there was 
 anif question at all, it was one of phraseuloijjj rather 
 than of principles." 
 
 " Mr. Vallandigbam thought it best to give 
 the Committee further time, l)eing satisfied that 
 by to-morrow morning they will be able to bring 
 in a Report upon which all Democrats and Con- 
 servatives in the country can cordially unite." 
 
 "Several other members of the Convention said, 
 that, whatever difference of opinion maij exist 
 amonq its members, they are as to the phraseology of 
 the Resolutions rather than to the sentiment; and, if 
 tlie Convention would immeiliately take a recess, 
 the Committee would be able to conclude their 
 labors by four o'clock p.m." 
 
 " A motion for recess was put and carried." 
 
 " Upon the reassembling of the Convention, 
 at four o'clock, Mr. Guthrie stated that the Com- 
 mittee on Resolutions had agreed, and were now 
 ready to report." 
 
 " Mr. Cox moved the previous question." 
 
 Some discussion followed, but 
 
 " Mr. Cox insisted upon his motion, and, the 
 previous question being ordered, the Resolutions 
 were adopted, with but four dissenting votes." 
 
 Mr. Tilden, as mover of the Committee on 
 ^Resolutions, was, by courtesy, entitled to the 
 chairmanship. The following despatch to the 
 " New York World " explains the reasons why 
 Mr. Guthrie was made Chairman : — 
 
 " Mr. Samuel J. Tilden, of New York City, 
 was the platform Committee-man selected by the 
 New York DeleLration, and, being the mover in 
 the Convention of tlie Resolution for the appoint- 
 ment of tiie Committee on the platform (each 
 State naming its man), became, by presumption 
 of parliamentary strength, the Chairman of the 
 Committee itself The friends of Mr. Vallan- 
 digbam pressed him for Chairman. Mr. Til- 
 den, however, discdaiming any privilege for him- 
 self, Honorable James Guthrie, of Kentucky, 
 was immediately elected by a large majority." 
 
 It will be remembered that Vallandigbam, the 
 
 associate of Mr. Tilden on this Committee, and 
 his co-worker in the Chicago Convention, was 
 drummed out of the Union lines, and sent into 
 the camp of liis friends, the rebels, for his noto- 
 rious disloyalty, and the aid and comfort he gave 
 the enemy. 
 
 EXDORSEMENT OF THE RESOLtTTlON BY THE NEW 
 YORK WORLD. 
 
 The great theme with the " New York Worhl," 
 upon the adjournment of the Convention, was its 
 Resolutions or Platform ; and, on the 1st of 
 September, 18G4, the following appeared in its 
 columns as its leading editorial. 
 
 " The Democratic Platform." 
 
 " The vigorous, patriotic, and conciliatory 
 declaration of principles adopted at Chicago will 
 be generally acceptable to the party. Not only 
 all Democrats, but all Union-loving Conserva- 
 tives, no matter of what political antecedents, 
 can stand upon it with honest approhalion. The 
 Black Republicans carp at it, — as well they 
 may. It was not made to please them ; it is 
 not calculated to promote the success of their 
 party. They complain that it contains no in- 
 vectives against the South ; but it was by 
 invectives against the South that the Union was 
 destroyed. Democrats do not perceive that 
 infuriated rant against the South has any ten- 
 dency to bring its people to reason. The para- 
 mount aim of the Democratic Party is to restore 
 the Union ; tiie announcement of principles is 
 intended to be such that when the South is tired 
 of war, a repentant Union Party will have some 
 tenable ground to stand upon. If they will 
 accept of the Union, we offer them peace. If a 
 controlling majority refuse, we still enable a 
 minority to advocate the old Union without 
 being hooted down ; and, under the continued 
 pressure of the war, a Union minority in tlie 
 South may soon grow to a majority. 
 
 " Besides objecting to the platform that it does 
 not denounce those whom we wish to win back 
 to the Union, its Kepublican critics say it is, 
 in other respects, too negative. It is positive 
 enough for the Union; and positive enough in 
 its condemnation of the obstacles interposed by 
 this recreant administration to the restoration 
 of the Union. The things it insists on lie at the 
 very roots of our Federative Republican system. 
 The things it denounces are the chief dangers 
 which, at the present time, assail that system. 
 Southern arms would be powerless if they were 
 not backed by Southern hatred. While stem- 
 ming the stream, we aim toclose up the fountain. 
 While resisting Southern arms, we would remove 
 all just causes of Southern dissatisfaction. We 
 cannot ask the South, we will not ask anybody, to 
 live contentedly under a government which does 
 not permit free elections, ivhich violates State rights, 
 which throws men into prisons without informing 
 them of their offence or allowing them a trial ; 
 which burdens white men with ()p|)ressive debt 
 and grinding taxation to try an unconstitutional 
 experiment of giving freedom to negroes. It is 
 
17 
 
 the government which our fathers marie and 
 adminisiereil, iis tlie Democratic Party tiirougii 
 the greater part of seventy years aihninistered 
 it. to which we invite the South to renew tiieir 
 allegiance; ami we conceive it tiiat they will 
 prefer this to the prolongation of a civil, fratri- 
 cidal war. If all do not, a part will ; and no 
 rational man has any hope of restoring the 
 Union without tlie co-operation of a Southern 
 Union Party, which may in time grow to be a 
 majority. The Democratic platform is calculated 
 to remo^'e the main obstacles to the formation 
 of a Southern Union Party. When denuncia- 
 tion of the Confederate Government comes from 
 that quarter, it will be of some value ; and there 
 is nothing for which the Southern people are so 
 likely to denounce it, as for a refusal to make a 
 reasonable peace, and relieve tiieni from their 
 cruel sufferings. But a proposal for an abolition 
 peace can never gain a hearing in the South. If 
 the Abolition Party continue in power, the sepa- 
 ration is final, alike in feeling and in fact." 
 
 One might well suppose that Mr. Tilden 
 wrote the editorial in the " World," as well as the 
 Resolutions adopted by the Convention ; for a 
 more insidious, sneaking, hypocritical apology 
 for the South and attack upon the Union cause 
 than that contained in it, was never penned. It 
 was wholly in keeping with the conduct of that 
 class of nuUifiers and disunionists of which Mr. 
 Tilden was the appropriate exponent. How 
 impotent all his plottings and machinations ! 
 and how true, applied to him, the burning words 
 of General Jackson to all traitors to their coun- 
 try : " Its destroyers you cannot be. You may dis- 
 turb its peace ; you may interrupt the course of 
 its prosperity ; you may cloud its reputation for 
 stability ; but its tranquility will be restored, its 
 prosperity will return, and the stain upon its 
 national character will be transferred, and remain 
 an eternal blot on the memory of those who caused 
 the disorder," 
 
 THE SOUTH COERCED INTO THE UNION. 
 
 The cause of the Union and of freedom at last 
 triumphed. The South was subdued, coerced 
 back into the Union, nationality was restored 
 by the sword, and the great obstacle to a 
 true union, slavery, destroyed, in spite of all 
 the efforts, the predictions, and the hopes of the 
 Tildens, the Woods, the Buchanans, and the 
 whole of that disloyal crew in which they stood 
 conspicuous. Had Jackson lived and been at 
 the head of affairs, not a few of them would 
 have graced the gallows, or have been compelled 
 to fly for escape to foreign lands. Calhoun was 
 a model of patriotism and honor compared with 
 them. He made a law which might have been, 
 and perhaps was, justly obnoxious, the ground 
 of secession. Tilden made the maintenance 
 
 of the most accursed system that the world has 
 ever seen — "the sum of all viUanies " — his 
 cause for secession, adding to his traitorous in- 
 stincts an utter want of sympatiiy with op- 
 pressed humanity. 
 
 MR. TILDEN's ARRAIGNMENT OF THE REPUB- 
 LICAN PARTY ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 
 
 While Mr. Tilden proclaimed, on all occasions, 
 the abstract right of the South to secede, the 
 ground on which he justified the movement in 
 whicli he was engaged was the conduct of the 
 Republican party on the subject of slavery. He 
 makes up his indictment by quotations from the 
 speeches made by Mr. Seward and Mr. Lincoln 
 in the canvass then pending. "The role," lie 
 said, " of moral right and duty wliich may be 
 fairly said to be adopted by the Republican 
 party is stated by Mr. Seward at Lansing." 
 
 "I will favor," said Mr. Seward, "as long as I 
 can within the limits of constitutional action, the 
 decrease and limitation of African slavery." 
 
 " This sentiment," says Mr. Tilden, " runs 
 through all Mr. Seward's speeches, and is, I think, 
 the master-key to the whole argument by which 
 the Republican leaders address the popular 
 mind." He then proceeds to fortify his original 
 charge, by giving the following quotations from 
 different speeches made by Mr. Seward : — 
 
 " We do not vote," says Mr. Seward, " against 
 slavery in Virginia. We do not authorize Abra- 
 ham Lincoln or the Congress of the United States 
 to puss any laivs about slavery in Virginia. 
 
 " It is by a simple rule that I have studied the 
 Constitution, which rule is, that no human being, 
 no race, should be kept down in their efforts to 
 rise to a higher state of liberty and happiness. 
 
 " It is true that they (the lathers) necessarily 
 and wisely modified this policy of freeilom, by 
 leaving it to the several States, affected as they 
 were by different circumstances, to abolish sla- 
 very in their own vvay and at their own pleasure, 
 instead of confiding that duty to Congress. 
 
 "But the very nature of these modifications 
 fortifies my position, that the fathers knew that 
 the two systems could not endure within the Union, and 
 expected that within a short period slavery would 
 disappear for ever. Moreover, in order that these 
 modifications might not altogether defeat their 
 grand design of a republic maintaining universal 
 equality, they prodded that two-thirds of the States 
 might amend the Constitution. 
 
 " It remains to say on this point only one word, 
 to guard against misapprehension. If these 
 States are to again become universally slavehold- 
 ing, I do not pretend to say with what violations 
 of the Constitution that end shall be accom- 
 plished. On the other hand, while I do confi- 
 dently believe and hope that my country will yet 
 become a land of universal freedom, I do not 
 expect that it will be made so otherwise than 
 
18 
 
 througfh the action of the several. States ro-operafhirj 
 with the Frdenil dorernment, and all acting in strict 
 conformity with their respective constitutions. 
 I will favor, as long as I can, within the limits 
 of constitutional action, the decrease and diminu- 
 tion of African slavery in all the States." 
 
 He quotes to tlie same effect from speeches of 
 Mr. Lincoln, whose speeches, he says, are full of 
 denunciations of " the further spread of slavery," 
 the restriction of which will, he predicts, " place 
 it where the public mind will rest in the belief 
 that it is in the course of ultimate extinction." 
 " We know," says he, " the opening of new 
 countries tends to the perpetuation of the insti- 
 tution, and so does keep men in slavery who 
 would otherwise be free." " Nothing," he agaiii 
 says, " will make you successful, but setting up 
 a policy which shall treat the thing as wrong." 
 ..." This government is expressly charged 
 ■with the duty of providing for the general wel- 
 fare. We believe that the spreading out and 
 perpetuity of the institution of slavery impairs 
 the general welfare." ..." To repress this 
 thing, we think, is providing for the general 
 welfare." 
 
 Tlie italics, in the preceding quotations from 
 Mr. Seward's speeches, are Mr. Tilden's. In 
 commenting upon them, he replies : — 
 
 " The mode provided by the Constitution for 
 its own amendment, is not accurately stated by 
 Mr. Seward in the above extract, but the plan of 
 applying it so as to abolish slavery within the 
 States is sufficiently disclosed. In a recent 
 s|)eech, he proposes to absolutely exclude from 
 admission into the Union all new States having 
 slaves, and to apply our northern system to all 
 new States; evidently looking to the niuliiplica- 
 tion of the free States until their number shall 
 enable them to alter the Constitution, and ' the 
 grand design of a republic maintaining univer- 
 sal equality ' shall be consummated, without the 
 consent and in defiance of the will of the South- 
 ern States." 
 
 WISDOM AND NECESSITY OF THE REPUBLICAN 
 ORGANIZATION. 
 
 Could any sentiments be more just, humane, or 
 wise than those upon which Mr. Seward and Mr. 
 Lincoln proclaimed the Republican party to be 
 founded ? Was it not desirable that African sla- 
 very should come to an end 1 Was it not proper 
 that the Constitution should be invoked for such 
 an object 1 Our fathers provided for the amend- 
 ment of that instrument to meet any great in- 
 convenience or grievance, not sufficiently pro- 
 vided against. If, in such matter, two-thirds 
 of the States propose, and three-fourths ratify, 
 must not the minority of one-fourth, yield ? Is 
 not this a government of majorities 1 Does not 
 a minority of one always have to yield, on all 
 
 occasions, to a majority of one ? If there could 
 be no progress, no change, the nation would 
 surely die. An inexorable code is always death. 
 All codes and all constitutions must change with 
 the change of the national life. The code of the 
 ten tables, the foundation of, and at one time the 
 only source of, Roman law, almost wholly dis- 
 appeared in the subsequent codes of the Empire. 
 The English Constitution always yields to 
 supreme necessity. Our Constitution Can only 
 j'ield to such necessity by its formal amendment. 
 This was the only way, the only mode, at the 
 time, by which the question of slavery could be 
 met. It was in harmony with the instrument 
 itself, with the habits and thoughts of our peoj)le, 
 and with that necessity of progress, consequently 
 of change, inherent in our race. There was no 
 suggestion of unfiiir dealing or covert design. 
 Every thing was open and manly. Whether the 
 object sought to be gained was wise, humane, 
 and useful, I will not at this late day attempt to 
 show. The demonstration transcends words. 
 
 But Mr. Tilden joins issue, not only on the 
 constitutionality, but the policy, of such an 
 amendment. He would keep the negro perpetu- 
 ally in chains, as a matter of principle, for the 
 benefit of the white race, and as the best condi- 
 tion of the black. " They (the Republicans) 
 ask," he says, " Have we not a right to elect a 
 President in a constitutional manner by our own 
 votes ? " " You have," he replies, " in obedi- 
 ence to the fundamental ideas of our Confedera- 
 tion, no more moral right to do so on the basis of 
 your present party organization than you have 
 to do a thousand other things which the laws 
 and Constitution allow, but which reason, justice, 
 public policy, and fraternal sympathy, forbid." 
 
 " The Northern States," he continues, " have 
 a direct and important interest in keeping the 
 natural course of their emigration into the ter- 
 ritories substantially undisturbed, with freedom 
 to such of their people as overflow into the terri- 
 tories to establish in their new seats such systems 
 of industry anil society as they have been accus- 
 tomed to at home. 
 
 " The Southern States have exactlj' the same 
 interest. Both hane an indirect interest in the fm-- 
 mation ofneiv Strifes, as it affects tlie balance of power 
 between the two classes in the Confederation." 
 
 Balance of power between the two classes of 
 the Confederation ! What two classes 1 Slave 
 and free. Then we are a nation of classes, not 
 of individuals. Has it come to this, that we 
 must nurture and maintain on our own soil the 
 antagonisms and rivalries of the Old World, 
 for which millions of men are kept constantly 
 under arms, and which stand as the great 
 blot upon, and the great obstacle to, the prog- 
 
19 
 
 ress of humanity ? What kind of a Govern- 
 ment, and what kind of a nation, is this, in 
 wliich the different members are to checlcinate, 
 overreach, and, if they cannot succeed in tiiis 
 way, to attack and destroy each other"? Is this 
 Mr. Tilden's statesm;insliip, of wliich he makes 
 such boast, — tiiis the kind of Nation whose 
 affairs lie is to be called upon to administer? 
 God, in liis infinite mercy, forbid ! 
 
 MR. TILDEN DECLARES THAT THE REPUBLICAN 
 MOVEMENT MUST END IN UTTER FAILURE 
 AND DISGRACE. 
 
