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THREE SECESSION MovemFNTs
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IN THE L//7, 7 ºf
UNITED STATES.
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* . .
SAMUEL J. TILDEN,
THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY,
THE ADVISER, AIDER AND A BETTOR
OF THE
GREAT SECESSION MOVEMENT OF 1860;
AND ONE OF THE AUTHORs of THE
INFAMOUS RESOLUTION OF 1864.
HIS CLAIMS AS A STATESMAN AND REFORMER
CONSIDERED,
B OST ON:
PRESS OF JOHN wiLSON AND SON.
1876.

TABLE • OF CONTENTS.
Secession in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Mr. Tilden's Pamphlet of 1860 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
The Year 1860 the Great Crisis in our History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The Authors of the War of the Rebellion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The Government of the United 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 . tº dº e º is tº e º º º . 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 . . . . . . . . 0 e º 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 ſº tº tº º º . . . 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 & º e º 'º º & 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 the “New York World” . . . . . . . . . . 16
The War proceeds, and the South coerced into the Union. . . . . . . . . . 17
Mr. Tilden's Arraignment of the Republican 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 e e o 'º e s is a º * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 . * @ º tº e 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. RogFRs,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
f
SECESSION IN THE UNITED STATES.
MR. TILDEN's PAMPHILET.
THE letter, a fac-simile copy of which is an-
nexed hereto, was published on the eve of the
Presidential Election of 1860, 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 YEAR 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 the cause of free-
dom, to be the signal for their movement. It is
unnecessary again to go over the 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 this 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 4 Those at the North who
instructed the Southern States that secession was
a right secured to them by the Constitution, and
that they 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 the people to honor him with the highest
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 ? Is it a confederation
from which each State, as an integral party,
may withdraw at pleasure; or is it a govern-
ment of paramount powers from which no State
can withdraw but by the consent of the whole 3’.
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 author; 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 unauthoritative, 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 the Constitution, the
measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases
of compact among parties having no common judge,
each party has an equal right to judge for itself; as
well of infractions as of the mode and measure of re-
dress, . . . “ and that a nullification by those sover-
eignties of all unauthorized acts 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 where resort can be had to no
4
tribunal superior to the authority of the parties,
the parties 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 whether
the compact made by them be violated ; and,
consequently, that, 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 their
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 which 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-
ond, of which the continuance was limited to two
years, gave the President authority to order out
of the country all such aliens as he might 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 the
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.
gether, 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 printing 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 the hatred
of the good people of the United States; or to
stir up sedition, or with 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, the 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 their interference and impertinence, no mat-
ter how irritating or mischievous. They wére,
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.
WASIIINGTON'S OPINION OF THE CHARACTER OF
TIIESE RESOLUTIONS. —- LETTER TO PATRICK
HENRY.
The publication of Mr. Jefferson'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 whose preservation
was always uppermost in his mind. Although
he was in the last year of his life, and had sought
to retire wholly from the turmoil of political life,
5
he at once returned to it, and directed all his
efforts to arouse the country to a sense of its
dangers, and to urge men of character, experi-
ence and influence, to come forward to its res-
cue. Immediately upon their 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 which threatened, and for the practical
wisdom displayed, was never exceeded by any
thung that came from his pen. As it is a docu-
ment of the greatest value, not only as illustrat-
ing the 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 full.1
“MoUNT VERNoN, 15th of Jan'y, 1799.
“MY 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 my
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
party” among us to disquiet the public mind with
unfounded alarms; to arraign every act of the
administration; 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
help of the chiefs in other States, all the plans are
arranged and systematically pursued by their fol-
lowers in other parts of the Union; though in
no State except Kentucky, that I have heard of,
has legislative countenance been obtained be-
yond Virginia.”
“It has been said that the great mass of the
See Sparks' Life and Writings of Washington,
Vol. XI. p. 387.
* Mr. Jefferson.
