THE -WVAR1
ITS
CAUSES AND) CONSEQUENCES.
C. C. S. FARRAR,
OF BOLIVAlt COUNT~, MISS.
BLELOCK & CO.CAIRO, ILLS.; 5IEMPHIIS, TENN.; PADUCAHf, K.Y.
1 8(;4.
BY 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern
District of Pennsylvania.
I.              -
t r-~ q 
<'- -
CONTENTS.
PART I.
CAUSES OF THE WAR.
PAGE
I. The Revolutionary Character of the Age........................ 7
The French Revolution............................................. 20
The American Revolution......................................... 22
11. The Democratic Principles........................................... 26
Liberty of Conscience...............................................  30
Popular Sovereignty................................................ 53
Demagogues........................................................... 78
Equality............................................................ 81
III. Public Morals............................................................ 109
Private Morals....................................................... 122
Influence of Democracy on Religion............................ 128
IV. State Rights.......................................................... 133
Nullification........................................................... 147
PART II.
CONSEQUENCES OF THE WAR.
Geographical and Political Unities of the Nation..................... 175
Southern Society............................................................. 180
Reconstruction of the Union............................................ 184
The Consequences of Southern Independence......................... 190
Secession........................................................................ 203
Conclusion...................................................................... 250
,. Z'
I "I  
THE WAR:
ITS CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES.
2 
-N 
PART I.
CAUSES OF THE WAR.
I. The Revolutionary Character of the Age.
FOR a solution of the war which is now afflicting us,
we must look deeper than is customary. The cause
does not lie so near the surface as is generally supposed. No doubt the immediate provocation is correctly assigned; butithe negro agitation is symptomatic v
merely, and has been the occasion, not the cause, of the
war. The disease, which is idiopathic, lies deep at the
vitals of society, and is irremediable, because born of
the social decompositions of the Age. If such a paradox
be allowed, I should say it must kill before it can be
cured, and society, like the phoenix, spring afresh from
its own ashes. In other words, the malady resides in
the fundamental principles of the government, and the
remedy can come only by the slow corrections of time;
that is, by a process of elimination and renewal. The
development of the social evolution, according to the
law of growth, will leave the disease behind, by carrying
society out of the age to which it belongs. Every period
of life has its own complaints; our society is yet in its
(7) 
8  THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE.
infancy; it has many elements undeveloped, many organs
that are merely rudimental. These elements and organs
must come forth; they must take their places at the
basis of government; they must have themselves represented by appropriate institutions, and be enabled to
exercise their peculiar functions in determining the progress of the nation. These developments are seldom accomplished without shocks, more or less violent, to the
social system. True science alone can mitigate the evil
and facilitate the necessary parturitions; for they are,
in a manner, new births, which society perpetually undergoes, and the highest art of which the human mind
is capable is needed to aid its painful travails. The
present is just such a paroxysm. The charlatanry now
presiding at the national accouchement can only aggravate the throes of labor; and if society survive its ministrations, it may be thankful to its own imperishable
vigor and the blind energies of nature.
The grand civilization of the world, so far from being
finished, is but little more than just begun. In the manner of its development, it is still subjugated to the passions of mankind, and scarcely listens to the voice of
reason. It is, therefore, yet in the epoch of its spontaneous movement, which is necessarily more or less
erratic, and wars the almost inevitable consequence.
When it shall enter upon its next stage-its reflective
development-its course will be more steady, and wars,
perhaps, if they cease not altogether, will at least give
precedence to reason and reflection.
The civilization of this country, more special in its
character and less grand and complicated in its movement, obeys the same laws which govern the develop 
THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE. 9
ment of the general civilization of the world, of which
it is an episode, or rather a component part.  It, too,
like the other, unfolds by a compound action, and has
its spontaneous and reflective modes of development.
The former method, which answers to the youth of
humanity, or to that early period of life which is given
over to passion and impulse, is nearly always accom panied by violent revolutions, which seldom pass off
without leaving behind them social changes of a radical
nature, and depositing at the foundations of society
principles other than those they found there.
These social cataclysms, beneficial in the long run,
are generally destructive of those conditions of society
which brought them on, and of the persons who conduct
them. Like Saturn, they devour their own offspring,
but leave in society, which is never entirely destroyed
by them, the seeds of future improvements, which more
or less time is needed to germinate and carry forward
to institutions, which are their legitimate fruit.
This idea, under existing circumstances, is not consolatory to the present generation; but it is preventive
of false hopes and consequent disappointments. The
very knowledge of the existence of such a social fact,
if we make use of it, might go a little way toward mitigating the evils of the times, and perhaps might hasten
their ultimate eradication, and bring on an earlier substitution, at the base of society, of principles which the
revolution requires in the place of those already there.
Otherwise, if we persist in obstinate ignorance of it,
many long years might be wasted by the blind forces of
nature in accomplishing what a little reflection would
show to be the obvious purpose of the revolution.
2* 
10 THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE.
The hitherto undiscovered laws of a kind of social
philosophy, which had such a powerful agency in destroying the institutions of past eras, are only just
beginning to be suspected in our day; and the bare
comprehension of the fact that such laws exist, constitutes the glory of our age. The application of these
laws, so far as we know anything about them, might not
be inappropriate at the present time; and an investigation of the fundamental principles of our society would
doubtless aid us in whatever use we might see proper to
make of them. The present is certainly a desperate
crisis in our political affairs. If there be such a thing
as a social science, capable of explaining our situation,
and of rectifying the errors of an ignorant charlatanry
which has brought us to this pass, now is the time and
the occasion, if ever, for it to exert itself in our behalf.
We have long been in the habit of idolizing our form
of government; of believing that it alone, of all other
social systems, was capable of affording liberty, security,
and happiness to mankind; and that society could enjoy
order and progress only under the segis of its political
principles. It was deemed to have been organized with
a special view to internal peace and domestic tranquillity; while it was not defective in capacity for successful resistance to external aggression. The opinion prevailed that revolutions, so common and ruinous in other
countries, were utterly excluded by the terms of this
organization; because, in a government where all the
power is in the hands of the people-where, in short,
the government and people are one and the same thing
-there is nothing to revolutionize, and nobody to do it;
for it was difficult to conceive how the people could rebel
against themselves. 
THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE.  11
It was said that power, habitually in the hands of a
whole community, loses all the ordinary associated ideas
of power, for the want of opposition-something to oper ate upon. For example: we perceive no exertion of
power in the motion of the planetary system, but a very
strong one in the movement of a whirlwind; it is because
we see obstructions in the latter, but none in the former.
Where the government is not in the hands of the people,
there you find opposition, you perceive two contending
interests, and get an idea of the exercise of power; and
whether this power be in the hands of the government
or of the people, or whether it change from side to side,
it is always to be dreaded. Fixed in the hands of the
whole people, it was then thought to be destroyed forever.*
Another happy consequence of this political system
was said to be the facility of changing the structure of
government, whenever and as often as the society shall
think there is anything in it to amend. This did indeed
seem to be a wondrous faculty possessed by the system,
and has been exercised so often that no room is left to
doubt its existence. As for the capacity of the people
for self-government, no question was made of it-it was
assumed as a matter of course-and the right to govern
themselves flowed as a necessary consequence from their
capacity for that office.
These, and many others of like kind, were plausible
arguments in the case, and were so agreeable to the
sense of the people, that few were disposed to contradict
them. But, as little as the thought has hitherto been
* See Joel Barlow's Political Writings. 
12 THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE.
entertained, yet it is true that the social condition of
this country is, more than all others in the world, exposed to perturbations from its own organic principles;
and the present war is but one of a series of shocks destined to convulse society here for a long time to come,
unless its radices, its very roots are speedily extirpated,
or their tendency to wasteful extravagance is effectually
subdued.
The AGE is revolutionary. The present is an epoch
in the world's history of transition - a sort of moral
exodus of the nations-which has lasted now some three
centuries; and no stability in governments anywhere,
much less here, can be looked for until the passage from
the old regime to the new has been completed.
To a close observer, the social ebullition in this country has long been of a threatening character. From the
birth of our government, its elements have been in an
uneasy state; and the bosom of society has more than
once been agitated by the throes of coming convulsions.
The time has arrived for these inevitable disturbances,
so long concealed, to manifest their dangerous activity.
An open rupture is at last reached; and however it may
be allayed temporarily, will be again and again renewed
until the foundations of society are broken up, or the
principles which now lie at its base are extruded, or so
modified by the introduction of others that their excesses
will be entirely counteracted.
The novelty of this declaration will no doubt astonish
many, and the announcement be received with general
incredulity. But let no one jump to conclusions, or condemn without hearing. To convince this people of the
insufficiency of the democratic principles to serve fur 
THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE.  13
ther the purposes of social order, will seem like convincing them of their own incapacity for self-government.
Such a task would appear, at first view, to be a very
difficult one; it will be thought an object from which
the eloquence of the closet must shrink in despair, and
which prudence would leave to the more powerful arguments of events. Those arguments are now being employed with disastrous effect; and however infallible
may be the logic of the sword, the people would best
evince their own capacity by removing at once the discussion to a more peaceful tribunal; as long as it remains
where it is, the weight of evidence is largely against
them. The force of circumstances, however efficacious
in the long run, is a terrible remedy for social ills.. It
was not only to prevent the recurrence of those ills, but
to obviate as well the necessity of employing so drastic
an agency to remove them, that the democratic principles were substituted at the base of government. So
far from fulfilling these designs, I expect to prove their
complicity in the present treason against the peace of
society, and to show that they have failed of accomplishing all the great ends expected of them. "When,
in the natural course of events, any doctrine has become
hostile to the purposes it was destined to serve, it is
evidently done with; and its end, or the close of its
activity, is near."