 But suppose tlie Republican party elects Mr. 
 Lincoln, what then 1 "I will tell you," says Mr. 
 Tilden. 
 
 " The Southern States," to quote from his let- 
 ter, " will not, by any possibility, accept the 
 avowed creed of the Republican Party as the 
 permanent policy of the federative government 
 as to slavery, either in the States or Territo- 
 ries. . . . 
 
 " Nothing short of the recession of the Repub- 
 lican party to the point of total and absolute 
 non-action on the subject of slavery in the States 
 and Territories could enable it to reconcile to 
 itself the peojile of the South. Even then it 
 would have great and fi.xed antipathies to over- 
 come ; and men and parties act chiefly from 
 habit. . . . 
 
 " Will the Republican Party submit itself to 
 this inevitable necessity to revolutionize its 
 whole character? To attempt this change, and 
 not to perish as a dominant party, is barely pos- 
 sible. Not to attempt and accomplish it, and yet 
 to live as an ascendant power in our Union, is 
 totally impossible. . . . 
 
 " It must travel through the entire cycle of 
 retrogression, and demonstrate that its existence 
 in its present form was a mistake. . . . 
 
 " What will Mr. Lincoln do ? Can he be ex- 
 pected, as President, to understand the state of 
 things in any other sense than that of his own 
 partisan policy ? Can he avoid the attempt to 
 maintain the pfiwer of his party by the same 
 means which will have acquired it? Can he 
 emancipate himself from the dominion of the 
 ideas, associations, and influences which will 
 have accompanied him in his rise to power? 
 Can lie be expected to act in any new direction 
 with sufficient breadth of view and firmness of 
 purpose ! 
 
 " If he shall fail adequately to respond to these 
 great exigencies, the inevitable result, as it pre- 
 sents itself to my judgment, has been already 
 sutficiently indicated. . . . 
 
 " Elect Lincoln, and we invite those perils 
 which we cannot measure ; we attempt in vain 
 to conquer the submission of the South to an 
 impracticable and intolerable policy ; our only 
 hope must be, that, as President, he will abandon 
 the creed, the principles, and pledges on which 
 he will have been elected. . . . 
 
 " Defeat Lincoln, and all our great interests 
 and hopes are, unquestionably, safe. 
 
 I " If thus, or in any mode, we es(;ape the perils 
 of which his election will be the signal, our noble 
 
 I ship of state will issue forth from the breakers 
 now foaming around and ahead, and spring for- 
 ward into the open sea in all the majesty of her 
 strength and beauty." 
 
 " But if the Providence which has hitherto 
 guided and guarded our country shall at last 
 abandon us to our foolish and wicked strifes, I 
 behold a far different scene." 
 
 THE SUCCESS ACHIEVED. 
 
 Unintimidated by this fearful picture of ruin 
 and woe, the Republicans did elect Mr. Lincoln 
 President of the United States. The Southern 
 States seceded. War followed. The rebellion 
 was utterly subdued. The Union was not only 
 preserved, but, by the removal of the cause of 
 the rebellion, was made stronger that ever. The 
 seceding States were only too glad to re-enter it, 
 exclaiming like the prodigal son : " I have sinned 
 against Heaven and in thy sight, and am no 
 more worthy to be called thy son." The worst 
 place in the Union was infinitely better than 
 the best place outside of it. 
 
 UTTER FAILURE OF ALL MR. TILDEn's PREDIC- 
 TIONS. 
 
 Not a prediction of this great philosopher and 
 statesman was realized. He estimated the char- 
 acter of the North by that of the degraded popu- 
 lace of New York ; of the poltroons that hung 
 round the purlieus of Tamman}' Hall. In his . 
 view of the ordering of human affairs, God had 
 no place or hand. Tammany Hall was his deity, 
 — his all in all. The result was to be what 
 Tammany Hall would have achieved. He wholly 
 counted out of the straggle the sense of duty in 
 the human soul. He knew the impotence of 
 Tammany Hall for such a contest, and knew 
 nothing better. Is this statesmanship ? What 
 is statesmanship but the recognition of a Divine 
 rule to which all human conduct must conform ; 
 and an attempt to direct all life, public and pri- 
 vate, according to that rule? Was it states- 
 manship to plunge the States into a fratricidal 
 war, — a war which wasted the fields of the South, 
 decimated its people, received and inflicted a 
 waste and loss which a generation cannot re- 
 store ? If this is statesmanship, it is an inspira- 
 tion borrowed from Satan himself. 
 
 MR. Lincoln's statesmanship. 
 
 Compare this statesmanship with that dis- 
 played by Mr. Lincoln in his second inaugural 
 message. 
 
 " On the occasion corresponding to this four 
 years ago, all thoughts were' anxiously directed 
 to an impending civil war. All dreaded it; all 
 sought to avert it. While the inaugural address 
 
20 
 
 was being delivered from this place, devoted 
 altogether to saving the Union without war, in- 
 surgent agents were in tiie city seeking to de- 
 sfirif/ it without war, — seeking to dissolve tiie 
 Union, and divide effects by negotiation. Botii 
 parties deprecated war ; but one of them would 
 7iutl,-e war rather than let the nation survive ; 
 and tlie other would accept war rather than let it 
 perish. And the war came. 
 
 "One-eighth of the whole population were 
 colored slaves, not distributed generally over the 
 Union, but localized in the southern part of it. 
 These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful 
 interest. All knew that this interest was, some- 
 how, the cause of the war. To strengthen, per- 
 petuate, and e.xtend this interest, was the object 
 for which the insurgents would rend the Union, 
 even by war, wiiile the Government claimed no 
 right to do more than to restrict the territorial 
 enlargement of it. Neither party expected for 
 the war the m;tgnitude or the duration which it 
 has already attained. Neither anticipated that 
 the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even 
 before, the conflict itself should cease. Each 
 looked for an easier triumph, and a result less 
 fundamental and astounding. Both read the 
 same Bible, and pray to the same God ; and each 
 invokes His aid against the other. It may seem 
 strange that any men should dare to ask a just 
 God'.s assistance in wringing their bread from 
 tiie sweat of otiier men's faces ; but let us judge 
 not, that we be not judged. The prayers of 
 both could not be answered ; that of neither has 
 been answered fully. The Almighty has his 
 own purposes, ' Woe unto the world (jecause of 
 offences ! for it must needs be that offences come : 
 but woe unto that man by whom the offence 
 Cometh ! ' If we shall suppose American 
 slavery is one of those offences which, in the 
 providence of God, must needs come, but which, 
 having continued through His appointed time 
 He now wills to remove, and that He gives to 
 both North and South this terrible war, as the 
 "vvoe due to those by whom the offence came, 
 shall we discern therein any departure from 
 those Divine attributes which the believers in a 
 living God always ascribe to Him ? Fondly do 
 we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty 
 scourge of war may s[)eedily pass away. Yet, 
 if God wills that it continue until all the wealth 
 piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty 
 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until 
 every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be 
 paid by another drawn with the sword, as was 
 said three thousand years ago, so still it must be 
 snid, ' Tlie judgments of the Lord are true and 
 righteous altogether.' 
 
 " With malice toward none, with charity for 
 all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to 
 see the right, let us strive on to finish the work 
 we are in ; to bind up the nation's wounds ; to care 
 for him who shall have borne the battle ; and for 
 his widow and his orphan ; to do all which may 
 achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace 
 among ourselves and with all nations." 
 
 What was Mr. Lincoln's statesmanship ? The 
 recognition of a Providence in human affairs, — 
 
 of a Law, far higher than that of man's choice, i 
 and an obligation, or duty, to obey this Law, no 
 matter at what cost. And was there not a Prov- 
 idence that sustained our country, and, through 
 terrible trial and suffering, guided it at last to 
 glorious victory, — not by immolating myriads 
 of our fellow-beings upon the altar of an insa- 
 tiable avarice and lust, but by raising and ele- 
 vating them, so that, in time, they may hail, in 
 the spirit in which it was proclaimed, the words 
 of the Great Charter of human freedom wliich 
 so thrilled the world a hundred years ago, that 
 " all men have an equal right to life, liberty, and 
 the pursuit of happiness." Was there ever a 
 higher statesmanship than Mr. Lincoln's, and 
 did ever one reap so rich a reward ? This was a 
 statesmanship to which Mr. Tilden was wholly 
 blind. All Europe, echoing him, predicted the 
 ignominious failure of our government in its 
 contest against such apparently overwhelming 
 odds, — an united South excited to the highest 
 pitch of rage, allied to the traitors and mal- 
 contents so numerous at the North, all seeking 
 to "rend" the Union that slavery might spread 
 itself over our fair domain. How were all 
 these predictions falsified, the schemes of the 
 conspirators brought to naught, their armies 
 broken in pieces, and the Union restored upon 
 the basis of equal rights to all, by Him who at 
 last heard the cry of his people that for one hun- 
 dred and fifty years had groaned beneath the 
 oppressor's lash ! If in the future we would do 
 any thing worthy a great nation, — of the hopes 
 of humanity, — is Mr. Lincoln's statesmanship, 
 or that of Mr. Tilden, born of Tammany Hall 
 and of the lowest and most selfish instincts of our 
 nature, to become our inspiration and guide 1 
 
 Mr. Tilden, in his letter of acceptance, will 
 undoubtedly be loud in denouncing the financial 
 policy of the Republicans, and in vaunting his 
 own, carefully avoiding the record of his politi- 
 cal life. But for him and the like of him we 
 should have had no war, and no financial policy 
 to denoimce. Would not his statesmanship have 
 been far better employed in preventing the evils 
 under which the nation is now laboring, than in 
 proposing his nostrums for their cure ? Can 
 there be statesmanship without a nation 1 
 
 MR. TILDEN THE MOST OBNOXIOUS PERSON IN 
 THE NATION TO ALL PRINCIPLES OF ORDER 
 AND GOOD GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Certainly no man in the country is so obnoxious 
 to all the principles and ideas which should, and 
 do, characterize the better portion of our people, 
 and especially to the Republican Party, as Mr. 
 Tilden. His nomination reversed all the issues 
 
21 
 
 which involved such a waste of life and treasure, 
 and SHcli unsp&akable suffering. Tiie effect of 
 his election would be to undo all that had, in 
 principle, been accomplished by the war. It 
 would be far worse than was the election of 
 Polk, in whose adniininistration the secession 
 element finally got full control of the Govern- 
 ment; for the presidency of Tyler was an acci- 
 dent, and, thougli himself a secessionist, lie had 
 no following. The election of General Taylor 
 was also an accident, growing out of a quarrel 
 in the Democracy for tiie spoils. Even Mr. 
 Tildon, in his letter, says, that no principle, only 
 spoils, was involved in the movement which 
 nominated Van Buren for the third time, and 
 in which he took a conspicuous part. With 
 Pierce, the old dynasty was restored to power by 
 a majority which had no parallel in our history. 
 So rapid had been the process of demoralization 
 that all sections and wings of the party, North 
 and South, united upon a man who, when elected, 
 incarnated the slaveholders' higliest iilea. But 
 the slaveholders soon tired of him, and, with that 
 inconstancy which always characterizes such a 
 class, remorsely " whistled him down the wind," 
 when his four years had expired. Buchanan, 
 whom they took in his place, was still worse. 
 The rebels at the expiration of his term, regarded 
 his paltering imbecility with still greater con- 
 tempt tiian the Republicans. Polk, Pierce, and 
 Buchanan, all illustrate the common fate of men 
 who, in affairs, ignore the sentiments of human- 
 ity and of justice. As a penalty, men are always 
 bereft of all wisdom to act, when they have 
 lost all sense of duty and obligation to a higher 
 power. In Tilden is concentrated all that was 
 wrong-headed, perverse, unpatriotic, and inhu- 
 mane in all three of his predecessors. His elec- 
 tion would fully restore that corrupt and effete 
 dynasty which, in the triumph of Lincoln, was 
 with such scorn and indignation hurled from 
 power. 
 
 Is the country sufficiently recovered from the 
 effects of the war that it can afford to put the 
 high priest of secession at the head of the Gov- 
 ernment ? Suppose the Southern people should 
 some day take it into their heads not to pay 
 their quota of the interest or principle of the 
 debt wliich was created to subdue them. What 
 could Mr. Tilden do to coerce them into pay- 
 ment ? Coercion with him would be the " viola- 
 tion of the Constitution in every part." If a 
 crisis came, would he not become as imbecile and 
 emasculated as Buchanan, or Pierce, or Polk ? 
 Such a crisis may speedily happen. The State 
 of Alabama, soon after the war, went into the 
 Northern markets, and borrowed #20,000,000 on 
 
 her bonds, and with the money constructed 1,000 
 miles of railroad, in order to "develop her re- 
 sources." Tliese bonds are largely held by 
 Northern savings-banks. They have all been re- 
 pudiated for no other reason than it does not 
 suit lier dignity or convenience to pay them ! A 
 sponge has been put over the whole. In this 
 case the people of the State received full con- 
 sideration, — a dollar in hand for every dollar 
 promised to be repaid; and in fact received five- 
 fold consideration in a magnificent sj'stem of 
 public works which this money served to con- 
 struct. How long will such a people stand the 
 debt of the United States after they get into 
 power ■? Not an hour. Tiiey could, following 
 Mr. Tilden's law, plead the very Constitution in 
 full bar to any claim to be made upon them. 
 "Coercion was without warrant in law : the con- 
 tract to pay was made under duress. The State 
 was unconstitutionally driven and held out of the 
 Union when the debt was contracted." No action 
 would hold morally or legally with such a de- 
 fence. Mr. Tilden as judge would have to 
 admit the defence, and give judgment accord- 
 ingly. If the South are to be let off, why not 
 the North 1 Admit Mr. Tilden's construction, 
 and the Constitution is feebler than any rope of 
 sand. 
 
 MR. TILDEN THE POLITICAL REFORMER. 
 
 Do reformers circulate such documents as the 
 following? 
 
 " Rooms of the Democratic State Committee, 
 Oct. 27, 18G8. 
 
 "My dear Sir, — Please at once to communi- 
 cate with some reliable person in three or four 
 principnl towns, and in each city of your county; 
 and request him (expanses du/j/ anamjed for this 
 end) to fe/efjraph to William M. Tweed, Tam- 
 many Hall, at the minute of closing the 
 POLLS, not waifiixj for the count, such person's esti- 
 mate of tiie vote. Let the telegraph be as fol- 
 lows : 'This town will show Democratic gain (or 
 loss) over last year of — (number).' Or this one, 
 if sufficiently certain: 'This town will give a 
 Republican (or Democratic) majority of — .' 
 There is, of course, an important object to be at- 
 tained by a simultaneous trcinsmission at the hour of 
 closing the polls, hut not lonr/ii- loaitinq. Opjiortunitif 
 can he taken of the usual luilf-hour lull in telegraphic 
 communication over lines he fore actual results heqin to 
 he declared, and before the Associated Press absorb 
 the telegraph icith returns, and interfere icith individ- 
 ual messages, and give orders to watch care- 
 fully THE COUNT. 
 
 " Very truly yours, 
 
 " Samuel J. Tilden, 
 
 " Chairman." 
 