* The 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 that State. The
Resolution adopted by the State of Delaware may be
given, as briefly expressing the sentiment of all: —
“Resolved. 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 United 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 destroy 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 us will not
come forward. Easy and happy 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 party
hangs upon the wheels of government as a dead
weight, opposing 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; when measures are
systematically and pertinaciously pursued which 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 3 Rather, 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 happiness 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 of this opposition be
mistaken, then, if judged by this rule 3 That
they are followed by numbers who are unac-
quainted with their designs, and suspect as little
the tendency of their principles, I am fully per-
suaded. But if their conduct is viewed with indif.
ference; if there are activity and misrepresentation on
one side, and supineness on the other, their numbers
accumulated by intriguing and discontented foreigners
under proscription, who are at war with their own
governments, and the greater part of them with all
governments, they will increase, and nothing short of
Omniscience 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
the ensuing elections, (if not for Congress, which
you may think would take you too long from
home), as a candidate for Representative in the
General Assembly of this Commonwealth.
“There are, I have no doubt, very many sensible
men who oppose themselves to the torrent that car-
ries away others who had rather swim with than
stem it without an able pilot to conduct them ;
but these are neither old in legislation nor well
known in the community. Your weight of char-
acter and influence in the House of Representa-
tives would be a bulwark against such dangerous
sentinents as are delivered there at present. It
would be a rallying-point for the timid, and an
attraction to the wavering. 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. My fear that the tranquillity
of the Union, and of this State in particular, is has-
tening to an awful crisis, has extorted them from me.
(Signed) GEO. WASHINGTON.”
QUESTIONS RAISED BY THE FIRST SECESSION
MOVEMENT.
The Resolutions of 1798 and 1799, and the Re-
port referred to, on one side, and the letter of
General Washington, on the other, presented the
first issue that was formally made after the adop-
tion of the Constitution, as to the nature of the
government of the 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 the 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 the 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.
6
THE FIRST MOVEMENT ALLAYED, - ELECTION OF
MR. JEFFERSON TO THE PRESIDENCY, {
The movement in 1798–99 for a dissolution of
the Union, which created such wide-spread alarm,
ended with the expiration, or repeal, of the ob-
noxious acts, and by the election of Mr. Jefferson
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 BY
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, –
ORDIN ANCE OF N ULLIFICATION AND
BY THAT STATE,
“That the several Acts of the Congress of the
United States, purporting to be laws for the inn-
posing of duties and imposts on the importation
of foreign commodities, and now having actual
operation and effect within the United States;
and more especially ‘an Act in alteration of the
several Acts imposing duties on imports approved
19th May, 1828; also, an Act to amend the sev-
eral acts imposing duties on imposts, passed 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
the 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 people of
the co-States, that we are determined to maintain
this our ordinance and declaration, at every
hazard, do further declare that we will not sub-
mit to the application of force on the part of the
Federal Government to reduce this State to
obedience; but will consider the passage 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
SECESSION
civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with
the longer continuance of South Carolina in the
Union; and that the people of this State will
thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all
further obligation to maintain or preserve their
political connection with the people of the other
States, and will forthwith proceed to organize a
separate government, and do all other acts and
things which sovereign and independent States
may of right do.”
Such was a part of the famous Ordinance of
Nullification of South Carolina in 1832. It was
instantly met by a proclamation against it by Gen-
eral Jackson, as President of the United States, in
which, among other things, he said: —
COUNTER PROCLAMATION BY GENERAL JACKSON.
“This right to secede is deduced from the
nature of the Constitution, which, they say, is a
compact between sovereign States, who have pre-
served their whole sovereignty, and, therefore, are
subject to no superior; that, because they made
the compact, they can break it when, in their
opinion, it has been departed from by the other
States. 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 people of the United States formed the
Constitution, acting through the State Legislat-
tures 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
collectively are represented. We are one people
in the choice of the President and Vice-President.
Here the States have no other agency than to
direct the mode in which the votes shall 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 people,
then, and not the States, are represented in the
executive branch.” . . .