Institutions, as has so often been said, are nothing
but opinions carried into practice. All governments
rest upon sentiments that have become prevalent in a
given epoch; and as ideas are, by their very nature,
fluctuating and evanescent, no given form of civilization
can endure forever: hence the mobility of society, the 
14  THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE.
transformation of systems, and the destruction of na tions. No doubt the notions that prevail for the time
being, and help to determine the course of civilization,
have always more or less of truth in them while they
are current; for when an idea has subjugated any con siderable number of minds, and has lasted so long and
so well as to carry itself into the social structures of the
age, it is clear it does so by virtue of the truth, not the
error, that is in it.  Its error generally consists in its
exclusiveness; that is, in what it excludes, more than in
what it contains. No single idea includes all truth; but
there never was an idea yet that did not think itself the
whole truth.  It is false, therefore, in so far as it assumes
to be absolute and universal, instead of relative and limited. Hence the evils that flow from it; and these evils
are unavoidable in the present state of civilization; because all speculative ideas, which are the constituents of
society, are intolerant and proscriptive. No idea will
endure the presence of another which seems to limit its
action; and political principles, like religious dogmas,
are of all others the least patient of fellowship or restraint. When in power, it is not in the nature of things
that they can practice forbearance and moderation; and
their outbreaks are not unfrequently marked by the ruin
of generations, and sometimes of nations. If, therefore,
we would know the origin of the social ills that afflict a
given epoch or nation, we must penetrate to the bottom
of its society, and seek for them in the antagonisms or
in the extravagances of the ruling ideas we find there.
It is precisely in this way we must account to ourselves
for this war, or we shall not account for it satisfactorily
at all-because no other method will give us the true
and last solution of it. 
THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE.  15
Guided, then, by this preliminary statement, the first
thing for us to do, in conducting the present investigation, is to interrogate the age we live in, and learn from
it what are the mother principles that lie at the bottom
of its society; what are the political phenomena to which
they give birth; how and why disturbances grow out of
them; what element is present in excess; and what ingredient is absent, and therefore needed to correct their
vicious action. All this is not now difficult of ascertainment. History has obtained such a prolongation, and
has accumulated such a mass of facts, which science has
to some extent already classified, that it is capable of
affording us all the satisfaction, derivable from induction
and analogy, we can desire; and these methods, if properly employed, cannot fail to yield us such a solution of
the problem in question as to give us at least a better
insight into the nature of our difficulties than we had
before. I shall not scruple, therefore, to appeal to history on every occasion where, in my opinion, any aid
can be derived from its facts, or from the inductions
which science has already extracted from them.
The filiation of the different epochs of history has been
demonstrated by philosophers beyond dispute. Persons
who have paid some attention to this branch of science
will readily understand what is meant by the relationship of the ages; and those who have not, will excuse
the omission here of any information on that subject;
time and space will not allow the digression. Let it
suffice to say, what indeed all well-informed persons
know well enough, that the old theological regime, which
lasted throughout the greater part of the middle agesnearly a thousand years-held society benumbed during 
16 THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THIIE AGE.
that long period in a theocratic form of government
almost as pure as the old theocracies of the East. But
that social condition, though it lasted long, could not
endure forever; and the advent of the sixteenth century witnessed the beginning of its inevitable decay.
Its advocates, however, deemed it to be eternal, because
based, as they thought, on principles that were absolute; and they accordingly fought hard and long for its
perpetuity-a battle which has lasted with little interruption to this day. But the dominion of that antiquate.d despotism, spite of occasional spasms, has passed
away forever. It displaced a system still more ancient
than itself; and now, in its turn, gave way to ideas of
more modern date. It cannot return upon us. Unable
to hold its own against the natural progress of intelligence, it will never again serve as a basis of government. We may as soon expect paganism to reassert
successfully its claims to social dominion, as that Catholicism shall once more take possession of society and rule
over it.  Each has had its day, and the ideas of both
are equally exhausted and effete.
It was to break up this old system that Protestantism
was inaugurated; and the principles it employed for that
purpose were identical with those that are known at this
day as the dogmas of the democratic creed. Originally
of a purely religious nature, these dogmas gradually acquired a mixed form; they were early adopted by metaphysics as weapons of great force in the conduct of its
disquisitions; and finally, having crossed the Atlantic,
in the zenith of their power, they assumed in this country, without losing their influence over metaphysics and
religion, an exclusively political character, which they
have borne ever since. 
THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE.  17
There appears to be a great diversity of political ideas
striving in society, but in reality there are but two orders
of such ideas, and both are stated in the above paragraph. From this statement it will be seen that one of
these sets of ideas is but the negation of the other, and
that it is the commingling of the two sets in different
proportions which creates the apparent multiplicity.*
One set is derived from the doctrines of the old theological and military system of the middle and feudal
ages, and constitutes the religious state of social science;
the other set is derived from the reformation which was
begun in the sixteenth century for the destruction of the
old system, and was adopted by metaphysics for its own
enfranchisement. Issuing from Protestantism, and passing through a philosophical form, when this last order
of ideas came to be applied to social affairs, it constituted and still constitutes what may be called the metaphysical state of politics. From the first of these two
sets of ideas are derived all notions of order in the political world; from the second are derived all notions of
progress; and as men are inclined for conservatism or
amelioration, they arrange themselves under one or the
other of the two banners. It is not my purpose to follow in detail the conflicts of these two forces, or to notice
the monstrous alliances they have sometimes formed, but
to come at once to a consideration of the organic capacity of the latter, and see if they are equal to their
pretensions.
This investigation I think will discover to us that
these sentiments, potent as they were in demolishing
* See Comte's Positive Philosophy.
3 
18  THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE.
the old theological system of the middle ages, have
utterly failed to reorganize society upon a permanent
basis derived from themselves. On the contrary, from
the moment they entered the arena of politics, they at tempted to suppress every other principle which they
found already in possession of government; and as the
latter refused to be thus unceremoniously expelled, the
antagonisms of the two sets of ideas have kept European
societies in a state of perpetual anarchy and transforma tion ever since. Where, on the other hand, they arrived
first at the basis of government, and took possession of
society, as in this country, they have barred the entrance
to' all other principles, and, being unchecked in their ac tion, have run into such excesses that society can enjoy
no peace at all for them.
The new doctrines, in giving rise to nearly all the
political phenomena of modern times, have given also
to the politics of the times their character of instability.
They instantly put society in motion, and have kept it
agoing ever since. In stirring it out of its theological
slumber of ages, they had no place prepared for its
repose, but hurried it along in a career of mutations
that has not ceased to this hour. What else, indeed,
but endless oscillations could be expected from principles that are essentially revolutionary? Revolution
was the sole purpose of their inauguration. They were
invoked expressly to eliminate a worn-out system that
was no longer able to satisfy the social needs of humanity. To this end they were peculiarly well adapted,
because they were the negation, the very opposites, the
speculative antitheses of the exhausted ideas they were
destined to combat; and they opened up to human ac 
THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE.  19
tion a boundless expanse of freedom, and to human
intelligence an endless sphere of speculation-liberty
without qualification, discussion without determination.
This work of expulsion they accomplished with fidelity
and signal ability. All honor to them for their brave
defense of human rights! But true to their mission of
destruction, they will not understand their incapacity
for reconstruction. Having battered down the walls of
an antiquated regime, of a thousand years' standing,
already tottering with age, they conceit themselves
capable, single-handed, of rebuilding, in its stead, a
society that shall combine order with progress and
security with  advancement.   By giving  the widest
latitude to human liberty-restricting no principle,
limiting no idea-asserting all their dogmas to be absolute and universal-they hope, by means of such a formula, to secure at the same time systematic regularity
and a harmonious coherence of all the social elements
into a recombination that shall establish conservatism
and amelioration as co-ordinate conditions of modern
civilization. Now, this is precisely what society wants.
Both order and progress are indispensable conditions of
modern civilization; and their co-ordination in the same
system is the grand social problem and the grand social
difficulty of the age. The solution of this problem is
just what these principles cannot accomplish, although
they pretend to be "the last hope of humanity;" and
in order to realize this hope, men push them to their
utmost extremity.   Hence the futile efforts that are
being everywhere made to harmonize incongruities by
reagents that are themselves eminently disorganizing
-principles that, however powerful they may be for
segregation, have no force of cohesion. 
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
France, unlike many of her cotemporaries, seems to
have escaped entirely the treacherous stage of Protestantism, and to have passed at once from the Catholic to
the revolutionary state; that is, from the old theologicomilitary system to that social condition in which the
metaphysical state of politics predominates. A true
daughter of Mother Church to the last moment, and
having no quarrel with the Catholic Unity, to destroy
which the new doctrines were instituted, she seems
nevertheless to have illustrated, more thoroughly then
any other nation, the nature of the democratic principles; and to have done so instantaneously, as if on purpose to test, by a single trial strain, their capacity alike
for speed and for bottom, for action and for endurance.
It was in the French Revolution, which was begun
about the end of the eighteenth century, that the democratic doctrines reached their culmination in Europe, and
demonstrated their incapacity for social organization,
when located by themselves at the foundation of government. Like a severe logician, that famous revolution
drew from the democratic principles a priori, as it were,
their remotest, their ultimate consequences: it actually
exhausted them of all they contained of good or bad,
and then passed on and abandoned them forever.  If,
therefore, any nation wish to know, without making the
experiment for itself, what those principles are capable
of in any of the social relations of life, it has but to interrogate the history of that epoch of French society to
have its desires or curiosity satisfied.
20 
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
The Sans-Culottes were perhaps the very best known
types of the same class of persons to be anywhere found.
It was precisely this class, everywhere, that was afran chised by the new political creed, and elevated to be the
successors of the newly deposed hereditary legislators
of the world. With the fiery zeal of their nation, and
the ardor of new-born liberty, the Sans-Culottes seized
the reins of government in France; and putting the
democratic principles to their utmost speed, made them
do at once all they could do. What the Sans- Culottes
and the democratic doctrines did in France during the
short period of the Revolution, the same classes and the
same doctrines will do in other nations sooner or later.
It is to France, therefore, and to that epoch of her
history, we must frequently go, in order to discover the
true tendencies of the fundamental dogmas of our own
government; for it is only there they have been already
run out to their last consequences; and to those consequences they must inevitably go in this country, some
time or other, if the same latitude be allowed them here.
That they do actually enjoy the same latitude here, and
are rapidly tending to similar results, the present war
sufficiently attests; and these facts will be made still
more manifest in the progress of this work.