 What was the object in ascertaining how the 
 towns outside the city of New York had gone the 
 moment the polls in them were closed 1 To 
 
22 
 
 create fraudulent votes in the City of New York, 
 in number sufficient to overbalance any majority 
 that the country might throw. In the countrj^ 
 one need not wait till the votes are counted to 
 know the result. Tliere every man's preference 
 is known, and freely expressed. The yearly 
 canvass taken in New Hampshire, completed a 
 week before election, has never failed to show 
 the final result, within one thousand votes, in a 
 poll of seventy-five thousand. So in the agri- 
 cultural counties of the State of New York. It 
 is as substantially known what the result will be 
 days before the election as when it is actually 
 declared. Far diiferent are the lower wards of 
 the City of New York, where no one knows who 
 the voters are, nor how many. Two things, how- 
 ever, are always known : they will cast just as 
 manj' votes as Tammany Hall dictates, and for 
 just the person that Tammany Hall names ; it 
 can have twenty thousand votes with the same 
 ease that it can have five thousand or ten thou- 
 sand. Mr. Greeley, when in the Constitutional 
 Convention with Mr. Tilden, endeavored to do 
 something to stop the gigantic evil of fraudulent 
 voting in the City of New York. Failing in this, 
 he made a personal appeal to Mr. Tilden, in an 
 open letter, which appeared in the columns of the 
 " Tribune," under date of Oct. 20, 1869, to put 
 a stop to it. 
 
 letter of mu. greeley to mr. tildex. 
 
 "Letter to a Politician." 
 
 " To Samuel J. Tilden, 
 CHAIRM.1N Democratic State Committee. 
 
 " Sir, — You hold a most responsible and influ- 
 ential position in tlie councils of a great party. 
 You could make that party content itself with 
 the ])olling of legal votes, if you only would. In 
 our late Constitutional Convention, I tried to 
 erect some fresh barriers against election frauds, 
 — did you? The very little that I was enabled 
 to eifect in this direction I shall try to have rati- 
 fied by the people at our ensuing election, — will 
 yo\i 1 Mr. Tilden, you cannot escape responsi- 
 bility by saying, with the guilty ]\Iacbeth, 
 
 " ' Tliou canst not say I diil it : never shake 
 Those gory locks at me.' ' 
 
 for you were, at least, a passive accomplice in 
 the giant frauds of last November. Your name 
 was used, without public protest on your part, in 
 circulars sowed broadcast over the State, whereof 
 the manifest intent was to vinke assurance donblij 
 sure that the Jhiitds here perpetrated should not he 
 orerhorne In/ the honest vote of the rural districts. 
 And you, not merely by silence, but by positive 
 assumption, have covered those frauds with the 
 mantle of your respectability. On the principle 
 that ' the receiver is as bad as the thief,' you are as 
 deeply implicated in them to-day as though your 
 name were Tweed, O'Brien, or Oakey Hall. 
 " And, though our city has since largely in- 
 
 creased its population, the lower wards were 
 quite as populous then (1840) as they are to-day, 
 — several of them more so. . . . 
 
 " Now look at the vote of /our of these Wards in 1840 
 aiid 1868 respectively : — 
 
 President, 1840. 
 
 Four Wards. 4,793 5,521 2,840 20,283 
 
 Governor, 1868. 
 
 Van Suren's majority, 726 ; Hoffman's majority, 17,443. 
 
 " Mr. Tilden, you know what this contrast at- 
 tests. Right well do you comprehend the means 
 whereby the vote of 1868 was thus swelled out 
 of all proportions. There are not 12,000 legal vot- 
 ers living in those wards to-day, though they gave 
 Hoffman 17,443 majority. Had the day been of 
 average length, it would doubtless have been 
 swelled to at least 20,000. There was nothing 
 but time needed to make it 100,000, — if so many 
 had been ivanted and paid for. Now, Mr. Tilden, 
 I call on you to put a stop to this business. You 
 have but to walk into the sheriff's, the Mayor's, 
 and the Supervisor's offices, in the City Hall 
 l-'ark, and say that there must be no more of it ; 
 say it so that there shall be no doubt 
 THAT YOU MEAN IT, and we shall have a tolera- 
 bly fair election once more. 
 
 "Will you do it? If we Republicans are 
 swindled again, as we were swindled last VaW, 
 you and such as you will be responsible to God 
 and iiuin for the outrage. 
 
 " Yours, Horace Greeley. 
 
 "New York, Oct. 20, 1869." 
 
 Although the circulars to which Mr. Tilden's 
 name was attached, had been previously pub- 
 lished by the Tribune, and fully implicated 
 him in the frauds charged, yet he was as 
 silent under the accusation as a stone. Had 
 he been innocent of the charge, and had he been 
 desirous of purging the ballot-boxes, he would 
 instantly have come to the front, demanded an 
 investigation, and volunteered to go all lengths 
 in their correction. But had he done so, he never 
 would have been Governor of the State of New 
 York, nor would he have had the least show for 
 the Presidency. He, of all men, was the most 
 interested in perpetuating them, as a means of 
 climbing to political power. 
 
 MR. TILDEN THE REFORMER OF MUNICIP.^L COR- 
 RUPTION. 
 
 Mr. Tilden the municipal reformer ! When 
 was that discovery made ■? The first ever heard 
 of him in that relation was after the expo- 
 sure of his old friend and confidant, Tweed ; 
 Tweed had acquired an enormous fortune by 
 his robberies. Every man in New York was in- 
 terested in making him disgorge, — the keepers 
 of gambling-houses, according to their means. 
 
23 
 
 equally with merchant princes, for the purpose 
 of lightenina; their taxes. After the frauds of 
 Tweed and his associates had been discovered, 
 it became tlie fasliion to pursue sucii sort of 
 game. Tildeti joined the crowd, and in the liue- 
 and-cry. He, from liis connection witli the rail- 
 roads, was almost as suddenly gorgced with wealtii 
 as Tweed ; as a very ricli man, it was for ids in- 
 terest to catcli the tliief wlio had broken into liis 
 enclosure. . His spirit of reforna was precisely 
 that of a Turkish Bashaw, who occasionally 
 takes off tiie heads of a few of his followers and 
 officials, for no other reason than that they liave 
 taken to themselves more than their full share 
 of the plunder. The difference between him who 
 loses his head and him that keeps it is luck, — 
 the accidental possession of power. Tilden's 
 love of reform never went an inch beyond this. 
 If he were such a reformer, there was no need to 
 wait sixty years for an opportunity. There 
 were plenty in the city of New York. There 
 was Tammany Hall, of whicli he has so long been 
 a member, which has done more to corrupt the 
 politics and debauch the morals of the country 
 than any ten other causes put together, slavery 
 excepted. Tammany Hall a reformer ! It lias 
 been seethed in corruption for a half century 
 past. What are reforms "? Temperance : a miti- 
 gation of social abuses by which the laboring man 
 may be better fed, slieltered, and clothed ; which 
 shall prevent his dwelling from being the hot- 
 bed of disease ; which shall give to the children 
 of the poorer classes an occasional breatli of fresh 
 air and a sight of green fields ; which siiall make 
 provision for those who, from any cause, are no 
 longer able to care for themselves ; whicli shall 
 train those for whom reforms are inaugurated, to 
 take them up and carry them forward ; and, more 
 than all, which shall attack in every manner pos- 
 sible that evil of evils, — that curse of all curses, — 
 slavery. If that be dead and gone, are there not 
 still crying evils and abuses to fight against, as 
 firmly intrenched, and perilous to attack, as was 
 slavery? If a man saw in that monstrous wrong 
 nothing to condemn ; if, on the contrary, it was 
 to be encouraged to spread itself over the whole 
 land ; if, for its stipport, the Government was to 
 be broken up, and the fairest hope of humanity 
 destroyed, — is he likel.v to have much of the spirit 
 of a reformer in his blood ? When such a man 
 moves, it is always from interest or policy ; never 
 from sympathy with any good cause. The true 
 reformer is always, in the outset, in a minority, 
 — often wholly alone in battling against some 
 gigantic abuse, hoary and reverend with age. 
 When he has brought the world over to his side, 
 he ceases, in that particular, to be the reformer. 
 
 Show ns an instance in wliich Tilden has taken 
 the reformer's first part ? If a member of Tam- 
 many Hall steal any of its property, are the other 
 members made reformers by seeking to recover 
 it, or by punishing the thief ? If jjcrsons em- 
 ployed in a gambling-house should steal and 
 carry off the implements of their trade, would its 
 owners be reformers for seeking to reclaim them ? 
 Yet such are the precise grounds upon which 
 Tilden bases all his right to be called one. It is 
 as impossible that he, with Ids surroundings, 
 should have been a reformer as that the Sultan 
 should. Is it a reformer's instinct to crib with 
 such fellows as Tweed, Field, Connolly, and 
 Genet, and a host of that ilk ? How did all 
 these men get their power and plunder 1 By 
 playing like Mr. Tilden, upon the prejudices and 
 passions of the ignorant and degraded populace 
 of the city of New York. In that city, the vole 
 of a great leader is very simple and easy, — to 
 glory over the beauties of Democracy, and to 
 stuff it with bad whiskey. Such a populace are 
 the tools of Mr. Tilden's trade, — the counters 
 by which he hopes to reach the highest office in 
 the gift of the people. All he wants is votes ; 
 and he is twice as sure of them so long as those 
 who cast them remain ignorant and degraded, 
 as he would be if they became intelligent and 
 acted upon their own convictions. The moment 
 they gain such a position, his occupation is gone, 
 and his political aspirations vanish in empty air. 
 
 IS TILDEN THE FIT BIAN FOR PRESIDENT OF THE 
 UNITED STATES. 
 
 Is this the man to fill the seat once occupied 
 by Washington and Jackson ? Imagine him in 
 the Presidential Chair, with these august figures 
 on either side of him. The scorn of Washington 
 might be shown by his majestic silence ; but how 
 would the eyes of Jackson glare with fury on the 
 man who had been guilty, in a tenfold degree, if 
 possible, of the crime for which he always re- 
 gretted he had not hung Calhoun, and who, by 
 helping to make secession a fact, had thrilled the 
 chord nearest the old hero's heart. Will the 
 nation honor such a man with the highest office 
 in its gift ? AVill those whose lives were long 
 spent amid persecution and obloquy, in the 
 battle against slavery, help to raise to the Presi- 
 dency him who was, of all others, the great ad- 
 vocate and support of that accursed sj'stem which 
 it cost so many sacrifices, and so much blood and 
 treasure, to overthrow ? Are those fathers who 
 sent their sons to die on the battle-field, or to re- 
 turn home, if they escaped, only to drag out a 
 miserable existence from the effect of wounds, or 
 diseases caught in camp, to do homage to one of 
 
24 
 
 the chief instruments of their bereavements, and 
 of the living deatlis wliioli they still see on every 
 side ■? Will the soldiers themselves, take as their 
 standard-bearer the man who did more than any 
 other to precipitate the rebellion ; who gave it 
 all his countenance and moral support ; who, 
 when they were confronting the enemy in the 
 field, was threatening their rear with a still more 
 dangerous eneni}', — encouragement of secession 
 at the North; and who proclaimed far and wide 
 that all their sacrifices and heroism had resulted 
 and could result only in defeat and shame "? Will 
 the young men coming forward to take upon 
 themselves tiie duties and responsibilities of life 
 and of public affairs, full of life and generous 
 hope, take for their guide and example the man 
 who has alvva^'s been allied with that element of 
 American life from which our political and social 
 corruptions have almost wholly sprung, and who 
 has never displayed the least interest or sym- 
 pathy in those questions which more deeply con- 
 cerned their own welfare and that of society 7 
 Is such to be the ideal, — " the coming man"? 
 If so, God save the country, for which there is no 
 human helj). Is there not something better for 
 their inspiration and imitation than slavery, the 
 Resolutions of 1798, the right of secession, or 
 the drunken orgies of Tammany Hall ? Do not 
 they want a government which shall throw its 
 broad tegis over them, in whatever part of our 
 wide domain they may happen to be placed ? If 
 not, we cannot too soon cast in our lot with 
 Mexico, and with those South American States, 
 where anarchy is the rule, and where life is 
 liardly worth the possession. Would not the 
 election of Mr. Tilden, in view of the past as well 
 as the future, sound a lower depth in our polit- 
 ical history than has yet been touched 1 Would 
 
 it not show that we had no government worth 
 preserving; no humanity ; no political jjrinciples 
 but the right of secession ; no aspirations for a 
 higher and purer system and life than that which 
 allies us with slavery, with all its degradation 
 and crimes 1 If nothing better be in store for us, 
 we cannot too soon commit ourselves to the 
 downward current, if onl}' to escape the shame 
 which our corruptions and demoralizations yet 
 excite, but which is powerless for our rescue. 
 
 This present year is our National Centennial 
 Birthday ! Had Mr. Tilden been able, the 
 eighty-fourth year of our national life would 
 have been its last. Siiall we desecrate this birth- 
 day, which every one is celebrating with such 
 earnestness and joy, by electing as our Chief 
 Magistrate a man who proclaims that our na- 
 tional existence may at any moment be brought 
 to an end, by the fancied interests, the caprice, 
 or the whim of any one of its members ? that 
 the nation of to-day may cease to be the nation 
 of to-morrow 7 that its life hangs upon a single 
 thread, which any State, ill-affected for the mo- 
 ment, may sever ? Are we, by one act, to undo 
 all that is glorious in our history, all that is valu- 
 able in our acquisitions and achievements, and 
 show ourselves to the world a people without 
 principle, without conviction, without aspiration, 
 driven hither and thither by every lawless im- 
 pulse, as if to verify the predictions of the ene- 
 mies of freedom that Republics are but the nur- 
 series of license and insubordination, and have 
 only to run their course to destroy the fairest 
 hopes of humanity ? Shall we not rather crown 
 the year with an utterance which shall go round 
 the world to cheer the heart of every lover of 
 freedom, that " the Nation, not the States, 
 IS Supreme." 
 
THE UNION! ITS DANGERS!! 
 
 AND HOW THEY CAN BE AVERTED. 
 
 LETTER FROM SAMUEL J. ^ILDEN 
 
 TO 
 
 HON. WILLIAM KENT. 
 
 To the Hon. William Kent: 
 
 Dear Sir: Among my early memories of public 
 affairs, during the tariff and nuUiticatiou contro- 
 versies, I recollect the illustrious name of your father, 
 James Kent, signed to a call for a meeting of the 
 citizens of New York, to recommend to Congress 
 the adoption of measures of conciliation towards our 
 brethren of the South. The association recurs to 
 Ely mind as often as I think of your name on the 
 Iinion electoral ticket, which I consider a most wise 
 and necessary endeavor to rescue our country in a 
 far more perilous political conjuncture. I had no 
 agency in putting it there ; but I know it represents 
 no partisan interest, prejudice, or passion, no man's 
 vanity or ambition, and still less any illiberal opinion 
 or feeling towards natives of foreign lands who have 
 chosen this for their home. It represents nothing 
 less worthy or less noble than patriotic devotion to 
 the country, and serious and well-considered solici- 
 tude for the welfare of the hitherto fortunate people 
 of these, as yet, United States. I share the senti- 
 ments which animate you in the present crisis. I 
 recall your desire, when last we met, that I should 
 express to our citizens the convictions often avowed 
 to you. An occasion has arisen which commits me 
 to do so. I have chosen the form of a letter; I dedi- 
 cate that letter to you. It is a testimony of my re- 
 spect and affection, and that we think the same things 
 concerning our country. Your interest iu the great 
 theme will compensate all deficiencies in the offering. 
 
 THE USE OF PARTIES. 
 
 The tendency of parties is to draw the various po- 
 litical elements into two divisions, and to equalize 
 those divisions. The minority adopts enough of 
 the ideas of the majority to attract those who are 
 nearest to the line of division ; and the majority, in 
 struggling to retain them, makes concessions. The 
 issue is thus constantly shifting "with the waver- 
 ing tide of battle," until the policy which at last 
 prevails has become adjusted so as nearly to repre- 
 sent th« average sense of the whole people. It is 
 rare iu our political experience that the difference 
 between the majority and the minority equals five 
 per cent of the whole number ; extremely rare ex- 
 cept in cases where the issue on which the parties 
 
 form is made up to suit specially some locality. In 
 shaping the policy which emerges from the conflict, 
 the minority acts a part scarcely less important than 
 the majority; and the dissentients are thus prepared 
 to accept the result. 
 