“The Constitution of the United States, then,
forms a government, not a league; and whether
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 State, having expressly parted with so
many powers as to constitute, jointly with the
other States, a single nation cannot, from that
period, possess any right to secede, because such
secession does not break a league, but destroys
the unity of a nation; and any injury to that
unity is not only a breach which would result
from the contravention of a compact, but it is an
offence against the whole 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 offence. Secession,
like any other revolutionary act, may 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 they
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
laws of the United States must be executed. I have no
discretionary powers upon the subject ; my duty is
emphatically 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
DisUNION. Be not deceived by names. Disunion
by 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 nullify 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 oppressive effects. Mark, my fellow-
citizens, that, by the admission of your leaders,
the unconstitutiénality must be palpable, or it will
not justify either resistance or nullification 1
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
ordinary intellect will fail 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 perceiving that which must have
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 they address to you.”
They 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-
semble, and promulgate the decided expressions
of your will to remain in the path which alone
can conduct you to safety, prosperity, and honor.
Tell them, that, compared to disunion, all other
evils are light, because that brings with it an
accumulation of all. Declare that you will never
take the field unless the star-spangled banner of
your country shall float over you; that you will
not be stigmatized when dead, and dishonored
and scorned while you live, as the authors of the
first attack on the Constitution of your country.
Its destroyers you cannot be. You may disturb
its peace; you may interrupt the course of its
prosperity ; 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, and remain
an eternal blot on the memory of those 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 which the con-
tinuance of our unexampled prosperity, our
political existence, and, perhaps, that of all free
governments, 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 legal and consti-
tutional opinion of my duties which has been
expressed, 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, by
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.”
THESE ATTEMPTS AT SECESSION, IDENTICAL IN
SPI FIT AND DOCTR IN ES.
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
side 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. -
8
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 old 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, and fool, say they. 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 United 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-
ccuted for treason. ‘My country,” said the General,
“would have sustained me in the act, and his fate
would have been a warning to traitors for all time to
come.’” – Parton’s Life of Jackson, vol. iii. p. 447.
* “My DEAR SIR, -. . . I have had a laborious task
here ; but nullification is dead, and its actors and
courtiers will only be remembered by the people to be
to witness the beginning, under the administra-
tion of Mr. Polk, of the movement which was
to end in an attempt to break up the Union
by force, and to find himself deserted and de-
ceived by the very man in whom he 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
Republican, which hurled the traitors from
power, and saved the Nation.
CAUSE AND PROGRESS OF 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
affected by them. Their expiration or repeal
might remove all cause of complaint. Not so
with the question of slavery, which was the
cause that first carried the doctrine of secession
to its overt act. This was really the immi-
nent one from the very foundation of the Gov-
eacecrated 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. Haman’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 nullifiers: you
have them among you. Let them meet the indignant
frowns of every man who loves his country. The Tariff,
it is now known, was a mere pretext: its burden was on
your coarse woollens. By the law of July, 1832, coarse
woollen was reduced 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 nullifiers 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 wootlems thirty-five per cent. If this is not
protection, I cannot understand; and, therefore, the
Tariff was only the pretext, and disunion and a South-
ern Confederacy the real object. The next preteact will
be the negro or slavery question.
(Signed) ANDREW JACKSON.
[See letter to A. J. Howard, dated May 1, 1833,
McPherson’s Hist. Rebellion, p. 389.]
9
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 might 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 guidance
of ideas, no matter the direction in which they
might lead, confident they 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 which 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 which
the South might put upon the Constitution, and
the direction and control of the party machinery.
THE TWO-THIRDS WOTE.
With such concessions, the Southern people
proceeded slowly but surely in their plans of
10
committing the Democratic party, and through
it the country, to the Resolutions of 1798–99.
In the Convention of 1835, which nominated
Mr. Van Buren for the Presidency, it secured
an immense advantage by 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 fully
committed to their interests, and in whom they
could not implicitly confide.
THE SECESSION RESOLUTION OF 1840.
In the Convention which 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-
ited powers, derived solely from the Constitution,
and the grants of power shown therein ought 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 Democratic Party will faithfully abide
by 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
their obvious meaning and import.”