Though the French Revolution may be said to have
been the period of their highest intensification in
Europe, the democratic dogmas have allowed few European societies to escape unharmed; all have shared a
common disorganization, though in different degrees,
and with various modifications. Nor have they yet entirely discontinued their activity there; it is only intermitted. The nations are still smouldering volcanoes;
3*
21 
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
and the fires of revolution may, at any moment, break
out afresh in them. Beneath the heaving and troubled
mist which veils the destinies of Europe, there yet lie
hidden the same disorganizing principles which have so
often shaken her to the center. Like the religion of an
epoch, the democratic polity must be metamorphosed,
must pass through a sort of metempsychosis, and reappear in a different and higher form before it can cease
its disturbing influence. It must be absorbed by government, and crystallized, as it were, into-institutions, with
combinations so complex and intimate, and so regulated
by law and so obedient to order, that its dogmas shall
lose their character of individuality and appear only as
the formula of organized order and justice.
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
The United States, since it passed through the grand
crisis of its first revolution, which gave it a national existence, has been too much preoccupied with the rapid
progress of its material and moral grandeur to do more
than warm in its bosom the disorganizing sentiments
that were destined at a later day to upheave its society
by the violence of their excesses.  This nation may be
called the child of the democratic doctrines, for they
presided at its birth, stood by its cradle, and have been
mainly active in shaping all the subsequent modifications
of its political life, until it has become as it were a living embodiment of their spirit.  It is the only state of
modern times whose government is organized exclusively on the dogmas of that political faith; and its
origin is of so recent a date that it had no antecedents
22 
TIIE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
to limit or to assault them. They alone were in possession of society here before the Revolution, and have
retained it ever since.
The Roman Empire, when it was destroyed, left Europe strewed with the seeds or the wrecks of nations.
Most European societies, therefore, at the present day,
either grew out of those famous ruins, or were founded
anterior to them. Their governments, gradually establishing themselves cotemporaneously with the rise of
the theologico-military system of the middle ages, derived their principles partly at first as a bequest from
the old Roman civilization; but in the end they became based mainly on the religious dogmas prevalent
at that epoch. When, therefore, the new doctrines were
started for the purpose of demolishing the ancient system, all the social perturbations that followed arose
from the necessary antagonism of the old and new ideas.
The old, indignant at their intrusion, not only assaulted
the new, and strove to exclude them from any share of
sovereignty; but, by opposing, limited their action; and
thus preserved Europe from the ruin or the despotism
that might have ensued from the excesses of the latter,
if they had taken exclusive possession of society there
as they did here.
Whatever may be the future course of events in the
United States, no such combats have taken place here
yet, because there are no opposing principles in the
frame of this government; nor was there ever any prior
organization to be destroyed or attacked.  On the subject of democracy, the people of this country have hitherto been a unit: the popular mind is as completely subjugated to its dogmas as if there were no other princi
23 
24  THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE.
pies in the world; and in the whole structure of this
political organization there is not any force sufficient
to limit the absolute tendencies of those dogmas; but
they have taken entire possession of the social system,
as of the popular mind, and reign there alone.
In European societies, on the contrary, there are
theoretical opinions, monarchical opinions, aristocratic
opinions, democratic opinions: these all cross and jostle, struggle, become interwoven, limit and modify each
other. The inability of the various principles to exterminate one another has at last compelled each to
endure the others, and to live in common. Each consents to have only that part of government which falls
to its share; and to allow no encroachments or tyranny
from the others.*
Thus, while the variety of elements of European
civilization, which limit without destroying each other,
has produced such liberty and order as exist there, the
predominance of one principle here must produce despotism or dissolution. We find the tyrannies and rapid
decay of all the ancient civilizations springing from precisely the same source.   In India, all over Western
Asia, in Egypt, where only one principle of civilization
prevailed, there society was dominated by one exclusive
power, which would bear with no other.   The worst
tyrannies with which history abounds are to be found
in those countries. But there society endured; simplicity produced monotony; the country was not destroyed; but there was no progression; society remained
torpid and inactive. In Greece, on the contrary, where,
in some of the States, a democracy very similar to our
* See Guizot's History of Civilization in Europe. 
THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE.  25
own prevailed, there "the unity of the social principle
led to a development of wonderful rapidity; no other
people ever ran so brilliant a career in so short a time.
But Greece had hardly become glorious, before she appeared worn out: her decline, if not so rapid as her
rise, was strangely sudden. It seems as if the principle
which called Greek civilization into life was exhausted.
No other came to invigorate it or supply its place."
The reader cannot help but observe the wonderful similarity between the phenomena of the ancient Greek
civilization and our own. The same species of tyranny
is to be found in both countries; the same rapid rise;
and, so far as present appearances go, the same sudden
decline. The parallel is complete in every particular;
a turbulent democracy; the proscription of every principle of a contrary tendency; the deleterious influence
of a set of pestilent demagogues; and apparently the
same melancholy end.
The perturbations which are now distracting this
society, and which are destined to rend it to pieces,
have arisen, not from the conflicts of opposing principles, as in modern Europe, but from the dissolving tendencies of the democratic polity, as in ancient Greece.
When, hereafter, other principles shall demand admission in the structure of government, a different order of
conflicts will occur, because the new principles will not
be allowed to take their places without opposition. The
doctrines of the democratic creed, like the religious ideas
of the theological epoch, are capable of yielding earnest
convictions; they have already taken a deep hold of the
popular heart in this country: hence the ruinous lengths
to which they will be carried, the tenacity with which 
THE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES.
they will be adhered to, and the stubborn resistance they
will offer to the introduction of other sentiments which
threaten to contradict their absolute sovereignty.
But it is time we examine the democratic doctrines
themselves seriatim, notice their application to the facts
of our past history, follow their tendencies into the
future, and see if they justify the character here given
of them.
II. The Democratic Principles.
Regarding the democratic polity, then, in a more
special view, we shall discover in it three fundamental
dogmas, which have been mainly instrumental in producing some of the most important social phenomena of
modern times. They are as follows: LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE; POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY; EQUALITY. These
three principles are so blended and so directly related
-the two latter resulting immediately from the firstthat it is difficult to treat them separately without tautology. Taken together, they constitute the trinity of
the democratic faith-a tri-unity which, whether considered in its unity or tri-plicity, has revolutionized the
moral world, has been the main element of all social disturbances in this country, and, as I expect to show, is
directly or indirectly responsible for this war. Nor is
it to the past alone, or to the present, that the ill effects
of the principles under review are confined. They have
by no means exhausted their capacity for mischief. The
present war, huge evil as it is, is not the only form, nor
perhaps the worst, under which they are likely to man
26 
TEE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES.
ifest their vicious tendencies. They are yet destined,
through many long years of the future, to become the
direful spring of woes unnumbered to this hapless na tion, unless a provident forethought arrest at once their
mad career.
It does not enter into the plan of this work to show
how necessary or unavoidable was the exclusive substi tution of the democratic principles at the basis of this
government, at the time it was constructed. The cir cumstances peculiar to that epoch of history rendered
inevitable their adoption, unattended, at least for a
period, by other ideas that might hinder their action.
And even now, as a prime element of modern society,
they are indispensable. A legitimate product of the
social evolution, their presence in all the social systems
of the age is peremptorily demanded by the nature of
modern civilization. A conspicuous element of human
nature, they were obliged, at the proper time, to reappear in human civilization. A complete development
of the latter would be impossible without them. Civilization can produce nothing but what pre-exists in humanity, and it is bound to reproduce whatever exists
there, and to reproduce them in the same relations they
are found there. Human nature is not a simple substance; it is complex, concrete, a compound, made up
of many elements compacted together, and as such must
project itself in its civilization. By the laws of growth,
in the moral as in the physical world,,these elements
are not all brought forward together; but are developed
gradually, one by one, and in different relations. Obstructions are always attended by shocks more or less
violent: if insurmountable, by dissolution. The social
27 
THE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES.
system that cannot duplicate its original, is doomed to
quick decay, as in Greece; or to a torpidity little better than death, as in the societies of the East.
The lapse of time and the progress of events here
have so far altered the condition of things, that the
democratic principles can no longer be trusted alone at
the helm of state, without those checks and guards,
those complements, those aids and assistants, which
have always been found necessary defenses against
despotism or anarchy. Society here has advanced with
prodigious strides; the growth of the nation and its
civilization has been more expeditious than ever before
heard of in the history of empires, Greece not excepted; all the external conditions of the country have
changed; the population has doubled itself ten times;
the territory has been nearly trebled; and all the wants
of a very advanced and complex civilization are pressing their satisfaction, while the government has remained stationary in the simple form of its original construction. The habiliments so well adapted to the size
of the nation at its birth, are not equally well fitted to
its present gigantic proportions. Its giant limbs are,
in many places, bursting through the seams of its early
integuments.   The time is come for it to put off the
small-clothes of infancy, and assume the virilis toga of
manhood. This is the natural course of things. In
making this change of garments, society need experience no more difficulty than other things; particularly
in this country, the boast of whose social system is the
"facility of changing the structure of government,
whenever and as often as the society shall think there
is anything in it to amend."
28 
THE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES.
The rational and deliberative method of the adoption
of our political system, occurring as it did at a period
when the human mind was much less informed of the
nature of social laws than it now is, would seem to
augur well for the prospect of assembling another convention, similar to that which formed the old Federal
Constitution, to take into consideration the modifications which the changes of time and circumstances have
made it necessary to introduce in the structure of government.   The people of this country have been  so
long familiarized, by previous habits, with the uses of
such conventions, and so many modifications have been
introduced by them into the constitutions of the several
States, with little or no popular commotions, that no
insurmountable difficulties need be anticipated in calling together another such convention, now in the very
crisis of the nation's fate, in order to snatch it from the
jaws of ruin.