 THE PROCESS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Such is the process by which the will of all the 
 parts of the community is collected, averaged, and 
 represented in the policj^ finally agreed upon. This 
 is the method of self-government. 
 
 WHY SELF-GOVERNMENT IS BEST. 
 
 The reason why self-government is better than 
 government by any one man, or by a foreign peo- 
 ple, is that the policy evolved by this process is 
 generally better adapted to the actual condition of 
 the society on which it is to operate. Govern- 
 ment by one man often fails to understand, but it 
 usually defers. Government by a foreign people 
 neither understands nor defers. It has no adapta- 
 tion to the wants or temper of the governed. It is, 
 therefore, about the worst government that can be 
 imagined. 
 
 THE FEDERATIVE SYSTEM OF LOCAL SELF-GOV- 
 ERNMENT. 
 
 Our fathers understood this truth. They had tried 
 the experiment. They had been driven to revo- 
 lution by George the Third, said to be the "most 
 honest man in his own dominions," and by the 
 genial Lord North, and had seen how cordially the 
 British people sustained whatever was worst in all 
 the policy of monarch and minister. They fore- 
 saw that a single government, exercising all the 
 powers of society over the people destined to occupy 
 so vast a region as the United States, and embrac- 
 ing the elements of such diversities of interest, 
 industry, opinion, habits and manners, would be in- 
 tolerable to bear, and impossible to continue. They, 
 therefore, largely adopted the federative idea in the 
 mixed system which they established ; and vesting 
 only the powers appertaining to our foreign rela- 
 tions and to certain specified common objects of a 
 domestic nature in a federative agency, they left the 
 gi'eat residuary mass of governmental functions to 
 the several states. 
 
 ^ 
 
ANOMALOUS CHARACTER OF THE REPUBLICAN 
 PARTY. 
 
 In the practical working of tliis beautiful but 
 complex system, the Republican party is a phenom- 
 enon, new and startling. It is the first instance in 
 which any partisan organization has been able to 
 compete, with any prospect of success, for ascen- 
 dancy in our federative government, without being 
 national in its structure, without being composed 
 of majorities — or of minorities able to compete 
 effectively with majorities — in all the states of both 
 great sections of the Union. The Republican party 
 has no practical existence in all the fifteen southern 
 states. In a few points, where the five border states 
 touch the North, it has a nominal existence, but 
 without any appreciable power over the opinion or 
 action of those states. In the ten other states it has 
 no affiliations whatever. 
 
 THAT SECTIONAL CHARACTER INHERENT. 
 
 This condition of things is not an accident. It is 
 the result of five years of earnest discussion be- 
 fore the southern people of the character and ob- 
 jects of the Republican party. It is produced 
 against the strongest motives which influence the 
 formation of party connections. Ties of ancient 
 association between most of its members, and the 
 dissevered minorities of the South — fragments of 
 the old whig party, anxious to beat their local 
 rivals, and impelled towards alliances by the in- 
 stinct of self-preservation ; common opposition to 
 an existing administration ; the prospect of com- 
 mon success, and of sharing in a political ascen- 
 dancy, — all these potential causes united have ut- 
 terly failed to draw to it any considerable numbers 
 of adherents in all the South, against the pervad- 
 ing, immense, overwhelming public opinion of all 
 those states. 
 
 I speak not now of causes. I simply state the 
 fact. Our Republican friends will say that their 
 policy is misunderstood by the southern people. 
 There is undoubtedly a serious misunderstanding 
 between the Republican party and the whole south- 
 ern people. In what does this misunderstanding 
 consist? It is easier for the Republican party to 
 mistake as to the efiects of its policy on the inter- 
 ests of the South, than for the whole southern peo- 
 ple to mistake the real nature of that policy. 
 
 I am apt to pay some respect to the unanimous 
 opinion of great commonwealths on a question pecu- 
 liarly' affecting themselves. 
 
 REPUBLICAN ASCENDANCY IS PRACTICALLY FOR- 
 EIGN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 If such an organization as the Republican party 
 should acquire complete possession of the federa- 
 tive government, what sort of a system would it be ? 
 To the people of the fifteen states it would be a 
 f(yrei(/n govei-nment. It would be erected over them 
 through the forms of their constitution ; but that 
 would not affect its practical character. None of 
 
 their citizens would have concurred in bringing 
 the administration into existence. None of their 
 public opinion would be represented in that admin- 
 istration. 
 
 PERILOUS SUBJECT OF THE CONTROVERSY. 
 
 Now, what is the question between the eighteen 
 northern states and the fifteen southern states of 
 the confederacy, out of which arises a state of things 
 so novel and so extraordinary ? 
 
 It is a controversy, — (how far of mere opinion 
 and how far operating practically, I will presently 
 discuss), — it is a controversy which touches the re- 
 lations of two races, being eight and a half millions 
 of whites and four millions of blacks, composing 
 all the population of these fifteen states ; relations 
 which constitute a whole system of industry, fur- 
 nishing their staple exports and their exchanges 
 with us and with all the world ; relations which 
 thus involve a vast interest in property — not less 
 than three thousand millions of dollars — permeating 
 these fifteen states ; relations which are the basis 
 of the habits of families and of society in all these 
 commonwealths, and of their social order, a shock 
 to which is associated in the mind of the dominant 
 race, with a pervading sense of danger to the life of 
 every human being and the honor of every woman. 
 
 This nature of the subject matter, out of which 
 the controversy arises, explains and accounts for a 
 state of parties so anomalous. Such a disorder in 
 the voluntary machinery by which popular govern- 
 ment is carried on, is in itself serious; but it is 
 more important as a symptom of a malady in the 
 body-politic, deeply seated and far more dangerous. 
 
 SECTIONALISM OF PARTIES. 
 
 Sectionalism of parties has hitherto never gone 
 beyond a little predominance of a party in the states 
 of one section and a little predominance of the other 
 party in the states of another section. In that mild 
 form its tendency alarmed the heroic mind of Wash- 
 ington, and drew from him an impressive warning 
 in his Farewell Address. Sectionalism is now 
 threatening to become absolute in a predominance 
 of a party in eighteen states which has no practical 
 existence in fifteen states. 
 
 Sectionalism of parties has hitherto been founded 
 in differences upon subjects comparatively unim- 
 portant. It touched nothing deeper than the de- 
 tails of a tariff, when it called out all the patriotic 
 courage and energy of Jackson to avert its dangers. 
 
 Sectionalism is now founded upon differences of 
 opinion reaching to the very structure of civil society 
 in fifteen states. 
 
 With the prudent and conservative Monroe medi- 
 ating at the head of the government, and with Clay 
 in the House of Representatives, exerting for pacifi- 
 cation all his matchless power over assemblies, 
 sectionalism, not of popular parties, but in Con- 
 gress, on a question like the present, though, in the 
 mitigated form of the Missouri controversy, woke 
 
Jefferson, as he expressed it, "like a fire-bell at 
 night," from the repose of his retirement, and made 
 him for the first time ahnost despair of the republic. 
 Sectionalism on a question of the same nature is now 
 worn into the minds of the people by five years of 
 organized agitation. It has become the sole basis 
 of existing party divisions, and threatens to seize all 
 the powers of the government. 
 
 Each of the elements of evil, which, of a feebler 
 type, and in an incipient state, filled these heroes 
 and statesmen of our revolutionary and constitu- 
 tional era with apprehension, is now grown to a mag- 
 nitude whicli they could never have conceived ; and 
 these elements, thus grown, are conjoined into one 
 monstrous malady. And yet every shallow sophister 
 who can pen a line for the skimming eye of thought- 
 less readers, wiser than Washington, braver than 
 Jackson, more skilled in our complex government 
 than Jefferson, scoffs at the danger, and scoffs at all 
 who see it as insincere or timid ! 
 
 EDUCATION OF THK PEOPLE FOR DISUNION. 
 
 A sectional division, upon a sectional issue, of the 
 great parties which organize and represent the con- 
 flicting opinions of society, and which compete for 
 the control of the machinery of government in a sys- 
 tem of confederated states, rapidly and effectually 
 educates the people for disunion. 
 
 It is not the ordinary case of party excitements 
 between citizens united in the same community. 
 There, misapprehensions are removed and animosi- 
 ties assuaged by mutual contact ; adversaries min- 
 gle in the transactions of business and in the inter- 
 course of society; meet at the same church in a 
 common worship, and on a thousand occasions of 
 familiar and friendly association ; they are brought 
 together and kept together by common friends ; they 
 are interlaced with each other b}' the numberless 
 ties which spring up, and grow around, and grow 
 over individuals living in one community ; they can- 
 not move their houses, shops, or farms ; they cannot 
 tear asunder the social ligaments which bind them 
 together. 
 
 Now imagine parties such as we have often known 
 them, in their mutual misapprehensions and mutual 
 injustice, and their passionate animosities ; one party 
 dominating in eighteen states on one side of a geo- 
 graphical line, and the other composing the whole 
 people of fifteen states on the other side of that line. 
 They know each other only through their excited 
 imaginations. The antipathies of each are directed 
 against a distant people. Each is organized into 
 states, with complete governments, holding the purse 
 and wielding the sword. They are held together only 
 by a compact of confederation. 
 
 FEDERATIVE SYSTEM INCREASES SUCH DANGERS. 
 
 Will their mutual animosities be equally safe, 
 equall}' hamiless as the party controversies of indi- 
 viduals united in one community ? The strain, the 
 shock of the collision between these organized masses, 
 must be vastly greater. The single, slender, con- 
 
 ventional tie which holds states in confederation, has 
 no strength compared with the compacted, inter- 
 twining fibres which bind the atoms of human society 
 into one formation of natural growth. 
 
 The masters in political science who constructed 
 our system, preserved the state governments as bul- 
 warks of the freedom of individuals and localities 
 against oppression from centralized power. They 
 recognized no right of constitutional secession, but 
 they left revolution organized, whenever it should 
 be demanded by the public opinion of a state ; left 
 it with power to snap the tie of confederation as a 
 nation might break a treaty, and to repel coercion 
 as a nation might repel invasion. They caused us 
 to depend, in a great measure, upon the public opin- 
 ion of the states in order to maintain a confederated 
 Union. They intended to make it necessary for us, 
 in every reasonable extent, to respect that public 
 opinion. 
 
 How long could an organized popular agitation in 
 England against France, or in France against Eng- 
 land, continue without actual hostilities, especially 
 if embracing a majority of the people and the gov- 
 ernments y Wars have as often been produced by 
 popular passions as by the policy of rulers ; but I 
 venture to say that in the causes of all such wars 
 during a century past, there has not been so much 
 material for offence as could be found every year in 
 the fulminations of a party swaying the govern- 
 ments of many northern states against the entire 
 social and industrial systems of fifteen of our sister 
 states; — so much to repel the opinion, to alienate 
 the sentiments, and to wound the pride. 
 
 MODERATE REPUBLICANS. 
 
 It would be doing injustice to multitudes of patri- 
 otic citizens who belong to the Republican party 
 to impute to them extreme opinions or intentions 
 consciously hostile to the peace and safety of the 
 southern states. Antagonism to the democratic 
 party, habitual with many who were whigs ; misap- 
 prehensions and excitement growing out of the re- 
 peal of the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas 
 controversy ; opposition to various incidents in the 
 policy of the existing democratic Administration ; 
 the desire for change and for new combinations 
 which arises under a continuous ascendancy of any 
 party in our country, — all these motives of political 
 action have arrayed in the Republican ranks many 
 men of moderate opinions, who, if they saw the real 
 nature and inevitable results of a sectional party or- 
 ganization, would recoil from them in just and patri- 
 otic alarm. 
 
 FALSE POSITION OF THEIR PARTY. 
 
 It is not the purposes of such men, but the practi- 
 cal attitude of their party, which constitutes the evil. 
 That party is in a false position. Without the coun- 
 terpoise which would be the effect of its affiliation 
 with the opposition element in the southern states, 
 freed from any such necessity for moderation, com- 
 
peting for popular favor in the North alone, and, 
 therefore, addressing itself exclusively to northern 
 opinions, prejudices and passions, it has been steadily- 
 drifting into a more vehement, a less discriminating 
 and a blinder antagonism to the South, and yielding 
 to the dominion of extreme ideas and of the more vio- 
 lent elements which it contains. Without any thing 
 to represent it in the southern states, it has no 
 means to resist the inevitable tendency there to im- 
 pute to it purposes even beyond those which it really 
 entertains ; and no means of inspiring confidence, 
 allaying apprehension, or conciliating opinion among 
 the masses in the localities of the South. 
 
 THE NECESSARY CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 It is thus that the divergence between these ma- 
 jorities of the North on the one side, and the whole 
 people of the South on the other, has been for 3'ears 
 increasing. Extremes on the one side provoke ex- 
 tremes on the other. Alienation, mutual distrust, 
 misapprehension of each other's motives and objects, 
 animosities, and, above all and worse than all, convic- 
 tions and principles which induce each to dictate im- 
 practicable conditions of reconciliation, are setting 
 deeper and deeper into the masses under the influence 
 of systematic sectional agitation. 
 
 It would be strange if this immense and powerful 
 popular machinery swaying the state governments of 
 both sections, which has been employed for five years 
 in dividing the country geographically, had not 
 cloven down between the masses of the people in the 
 two sections a chasm deeper and wider and more 
 difiicult to close up than ever existed before. 
 
 CHRONIC SECTIONALISM IS INEVITABLE DISUNION. 
 
 If such a division of parties, founded upon such 
 antagonism of opinions, habits, and interests involv- 
 ing the systems of industry and of society, existing 
 at the North and in the South, becomes chronic, its 
 natural and inevitable result must be disunion. The 
 cord of fraternal sentiment and common opinion 
 which holds the sections together, cannot, by any 
 possibility, endure the gradual, steady wear of these 
 unceasing conflicts, and the ever-augmenting violence 
 of the shock of repeated collisions between the popu- 
 lar masses which the two sections embody. 
 
 This is, to me, no new opinion. I communicated 
 it in writing in 1855, to a gentleman now eminent 
 in the Republican party, before he engaged in its 
 formation ; and expressed the conviction that the 
 evil would have reached a dangerous, if not fatal 
 point of culmination when a purely northern party 
 should have found itself able to elect a President on a 
 pitched battle with the southern states over ques- 
 tions and ideas which thrill to the very life-centres of 
 southern society. 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE DISCUSSION THUS FAR. 
 
 I have now considered the anomalous nature of the 
 Republican party as an organization ; I have shown 
 how, as it assimies the powers of our federative sys- 
 
 tem, it subverts the essential character of that sys- 
 tem, and erects in practice a foreign government 
 over fifteen states. I have pointed out how, in the 
 mean time, such a division of parties is educating the 
 people for disunion ; in what manner it ripens its 
 fatal fruits, and to what maturity they have already 
 approached. I have indicated the subject of the con- 
 troversy between the northern majorities and the 
 southern people, out of which this condition of things 
 arises ; demonstrated how near it is to the very struct- 
 ure of civil, social, and industrial life in all the 
 South ; and inferred that it is only such a subject of 
 controversy that could create such a state of parties ; 
 and conversely, that such a state of parties, on such a 
 subject, is a concentrated evil and an accumulated 
 danger. I have invoked the maxims deduced from 
 the experience of all mankind, and our own accepted 
 theories of self-government to justifying me in stat- 
 ing the immense presumption, that the southern peo- 
 ple understand the effects upon themselves of the 
 Republican organization and policy better than the 
 Republicans do; and that, at all events, the nearly 
 unanimous judgment of fifteen great communities 
 ought to be respected; that their judgment, as to 
 the establishment over them of any affirmative meas- 
 ures exclusively affecting themselves, ought to be 
 conclusive. 
 