By the adoption of the 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 the nomination of State
officers and Members of Congress; so that there
was hardly a l)emocrat in the whole United States
who did not, in the 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 thy servant
depart in peace l’’ for the defeat of the National
Whig Party, in 1852, was a virtual annihilation
of all effective opposition to the complete ascend-
ancy of the Democratic Party, which 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. W. I LLIAM 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 first 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 sword. They are held together
only 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
nized no right of constitutional secession; BUT
THEY LEFT REVOLUTION ORGANIZED WHEN EVER
IT SHOULD BE DEMAN DED BY THE PUBLIC OPIN-
ION OF A STATE, - LEFT IT, witH THE Pow ER
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 great measure upon
the 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 the Constitution, the theory
maintained by Mr. Seward, and too exclusively
accepted (that 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 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 those 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 indi-
viduals for determining and enforcing a just con-
struction and eacecution 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 REPEL INVA-
SION.”
THE SOUTH SECEDES, SOUTH CAROLINA LEAD-
ING AS IN 1832.
These words of encouragement and instruction
for the 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, the 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
W. Pickens was elected Governor, and appointed,
as a Cabinet, A. G. McGrath, Secretary of State ;
David F. Jamison, Secretary of War ; C. G.
Memminger, Secretary of the Treasury; William
W. Harllee, 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
the State of the property of the United States with-
in its limits. On the 24th of November, the Rep-
resentatives of the State in Congress resigned their
seats. And, on the 20th of IDecember, 1860, the
Governor of the State announced the repeal, by
the people of South Carolina, of the 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 such, 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 South 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
that they should recognize any 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.” The 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 through its leaders, – through 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 SE CEDE.
Mr. Pierce, President of the United States
from 1852 to 1856, wrote to his old friend, Jeffer-
son Davis, his former Secretary of War, and the
future President of the slave republic, under
the date of Jan. 6, 1860, 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 would
rather fight the battle under you as a standard.
bearer in 1860, than under the auspices of any
other leader. 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 the elements of his char-
acter above the atmosphere 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
the identical language used by Mr. tº g
I do not believe that 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 those who have appar-
ently no impelling power but that which the
famatical passion on the subject of slavery im-
parts. Without discussing the 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
w1LL NOT BE ALONG MASON AND DIxon’s
LINE MERELY. IT will BE witHIN our own
EORDERS, IN OUR Own STREETs, BETween THE
Two CLASSES OF CITIZENS TO WHOM I HAVE
REFERRED. THOSE who DEFY LAw, AND sco UT
CONSTITUTIONAL OBLIGATIONS, WILL, IF WE
* See McPherson’s History of the Rebellion, page 391.
EveR REACH THE ARBITRAMENT OF ARMS, FIND
occupATION ENOUGH AT HOME.” . . .
(Signed) “FRANKLIN PIERCE.”
“To Hon JEFFERSON DAVIs, Washington, D. C.”
BUCHANAN ON THE RIGHT OF THE SOUTH TO
SE CEDE.
Mr. Buchanan, in his last message to the Con-
gress of the United States, delivered on the 4th
of December, 1860, 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
the Constitution delegated to Congress the
power to coerce a State into submission which
is attempting to withdraw, or has actually
withdrawn, from the Confederacy 3 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 CON CLUSION THAT 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
powers. . . .
“But, if we possessed this power, would it be
wise to exercise it under existing circumstances !
The object, doubtless, would be to preserve the
Union. War would not only present the most effect-
ual means of destroying it, but would finish all hopes
of its peaceful 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 government. Let us see what Washington
said about influence being Government.