With a view, therefore, to the opening of this discussion, and to a preparation of the public mind for the
task before it, I shall confine myself, not to eulogies
of the democratic principles, of which they have had
enough, but to a disclosure of their unfitness, in their
present absolute character, to be alone the conservators
of a great society like this. If, then, I bring accusations against the democratic principles, considered in
this light, it is without anger I do so; for it was doubtless necessary that, under the circumstances, they should
have been first at the basis of government here, and,
for a period, to have been there alone. The time needed
for their solitary development, I can well believe, could
not have been abbreviated, nor the damage they have
4
29 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
wrought avoided. It is not their fault if, like all human
dogmas when spoilt by indulgence, they are capricious
and extravagant, as well as intolerant and proscriptive.
This war will not have been too dearly bought, if it be
the occasion of correcting these defects, and of rectifying the error in the form of government which brought it
about.
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
The necessity of a rapid synthesis, in the treatment
of my subject, would seem almost to preclude the possibility of analysis, without too much diffuseness. The
latter method, however, alone supplies the requisite
amount of clearness.   I shall, therefore, proceed to
decompose the democratic polity into its several parts,
and treat each part separately, even though it be at the
risk of frequent repetitions and consequent tedium.
Of the three dogmas, included in the democratic
trinity, mentioned above, the first is much the most important, beth on account of its intrinsic value, and
because it was the first great weapon so successfully
employed by Protestantism against its powerful adversary, who claimed to be the keeper of all consciences, and
allowed no freedom of opinion on the most vital concerns of this world or the world to come. It also set
free the other two, made their acknowledgment a necessary consequence of its own, and imparts to them its
own virtues and vices.
It is a singular fact, if true,-and M. Guizot seems to
have demonstrated its truth, satisfactorily at least to his
own mind,-that the Catholic Church itself was the first
30 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
to liberate this principle at a very early period of its
history. It was about the beginning of the fifth century
that the Church was obliged to declare a separation of
temporal and spiritual authority, in order to defend itself
against the brute force of the times. This separation is,
in the opinion of M. Guizot, the only true source of lib erty of conscience. The separation, according to him,
was based upon no other principle than that which serves
as the groundwork of the strictest and most extensive
liberty of conscience. The separation of temporal and
spiritual power, he says, rests solely upon the idea that
physical force has no authority over the mind, over convictions, over truth; so that, however paradoxical it may
seem, that very principle of liberty of conscience for
which Europe has so long struggled against the whole
power of the Church, for which it has suffered so much,
which has only so lately prevailed, and that against the
will of the clergy-that very principle was acted upon,
under the name of a separation of the temporal and
spiritual power, in the infancy of European civilization.
It was, moreover, the Christian Church itself that introduced and maintained it, when driven to assert it by the
circumstances in which it was placed, as a means of
defense against barbarism.
In all this, far-fetched as it is, M. Guizot would seem
to be the mere apologist of the Church; or perhaps he
would thereby lay claim to a degree of penetration or
philosophical acumen in his historical researches which
no other author ever possessed, for it is the first time
liberty of conscience was ever heard of as a constituent
element of society at that early epoch. In claiming
liberty of conscience as a permanent benefit conferred
31 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
by Catholicism on European society as early as the fifth
century, M. Guizot convicts that arbitrary power of an
inconsistency not a whit better than the tyranny which
its continuous suppression would imply; for it is very
certain that, when the barbarians were conquered, and
all the other elements of society were reduced to a state
of subordination to the authority of the Catholic Church,
that despotic regime closed the mind of society against
the principle of liberty of conscience, and kept it effectually so closed for the long period of nearly a thousand
years. When, subsequently, the human intelligence revolted against this despotism, and claimed liberty of
conscience as an indefeasible right, the Catholic unity
fought against it with all its might. This fact, however,
does not convict M. Guizot of error, for it is not a solitary instance of inconsistency on the part of the Catholic
Church. In Protestant countries, even at this day, it
clamors as loudly as any for liberty of conscience; while
in Catholic nations the same right is systematically proscribed. Thus we see the Catholics in England, and yet
more in Ireland, asserting the claim of liberty of conscience, while still calling loudly for the repression of
Protestantism in France, Austria, and elsewhere.*
The error of M. Guizot lies more on the surface of
his statement, which I cannot stop here to point out.
To me, the opinion-for it is nothing but an opinionseems to be more a piece of sportive fancy than a matter
of fact, an unauthorized inference drawn from an historical incident, a forced construction of an event which
did actually take place. It is very clear the Catholic
* See Comte's Positive Philosophy.
32 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
Church never thought of liberating anybody's conscience; it only thought of its own interests, and how
it might defraud or coerce the barbarian.   Liberty of
conscience was a thing then unknown in the world.
Society at that period would have known as little what
to do with liberty of conscience as the human mind at
this day would know how to do without it. It was due
to M. Guizot's high standing as an author, and to the
prominent place this opinion occupies in the ablest of
his works, to record it here, which I do simply for what
it is worth.
M. Comte, in my opinion, was much nearer the truth
in the assertion that, when the dogma of liberty of conscience was proclaimed, for the first time, in the sixteenth
century, as a revolutionary principle, to release the nations from the tyranny of the theological regime, the
impulse of the emancipation was irresistible; and the
revolutionary contagion was, in this one respect, universal. It attracted to its standard all orders of minds,
from the highest to the lowest, and continues to this day
a chief characteristic of the mind of society.
From having at first a purely religious application,
liberty of conscience soon passed into a favorite political
dogma; and in this country it has established itself, with
its two co-ordinate principles, exclusively at the foundation of our social system. Its domination of society here
is supreme, and the popular mind, in all its operations,
acknowledges no other stimulant. Nor is there a single
contradictory principle admitted in the frame of our
society sufitcient to limit its authority. The wildest
vagaries, and the greatest possible divergencies of opinions, must be the first necessary consequences of this
4*
33 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
unrestricted sovereignty of a single, unopposed principle; and, in the long run, a despotism, not inferior to
that of the Catholic unity in the middle ages, will result
from the democratic unity in this country. Between
anarchy and despotism there is perhaps little choice;
and the perpetual vibration of society between those
two extremes, with unsatisfactory revolutions to fill up
the intervals, presents to us a future fraught with horrors enough to appal the stoutest heart. Such, however, under the patronage of this lawless dogma, must
be our alternatives, unless rescued by an intelligent
patriotism and a wise provision.
It is a law of physics that the tendency of every force
is to excess.  In natural systems, this tendency is counteracted by the limitation of one force by another, and
a due equipoise is obtained by the development from the
forces themselves of a regular system of checks and balances. In social arrangements, which are always more
or less artificial, this prudent limitation of principles is
not always observed. The metaphysical habitude of the
general mind, so prevalent in this age, favors absolute
views, to the almost utter exclusion of relative notions.
This dangerous mental habit, not yet counteracted by
the advance of positive science, was first introduced into
Europe, along with Protestantism, in the sixteenth century. It is the legitimate successor of the theological
method of disquisition, and was engendered partly by
the ignorance of natural laws, but mainly by the freedom
of inquiry which followed the introduction of liberty of
conscience. From Europe it was transported, in the
plenitude of its power, to this country; and from being
an exotic, it soon became naturalized, and took such
34 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
deep root in the popular mind that it has ever since
rather improved than declined. Thus nationalized, it
is a powerful ally of liberty of conscience, and by its
method of discussion renders that licentious dogma more
dangerous than it would otherwise be. In the discussion
of nearly all questions, therefore, under favor of this
metaphysical habit, the necessary stimulant of the mind,
as in theology, is the infinite; for every debater professes himself to be a philosopher, that is, a metaphysician, who thinks nothing of penetrating to the essence
of things and to ultimate causes, and seeks habitually
for the most latitudinous construction of ideas. Under
such conditions, a principle, to be good for anything at
all, must be able to bear every strain that can be put
on it, and be run out to endless consequences, without
limitations from any quarter.
A fit illustration of this tendency is afforded by the
revisions which the constitutions of most of the States
have undergone within the last quarter of a century.
Many of the States had constitutions in which it was
thought the democratic polity was too much restricted;
it was still further to democratize or popularize them
that conventions were assembled for their revision. In
some States this had to be done more than once within
a very short period before democracy could be satisfied.
It was argued by the metaphysical politicians that democracy, if good for anything, must be good for everything pertaining to government; that if the people be
capable of electing one set of officers, they were equally
capable of electing all; of sitting in judgment on all
political questions; and of solving every social problem
that could occupy the attention of the human mind.
35 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
This argument exactly suited the people; it accordingly
prevailed; and constitutions were formed, in which the
democratic principles were left, like eternity, without
limits. Democracy now culminated; every branch of
government was in its hands-the legislative, the executive, the judiciary; its unity was complete; its domination of society absolute.
By this same metaphysical habit of mind, so dangerous when used by incompetent persons, a boundless
application is given to the principle of liberty of conscience. It is made to carry itself into all the practical
details of social life, and to cover a multitude of human
rights.  Some of the most important of these rights
are-the right of free inquiry, the right of every man
to his own opinions, the right of speech, and of every
other mode of expression by which opinions can be communicated. Now, if it were true, as democracy claims,
that all men are equal,-equally wise, equally just,
equally virtuous and good, and those qualities were
absolute and unlimited in all men,-in that case there
would be no necessity for government or laws; every
man would be a law unto himself, and order and progress would prevail spontaneously. That is the sole condition under which those rights can be conceded; and I
leave it to every one to determine for himself if that
condition exists.
That no one may be shocked at this novel appreciation of the dogma of free inquiry, or liberty of conscience,
it will be necessary to examine more closely some of the
consequences likely to flow from the immense aggrandizement claimed for it, and point out its legitimate
limits; for, be it remembered, there is nothing in this
36
f 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
world that is absolute and unlimited: all things sublunary are relative merely, all have their qualifications,
their metes and bounds; and it is the duty of government to define these, and establish them, in all matters
of social concernment.
This formula, then, regarded as absolute,-for it is
really in that light it is considered in this country,abolishes everything like intellectual regulations, and
sets up the personal reason as supreme authority in all
notions that can engage the attention of the human
understanding. There are, accordingly, in this country
no less than thirty millions of supreme authorities in all
the moral, intellectual, and social concerns of life. Each
of these arbiters decides from the tribunal of his own
conscience; and from this authority there is no appeal.