 It remains to analyze the avowed proposition of 
 the Republican party to the people of the South. 
 
 Are the southern people to be convinced, or is 
 the Republican party to recede from its principles, 
 its policy, and its organization ? In what manner is 
 a reconciliation to be effected, and upon what terms V 
 What ought to be the basis of a reconciliation V Will 
 the Republican party make it voluntarily, or must 
 the people of the North cast off the Republican party 
 as an element of disease and discord, and thus restore 
 harmony and health to our federative system V 
 
 If the Republican party entrenches itself in the 
 Presidency, will the constitution of our body politic \ 
 await the tardy remedy, or will it perish in the pro- 
 cess towards restoration ? 
 
 These are grave questions. Let us proceed to 
 consider them. ) 
 
 CHARACTER, AIMS, AND POLICY OF THE REPUBLI- 
 CAN PARTY. 
 
 What is the character of the Republican party ? 
 What are the aims? What is to be its practical 
 policy, in case it gains possession of the government ? 
 
 ORGANIZED AGITATION AGAINST SLAVERY. 
 
 1. It is an organized agitation on the general ques- 
 tion of slavery, mainly irrespective of the practical 
 application of its conclusions to any proposed meas- 
 ure of legislation or administration by the federal 
 government. It is not easy to define the exact limit 
 where the liberty of philosophical speculation or ab- 
 stract discussion ends, and an offence against good 
 neighborhood — whether of individuals, families, or 
 states — begins. But it is verj' clear that the Repub- 
 
lican party has passed that boundary ; for an organized 
 agitation by a majority of one community, including 
 its government, against the social or industrial system 
 of a neighboring and friendly commuiiitj' is an offence 
 wliich leads to alienation and hostilit}', if not to 
 actual war. Even if we assume that the exclusion of 
 slavery from the territories is within the legitimate 
 sphere of the federal government, it cannot be pre- 
 tended that the general character of the discussion 
 kept up by the Republican party is subordinate to 
 that end. Indeed, the territorial aspect of the con- 
 troversy has almost entirely disappeared. Instead of 
 inquiring how far it is the right and the duty of the 
 northern states through the federal government to 
 give effect on the territorial question to the general 
 ideas they might be assumed to entertain, the orators 
 and journals, which represent the Kepublican party 
 are almost exclusively occupied in exciting the hos- 
 tility' of the people against slavery as a system, 
 irrespective of the territories, and often the intention 
 is avowed to act by indirect means upon slavery 
 within the states. 
 
 " MORAL StTASION " THROUGH OUR FEDERATIVE 
 GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Among those means is a gigantic system of "moral 
 suasion," as Mr. Seward calls it in one of his recent 
 speeches, moral coercion in fact, by wliich it shall 
 propagate its ideas among the people of the southern 
 states against their present social and industrial 
 S}Stems, through permanent party organizations dom- 
 inating in the northern states, swaying the northern 
 governments, and finally through the federative 
 government of all the states. Mr. Seward does not 
 say whether the postmasters and other officers of the 
 federative government are to be made little centres 
 of antislavery opinion; but he seems to think that 
 all the usual methods by which parties act may be 
 properly applied to the end. Now the states are as 
 sovereign, with respect to slavery within their own 
 borders as any foreign nation. If we were by 
 "moral suasion" to attempt to apply our ideas in 
 respect to the only rightful form of government, or in 
 respect to the freedom of the press to the French 
 people, through our minister at Paris, he would be 
 dismissed, and if found to be acting under our in- 
 structions, we should become objects of just hostilities 
 on the part of the French government. A similar 
 experiment in the southern states would probably re- 
 sult in the expulsion of the federal officials, if not in 
 a civil war. According to the principles of public law 
 and in all moral aspects, such interference in the in- 
 ternal affairs of a state would be more inexcusable 
 when she were united with us in a confederation, than 
 if she were in all respects a foreign nation. And the 
 difficulty of the case is, that even if the endeavor 
 were fairly made to confine the agitation to the ter- 
 ritorial question, it would be impossible so to con- 
 fine it in practice, on the basis of opinion which 
 characterizes the Republican party, and gives it all 
 its vitality. 
 
 FALSE RULE OF LEGISLATION AND ADMINISTRATION 
 BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 2. The rule of moral right and duty which, I think, 
 may be fairly said to be generally adopted by the 
 Republican party, is stated by Mr. Seward, in his 
 speech at Lansing: " I will favor, as long as I can," 
 said he, "within the limits of constitutional action, 
 the decrease and diminution of African slavery in all 
 the states." 
 
 THEORY OF THIS RULE. 
 
 The theory is, that slavery is a wrong, without ref- 
 erence to any condition of time, place, or circum- 
 stances ; that the limit of our moral responsibility for 
 the wrong is fixed exactly according to our legal and 
 constitutional power to remove it ; that it is, therefore, 
 not only our right but our duty to exert whatever 
 legal or constitutional power we possess for its re- 
 moval. 
 
 This theory runs through all Mr. Seward's speeches ; 
 and is, I think, the master-key to the whole argu- 
 ment by which the Republican leaders address the 
 popular mind. 
 
 ITS PRACTICE. 
 
 The practical application and necessary conse- 
 quences of this theory, can be gleaned from the 
 speeches of Mr. Seward. 
 
 INDIRECT ACTION ON SLAVERY WITHIN THE STATES. 
 
 In his recent speech at Dubuque, he states what it 
 is not proposed to do, in this guarded manner: "We 
 do not vote against slavery in Virginia. We do not 
 authorize Abraham Lincoln or the Congress of the 
 United States to pass any laios about slavery in 
 Virginia." Observe how carefully his language is 
 framed not to disclaim any of the forms of indirect 
 action upon slavery within the states. 
 
 CHANGING THE CONSTITUTION BY EXCLUDING ONE 
 AND ADMITTING THE OTHER CLASS OF STATES. 
 
 In his Rochester speech he thus indicates the con- 
 stitutional mode of abolishing slavery within the 
 states : 
 
 "It is true that they (the fathers) necessarily and 
 wisely modified this policy of freedom, by leaving it 
 to the several states, affected as they were by diifer- 
 ent circumstances, to abolish slavery in their own 
 way and at their own pleasure instead of confiding 
 that duty to Congress. 
 
 ****** 
 
 " But the very nature of these modifications fortifies 
 my position that the fathers knew that the two systems 
 could not endure within the Union, and expected that 
 within a short period slavery would disappear for- 
 ever. Moreover, in order that these modifications 
 might not altogether defeat their grand design of a 
 republic maintaining universal equality, they provided 
 that two-thirds of the states mir/ht amend the consti- 
 tution. 
 
 " It remains to say on this point only one word, to 
 guard against misapprehension. If these states are 
 to again become universally slaveholding, I do not 
 
pretend to say with what violations of the constitu- 
 tion that end shall be accomplished. On the other 
 hand, wliile I do confidently believe and hope that 
 my country will yet become a land of universal free- 
 dom, I do not expect that it will be made so otherwise 
 than through the action of the several states co-operat- 
 ing wi/h the federal (jovernment, and all acting in 
 strict conformity with their respective constitutions." 
 The mode provided by the constitution for its own 
 amendment, is not accurately stated by Mr. Seward 
 in the above extract, but the plan of applying it so 
 as to abolish slaver}' within the states is sufficiently 
 disclosed. In a recent speech, he proposes to abso- 
 lutely exclude from admission into the Union all 
 new states having slaves, and to apply our northern 
 system to all new states ; evidently looking to the 
 multiplication of the free states until their number 
 shall enable them to alter the constitution and " the 
 grand design of a republic maintaining universal 
 equality" shall be consummated, without the consent 
 and in defiance of the will of the southern states. 
 
 REORGANIZING THE SUPREME COURT. 
 
 In a speech in the Senate he proposed to reorganize 
 the Supreme Court of the United States for the pur- 
 pose of reversing the decision upon the relative rights 
 of the states and their citizens on the question of 
 slavery. 
 
 DISBANDING THE ARMY AND NAVY. 
 
 And at Lansing he declared that it was his " duty 
 as a patriot" to go for having "no army and navy " 
 of the Union, because their "whole object" was 
 "that slaves may not escape from the slave states 
 into the free, and that freed or emancipated negroes 
 in the free states may not enter and introduce civil 
 war into the slave states, and because that, if we 
 provoke a foreign enemy, the southern frontier is ex- 
 posed to invasion from England, France, and Spain." 
 The constitution not only contains an express covenant 
 for the protection of each of the states against " do- 
 mestic violence " and foreign "invasion," but in its 
 preamble declares that to " ensure domestic tran- 
 (|uillity" and "provide for the common defence" 
 were among the very objects for which it was insti- 
 tuted. And yet Mr. Seward avows the startling doc- 
 trine, that for the very reason that the army and navy 
 are used to carry out these objects in respect to the 
 southern states they ought to be disbanded. 
 
 BIDDING REVOLUTION "GOOD SPEED." 
 
 In his recent speech at Madison, he declares that 
 " it is by a simple rule that he has studied the con- 
 stitution," which rule is that "no human being," 
 " no race," should be "kept down in their efforts to 
 rise to a higher state of liberty and happiness; " but 
 that if any such " would rise, I say to them, in God's 
 name, good speed." 
 
 THE PRACTICAL RESULT. 
 
 The residt he stated in a speech at an early day : 
 " It (slavery) can and must be abolished, and you 
 and I must do it." 
 
 OBJECT OF TEACHING THE DOCTPINE OF THE " IRRE- 
 PRESSIBLE CONFLICT." 
 
 And in order to incite the northern mind to a crusade 
 against slavery in the states, as well as the territories, 
 to blind the eye of the North and still its conscience 
 to the aggressive character of the movement against 
 the social and industrial systems of our sister states, 
 violating alike the express compacts of the constitu- 
 tion and the principles of public law which define the 
 relations of independent sovereignties, he adopts the 
 fallacious theory invented by Mr. Lincoln, of the " irre- 
 pressible conflict." He teaches not as a doctrine of 
 abstract philosophy, but a practical necessity, that the 
 northern states cannot preserve their own social and 
 industrial systems without overthrowing those of the 
 southern states ; that "the rye fields and wheat fields 
 of Massachusetts and New York must be surrendered 
 by their farmers to slave culture and to the produc- 
 tion of slaves, and Boston and New York become once 
 more markets for trade in the bodies and souls of 
 men," or, " the cotton and rice fields of South Carolina 
 and the sugar plantations of Louisiana" be "tilled by 
 free labor." Having thus invested the crusade with 
 all the sanctions of the sacred necessity of self-defence, 
 he leads it forward, by the methods and means which 
 I have exhibited, through artful evasions of the forms 
 of the constitution to violate the substance of its 
 obligations. 
 
 PREVALENCE OF IMPRACTICABLE IDEAS. 
 
 I certainly do not impute to every member of the 
 Republican party such sentiments. On the contrary, 
 there are large numbers of patriotic citizens attached to 
 that party wholly incapable of adopting theories so 
 wild, so fanatical, so revolutionary; and I admit, that 
 even the mass of those who assent to them do not see 
 their true character, or the inevitable disasters of at- 
 tempting to reduce them to practice. 
 
 But I cannot fail to see, in the mind of every second 
 man I meet among the Republicans, the prevalence 
 of ideas upon which it is impracticable to administer 
 a confederated government. I lament it as a conse- 
 quence of a division of parties, in which the northern 
 people know neither the subject of the controversy 
 nor its true bearing, nor their antagonists, except 
 through their imaginations. 
 
 MR. SEWARD'S REL.^TION TO THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 
 
 Mr. Seward represents the greatest state of the 
 Union in the Senate ; is of mature age and experi- 
 ence ; and has more partisans and more practical 
 power over the Republican mind and the Republican 
 organization than any other one of its members. He 
 is its representative man. He has recently traversed 
 the northern states, with social revolution dropping 
 from his lips at every step, amid the acclamations of 
 the masses of the Republican party. And yet men 
 are found who ascribe to the prejudices of the South, 
 or to misrepresentations of the aims of the Republi- 
 can partv, the complete alienation and repulsion of 
 the uanimous public opinion of the southern people, 
 which undeniably exists. 
 
ORIGIN OF THESE FALSE SYSTEMS. 
 
 The origin of all tliis evil is in the rule of conduct 
 to which I iiave adverted, as generally adopted by the 
 Republicans, and indeed to a considerable extent ac- 
 cepted b}' the northern mind. 
 
 KULE FOR CONSTRUING AND EXECUTING THE CON- 
 STITUTION. 
 
 As a rule of right and duty for the construction 
 and execution of the constitution, the theory main- 
 tained by Mr. Seward, and too extensively accepted, 
 is entirely fallacious. No contract governing com- 
 plicated transactions or relations between men, and 
 applying permanently through the changes inevitable 
 in human affairs, can be effectual if either party in- 
 tended to be bound by it is at liberty to construe or 
 execute its provisions in a spirit of hostility to the 
 substantial objects of these provisions. Especially is 
 this true of a compact of confederation between the 
 states, where there can be no common arbiter invested 
 •with authorities and powers equally capable with 
 those which courts possess between individuals for 
 determining and enforcing a just construction and 
 execution of the instrument. Mr. Seward sees, the 
 public mind of the South sees more clearly, that an 
 institution of the peculiar nature of slavery cannot 
 long exist within the states if the powers of the fed- 
 erative government are to be swayed in active hos- 
 tility to it, even though no violation of the express 
 letter of the constitution be perpetrated; even though 
 the hostile action be confined to a systematic use of 
 the powers of the government for the purposes of 
 its destruction, and to a systematic abdication of the 
 powers of protection when thej' incidentally affect 
 slavery in operating upon the communities in which 
 it exists. 
 
 CRITERION OF MORAL RIGHT AND DUTY. 
 
 The rule to which I have adverted is equally falla- 
 cious as a criterion of moral right and duty. No man 
 La.s the right or duty to impose his own convictions 
 upon others, or to govern his own conduct in his rela- 
 tions with others, by his exclusive opinion or will. 
 His right and duty in such cases are not absolute, but 
 qualified. In practice, no man can get along in his 
 relations with others, even with those who are most 
 subject to him, if he exercise his full legal or consti- 
 tutional powers absolutely according to his individual 
 opinion or will. No husband can live with his wife, 
 no father with his children, no partner with his asso- 
 ciates, on such terms. 
 
 DUTY OF SELF-KESTRAINT. 
 
 Now the idea I wish to inculcate is, that there is no 
 moral wrong in our accepting the self-restraint upon 
 the exercise of even our undoubted legal and consti- 
 tutional powers which the experience of mankind has 
 shown to be wise. 
 
 It is upon the same idea, applied to our physical 
 powers, that the public law of the world, which for- 
 bids the intervention of one state in the purely inter- 
 nal affairs of another, is built up. 
 
 IDEA OF SELF-RESTRAINT THE BASIS OF OUR FED- 
 ERATIVE SYSTEM. 
 
 When our fathers entered upon the work of forming 
 the Union, they found the states existing as indepen- 
 dent sovereignties. Thej* might have constructed a 
 system which would have been imperial in its charac- 
 ter, subjecting all the internal affairs of the states to 
 the dominion of a centralized government. Or they 
 might have made the mixed system which they estab- 
 lished imperial in respect to the subject of slaverj' 
 within the states. Or, if failing to obtain the consent 
 of any state to such a system, they might have ex- 
 cluded that state from the Union. 
 
 NOT WRONG, BUT WISE AND RIGHT. 
 