“The picture which you have exhibited, and the
accounts which are published of the commotions and
temper of numerous parties in the Eastern States, pre-
sent a state of things equally to be lamrented and
deprecated. They exhibit a melancholy proof of what
our transatlantic foe has predicted; and of another
thing, perhaps, which is still more to be regretted, and
is yet more unaccountable, that mankind, when left to
themselves, are unfit 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 the
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 justly
celebrated Report in 1799, to the Legislature of
Virginia. In this he ably and conclusirely defended
the ſeesolutions of the preceding Legislature (of 1798)
against the strictures of several other State Legislat-
ures. These were mainly founded upon the protest
of the Virginia Legislature against the Alien and
Sedition Laws, as palpable and alarming infractions
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 that the . Legislatures of the States
might have made direct representation to Con-
gress with a view to obtain a rescinding of the
two offending acts ; or they might have repre-
sented to their respective Senators in Congress
their wish that two-thirds thereof would propose
an explanatory 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
1799, and the Report of Mr. Madison 1 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 where that influence is to be found; or, if attain-
able, that it would be a proper remedy for the disorders.
INFLUENCE IS NOT 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 impressions, my 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 inadequate, 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
possible. To delay one or the other of these expedients,
is to exasperate on the one hand, or to give confidence on
the other, and will add to their mumbers; for, like
snowballs, such bodies increase by every movement,
unless there is something in the way to obstruct and
crumble them before their weighit 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. Jefferson adhered to them
to the last, and even repeated them in 1824 with more
emphasis than ever. Mr. Madison's recantation brought
down upon him the most violent attacks and abuse
from the nullification party,
political creed of the Democratic Party, and had
resolved 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 only
regained by a cost of almost infinite blood and
trea,Sure,
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 right of the government to
coerce the seceding States, replied in a similar
strain.
“If it be frue,” he said, “that war cannot be
declared [as he had attempted to show in his
letter that it could notj, nor a system of general
hostilities be carried on by the central government
against a State, then it seems to follow that an
attempt to do so would be ipso facto an expulsion
of such State from the 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 the country,
instead of “domestic tranquillity,’ which the Con-
stitution was meant to insure, will not all the
States be absolved from their Federal obliga-
tions ? Is any portion of the people bound to
contribute their money or their blood to carry
on a contest like this 3
“If this view of the subject be as correct as I
think it is, then the Union Inust 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
ground 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 reserving the entire and absolute control
of its own domestic affairs, – it is eridently impos-
sible to keep them together longer-than they deem them-
selves º, treated by each other, or longer than the
interests, honor, and fraternity, of the people of the sev-
eral States are satisfied. Being a government created
by op1N ION, its continuance is dependent upon the
continuance of the sentiments which formed it. It
cannot be preserved by coercion, or held together by
force. A resort to this last dreaded alternative
would, of itself, destroy not only the government, but
the lives and property of the people.
“If these forebodings should be realized, and
a separation of the States shall occur, momen-
tous considerations will be presented to the cor-
porate authorities of this city. We must provide
for new relations, which will necessarily grow
out of the mew condition of public affairs.
“It will be not only 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 PORTION of our own State. . . .
“California, and her sisters of the Pacific,
will no doubt set up an independent Republic,
and husband their own rich mineral resources.
The Western States, equally rich in cereals and
other agricultural products, will probably do the
same. Then it may be said, why should not New
York City, instead of supporting by her contributions
in revenue Two-THIRDs the expenses of the United
States, become also equally independent 2 As a free
city, with 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 the SouthERN STATEs, as
well as all the other States to whose interest
and rights under the Constitution she has always
been true.”
IRODMAN AI. PRICE ON THE RIGHT OF THE SOUTH
TO SECEIDE.
In the spring of 1861, Mr. Rodman M. Price,
who had recently been Governor of the State of
New Jersey, in a letter addressed to Mr. L. W.
Burnett, of Newark, in answer to the question,
“What ought New Jersey to do 3’ replied:
“I believe the Southern Confederation perma-
nent. The proceeding has taken place with
forethought and deliberation ; it is no hurried
impulse, but an irrevocable act, based upon the
sacred, as was supposed, equality of the States;
and, in my opinion, every Slave 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 contingency, then,
that I answer the second part of your question,
What position for New Jersey will best accord
with her interests, honor, and the patriotic in-
stincts of her people 3 I say, emphatically, she
would go with the South, from every wise, pru-
dential, and patriotic reason.” 1
1 See McPherson's Hist, of the Rebellion, p. 390.
LEADERS OF THE NORTHERN DEMOCRACY RE-
SPONSI BLE FOR SECESSION,
The preceding examples of the position of the
leaders of the Northern Democracy at that 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.