Each is entitled to the broadest liberty of inquiry and
to endless discussion; and his opinions, when formed,
however wrong they may be, are sacred, for there is for
him no other standard of right but his own conscience.
Here, then, is reached a point of intellectual dissipation
which upsets all fixed principles of action, where unity
of thought is in danger of being lost in a ruinous diversity, and which renders government next to an impossibility.
I have already said that the natural tendency of everything is to excess, and it is in their extremities that all
things find their ruin.   To this vicious tendency the
human mind is peculiarly exposed; and there are few
opinions which, if unrestricted, do not proceed to the
full length of their tethers. In the exercise of its functions, the human intelligence is apt, like everything else,
when a momentum is given to it in a certain direction,
37 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
to rush beyond the safe limits of that middle term where
a due equilibrium resides, and to go to the verge of disso lution. As society follows the lead of intelligence, and
symbolizes its speculations, this tendency of the human
mind constitutes the greatest danger to which the former
is exposed, for it represents a state of dissipation little
short of absolute anarchy.   Inasmuch, therefore,  as
every government is based on sentiments which it is
bound to reproduce in its phenomena, the government
of this country is of course no exception to that rule.
On the contrary, as a perfect reflex of the democratic
polity and a faithful exponent of all its dogmas, the
government of the United States, in the administration
of public affairs, has frequently run into the excesses
authorized by the sentiments contained in the dogma of
liberty of conscience. The examples thus set in high
quarters have not wanted followers in lower spheres:
they have descended to the administrations of State
governments, to the most minute ramifications of general and special politics, and to private practices as
well. I shall mention but two or three of these instances, as samples of all.  These examples I shall
take from the most exalted sources-sources which, on
account of their altitude, not only entitle them to attention, but render them peculiarly noticeable and exposed
to observation.
The first of these illustrations which I shall mention
is drawn from the administration of General Jackson, in
1832, when democracy culminated in the Federal government.   That distinguished personage, in his celebrated Message vetoing the bill for the recharter of the
United States Bank, used the following language:
38 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
"Each public officer who takes an oath to support the
constitution, swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others." This
sentiment influenced his vetoes of several important
bills, on constitutional grounds as he understood them.
The consequence was that many of his vetoes and other
official acts were in direct opposition to precedents, to
long-established usages, to the practices of all anterior
administrations, extending through more than forty
years; they were also opposed to decisions of the highest judicial tribunal of the land, appointed exclusively
to sit in judgment on constitutional questions.
It cannot but be seen, at first view, that a general
adoption of this sentiment as a universally received
political maxim of binding force, would dissolve government and render social order wholly impracticable.
Nevertheless, the sentiment was in strict accordance
with the spirit of the age and government, of which
General Jackson, as its organ, was a faithful exponent.
There were, however, even at that epoch, minds sufficiently exempt from the lawless domination of that
spirit to characterize such a sentiment as it deserved.
In an able speech, delivered in the Senate of the United
States, Mr. Webster unmasked the insidious danger that
lurked beneath its specious exterior.  Commenting on
this text, he very justly remarked that it would raise
every man's private opinions into a standard for his
own conduct; and of course there can be no government where every man is to judge for himself of his
own rights and his own obligations. Where every one
is his own arbiter, force, and not law, is the governing
power. He who may judge for himself, and decide for
39 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
himself, must execute his own decisions; and this is the
law of force. If he, who is appointed to execute the
laws, has the right to interpret them for himself, then
also has he, whose only duty is to obey the laws, the
same right. And where all men enjoy this privilege,
and each is entitled to obey the laws only according to
his own understanding of them, there is an end to all
constitutional and legal restrictions. Such a sentiment
abolishes the judiciary, and abrogates the obligations of
the whole criminal code. Culprits would have to be
tried, not according to the law, but according as they
profess to understand it. Arguments would have to be
addressed, and appeals made, not to a bench of judges or
a box of jurors, but to the accused themselves, in order
to enlighten them how they ought to understand the law.
The next example which I shall cite is taken, not like
the other from the official acts of the Federal administration, but from the legislative acts of one of the State
governments.  Both are so eminent in their origin, and
so notorious as events of history, that they are in no
danger of being perverted or misrepresented without
detection. About the same time, then, that General
Jackson, as Chief Magistrate - of the United States,
uttered the above sentiment, that is, in 1832, the Legislature of South Carolina so far followed the example
and adopted the maxim of the "Old Chief" as to nullify a law of Congress, on the ground, they said, that
it was not warranted by the Federal Constitution as
they understood that instrument. Such, in the last
analysis, was the true origin of the famous South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification, which came so near
dissolving the Union more than thirty years ago; al
40 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
though Mr. Calhoun professed to derive his precedent,
not from General Jackson or the Federal administration, but from Mr. Jefferson, who, in the Virginia and
Kentucky Resolutions of 1798-9, uttered, in effect, precisely the same sentiment as that quoted from General
Jackson's Veto Message. This act of South Carolina,
perpetrated avowedly on the ground that each State
possessed the right of interpreting the constitution and
laws of Congress as she understood them, and of nullifying the latter whenever, in her opinion, they conflicted
with the former, constituted the most perilous moment,
prior to 1861, which ever occurred in the history of this
government.   That the danger was fully understood,
even at that early period; that it was even then attributed to the proper source; that the doctrine of
General Jackson's Veto Message and the Nullification
Ordinance of South Carolina were directly related and
owned a common origin; and that I draw no unauthorized inference from either, are all made clearly manifest
by speeches delivered at that time in the Senate Chamber of the United States by the most distinguished
orators and statesmen of that day. In proof of this
I shall make a few extracts from a speech of Mr. Webster, who, with the prescience of true greatness, looking
far ahead of ordinary minds, exclaimed: "Are we not
threatened with dissolution of the Union.? Are we not
told that the laws of the government shall be openly
and directly resisted? At this moment, so full of peril
to the State, the Chief Magistrate puts forth opinions as
truly subversive of all government as the wildest theories
of nullification. There is not an individual in its ranks,
capable of putting two ideas together, who, if you grant
41
5 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
him the principles of the Veto Message, cannot defend
all that nullification has ever threatened."   "The President of the United States is of opinion, that an individual, called on to execute a law, may himself judge of
its constitutional validity.  Does nullification teach anything more revolutionary than that? The President is
of opinion, that every officer is bound to support the
constitution only according to what ought to be, in his
private opinion, its construction. Has nullification, in its
wildest flight, reached to an extravagance beyond that?
The President is of opinion, that judicial interpretations
of the constitution and laws do not bind the consciences,
and ought not to bind the conduct, of men. Is nullification at all more disorganizing than that?" "'Nullification, it is in vain to deny it, is dissolution; it is dismemberment; it is the breaking up of the Union," etc.
Such, then, were the opinions, such the apprehensions,
of the most practical statesman of his day, as to the
dangerous direction of public affairs, and as to the safety
of the Union itself, under the patronage of this licentious doctrine.   Without, perhaps, penetrating to its
last cause, to the true source of its origin, Mr. Webster
yet saw, or rather felt, in a moment of prophetic frenzy
peculiar to highly endowed minds, that a sentiment so
disorganizing as that uttered by the then head of the
Federal government, and practically illustrated by one
of the States, must ultimately terminate in brute force
and dissolution of the Union.
At that early period, abolitionism, as a party cry, was
unheard of; the negro question, as a disturbing element of society, occasioned no uneasiness; the abolition
of slavery was a private sentiment only, which had not
42 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
yet passed beyond the precincts of a few individual
minds; and no one, perhaps, dreamed that it ever
would become the rallying note of a great party des tined to the bad ends which it has apparently con tributed so much to accomplish. All those secondary
causes, which are now convulsing the nation, were then
in abeyance, or, at most, merely rudimental; and yet a
social cataclysm exactly analogous to the present was
already imminent, and was averted mainly because
society was not then fully ripe for the catastrophe.
Nevertheless, it is plain that the two sets of causes,
those of 1832 and those of 1861, both secondary in
their natures, and however different they may be in ap pearance, sprang from the same source; they were the
offsprings of the same parent; and, possessing the same
disorganizing qualities, tended of course to similar con sequences. This common origin is not difficult to dis cover: it is to be found in the dogma of liberty of conscience, the fruitful parent of so much licentiousness both
of theory and practice.
One other illustration will serve to render this fact still
more clear, and, at the same time, to mark the progress
which the dogma of liberty of conscience and its co-ordinate rights had made in a comparatively short time in
demoralizing the mind of society and preparing it for
final dissolution.
This, then, brings us to the third and last example
which I shall cite. The extraordinary sentiment, quoted
above, emanating from the then Chief Magistrate of the
nation, and appearing in an important state paper as
'a fundamental maxim of his administration, and subsequently reduced to practice by a State government,
43 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
was timid and hesitating. It did not go the length of
denying the paramount authority of constitutions and
laws: it acknowledged their supremacy, but dissipated
their binding force by referring their construction to
individual understandings. At a later period, we hear
accredited to another high public functionary, then a
United States Senator, now a cabinet minister, a sentiment of similar import, but which so far transcends the
other as to set aside altogether legislative enactments in
favor of a "higher law," which is paramount to all constitutions, and which, when the two come in conflict, iS
alone binding on the consciences and conduct of men.
What this "higher law" is, whence it emanates, from
whom it derives its authority, how it is to be enforced,
or what are its guarantees, we are not exactly told. It
appears to be some unwritten law of God or of Nature,
which every one must interpret for himself. Or rather,
it seems to be a dictate of every man's own conscience,
which he is under a moral obligation to obey in preference to any municipal law whatever. Or, in short, it is
difficult to say what it is, or how many there are; for
the phrase "higher law" appears to be a noun of multitude, a sort of generic term, which covers an indefinite number of laws. This sentiment, vague as it is,
made such progress as to obtain currency with a party
which became a prime element in dissolving the Union,
and which is even now controlling the government of
the nation, and conducting the war in a manner which
does not pretend to be constitutional, but in open defiance of the constitution.