 Did they commit a moral wrong in choosing to 
 leave the whole subject of slavery within each state 
 to its separate judgment? I think that they did not. 
 The decision which they made accorded with the 
 whole theory on which they constructed the govern- 
 ment. It was wise in itself. It was right. If the 
 wisdom collected from the experience of the world in 
 regard to government is to be relied on, the distribu- 
 tion of powers they adopted was the best, the deposi- 
 tory of the trust of working out the problem of the 
 superior and subject races within the states, if not 
 perfect, was the safest which the nature of the case 
 admitted. It is binding upon us not merely by the 
 force of compact, not merely by a great principle 
 of public law, but by its intrinsic wisdom and right- 
 eousness. 
 
 OBJECTION ANSWERED. 
 
 It is no answer to this reasoning to say that the 
 dominant race in a state where slavery exists is upon 
 this question an interested party as well as the judge. 
 Such is the position of the governing power in every 
 human society ; and yet so wonderful are the laws of 
 mutual action and influence between the parts of the 
 social mechanism that it has generally been able to 
 work out the welfare of all better than foreign gov- 
 ernment, and better than propagandism of any system 
 by foreign force. The selfishness of the one, modi- 
 fied by so many restraints, is rarely so dangerous as 
 the inexpert ignorance and impracticable experiments 
 of the others. I cannot think it a misfortune that, 
 according to the system of our fathers, no appeal lies 
 from the white man of the states where slavery exists 
 to the white man of the other states. It is not a 
 moral wrong to construe and execute the provisions 
 of the constitution affecting this question, and even 
 to extend and apply them to incidental questions not 
 foreseen at its formation, in accordance with the plan, 
 and in the spirit of comprehensive wisdom in which 
 that instrument was conceived. 
 
 THE TERRITORIAL QUESTION. 
 
 3. I come now to the position of the Republican 
 party on the territorial question. I understand that 
 position to be, that it is the r'ght and duty of the 
 people, through the federative government, to effect- 
 ually prevent the extension of slavery beyond the 
 
geographical area in vrhich it now exists within the 
 present states. 
 
 The Chicago platform applies the doctrine that all 
 men are entitled to liberty, to the black race, without 
 any qualification of place, time, or circumstances ; and 
 applies the principle of restriction to all the territo- 
 ries. Mr. Seward has lately restated the position of 
 the Republican party, in these words: "Our responsi- 
 bilities are limited to the states yet to come into the 
 Union, and we will apply our system to them." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's speeches are full of denunciations of 
 "the further spread of slavery," the restriction of 
 which will, he predicts, "place it where the public 
 mind will rest in the belief that it is in the course of 
 ultimate extinction." "We know," says he, "the 
 opening of new countries tends to the perpetuation of 
 the institution, and so does keep men in slavery who 
 would otherwise be free." "Nothing," he again 
 says, "will make you successful, but setting up a 
 policy which shall treat the thing as wrong." . . . 
 " This government is expressly charged with the duty 
 of providing for the general welfare. We believe 
 that the spreading out and perpetuity of the institu- 
 tion of slavery impairs the general welfare." . . . 
 
 " To repress this thing, we think, is providing for 
 the general welfare." 
 
 THEORY ON WHICH ABSOLUTE EESTEICTION IS 
 FOUNDED. 
 
 The philosophical idea on which the policy of re- 
 striction rests is, that if the system of slavery be 
 absolutely confined to a fixed geographical area, the 
 emigration of the white race who wish to retain the 
 system, and of the black race held under it, will be 
 restrained ; that both races will go on increasing by 
 births ; that the population within that area becom- 
 ing more and more dense, the cost of subsisting the 
 slave will press with constantly augmenting force 
 upon the value of his labor, until the master ceases to 
 derive any surplus, and voluntarily emancipates the 
 slave. 
 
 This idea is sometimes expressed in the affirmative 
 sense of extinguishing slavery ; and sometimes in 
 the negative sense of refusing to perpetuate it ; but 
 the means and the results are identical in both 
 cases. 
 
 OBJECT OF THE POUCY AND MODE OF ITS EN- 
 tORCEMENT. 
 
 The policy of restviction aims to control, directly 
 and immediately, the distribution between the occu- 
 pied and unoccupied portions of the continent belong- 
 ing to us, of the eight and a half millions of whites 
 and four millions of blacks now coexisting in the 
 fifteen southern states and of all their descendants, so 
 long as the present relation between the two races 
 shall continue. It aims indirectly and eventually to 
 subvert the relation which now exists between the two 
 races. The Republican party proposes to establish 
 this policy bj' a combination of majorities of the peo- 
 ple of the northern states, acting through the federal 
 government, against the unanimous opposition of the 
 
 whole people of the fifteen southern states. The judg- 
 ment of the northern states, pure and simple, ad- 
 versely to the judgment of the southern states, is to 
 take upon itself, and prescribe and enforce its own 
 solution of this great problem of races, their distribu- 
 tion and relations, which reaches to the very social 
 life-centres of fifteen southern stales. 
 
 A MERE ABSTRACTION AT PRESENT. 
 
 It is true that, at present, so far as the territories 
 are concerned, the policy is a mere theory. There is 
 no territory whose destiny is practically in dispute. 
 The area within the fifteen southern states is more 
 than the growth and expansion of the social and in- 
 dustrial systems of the south can at present occupy. 
 
 Might not the North rest in the hope that the next 
 generation, when it should have occasion to act prac- 
 tically, would do so with larger experience and greater 
 wisdom? Might it not wait and see? Is it necessary 
 for us to seize the powers of the government to estab- 
 lish and enforce any policy so far in advance — espe- 
 cially, by the dangerous machinery of a purely 
 northern party creating in practice a purely northern 
 government — more especially at the hazard of scat- 
 tering in ruins the glorious fabric of civil liberty 
 reared by our fathers? 
 
 THE THEORY ANALYZED. 
 
 But let us confront this theory as a permanent and 
 final policy. Let us analyze it, and see what would 
 be its future value, and whether it can ever become 
 established. 
 
 NATURAL AND MATERIAL LAWS. 
 
 Before entering on that discussion, I pause to trace 
 the natural and material laws which are working out 
 the distribution of races on our own portion of this 
 continent, and shaping the social and industrial sys- 
 tems of the new states. 
 
 Whoever, will study the course of emigration from 
 the old states to the unsettled lands of the West, will 
 find that in the main it follows the adaptations of the 
 new region to the industrial, domestic, and social habi- 
 tudes of those who seek to better their condition by 
 the use of cheaper and richer soils. The current of 
 northern emigration does not deviate largely from cer- 
 tain parallels of latitude. The current of southern 
 emigration, tending in the same general direction, 
 spreads out, perhaps deflects, to the southwest. The 
 volume of the northern current is from twice to three 
 times as large as that of the southern current ; and, 
 therefore, tends to press southwardly the line where 
 the two touch each other. Geographical causes favor 
 this result. As you reach the eastern border of 
 Texas, the Gulf shore turns towards the South. As 
 you pass Missouri, you begin to ascend to the more 
 austere climates of the great slope of the Rocky 
 Mountains. 
 
 Material causes intervene to turn a portion of the 
 southern emigration to the southwest and also to sep- 
 arate the element of slavery and to carry that to tlie 
 southwest. 
 
SLAVERY WITHDRAWS FROM THE TRACK OF NORTH- 
 ERN EMIGRATION. 
 
 The result is that slavery has no tendency to ex- 
 tend itself in or towards the track of nortiiern settlers. 
 On the contrarj', it is withdrawing and moving 
 towards the tropics. Obvious before, this law has 
 been rendered more conspicuous and more potential 
 to mature its fruits rapidly, by the remarkable 
 events which have characterized the last ten or fif- 
 teen years. 
 
 MATERIAL CAUSES ACCELERATE. 
 
 The great and steady influx of gold, acting upon 
 the circulating medium and the systems of credit, has, 
 to an extraordinary degree, stimulated production 
 and consumption throughout all Christendom. One 
 effect is seen in the transcendent growth of the for- 
 eign trade of all the civilized nations. Another is in 
 an improvement of the physical condition of the 
 masses, and an enlargement of their command over 
 the necessaries, comforts, and even luxuries of life, 
 greater, perhaps, than they have hitherto attained in 
 any one century. 
 
 Cotton has been found to be the cheapest and most 
 convenient material for human clothing; which, after 
 food and shelter, is the first object of the enlarged 
 means of expenditure by the masses. The spindle 
 and the loom could be multiplied to keep pace with 
 the augmenting demand ; but negro hands to cultivate 
 the cotton fields could not. They must wait the slow 
 course of nature, or be diverted from other employ- 
 ments ; and even both resources have been thus far 
 insufficient. Through the war in the Crimea and the 
 war in Italy, through the panic of 1854 and the revul- 
 sion of 1857, cotton has, in the main, held the even 
 tenor of its way, in a range of high prices ; while 
 iron, coal, lumber, sugar, and breadstuffs have under- 
 gone extreme and violent fluctuations. Cotton has 
 been unceasinglj'- out-bidding other employments for 
 negro hands. It has within ten years doubled, proba- 
 bly more than doubled, the market value of all such 
 labor. A man who to-day employs slaves in raising 
 wheat or corn on the southern bank of the Ohio, uses 
 labor at least twice as costly as it was ten years ago. 
 His neighbor on the northern bank finds the moderate 
 advance in free labor resulting from the increase in 
 general prices, compensated by improved machinery ; 
 and can produce wheat as cheaply as ten years ago. 
 
 Cotton is struggling hard to translate the black race 
 held in slavery to the seats of its own and kindred 
 cultures. Family and social habits, an honorable 
 sentiment against selling dependants towards whom 
 the worth and piety of the South consider themselves 
 as trustees, resists ; but the changes of life are inevi- 
 table ; and the social laws at last prevail, as the un- 
 ceasing current of a stream outlasts the strokes of 
 the swimmer. I see every day testimonies of the ac- 
 tual working of these tendencies. I read, not long 
 ago, in the Evening Pust, an extract from the St. 
 Louis Democrat, stating that one hundred slaves daily 
 
 left St. Louis for the South. That statement may 
 have been inaccurate as a matter of detail ; but the 
 general fact cannot be questioned. 
 
 RESTRICTION IN THE TRACK OF SOUTH KRN F.MIGRA- 
 TION. 
 
 If, then, slavery has no capacity to extend itself, in 
 any practical degree, into or towards the track of 
 northern emigration ; let us now inquire what would 
 be the results of the restrictive policy applied to the 
 track of southern emigration. 
 
 This, I have already observed, is, at present — per- 
 haps for all our generation — a purely theoretical ques- 
 tion. But let us imagine that it were now a practical 
 question. Let us suppose that all the eight and a half 
 millions of whites and four millions of blacks com- 
 posing the population of the fifteen southern states 
 were concentrated in the region east of the boundary 
 between Alabama and Mississippi. 
 
 I do not now decide whether the degree of density 
 required for the perfection of the experiment would 
 even then have been attained ; and, in the progress 
 towards that density, doubtless the whites not holding 
 slaves would have been, to a large extent, expelled. 
 But assume the conditions to be such that the cost of 
 subsisting the slave would approach the value of his 
 labor. I would like to have our philosophers and phil- 
 anthropists who advise the experiment solve some 
 difficulties which we must anticipate. 
 
 IMPRACTICABLE OR UNNECESSARY. 
 
 1. What is there in human history to warrant the 
 idea that a people, not having yet consented to self- 
 destruction, could be confined on one side of an imagi- 
 nary line, with their physical condition steadily ap- 
 proximating to the want and misery which attend 
 excessive density of population, when on the other 
 side of that imaginary line, unoccupied and fertile 
 lands invite them to abundance and prosperity? What 
 degree of power in the government would be required 
 to enforce a law imposing such a policy upon even a 
 feeble community'? What degree of coercion would 
 be required against eight and a half millions of our 
 race? three times as many as achieved our revolu- 
 tion? Against how many and in what proportions of 
 the two races such coercion would have to be exerted 
 when all the present territory should be filled up with 
 population to the requisite degree of density, it is im- 
 possible to predict ; but it is perfectly safe to say that 
 the policy proposed by the Republican party to be 
 theoretically adopted as a finality, at vast hazard of 
 general ruin, a generation in advance of the time 
 when it could take full practical effect, would, as soon 
 as that time should arrive, prove wholly impracticable 
 without the consent of the people to whom it would 
 be applied : as with that consent it would be wholly 
 unnecessary. 
 
 Is it expected that the people to whom the system 
 is to be applied will be blind and deaf until it shall 
 have approached such fatal results? Is it not inevita- 
 ble that they will be as prompt to resist and repel as 
 you will be to organize and inflict your system? 
 
10 
 
 FALSE PHILANTHROPY. 
 
 2. Does not the nature of the process imply a con- 
 stantly progressive deterioration in the physical con- 
 dition of the slaveV Will not the master be forced 
 by the necessity of self-preservation into a struggle to 
 over-work and under-feed the slave, until, failing to 
 make the products of labor meet the cost of subsisting 
 tiie laborer, he succumbs ; and the social and indus- 
 trial sj'stems topple in common ruinV Has not phil- 
 anthropy run mad when it purposes to work out the 
 liberation of the slave by such a process ? Does it 
 not arrogate to itself the infallibilit_v of Divine wis- 
 dom, when out of humanity to the slave, it would, by 
 force of law, starve him into freedom ? 
 
 Does it not arrogate to itself the power of the Al- 
 mighty, when it attempts to establish such a system 
 over fifteen communities with complete governments, 
 with a population of twelve and a half millions, and 
 occupying a region larger than half of Europe, by ex- 
 ternal legislation enforced by external power ? If no 
 government known to history has ever been strong 
 enough to do this thing, what terms can adequately 
 characterize the wild hallucination of attempting it 
 through the limited powers and under the self-check- 
 ing forms of confederation ? 
 
 3. As the policy operates to restrain the emigration 
 of the owner and the slave, but not the white man 
 who holds no slaves, must not the eii'ect be to cause 
 the latter to emigrate V Must not the proportion of 
 the black race to the white be incessantly increasing 
 by the operation of a permanent cause V At last, when 
 the system culminates in emancipation, must not the 
 result be communities almost exclusively of blacks ? 
 Can the whites live in such communities ? Should we 
 not, in the ultimate effects of the restrictive policy, 
 convert our sister states into negro governmentsV Will 
 we then allow them equality in our Union, as our 
 Republican friends propose at the coming election to 
 allow the blacks of this state equality in the elective 
 franchise ? Would it not, on the whole, be better to 
 let the black man go towards the tropics as best he 
 may, bond or free, so that, if at last we come to dis- 
 solve our Union, the dissolution maybe only with the 
 black republics of the tropics; and we may at least 
 retain the original thirteen who fought the battle of 
 our independence, and the riparian states that control 
 the navigation of the Mississippi, with white men for 
 the governing power V 
 
 4. Have we sufficiently considered whether acting 
 upon slavery in the territories, in order to react upon 
 it within the states, even if it were within our literal 
 authority, would not be in some sort a fraud on the 
 distribution of powers provided bv the constitution ? 
 May a man get the Street Commissioner to wall up 
 the entrance to my house on the pretext that it is only 
 exercising the rights of the public over the streets 
 which belong to the public '? May my neighbor flood 
 my farm because the dam which creates the overflow- 
 is built upon his own land V May a man plant his foot 
 tirmly on the safety-valve and silence the engineer by 
 
 saying that he does not interfere with the boiler? 
 Now is not the natural increase by which one hundred 
 and twenty thousand are every year added to the 
 slave population as much a necessity as the existence 
 of the present four millions V Is not another four 
 millions of blacks within the next twenty-tive years 
 just as much a fact as the present four millions V Can 
 any man stop it ? Is not the fact which is to come an 
 inevitable incident to the fact which now exists ? 
 Must it not be dealt with as a part of the one great 
 fact ? To ignore this inevitable incident, is it not 
 shallow in philosophy, inadequate in policy, disastrous 
 failure in government V And to whom naturally be- 
 longs the solution of the problem it creates, except to 
 those communities who have the great trust of the 
 principal fact and whom we do not propose even to 
 consult V Ought we to refuse even to join with our- 
 selves in determining such a question, those who 
 must reap the good or bear the ill of our decision in a 
 case which, so far as the track of southern emigration 
 is concerned, cannot affect us in the least ? Should we 
 attempt to establish over them a polic}' — even if we 
 sincerely think it best for them — which nobody 
 among them can be found to approve or uphold ? 
 