How could they get at that sentiment 3 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 remembered 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 !
BUCHANAN, 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 Buchanan,
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 Franklin
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 would break up the
government unless it could be made the instru-
lment of polluting our virgin soil with slavery,
and be made to minister to the ambitions and pas-
sions of those whose characters were the 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 man, 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
I.ee, already quoted 3 “If they (the malcon-
tents in Massachusetts) have real grievances,
redress them. If they have not, employ the force
of government against them at once l’’ Contrast
Washington and Jackson with such a wretched,
sneaking, imbecile creature as Buchanan, who,
when 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
such creatures to eternal obscurity, but for the
infamy attached to them, came not a moment
too spon. To what was that fall, which has no
parallel in history, due 3 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 of
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 the daily sacrifice upon its
altar of the little humanity or patriotism which
the leaders of the Northern I)emocracy 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 innbe-
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, every where
imperilling their lives, and falling in the cause of
freedom, of humanity, and of the Union, he re-
mained at home, far from danger, craven and
terror-stricken, and hoarse with the cry of Peace |
Peace | He would give up all for which 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 l)emocracy, and upon none more
than on those who, like Mr. Tilden, were traitors,
not only to the supreme government, but to their
own soil. The Convention at Chicago, in 1864,
which nominated Mr. McClellan for the Presi-
dency, again, as in 1860, became his opportunity.
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 infºunous
Resolution, reiterating, in terms, the doctrines of
his letter, of which the following is a copy : —
“Resolved, That this Convention does explicitly
declare, as the sense of the American people, that,
after four years of failure to restore the Union by the
experiment of war, — during which, under the pre-
tence of military necessity, or war power, higher than
the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disre-
garded in every part, and public liberty and private
life alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of
the country essentially impaired, - justice, humanity,
liberty, and the public welfare, demand that immediate
efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a
view to an ultimate convention of the States, 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 1864. IN
REFERENCE TO THIS RESOLUTION.
The Democratic National Convention of 1864,
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. 30) 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. Tilden, of New York, said that the Chair-
man of the sub-Committee, General John B.
Weller, would probably be ready to report at
four o'clock, P.M.; that Mr. Vallandigham was
of opinion that they would not be ready at that
hour, and that 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 DIFFERENCE OF
OPINION AMONG THE MEMBERS OF THE COMMIT-
TEE ; nothing but a disposition, perhaps, on the
part of a few to procrastinate; and there 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 the Committee to report this afternoon.
There was no need of further delay. The senti-
ments of the members were alike; and, if there was
any question at all, it was one of phraseology rather
than of principles.”
“Mr. Vallandigham thought it best to give
the Committee further time, being 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 may exist
among its members, they are as to the phraseology of
the Resolutions rather than to the sentiment; and, if
the Convention would immediately 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
Itesolutions, 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 Delegation, and, being the mover in
the Convention of the Resolution for the appoint-
ment of the 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. Vallam-
digham pressed him for Chairman. Mr. Til-
den, however, disclaiming any privilege for him-
self, Honorable James Guthrie, of Kentucky,
was immediately elected by a large majority.”
It will be remembered that Vallandigham, 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 his friends, the rebels, for his noto-
rious disloyalty, and the aid and comfort he gave
the enemy.
END ORSEMENT OF THE RESOLUTION BY TRIE NEW
Y ORIX W OR LID.