To superficial observers, these "sayings and doings"
may well seem trivial, and attract little attention as
44 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
signs of the times.  Standing alone as isolated senti ments of the individuals uttering them, they were, per haps, thought to be intellectual extravagances, exuber ances of mind, which were never intended to pass
beyond their verbal expression: and few persons are
able to connect their acts as links in the great chain of
events, and deduce from them the direction of history.
Even nullification, significant as was that great event,
yielded no lesson on this subject. It was thought to be
a mere ebullition of the moment, a temporary disturbance, having no connection with the past and no reference to the future.  Its true genealogy seems never to
have been suspected. It was deemed to have been called
suddenly into being by the Tariff Act of 1828, and as
suddenly allayed forever by the Compromise Bill of
Mr. Clay. But all these sentiments and acts, these
"sayings and doings," trivial and isolated as they may
seem at first sight, are legitimate derivatives of liberty
of conscience and its co-ordinate rights. These lawless
rights, so boundless in their pretensions, are genuine
revolutionary principles. They have already demolished
an ancient system cemented by the prescription of a
thousand years. The theological regime of the middle
ages dissolved at their touch.   The military system of
feudalism fell before them. In pure wantonness, they
would seem to have constructed a sort of "card-house"
government here, for apparently no other purpose than
to gratify their disorganizing instincts by demolishing
it at a single blow as soon as erected. If they succeed in
reconstructing it, it will be only to level it once more to
the ground with a breath as before. They have so long
controlled public and private opinions in this country,
5*
45 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
that they have at last passed into the commonest truisms,
the merest matters of course, which it is considered a
species of insanity to question. Their very common ness, their nearness to us, and the close intimacy they
have formed with our every-day thoughts, render them
in,a manner invisible. Their destructive agency is the
last thing to be suspected.  In seeking for the cause of
our troubles, we overlook them altogether. We accuse
first one thing and then another. Symptoms are mis taken for diseases; occasions for causes.  The sad experience we are now undergoing ought to be a convincing and long-remembered preacher on this subject, and
teach us to look nearer home for the source of our misfortunes; to look for it in our own hearts, in our own
minds, in the bosom of our social system, for it is only
there we can come at the real root of the evil.
Everything has a reason for existing-its necessity,
its utility, its law. Some such latitude of discussion as
is authorized by this vagabond liberty of conscience, was
needed to combat successfully the crushing weight of
authority exercised by the religious government of the
Catholic Church in its long day of power; and liberty
of conscience correctly represents the state of unbounded
freedom in which the human mind was left by the decay
of the old theological regime. It has also not been
without its utility in enabling philosophers to explore
the entire field of thought; and, by admitting the right
of all to a similar research, encouraged the discussion
which must precede and effect the discovery of principles which will solicit a new social organization that
shall combine order with progress; and which, while it
neglects not the interests of society, neither will it slight
4 ) 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
the development of the individual. Herein alone consist the necessity and utility of this release of the human mind from the old authority. Liberty of conscience
correctly represents that enfranchisement. Its business
was to tear down the old system, to clear the ground
and prepare the materials for a reorganization of society.
For this purpose it was necessary that it should exercise all the prerogatives of an absolute principle; otherwise it is clear it never could have possessed the requisite
amount of energy to accomplish its revolutionary mission.
With the fulfillment of that object, its dangerous
activity ought to have ceased. The very freedom of
inquiry which it authorized ought long ago to have detected the imposition it so successfully practiced in passing itself off for an absolute principle; and with the
detection and exposure of this imposition, its further
interference with the reorganization of society would
have been confined within salutary bounds. But such
was very far from being the case. Once put in motion
it seems not to know where to stop. Released from the
trammels of ages, and started on a mission of the highest importance to the interests of humanity, its first
successes have only magnified its zeal; and, with the
accomplishment of its original purpose, instead of diminishing its efforts, it seems rather to have gained strength
ever since. Its activity no longer absorbed by the demolition of the old political order, it now aims at an
entire reorganization of society on a basis of its own.
But the right of free inquiry is of so dissolving a nature
that it never can become an organic principle. On the
contrary, every attempt it makes to reconstruct a permanent system of goverinment must prove disastrous to
47 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
the age or nation that allows the experiment. Witness
the example of Mexico, of the Central and South American Republics, the Italian Republics, the short episode
of the French Republic. Witness, finally, and above
all, the brilliant illustration which this country is just
now adding to other examples of failure of the democratic experiment.
Such a principle as the right of unbounded liberty of
conscience, and the collateral rights that flow from it,
can never produce anything else but simple individual
thoughts.   The thoughts thus produced must  be as
diverse as the characters of the thinkers, with no common center of attraction stronger than the mere wills
of those who entertain them. Possessing, then, no principle of convergence other than the caprices of countless
individual minds, accustomed, in the respect of their
opinions, to the wildest license, these vagrant sentiments
must owe to the voluntary assent of numbers whatever
supremacy they can ever possess.  And such, indeed, is
the only method of procuring the famous "majority"
so much vaunted in this country.   The decisions which
issue from this judgment-seat of the populace really
establish nothing at all; for the questions decided by
it remain still open, and the discussion may be renewed
again and again, ad infinitum, without any definitive
settlement ever being arrived at. Where the right of
inquiry is never closed, and the whims of licentious
minds is the only law employed to solicit a unanimity
of sentiments, the majority is liable to shift from side
to side, and to vary its decisions so often, that distraction, and not settlement, will be the consequence. If
anything was wanting to realize, in its worst form, a
48 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
diversity of so dissolving a nature, and to render it in
practice as ruinous as it appears in theory, this end was
obtained in the frequency of elections established by law
in this country, and the admission as voters of all male
white persons above the age of twenty-one years.
In point of fact, the unbounded right of free inquiry
imposes the necessity of never deciding. From this state
of prolonged indecision ensues an irritation of the public
mind, which in time becomes intolerable. Our whole
government is a practical illustration of this melancholy
fact. From its commencement to the present moment,
not a single question of importance, although so often
referred to the arbitration of the majority, and debated
ad nauseam, has ever been determined. All the Presidential elections of the last thirty years have vibrated,
like a pendulum, from one side to the other of these
great questions. Take, for example, the elections of
Messrs. Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Polk,
Taylor, Pierce. In each of these elections the main
questions to be decided were precisely the same; and
each decision was a direct reversal of its predecessor.
After seven verdicts of the majority, each, with a solitary exception, annulling the other and reaffirming itself,
the policy of the government was left as indeterminate
at last as at first. Four years after Mr. Pierce's term,
a new party came into power, complicating without displacing the old issues, and rendering a final judgment
on any of them that much more difficult and distant.
Thus nearly forty years were consumed in earnest but
futile efforts to establish a fixed rule of action to guide
the administration of public affairs in certain matters
considered to be of vital importance to the nation.
49 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
After these reiterated trials, nothing seemed more im probable than that a satisfactory conclusion would ever
be reached by this method of adjustment; and nothing
seemed more likely than that the majority should con tinue, as heretofore, to shift from side to side to the end
of the chapter. And yet it was impossible, in the nature
of things, that this state of indecision should last for ever. Such a condition was opposed to the constitution
of the human mind. The suspense had already extended
beyond the average duration of human lifetime; and instead of improving, it was continually growing worse
and worse. If the patience of one of the parties had
not broke down under the last complication, there is no
telling to what additional excesses the public mind might
have gone. As it is, the nation, at this moment, is a fit
emblem of the utter confusion its political dogmas are
so well calculated to produce. This or a similar climax
was the inevitable consequence of those dogmas. It
might have been longer delayed, or it might have happened sooner; but, sooner or later, some such catastrophe was bound to be brought about by the very
terms of our political system.
If it were possible for discussion to produce decision,
our social policy would have been settled long ago, and
society would have remained tranquil to this day. The
greatest possible freedom of inquiry and the widest latitude of discussion were allowed and indulged during the
election campaigns mentioned above. Every conceivable method of investigation was employed. The country
was "stumped" from one end to the other.  The highest
order of eloquence resounded over the land. The lowest
"clap-traps" in the way of oratory were not wanting.
50 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
Thousands of political newspapers, consecrated to the
sole purpose of influencing the vote of the majority,
helped to swell the monstrous inquisition. Nothing, in
short, that was likely to cause conviction, or persuasion,
or deception, was left untried.   It will reside in the
memory of all who participated in those notorious campaigns, how boisterous and stormy they were. Their
violence, engendered by licentiousness, not liberty, shook
the nation to its center. Few governments on the earth
could have withstood such shocks. But, as yet, the conservative spirit of the people was stronger than the dis"organizing tendency of their social principles. Nevertheless, as they swept over the land with their stormy
debates, they deposited the seeds of future crops of
whirlwinds, to be afterward reaped in kind, the first of
which we are now harvesting with blood and tears.
To say that a perpetual discussion of the foundations
of society is consistent with social order, is to reverse
the well-known conditions of human nature, and to place
the repose of humanity in endless strife and confusion.
No amount of intelligence in the people can render such
an arrangement compatible with that equilibrium which
it is the design of society to secure; and where that
intelligence rates low in the scale of intellectual development, the disturbance must be proportionably great.
So long as there is no standard of right but the individual conscience, and no authority that speaks with the
voice of command, closing debate peremptorily by pronouncing judgments that shall be final, society must be
abandoned to the caprices of opinions as divergent as
the eccentricities of the human intelligence will allow
them to be.   This state of indecision, with no fixed
51 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
points of conviction, must in time beget in the public
mind a kind of morbid perturbation that cannot be prolonged beyond a certain point without serious danger.
We ignore the deepest necessities of human reason when
we deny to it the repose it seeks in decisions that are
irreversible. When the repose of society is dependent
on the same conditions, how is it conceivable that rational men will intrust the stability of government and
the security of social rights to no firmer basis than that
afforded by this arbitrary principle? We would esteem
'him a madman who should resolve and re-resolve, from
day to day, without ever coming to a definite conclusion
on anything. If, therefore, it be reckoned madness in
an individual to be always examining and never deciding, assuredly no dogmatic consecration of such conduct
in the aggregate of individuals or in society can constitute the perfection of social order.  The mental irritation consequent on the adjournment of important questions to readjudications without end, must at last produce
such a sense of desperation that one party or the other
would be constrained to appeal to the arbitrament of
the sword, as a dernier ressort; and if the arrangement
could be imagined permanent, brute force would once
more, as of old, sit umpire over the world, and progress
retrace its steps to the camps of Attila and Gengis
Khan.