 5. Would not a wise man, with a conscientious 
 sense of responsibility, although theoretically op- 
 posed to slavery, if he were to be invested with ab- 
 solute power over the primary fact of slavery with- 
 in the states, or of the incidental fact of its natural 
 growth, find himself unable, just in proportion as 
 he should study these facts, to deal with them on 
 any artificial sj^stem of human devising '? Well 
 might Mr. Seward say that John Quincy Adams 
 died despairing of a peaceful solution of the ques- 
 tion ; for he had not, as Mr. Seward has not, any of 
 that master-philosophy for such a problem, which 
 says to the federal government. Let it alone. 
 
 6. If in the attempt to solve this problem accord- 
 ing to our own ideas, and to enforce our solution 
 through the federative government, adversely to 
 the whole public opinion of the southern states, we 
 should break up the constitutional compact betwee-n 
 us, should we not fail of establishing our policy 
 with its imaginary benefits, while we should become 
 the authors of the most transcendent calamity any 
 generation has ever been able to inflict upon man- 
 kind ? 
 
 POLICY OF THE FATHERS. 
 
 The traditional policy of our government, estab- 
 lished by the fathers, and followed until 1850, is to 
 be studied in all the acts of Congress upon the sub- 
 ject of slavery considered collectively. 
 
 It was : — 
 
 1st. To prohibit slavery by federal legislation, at 
 the instance of the North, and with the consent of 
 the South, in the territories lying substantially 
 within the track of northern emigration. 
 
 2d. To leave the territories lying in the track of 
 southern emigration without any federal legislation 
 prohibiting slavery. 
 
11 
 
 The ordinance of 1787, apph'ing the restriction 
 to all territories north of the Ohio, and the Missouri 
 Compromise of 1820, applying it to all territories 
 north of the southern line of Missouri, were the 
 parent measures, to which all the other acts were 
 subordinate. None of the other acts of restriction 
 extended their operation south of the lines estab- 
 lished by those measures. 
 
 At tlie adoption of the constitution the southern 
 states consisted of a scattering population upon the 
 eastern slopes of the Alleghanies. All the people in 
 the region now embraced in states lying west of the 
 ridge did not much exceed the number of persons 
 to-day congregated in a single ward of the city of 
 New York. 
 
 Emigration has pushed westward until almost 
 two-thirds of the present population of the South 
 is in a region which seventy years ago was a wil- 
 derness. On the west of Virginia has sprung up 
 Kentucky ; on the west of North Carolina, Tennes- 
 see ; on the west of Georgia and South Carolina, 
 Alabama, and afterwards Mississippi, — all formed 
 out of the original domain of the United States. 
 
 An entire tier of states on the west bank of the 
 Mississippi, comprising Louisiana, Arkansas, and 
 Missouri, have been added out of Mr. Jefferson's Lou- 
 isiana purchase. This tier embraces the whole track 
 of the southern emigration, extending to the North 
 even beyond that track. It carries the divisional 
 line in the west, which had been deflected to the 
 south by the adoption of the diagonal course of 
 the Ohio, back to a point somewhat northerly of 
 the line which has become the boundary between the 
 free and the slave systems in the original states, by 
 the voluntary action of those states. Florida on 
 the south, and Texas on the south-west, have been 
 subsequently added. 
 
 Now, in all this region, embracing the entire 
 track of the southern emigration, there has been 
 no legislation of the federative government inter- 
 fering with the natural course of southern emigra- 
 tion, or disturbing the action of the physical laws 
 by which it is governed, or preventing the establish- 
 ment by the new communities thus formed of in- 
 dusti'ial and social systems, similar to those of the 
 states from which the emigration proceeded. 
 
 THEIR SELF-RESTKAINT VOLUNTARY. 
 
 I know the idea is inculcated that the government 
 has abstained from such legislation only from defect 
 of power or in submission to actual compact. 
 
 To this I answer, _/(/'ft'<, that if this allegation were 
 true, it would show that the policy of universal re- 
 striction of slavery, which has been ascribed to the 
 fathers, was, at best, but a theory, never reduced to 
 practice ; nor of much weight as indicating the 
 matured judgment as to practical legislation of 
 statesmen who were never called on to put a specu- 
 lative opinion into operation, or of the people who 
 were never called on to submit to its effects ; 
 secondly, that there is no foundation whatever for 
 
 the allegation that the fathers would have applied 
 the restrictive system to the track of southern emi- 
 gration, if they could; or that they omitted to do so 
 from any such necessity as is pretended, or from 
 any reason other than their ideas of the self- 
 restraint which a wise policy imposes on practical 
 statesmen dealing with such a question. They had 
 every means, method, and power open to their use 
 which have been proposed to be employed for that 
 purpose in our modern times. I say this advisedly ; 
 and, though I cannot now stop to discuss details, I 
 hold mvself ready to maintain the statement. 
 
 Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, all Virginians, 
 were undoubtedly opposed in theory to slavery, 
 and looked forward to its ultimate extinction; but 
 they were practical statesmen, and they did not 
 make any serious endeavors to surmount the intrin- 
 sic difficulties of the subject, either in Virginia or 
 Kentucky, where it was open to their legal and con- 
 stitutional action, still less in southern territories 
 through the federative government. They proba- 
 bly were never able to see clearly any satisfactory 
 method and means of giving effect to their desires, 
 even in the infancy of the institution; and they 
 wisely left it to itself until the people interested 
 should feel themselves able to solve the problem. 
 No men had more power to have changed the practi- 
 cal policy and practical results which I have shown 
 to be facts of our history. That policy grew up and 
 matured its fruits during the period of their ad- 
 ministrations, and of their xmapproachable influ- 
 ence over the public mind of this countrv, without 
 opposition or dissent from them, often with their 
 concurrence. Jefferson and Madison survived the 
 time of the Missouri controversy; were then in 
 retirement, free from all bias of political aspiration, 
 sedulous only for the welfare and happiness of 
 their country; and certainly not wanting in philan- 
 thropy towards any of the human race. They 
 have both left on record their earnest, thoughtful, 
 warning protest against the whole scheme of ap- 
 plying through federal legislation the restrictive 
 system to southern territory, contrary to the will 
 of the existing southern states. That a party 
 organization exclusively northern, dominating in 
 the federal government, should enforce such a 
 system was never within their contemplation. That 
 fact, if it shall be to-day inevitable, will be the 
 political calamity of a later generation. 
 
 MODE AND TERMS OF ADJUSTING THE CONTRO- 
 VERSY. 
 
 I assert that a controversy between powerful com- 
 munities organized into governments, of a nature 
 like that which now divides the North and South, 
 can be settled only by convention or by war. I 
 affirm this upon the xmiversal principles of human 
 nature, and the collective experience of all man- 
 kind. I aver it, in defiance of the babbling speech 
 makers who set up for statesmen without possessing 
 or understanding one element of that character; 
 
12 
 
 Avho pretend to superiority of principle, because 
 they denounce compromise, which is, in the very 
 nature of things, the only solution possible of such 
 a difference between such parties. 
 
 By convention, I mean, not an ancient compact 
 of confederation, but a fresh, living, practical as- 
 sent of the wills of the parties to conditions in 
 which those wills are moderately and fairly repre- 
 sented, so that the acquiescence of both parties may 
 be secured. 
 
 INTERESTS OF THE PARTIES. 
 
 We must study the practical interests of both 
 parties in the questions, in order to see what con- 
 ditions will be adequate. The elements of the case 
 are simple. 
 
 The northern states have a direct and important 
 interest in keeping the natural course of their emi- 
 gration into the territories substantially undis- 
 turbed, with freedom to such of their people as over- 
 flow into the territories to establish in their new 
 seats such systems of industry and society as they 
 have been accustomed to at home. 
 
 The southern states have exactly the same inter- 
 est. Both have an indirect interest in the forma- 
 tion of new states, as it affects the balance of power 
 between the two classes in the confederation. 
 
 Now in respect to the first interest, so long 
 as the federal government refrains from interfer- 
 ence, there is really no conflict except in imagi- 
 nation. For as long a future as the human vision 
 can clearly scan, both have room enough, and 
 they do not desire to occupy the same space. 
 Slavery not only refuses to go into or towards 
 the track of the northern settlers in the territories, 
 but withdraws faster than white labor can replace 
 it in the territories and contiguous parts of adjacent 
 states. 
 
 At an early period southern settlers touched the 
 parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, which en- 
 croached upon their track, sooner than northern 
 settlers reached any portion of those states; and a 
 feeble disposition to carry slavery there was mani- 
 fested, but it was ineffectual. 
 
 The only other tendency to conflict arose on the 
 border of Kansas, contiguous to Missouri. The 
 divisional line established bj' the admission of Mis- 
 souri with slavery, and the restriction of slavery' 
 from the territories west of it down to its southern- 
 most boundary, became at this point perpendicular 
 to the natural line of division between the two 
 westward streams of emigration. It would not 
 have been strange, therefore, if some settlers had 
 crossed the boundary between the two with sla- 
 verj^ ; but it could gain no stable footing there ; for 
 the tendency for it to move down southward from 
 Missouri was stronger than for it to ascend west- 
 ward into Kansas. And a vast emigration from 
 the northern hives was swarming towards both. 
 
 It is my well-considered conviction that not one 
 state is now free from slavery, which would have 
 
 accepted it if no restriction by federal legislation had 
 ever been enacted. 
 
 FORMS OF COMPROMISE. 
 
 Compromise of the territorial question has two 
 forms. The one is by a divisional line practically 
 agreed upon by the two sections, and declared by act 
 of Congress. The other is worked out by natural and 
 material causes, and finally declared by each locality 
 when it is admitted as a state. 
 
 As an original question, I think the latter mode the 
 best ; for it avoids the struggle in fixing the line by 
 the federative government ; and it will more exactly 
 respect the natural courses of emigration. 
 
 As to the interest of the two parties in the balance 
 of power in the confederated government, the North 
 certainly has nothing to fear. It gains in pojmlation 
 at least seven hundred thousand as often as the South 
 gains three hundred thousand, and it can form new 
 states more rapidly. It has the advantage of greater 
 numbers. The South, when attacked, has the advan- 
 tage of greater unity. 
 
 UNION OR DISUNION. 
 
 Can the North understand the full import of the 
 federative idea V Can it apply that idea completely 
 to all the relations of the slavery question V 
 
 That is the problem of the continued existence of 
 our Union in a government of confederated states. 
 Majorities in all the northern states against all the 
 South are not without extreme difficulty formed or 
 combined, and being wholly unnatural, cannot last 
 long enough to dictate or to fashion a permanent 
 policy for the Union. 
 
 Such a result could never be reached except amid 
 an extraordinary concurrence of circumstances, and 
 in an entire failure of the northern people to see 
 that the conflict is any thing more to the southern 
 people than it appears to be in the North, — an ordi- 
 nary struggle of political parties. This state of 
 parties is only a paroxysm. Yet the North may, in 
 a paroxysm, alarm and repel the South out of the 
 Union. 
 
 LOGICAL RESULT AFTER DISUNION. 
 
 If it should do so, and if we should yet escape or 
 recover from civil war, would we not soon wish to 
 establish treaties of peace, — of free trade between 
 them and us, — of unobstructed intercourse between 
 our citizens V Might we not even desire an alliance 
 for common defence ? Is it not clear that such ar- 
 rangements would be eminently wise and eminently 
 conducive to the prosperity and welfare of both 
 parties ? would not such an arrangement be a salu- 
 tarj' extension and improvement of the system which 
 modern civilization is applying by diplomacy between 
 independent nations all over the world V 
 
 If these results were once successfully accom- 
 plished, we should have restored an imperfect ap- 
 proach, poor and miserable indeed, — far worse than 
 the old confederation, — to what our great forefathers 
 intended in our federative government, which they 
 
13 
 
 framed and which we shall have broken into pieces ; 
 in that case should we have any idea that it would be 
 either our moral right or duty to interfere, in any 
 manner, with slavery within their borders, or to sup- 
 press, by force, the natural growth of new com- 
 munities like their own by the inevitable increase of 
 their population V 
 
 Is it necessary for us to travel through all this 
 drear}' cycle to reach a result which it is just as wise, 
 just as necessary for us now to adopt V Through what 
 human misery, what individual ruin, what public 
 calamity, would we then have attained a compulsory, 
 and no doubt contented, inaction as to slavery in all 
 those aspects in which it now makes us fanatical. 
 
 I say contented inaction ; for in that case we shoul-d 
 see and feel, that it was no more our moral right or 
 duty to interfere with slavery in a southern state or 
 territory than in the Empire of Brazil. We should 
 thus, over the ruins of our confederated government, 
 have been brought to some sense of the true theory of 
 local self-government under our federal constitution. 
 Our misfortune would be that our wisdom had come 
 too late. 
 
 PERSONAL. EXPLANATION. 
 
 It is with reluctance that I mingle one word of a 
 personal nature in this discussion. But I must an- 
 swer my personal friends of the Evening Post, who 
 have courteously invited this discussion, so far as to 
 say that I never held anj' opinion which could justifj' 
 either the policy or the organization of the Republican 
 party. If I had done so, I should not hesitate to 
 frankly renounce so grave an error. I admit con- 
 sistency, so far as it indicates conscientious delibera- 
 tion and prudence in adopting opinions or in conduct, 
 to be a quality which inspires confidence. But I do 
 not consider it so great a virtue as a fixed purpose to 
 do right ; and a single modification in a man's opinions 
 on one of the questions which have occupied the 
 public mind during the period of twenty-five years, 
 ought not to shake an established character for con- 
 sistency, especially if it be moderate, reasonable, and 
 free from every taint of selfishness. But, in truth, I 
 never adopted the doctrine of absolute and universal 
 exclusion, by federal legislation, of slavery from all 
 territories, and still less that of the exclusion of new 
 slave states ; or the philosophical theory on which the 
 doctrines are founded. 
 
 Mr. Greeley, last fall, detailed and repeated his 
 personal recollection of the anti-Texas meeting of 
 '44 at the Tabernacle, in which, as he alleged, I joined 
 with him. His obvious motive was to embitter against 
 me the resentments of Republicans who once be- 
 longed to the school of radical democracy. A candi- 
 date, when imder the actual circumstances, as was 
 known to the gentleman at whose instance I was 
 nominated, and all my friends, that an election would 
 have been a calamity to me, I felt at liberty to treat 
 this misstatement — misrecollection, as I am willing 
 to believe it — as I treated all similar ones of the can- 
 vass, with silent indifference. In 1844 1 was strongly 
 
 inclined to the theory in respect to the tendency of 
 slavery to confine itself to its own natural track, 
 which subsequent reflection has established in my 
 mind, and which I have developed in this letter ; and 
 I neither said nor did any thing inconsistent with it. 
 I thought then that the question ought to be decided, 
 not on the ideas either of New England or of Mr. 
 Calhoun, but on general considerations of national 
 polic}' ; that the acquisition of Texas was expedient, 
 but ought to be conducted in a prudent and proper 
 manner. The provincial ideas of New England were 
 not more offended by that measure than by the acquisi- 
 tion of Louisiana. They did not so strongly threaten 
 to dissolve the Union, as they did on the same grounds, 
 when the act was accomplished which gave the Mis- 
 sissippi to us all, and to the North Iowa, Minnesota, 
 and the territories stretching to the Pacific. I pre- 
 sume that those from whom I then differed, and who 
 now impeach my consistency, will advise a civil war 
 to keep Texas and her kindred states in the Union if 
 they should now attempt to go out. 
 