The great theme with the “New York World,”
upon the adjournment of the Convention, was its
Resolutions or Platform ; and, on the 1st of
September, 1864, 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 approbation. 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 conplain 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 ; the 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 the
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 Republican 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 to close 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, which violates State rights,
which throws men into prisons without informing
them of their offence or allowing them a trial;
which burdens white men with oppressive debt
and grinding taxation to try an unconstitutional
experiment of giving freedom to negroes. It is
17
the government which our fathers made and
administered, as the Democratic Party through
the greater part of seventy years administered
it, to which we invite the South to renew their
allegiance; and we conceive it that 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 the co-operation of a Southern
Union Party, which may in time grow to be a
majority. The Democratic platform is calculated
to remove 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 them 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 nullifiers 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 villanies "- his
cause for secession, adding to his traitorous in-
stincts an utter want of sympathy 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
which 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 rôle,” he
said, “ of moral right and duty which 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 pass any laws 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 fathers) necessarily
and wisely modified this policy of freedom, by
leaving it to the several States, affected as they
were by different circumstances, to abolish sla-
very 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
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
through the action of the several States co-operating
with the Federal Government, 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 the 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
‘hat 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 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 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.”
The 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
speech, 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 multiplica-
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 ? Was it not proper
that the Constitution should be invoked for such
an object 3 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 3 Is
not this a government of majorities 3 Does not
a minority of one always have to yield, on all
occasions, to a majority of one 3 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
yield 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 people,
and with that necessity of progress, consequently
of change, inherent in our race. There was no
suggestion of unfair 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 and society as they have been accus-
tomed to at home.
“The Southern States have exactly the same
interest. Both have an indirect interest in the for-
mation of new States, as it affects the balance of power
between the two classes in the Confederation.”
Balance of power between the two classes of
the Confederation | What two classes 4 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
which the different members are to checkmate,
overreach, and, if they cannot succeed in this
way, to attack and destroy each other ? Is this
Mr. Tilden's statesmanship, of which he makes
such boast, — this the kind of Nation whose
affairs he is to be called upon to administer ?
God, in his infinite mercy, forbid 1
MR. T.ILDEN DECLARES THAT THE REPUBLICAN
MOVEMENT MUST END IN UTTER FAILURE
AND DISGRACE. -
But suppose the Republican party elects Mr.
Lincoln, what then 3 “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-
T16S. . . . -
“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 people of the South. Even then it
would have great and fixed 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 4 Can he be ex-
pected, as President, to understand the state of
things in any other sense than that of his own
partisan policy 3 Can he avoid the attempt to
maintain the power of his party by the same
means which will have acquired it 4 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 ?
“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
sufficiently 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.
“If thus, or in any 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 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 Tammany 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 struggle 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 3 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 3 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
Q
&d
was being delivered from this place, devoted
altogether to saving the Union without war, in-
surgent agents were in the city seeking to de-
stroy it without war, - seeking to dissolve the
Union, and divide effects by negotiation. Both
parties deprecated war; but one of them would
make war rather than let the mation survive;
and the 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 extend this interest, was the object
for which the insurgents would rend the Union,
even by war, while the Government claimed no
right to do more than to restrict the territorial
enlargement of it. Neither party expected for
the war the magnitude 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
the sweat of other 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 because 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
Woe 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 2 Fondly do
we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty
scourge of war may speedily 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
said, ‘The 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 4
recognition of a Providence in human affairs, –
The
0
of a Law, far higher than that of man’s choice,
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 which
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 3 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 Öur
nature, to become our inspiration and guide 3
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 denounce. 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 ?
MR. TILDEN THE MOST OBNOX IOUS 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 such unspeakable suffering. The 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 adminimistration the secession
element finally got full control of the Govern-
ment; for the presidency of Tyler was an acci-
dent, and, though himself a secessionist, he had
no following. The election of General Taylor
was also an accident, growing out of a quarrel
in the Democracy for the spoils. Even Mr.
Tilden, 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’ highest idea. 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 than 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 4 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 which was created to subdue them. What
could Mr. Tilden do to coerce them into pay-
ment 4 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 3
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.” These bonds are largely held by
Northern savings-banks. They have all been re-
pudiated for no other reason than it does not
suit her dignity or convenience to pay them 1 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 magniãcent system 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 4 Not an hour. They 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 3 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 4
“Rooms of THE DEMOCRATIC STATE COMMITTEE,
Oct. 27, 1868.