The political annals of our country afford an apt illustration of the truth of this argument. All the Presidential elections anterior to that of 1860 were decisions
of the majority, affirming and reaffirming the constitutional guarantees and the policy of the government on
the subject of slavery, and adjudging to the South the
52 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
undisturbed enjoyment of its peculiar institution. The
election of Mr. Lincoln was deemed at last to have re versed all those prior decisions, and to have imperiled
the social rights of the South. For long years before,
the mental irritation of the Southern people, caused by
a knowledge of the instability of those popular decisions,
and by the threatening aspect of the fickle multitude at
the North, had already become chronic. The knowl edge that, at any moment, their dearest rights were
liable to be taken from them by an irresponsible majority that professed allegiance to a higher law than
human constitutions, left them no choice as to what
their conduct should be in the event of their worst fears
being realized. That point, where patience ceased to
be a virtue, was deemed to have been reached by the
election of Mr. Lincoln. The binding force of the constitution, weakened by the right of individual constructions, had ceased to afford any sense of security. The
popular mind, debauched by licentious dogmas and by
loose sentiments deduced from them, was ripe for any
disturbance.  The morbid perturbation of Southern society, so long kept up by all these causes, broke out
into open revolt at the first and flimsiest pretext that
came to hand, and the present war ensued.
Here the dogma of
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY
suggests itself, as growing so directly out of the right
of free inquiry, or liberty of conscience, that the latter
cannot be treated further without mixing up the former
with it. Free inquiry, or liberty of conscience, consid
53
6 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
ered as absolute, assigns to every one the right of sitting
in judgment on all social questions whatever; and the
doctrine of universal suffrage, as practiced in this country, actually consigns those delicate questions, in effect,
exclusively to the least cultivated understandings of the
nation's entire population. For the mass of population
in any country necessarily consists of that class of persons; and where universal suffrage obtains, the majority,
which decides all political questions, must contain the
least informed minds as the principal element of its
composition.
It is universally conceded that social problems are, of
all others, the most complex and the most difficult of
solution. For ages they have challenged the attention
of the best minds, and, like distant nebule, have hitherto
defied the highest powers of the human intelligence to
resolve them. None have so much claim to be consigned
to the choicest intellects which shall have been highly
prepared for the investigation of questions so obscure
and so mixed up with human passions. It would seem,
then, scarcely consistent with good sense or sound policy
to turn over these subtle questions to the decisions of
persons who have never received any intellectual training, and the minds of many of whom are almost brutalized by ignorance. Yet the dogma of popular sovereignty proposes nothing less; and, in the case of this
country, we actually witness the remarkable phenomenon
of the government of one of the largest nations on the
earth delivered into the hands of the most ignorant
portion of thirty millions of population. The political
formula that "the majority shall rule," actually accomplishes this anomaly. It condemns all the superior to
54 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
an arbitrary dependence on the multitude of the inferior; and it transfers to the people, to the ignorant
masses, the divine right to govern, which has long been
the opprobrium of kings.
I do not assert too much when I say that the majority
always consists of the most ignorant and inferior portion
of a nation's population. This is necessarily the case.
However many degrees of difference there may be, morally and intellectually, between the individuals composing the majority, it is evident they belong not to the
choice few, who alone are fitted, by a high natural
organization and previous preparation, to deal with
problems so intricate as those upon which society is
based. It is well known that a very large majority of
the inhabitants of all nations belongs to what is called
the masses-the rudis indigestaque moles humani-a
phrase which admirably describes those persons who,
however excellent and useful they may be in their
places, yet, looked at from an intellectual point of view,
would scarcely realize one's beau ideal of eminent statesmen and legislators. With, comparatively speaking, low
mental and moral organizations, their physical endowments and exclusively physical training adapt them to
the material drudgeries of life, and to those laborious
but necessary offices which they perform so well. Incapacitated by nature for high intellectual developments,
even if their time and means allowed the experiment,
which they do not, it is only routine duties they can
discharge in the great social hives of humanity. The
economy of nature has assigned their place in society.
No artifice can better the arrangement. In all ages
they have been the mutes in the great drama of the
55 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
Social Evolution, and have passed over the stage of history in dumb show, without word or speech, knowing
the meaning of nothing that goes on. The vis inertia
of a nation's population, they are blind instruments in
the hands of others, and are always to be dreaded when
taken out of their places and set in motion on political
occasions.
Whether it was originally intended for earnest or jest,
it is certain that the celebrated apothegm of vox populi,
vox.)ei, contains the bitterest irony that ever was
uttered, to say nothing of its impiety.  It has long,
been a favorite text of Fourth-of-July declamation, and
has no doubt deceived many silly minds. But, notwithstanding this consecration of the popular voice,
there is no instance on record where ever God delivered
his oracles by the multitude, or nature truths by the
herd. Though there are many examples recorded of
individual men having been called to these divine missions, and all the great benefits which have, at divers
times, been conferred on society, have originated, so far
as we know, from single minds, the masses, on the contrary, have ever been an element of social-disturbances;
and wherever they have appeared conspicuously on the
field of politics, social cataclysms of one kind or other
have invariably followed. If, therefore, the people have
ever been emp]oyed as agents in the hands of God for
any purpose whatever, it has been as instruments of his
vengeful, not of his beneficent providences; and there
have been few societies in the world which have not
experienced, at one time or other, this evidence of
the divine displeasure.   While history abounds with
evidences of the people's unfitness to be a dominant
56 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
element in any social system, it affords not a single
instance to the contrary.   Vox populi, vox diaboli,
therefore, would be a much more appropriate aphorism
than the other.
It is to the arbitrary and variable decisions of a multitude so incompetent that the doctrine of popular sovereignty abandons all social questions whatever. Now,
imagine ideas, upon which depends the very existence
of society, consigned, not for one time only but for all
time, to a heterogeneous mass like this: is it conceivable that any government could resist forever the dissolving action of so much diversity, and of such corrosive
discussion as is authorized by the dogma of free inquiry?
So far from it, all true social order is incompatible with
the vagabond liberty of individual minds here implied.
If such license were to last, a dissolution of the social
state must ensue, through the ever-growing divergence
of individual understandings. We all know the kind
of frenzy that seizes the popular mind on occasions of
important political elections; how little of reason, and
how much of passion, sways the deliberations of the
people; and how completely their individual understandings are delivered over to their disorderly impulses, and
to the impurest of motives. Now, is it probable that,
under these circumstances, ideas, upon which depends
the safety of society, and which are of all others the
most easily perverted, are likely to receive the best interpretations of which they are susceptible?
To these objections it may be replied, that the government of this country, erected upon the polity here
arraigned, has so far procured order and progress that
society, under its protection, has developed in an un
6*
57 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
precedented manner, and that no element of true greatness in the life of a nation has been neglected, but all
have advanced pari passute, within an incredibly short
time, to the highest eminence ever reached in the oldest
nations.
This is true. It would be a waste of time to enumerate all the causes that have been most active in
merate all the causes that have been most active in
procuring such extraordinary results: they are patent
to every mind that has paid the least attention to the
history of the times.   The social marvels  we have
witnessed have been brought about, not in consequence
of the democratic polity, but in spite of it. All other
conditions remaining the same, similar results might
have been procured under an Oriental despotism. The
country was so young, so fresh, so vigorous, that it was
able to bear a great deal of bad government, even if
such had existed; but, in point of fact, the general administration of the government has, in the main, been
admirable.  Very little fault is to be found with the
general details of the constitution or government, or
with the manner of their administration; these have
afforded large compensating advantages against the disorganizing tendencies of the democratic principles. The
abrasions of the latter could not wear away in a day
the conservative influences of the former.
TIME is an important element in developing whatever
of good or evil may reside in the social principles of a
nation; and assuredly less time could not have been
expected than has actually sufficed to bring out the
vicious tendencies of the democratic polity, against all
the counteracting influences that have been arrayed in
opposition.  Not the least of these influences is a con
58 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
servative principle in human nature which protects
society a great while against the worst social system
that ever was devised.  To say that society is composed
of men is sufficient to account for the orderly working
of any form of government for a considerable length of
time. Man is essentially social in his nature; he bears
within himself certain notions of order, of justice, of
reason, with a strong desire to bring them into action,
which compel him to live in the best organized society
he can obtain. If his society be not the best, he will
endure what he cannot cure; but he is much more inclined to cure than to endure. For this he labors
unceasingly; and if his social system continue, his
labor in the long run will not be in vain. Sooner or
later he will make his social system fit his social nature,
or conform to his social ideas, as the shell fits the oyster.
For this time is needed; and also terrible violence is
not unfrequently needed.
There is, therefore, in all societies, a wise reserve of
popular good sense, which tends unceasingly to restrict
political aberrations. The social spirit of this people
possesses no inconsiderable degree of that conservative
quality which capacitates them for resisting the disorganizing instincts of the worst social principles as long
perhaps as any other people in the world. They have
been not inaptly styled "Nature's democrats;"  and
the principle of self-government is, without doubt, the
strongest of their social instincts.   To arrange themselves into regularly organized bodies is as natural to
them as breathing. This spirit of organization pursues
them in all the relations of life. With no power stronger
than their own wills to enforce obedience to the rules
59 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
of their voluntary organizations, they are seldom found
untrue to a due observance of them.
With such a people, then, for the base of a nation's
population, and in view of that speculative inertia so
common to large masses of persons, it is not wonderful
that, up to this time, a certain amount of order should
have been procured by this government, sufficient for
the development of the national greatness, marvelous
as it has been. Still less is our wonder excited when
we reflect how short a time this security has lasted.