 On the acquisition of California, the North univer- 
 sally claimed that its status should not be changed by 
 the act of the federal government. That was thea 
 the leading idea of the radical democrats of this state, 
 as expressed in their most authentic and authoritative 
 declaration. In assenting to that abstract idea, be- 
 yond which I never individually went, I did so in a 
 sense of equitable partition, under which we had justi- 
 fied our acceptance of Texas ; and might accept Cuba, 
 — an abstract idea, however, which it was soon seen 
 could not afford a perfect solution of the whole ques- 
 tion in all its future aspects and applications, and 
 which at that time was practically satisfied by the 
 admission of California. Since that time the increas- 
 ing development of the tendency of slaver}' to with- 
 draw from even a contiguity to the track of northern 
 emigration, and the immense influx of population 
 from abroad, ought to convince every reflecting mind 
 that whatever legal theory is adopted, our old habit of 
 federal restriction over our portion of the territories 
 can be safely abandoned, while any theory which 
 should interfere with the track of southern emigration 
 cannot be safely or rightfully applied by the legisla- 
 tion of the federal government. 
 
 The division in the democratic party of this state in 
 1848 bears no analogy to the Republican organization 
 of to-day. It would not have happened, except for 
 what was deemed to be a violation of the right of rep- 
 resentation in a national convention ; and the divi- 
 sion was the year after composed, while the slavery 
 question was still unsettled. Wise or unwise, right 
 or wrong, it was in substance a mere protest. It is 
 known that my personal wish then was, that its form 
 should not have gone beyond its true practical char- 
 acter. The scheme of a permanent northern party 
 was not, so far as I know, entertained among the 
 radical democrats, except in the mind of one man, 
 with whom it was a mere undeveloped idea, soon 
 abandoned, but resumed in 1855, when he led his fol- 
 lowers into the Republican camp. The worst conse- 
 
14 
 
 quence of the division in 1848 was, not like the 
 division of the democratic party now, to bring in a 
 sectional candidate of a sectional party, but merely to 
 let in a national party, with Taylor and Filmore at its 
 head, under whom the slavery questions were all 
 wisely compromised. On that adjustment I have 
 ever stood. Willing to accept the modern policy of 
 total federal non-action in place of the system of 
 division by federal legislation, I nevertheless used all 
 my influence, at whatever sacrifice of relations, to 
 resist the raising of the question of the repeal of the 
 Missouri Compromise, because I thought a theoretical 
 conformity to even a wise system dearly purchased by 
 breaking the tradition of ancient pacification on such 
 a question, and between such parties. At the same 
 time, merely a private citizen myself, I appreciate the 
 difficulty a public man has in acting against a general 
 principle for the sake of merely prudential considera- 
 tions, especially amid a conflict of sections and of 
 parties. I foresaw on the formation of the Republican 
 party, the evils and dangers which it would create, if it 
 should succeed, as it could not have done without 
 great adventitious aids, in combining an unbroken 
 mass of northern majorities ; and I communicated my 
 opinion to former political associates who joined the 
 new organization. It is known to many that my 
 whole action since has been dictated by this convic- 
 tion. I have gone through this explanation on an invi- 
 tation from those who were once my political as well 
 as personal friends, in order to demonstrate that I 
 have ever}' right to be heard by them, fairly and 
 candidly, when I now state the limitations of our 
 rights and duties. 
 
 Let me say also that it was natural that on the hap- 
 pening of the events which gave rise to these ques- 
 tions, the northern mind should at first apply to them 
 — too loosely and broadly I admit — the ideas which 
 it had been accustomed to apply to the subject of 
 slavery at home ; ideas which the progress of events 
 and the maturing of opinion have shown must be 
 greatly limited in their application in order to adapt 
 them to the theor}' of our federative system. 
 
 Let me add, that in renouncing the habit of federal 
 legislation as to slavery in which we all grew up, and 
 advocating the idea of federal non-interfen.ice with 
 the industrial system of the South, I but cunform to 
 that sound political philosophy which, upon all the 
 great industrial questions of our times, has always 
 guided not myself alone, but all radical democrats ; 
 and which tiie Evenim/ Post, in all crises, with this 
 single inconsistent, disastrous exception, even now 
 applies and ably champions in conspicuous antago- 
 nism to the entire political theory and persistent 
 practice of the party with which it is now, in my 
 judgment, unnaturally, and therefore, I hope, but 
 temporarily associated. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 My conclusions are : — 
 
 1. That the southern states will not, by any pos- 
 sibility, accept the avowed creed of the Republican 
 
 party as the permanent policy of the federative gov- 
 ernment as to slavery, either in the states or terri- 
 tories ; and, 
 
 2. That upon this creed the Republican party will 
 not establish any affiliations with considerable minori- 
 ties in the southern states. 
 
 All the evidence is, that the non-slaveholders are, 
 generally, at least, as hostile to the Republican creed 
 as the slaveholders. All experience shows that an 
 interest very far less extensive, important, and funda- 
 mental than that of the slaveholders in the South, 
 usually unites the whole local community in its sup- 
 port, especially against outside interference. And 
 in this case, besides, there is a powerful motive, 
 common to all, to preserve the social supremacy of 
 their race. The very attempt to organize, by out- 
 side instigation, a separate class of non-slaveholders 
 against the general opinion of these communities, 
 would be itself a new and intolerable irritation. 
 The dream of a Republican party in the South is 
 a mere illusion. 
 
 3. A condition of parties in which the federative 
 government shall be carried on by a party having no 
 affiliations in the southern states, is impossible to con- 
 tinue. Such a government would be out of all relation 
 to those states. It would have neither the nerves of 
 sensation, which convey intelligence to the intellect 
 of the body politic, nor the ligaments and muscles 
 which hold its parts together, and move them in 
 harmony. It would be in substance the government 
 of one people by another people. That system will 
 not do with our race. The fifteen organized states to 
 be subjected to it now occupy a region as large as 
 France, Italy, the Austrian Empire, the German states, 
 and the British Isles. In my judgment, such a con- 
 dition of things could not become complete in all the 
 departments of tiie government, before the antago- 
 nism of the minority would throw off the government, 
 by secession from the Union. I 
 
 4. Nothing short of the recession of the Republican 
 party to the point of total and absolute non-action on 
 the subject of slavery in the states and territories 
 could enable it to reconcile to itself the people of the 
 South. liven then it would have great and fixed 
 antipathies to overcome; and men and parties act 
 chiefly from habit. 
 
 5. Will the Republican party submit itself to this 
 inevitable necessity to revolutionize its whole char- 
 acter ? To attempt this change and not to perish as 
 a dominant party is barely possible. Not to attempt 
 and accomplish it, and yet to live as an ascendant 
 power in our Union, is totally impossible. The Re- 
 publican party must become as national in its struct- 
 ure as the whig party was, and submit to the 
 necessary conditions of such nationality, in order to 
 be capable of governing the country. It must travel 
 through the entire cycle of retrogression, and demon- 
 strate that its existence in its present form was a 
 mistake. The national whig party, if it had not been 
 disbanded, might much sooner and more easily have 
 taken the government, and could have done every 
 
15 
 
 thing which is possible for the Republican partj' to 
 accomplish without dissolving the Union. 
 
 6. The election of Jlr. Lincoln, if it should occur, 
 will place the Executive head of the federal govern- 
 ment in the false and unnatural position I have de- 
 picted ; that is to say, place it out of all relation to the 
 people of fifteen states. 
 
 To the eyes of these states it appears as the fore- 
 runner of a complete system of the same character 
 in the federal government. It fills their people with 
 alarm ; it excites strong resentments. 
 
 It will be a small alleviation that the result will 
 have come about in some degree by divisions in the 
 democratic party ; and by dexterous use of electoral 
 forms, whereby the northern majorities will constitute 
 little over one-third of the whole vote cast. 
 
 It will be a greater alleviation, if the House of 
 Representatives should change adversely to the Re- 
 publican party. 
 
 7. Our northern people look at this thing in the 
 light of the ideas which prepossess their own minds. 
 They overlook one fact which renders the position of 
 the parties unequal, — the fact that slavery exists at 
 the South and not at the North. They claim equality 
 in the operation of their ideas with those of the other 
 party, which is in many respects peculiarly and ex- 
 clusively affected by their operation. 
 
 They ask, have we not a right to elect a President 
 in a constitutional manner by our votes '? You have, 
 in obedience to the fundamental ideas of our confed- 
 eration, no more moral right to do so on the basis of 
 your present party organization than you have t« do 
 a thousand other things which the laws and constitu- 
 tion allow, but which reason, justice, public policy, 
 and fraternal sympathy forbid. 
 
 The South gave us Washington, Jefferson, Madi- 
 son, Monroe, Jackson, Polk, Taylor, and we voted 
 for them all. We offer them Lincoln, and they 
 say they cannot vote for him because his policy 
 is fatal to what, to them, is a vital interest, while 
 to us it is but an abstract idea. We answer that 
 we know better than they; if they will not agree 
 with us we will not compromise, we will have our 
 own way ! 
 
 8. A southern partisan presidency on such a con- 
 troversy, in unison with the southern state govern- 
 ments, would be an evil, even if unavoidable ; but it 
 would merely offend the ideas of the North. A 
 northern partisan presidency on such a controversy, 
 in conflict with the southern state governments, is 
 manifestly pregnant with perils which no past ex- 
 perience has witnessed, and which threaten the whole 
 fabric of our Union with swift destruction. 
 
 9. If we are not wise enough to abstain from creat- 
 ing such a state of things, what right have we to sup- 
 pose the South will accept it with patience ? Seeing 
 the transcendent nature of the interest, — they have 
 not the restraint of a party among them holding the 
 sentiments of the northern majority, — they think that 
 they are wronged, — they feel put upon self-defence. 
 Have we a right to assume that they will act with 
 
 what, from our point of view, would be a prudent 
 moderation ? 
 
 I fear that from the very election of Mr. Lincoln, if 
 it should unfortunately happen, we should be em- 
 barked upon a frightful agitation in all the South, — 
 general alarm and excitement, — state conventions to 
 deliberate upon the continuance of the Union. I 
 recoil from contemplating the but too probable conse- 
 quences in which all this must end. I know that the 
 most wise, prudent, conservative, and patriotic men 
 of the most Union-loving states of the South are filled 
 with consternation when they think of the great surge 
 of popular excitement which they will be called on to 
 breast. 
 
 10. What will Mr. Lincoln do ? Can he be ex- 
 pected, as President, to understand the state of things 
 in any other sense than that of his own partisan 
 policy ? Can he avoid the attempt to maintain the 
 power of his party by the same means which will 
 have acquired it? Can he emancipate himself from 
 the dominion of the ideas, associations, and influences 
 which will have accompanied him in his rise to power ? 
 Can he be expected to act in any new direction with 
 sufficient breadth of view and firmness of purpose V 
 
 If he shall fail adequately to respond to these great 
 exigencies, the inevitable result as it presents itself to 
 my judgment has been already sufficiently indicated. 
 
 11. If he should act in a spirit of large patriotism, 
 what will be his position and means V 
 
 The history of Jackson's administration throws 
 some light upon the difficulties which, in a vastly 
 aggravated form, he may have to encounter, and upon 
 the methods of action by which, if at all, they must 
 be overcome. 
 
 Jackson had to deal with a question comparatively 
 unimportant, and far less purely sectional. As a 
 southern man of great popularity and renown, he 
 stood strong in the confidence of all the southern people 
 whose votes had just contributed to raise him to 
 power. He was the head of a strong Jacksonian 
 party organization in everj' southern state. Clay, the 
 head of the adverse tariff interest, was also a south- 
 ern man, and at the same time the head of a great 
 party in all those states. And yet, with all these 
 immense advantages, Jackson, because the contro- 
 versy was partly sectional, was compelled to exert all 
 his power and to display all his courage in order, with 
 the aid of Clay and Webstei', to accomplish its adjust- 
 ment, even upon a basis of compromise and conces- 
 sion, and he accomplished this result at last by fighting 
 the battle through the public opinion of the disaffected 
 section. 
 
 Lincoln, if he should, in a crisis far more difficult, 
 stand in the place of Jackson, to confront a public 
 disorder infinitely more extensive, deeply seated, and 
 dangerous — as he should stretch his eye a thousand 
 miles over the region of disaffection, would see not 
 one adherent; not one leader of local opinion with 
 whom he was in established relations of friendship, 
 sympathy, or support ; not one representative to speak 
 in his name, with power to win the ear of the masses ; 
 
16 
 
 not one of six hundred newspapers devoted to politics, 
 and half that number devoted to other discussions, 
 •which had not been preoccupying the minds of the 
 people with distrust, hatred, or fear of him. Without 
 any of the means by which combats of opinion are 
 fought among a free people, himself an offence, an ob- 
 struction, instead of a power to save, — the whole 
 strain, the whole shock of the crisis would be thrown 
 upon the mere intrinsic strength of our federal gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 I cannot, for one, assent to the creation of such a 
 state of things. I have a faith in our popular sj'stem 
 which never before faltered, but I dai-e not precipitate 
 it upon such a trial. It is not a fair experiment. In 
 my judgment, those who think it free from the most 
 imminent peril, display the courage of men who hav- 
 ing eyes cannot see. An incredulity, even more 
 serene and stubborn, in the minds of monarchs, min- 
 isters, and peoples, has often been broken by revolu- 
 tion or by war. Such a crisis as that in which Lincoln's 
 election would place our country can only be prudently 
 treated after fully comprehending it. Historj^ is full 
 of illustrations of the inadequate policy which meets 
 civil convulsions, step by step, with concessions, at 
 every stage, insufficient and too late, because the 
 authors of the policy could not anticipate events, and 
 events would not wait. 
 
 Elect Lincoln, and we invite those perils which we 
 cannot measure ; we attempt in vain to conquer the 
 submission of the South to an impractical>le and in- 
 tolerable policy; our only hope must be that as Pres- 
 ident he will abandon the creed, the principles, and 
 pledges on which he will have been elected. 
 
 Defeat Lincoln, and all our great interests and hopes 
 are, unquestionably, safe. 
 
 If thus, or in an}' mode, we escape the perils of 
 which his election will be the signal, our noble ship of 
 state will issue forth from the breakers now foaming 
 around and ahead, and spring forward into the open 
 sea in all the majesty of her strength and beauty. 
 
 But if the Providence which has hitherto guided 
 and guarded our country shall at last abandon us 
 to our foolish and wicked strifes, I behold a far dif- 
 ferent scene. 
 
 It is too late ! It is too late ! We are upon the 
 breakers. Whose eye quails now ? Whose cheek 
 blanches? It is not mine, who felt a "provident 
 fear," and have done all I could. Where is the ex- 
 cellent President of the Chamber of Commerce, whom 
 they perched up in the forecastle to assure us that a 
 good lookout was kept for our safety V Where are 
 the dozen "great stakes," as Mr. Webster used to 
 call them, whom they planted closely around him to 
 shut out from the sight of the crew the beacon erected 
 bj' Washington ? Where are the thoughtless, reck- 
 less seamen who taunted me with cowardice when I 
 vainly strove to warn them ? I hear only the wailing 
 cry of selfish terror as I sit upon the straining tim- 
 bers, and watch the rage of the sea. My mmd is 
 filled, my heart swells with the thought, that yon 
 wave which towers before us will engulf more of 
 human hajipiness and human hopes than have per- 
 ished in any one catastrophe since the world began. 
 
 S. J. TILDEN. 
 
 New York, October 26, 1860. 
 

 
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