“MY DEAR SIR, - Please at once to communi-
cate with some reliable person in three or four
principal towns, and in each city of your county;
and request him (expenses duly arranged for this
end) to telegraph to WILLIAM M. Tweed, Tam-
many Hall, at the MINUTE OF CLos ING THE
Polls, not waiting for the count, such person's esti-
mate of the 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 transmission at the hour of
closing the polls, but not longer waiting. Opportunity
can be taken of the usual half-hour lull in telegraphic
communication over lines before actual results begin to
be declared, and before the Associated Press absorb
the telegraph with returns, and interfere with individ-
wal messages, AND GIVE ORDERS TO WATCH CARE-
FULLY THIE 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 ? 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 country,
one need not wait till the votes are counted to
know the result. There 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 different 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
many 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 ME, GREELEY TO MR. TILDEN.
“LETTER To A Pol ITICIAN.”
“To SAMUEL J. TILDEN,
CHAIRMAN DEMOCRATIC STATE COMMITTEE.
“SIR, - You hold a most responsible and influ-
ential position in the councils of a great party.
You could make that party content itself with
the polling 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 effect in this direction I shall try to have rati-
fied by the people at our ensuing election, — will
you ? Mr. Tilden, you cannot escape responsi-
bility by saying, with the guilty Macbeth,
“‘Thou canst not say I did 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 make assurance doubly
sure that the frauds here perpetrated should not be
overborne by 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, ()’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 four of these Wards in 1840
and 1868 respectively : — -

| . .
President, 1840. | Governor, 1868.
Four Wards. 2,840 20,283
4,793 | 5,521
Van Buren’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 wanted 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
Park, and say that there must be no more of it;
SAY IT SO THAT THE RE SHALL BE NO DOlu BT
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 Fall,
you and such as you will be responsible to God
and man for the outrage.
“Yours,
“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
HoRACE GREELEY.
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 MUNICIPAL COR-
RUPTION.
Mr. Tilden the municipal reformer When
was that discovery made 4 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 lightening their taxes. After the frauds of
Tweed and his associates had been discovered,
it became the fashion to pursue such sort of
game. Tilden joined the crowd, and in the hue-
and-cry. He, from his connection with the rail-
roads, was almost as suddenly gorged with wealth
as Tweed ; as a very rich man, it was for his in-
terest to catch the thief who had broken into his
enclosure. His spirit of reform was precisely
that of a Turkish Bashaw, who occasionally
takes off the heads of a few of his followers and
officials, for no other reason than that they have
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 which 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 has
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, sheltered, 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 breath of fresh
air and a sight of green fields; which shall make
provision for those who, from any cause, are no
longer able to care for themselves; which 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 3 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 support, the Government was to
be broken up, and the fairest hope of humanity
destroyed, is he likely to have much of the spirit
of a reformer in his blood 3 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 us an instance in which 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 persons 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 3
Yet such are the precise grounds upon which
Tilden bases all his right to be called one. It is
as impossible that he, with his 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 ? 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 rôle
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 MAN 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 4 Will 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 system which
it cost so many sacrifices, and so much blood and
treasure, to overthrow 3 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
º 24
the chief instruments of their bereavements, and
of the living deaths which they still see on every
side 3 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 enemy, - 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 3 Will
the young men coming forward to take upon
themselves the 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 always 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 3
Is such to be the ideal,- “the coming man’?
If so, God save the country, for which there is no
human help. 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 a gis over them, in whatever part of our
wide domain they may happen to be placed 3 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
hardly 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 ? Would
3:
.3%*
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*
it not show that we had no government worth
preserving; no humanity; no political principles
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 3 If nothing better be in store for us,
we cannot too soon commit ourselves to the
downward current, if only 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 I Had Mr. Tilden been able, the
eighty-fourth year of our national life would
have been its last. Shall 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 3 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 in-
pulse, as if to verify the predictions of the ene-
mies of freedom that Republics are but the mur-
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.”
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