The wonder is that it should have lasted no longer. No
one looked to see it broken up so soon. And if this is
to be considered the terminus of the national prosperity, or of the orderly working of the government,
under the inspiration of the principles which have hitherto animated it, stronger proof could not be asked of
the disorganizing tendency of those principles. And
that this government, in its present form, has failed to
answer the ends of its creation, and will progressively
demonstrate its incapacity as time advances, shall be
the business of this work to show.
But there is one other cause why this disorganization
did not begin sooner; and this cause I shall do no more
than designate, and pass on to other considerations.
NUMBERS, also, as well as time, are needed to discover
the vices of a political system like this. A sparse population, scattered over an almost endless extent of territory, would leave those vices undiscovered forever.
Until very recently, the population of this country bore
no proportion to its territory; nor does it do so even
now, comparatively speaking. But up to the beginning
of the present revolution, the rapidity of its increase
60 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
had no parallel in history. If the same ratio of increase
be renewed and continued, it will not be many generations before the land will be as overstocked with'inhabitants as Belgium or China, or the most crowded nation
in the world. When teeming millions are thrown together, and the dense masses are effervescing with the
rank passions and ranker vices of human nature, then
the effects, upon such multitudes, of the wild liberty of
the democratic polity, must be left to the imagination
to conceive.
Of course I can have no objection to self-government,
nor to the largest liberty compatible with order. But
license is not liberty; and the first principle of selfgovernment is self-denial. It is the universal and absolute character claimed for the democratic dogmas, and
their consequent excesses in practice, against which
these strictures are directed.  Of the right of liberty
of conscience, and of the people to be represented in
government, there is no manner of doubt. But these
rights are relative, not absolute; they have their limitations and qualifications; and it is to define these that
government is instituted. What else is meant by the
word government, as well as by the thing itself, but the
imposition of salutary restraints on unbounded liberty
and the lawless exercise of natural rights? It is liberty
with laws, and government without oppression, which
society seeks.
The democratic polity, however, in effect not only
ignores these restraints, but virtually seeks to restore
man to what is supposed to have been his original state
of nature, to the unqualified enjoyment of all natural
rights, and to the wild liberty of untamed nature. That
61 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
is, the tendency of those principles is that way; not
that they would be able to land humanity in such a condition: the laws of human nature forbid it. This is not
a forced construction of the tendency of the democratic
doctrine. The design was actually avowed, in so many
words, by a class of writers-I will not call them philosophers-of the French nation; for it is to France we
must go to see this doctrine in its best aspect of consistency and power, not only in its practical workings at
the most marked period of her Revolution, but in the
pages of writers who best reflected the spirit of the age
and people. The doctrine, as thus seen in France, at
its highest point of culmination, represents civilization
as an ever-growing degeneracy from the primitive ideal
type; and that all political reformation must be regarded
as destined to re-establish that primitive state.  This
original condition of man expresses the metaphysical
notion, common to all modern metaphysicians, of a supposed state of nature, which is destined to become the
invariable type of every social state. It is the metaphysical form of the old theological idea of the state of
innocence and simplicity, in which man existed in Eden
before the fall. Degraded from this happy mode of life
by the commission of a crime known as original sin, he
must now gradually work his way back -by a series of
political reforms. No social change can be considered
a reform which does not tend to bring about this restoration. Democracy was thought to be an immense stride
in that direction, since it seemed to release man from all
political and moral restraints, and to elevate him at
once to his original state of nature, and to the lost image
of his Maker. This doctrine was not peculiar to Rous
62 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
seau alone: that writer, by his urgent dialectics, only
pushed it to its last consequences.   It is the central
idea of Schlegel's Philosophy of History, of his Philosophy of Life; and is reproduced in his Philosophy of
Language. The French Revolution was, consciously or
unconsciously, inaugurated to reduce it to practice. After
displacing the old order, the French Revolution sought
to re-establish in its stead a sort of metaphysical polytheism, something in the manner of the Greco-Roman
system, as being nearer the primitive type.   This, it
will be seen at once, was nothing else but organizing,
instead of a progression, a universal retrogradation; a
substitution, for one decrepit system, of a more ancient
and decrepit system still.*
The necessity for some sort of restraint on the wild
liberty of the democratic polity, was of course felt by
those eminent men who presided at the birth of this
nation and assisted in organizing its government. An
attempt was accordingly made to deprive the principle
of the dangerous energy it had acquired while engaged
in executing its revolutionary mission in Europe. This
was believed to have been amply accomplished by the
formation of a constitution so filled with checks and
guards that it was thought a due balance was obtained
which never could be destroyed. Results, however, have
since demonstrated that the framers of the constitution
were dealing with a principle more subtle than their
sagacity; and that its wild liberty was not to be barred
in one direction, while it was left free in another.
* See Comte's Positive Philosophy.
63 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
For example, the constitution recognized the existence of slavery; placed property in slaves on an equal
footing with every other species of property; and made
the most formal and solemn provision it could devise for
its protection. At the same time, however, the dogmas
of popular sovereignty and equality were recognized as
co-ordinate principles of nature and society. According to these dogmas, "all men are born free and equal."
Freedom and equality, therefore, are birthrights which
all men inherit from nature, guaranteed to them by the
laws of God, which laws society is bound to ve-enact.
Hence, the recognition of slavery by the constitution
is treason against nature, against the laws of God, and
against what ought to be laws of society. The constitution, therefore, is null and void pro tanto; and slavery,
by a superior ordinance of nature, is an illegal institution.  Thus was reached, as a last but necessary corollary of those dogmas, the "higher law" doctrine, which
alone sufficed to release the democratic polity from the
restraints put on it by the constitution.
From the same premises flows, by irresistible implication, the doctrine of universal suffrage, not less dangerous than the other, but infinitely more disgusting, as
a practical measure of government. Universal suffrage
is not a provision of the constitution; it is not specified
as a necessary part of the republican form of government required by the constitution to be adopted by all
the States; it is not obligatory on any State to adopt
it as a clause of its constitution; it is an inference only,
deduced, like the "higher law," from the democratic
principles; and in order to carry those principles out as
far as possible, according to their full intent and mean
64 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
ing, it came in time to be pretty generally adopted by
most of the States.
When we look at the entire population-consisting of
thirty millions as it now does in this country, or of sixty
millions as it is likely soon to do-and consider the
mass of ignorance, stupidity, vice, and corruption of
which it is composed, nothing, surely, at first sight,
could seem more revolting to common sense than an
arrangement which would base government on such a
mass of putrescence for a secure foundation.   The
"higher law" doctrine, viewed, for the first time, by
the side of it, would appear reasonable and eminently
proper. Nevertheless, we have not only seen the inference of universal suffrage admitted, but the right itself
reduced to practice. It is now considered to be nothing
more than an act of simple justice, due as well to one
description of persons as to another. Indeed, the arrangement has long been regarded as the very best that
could be devised by the wit of man, for the peace of
society and the orderly working of government.
After witnessing the perpetration of an extravagance
like that, and even becoming familiar with it and reconciled to it, and still remaining unconscious of any evils
likely to flow from it,-after that, I say, we are not at
liberty to sneer at the "higher law" doctrine, as an unauthorized derivative of the democratic principles, and
as never likely to be adopted, as a political axiom, by
any party. In effect, it has already been reduced to
practice, and has borne its fruits. The passage of "Personal Liberty Laws" by certain States, in direct contravention of a law of Congress, on the ground that the
latter was opposed to a law of God, is, to all intents and
65
7 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
purposes, a practical application of that doctrine; and
nothing but time is needed to translate it into a generally received maxim of government.
We have seen high public functionaries and individual
States claiming, and even exercising, the right of construing the constitution according to their own understandings of it; and I have shown how irresistible is
the deduction thence of the right of everybody else to
do the same thing. Some of the ulterior consequences
likely to flow from this practice have already been
pointed out, and I shall not stop here to enumerate
others. This pretended right is not less justly a derivitive of the democratic principles than universal suffrage, or the higher law; nor is it more anarchical than
they. The constitution and government would be just as
apt to enjoy a perpetuity of existence under the patronage of one of these ideas as of another, or of all as of
one.   The right of individual interpretation of laws
would have an equal chance, with both or either of the
other two, of being, some time or other, transferred to
practice, provided society, under existing circumstances,
could last long enough to adopt it.  The only difficulty
in the way of democracy running itself out in practice
to all its last consequences, is the want of time. Each
sentiment is so disorganizing, that it dissolves society
almost as soon as applied. If government had survived
the inflictions of the democratic principles already
adopted, there is no reason why all the extreme inferences authorized by the same polity should not, with
equal propriety, follow, in regular order and in due
course of time, those which preceded them. But the
powers of social systems, like those of the human body,
66 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
are limited, and intolerant of excesses. They will not
endure to have too great a strain put on them. In the
case of our government, the point of endurance would
seem to have been passed; and we may now pronounce
our social system to be in the articles of death.
*n many accounts, the dogma of popular sovereignty
is hostile to the perpetuity or long continuance of any
constitution. The excellence of a constitution is no bar
to the dissolving tendencies of such a principle. To
what purpose make a constitution, and declare a sovereign power above it? HIow can a constitution be the
supreme law of the land, and the people supreme also?
All the explanations, which have ever been attempted,
of this contradiction, have proved to be mere sophistries.
Words can only conceal, they cannot reconcile, the contrariety. Facts are the best commentaries of the absurdity; and facts have demonstrated the impracticability
of such a government. The sovereignty of the people is
represented by the majority; and the majority rules.
So long as the majority choose to respect the constitution, it is law; the submission of the majority is voluntary; there is no compulsory power to oblige obedience.
Against the will of the majority, there are no guarantees
for the continuance of the constitution from one day to
another.   Under such conditions, a constitution may
govern, by courtesy, for seventy-five years, and fail on
the seventy-sixth; or it may not last a single year, or
even a day. In this country, there is a constant organization of the majority, capable of expressing its will at
any moment. It is perfectly irresponsible, bound by
no authority above itself, except an implied pledge of
faith. Plighted faith might have some binding efficacy
67 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
on an individual; but against the passions, the interests,
the opinions, the moral sense of the multitude composing the majority, this bond is a mere rope of sand. The
majority may interpret away the constitution, evade it,
or put it away peremptorily. As the constitution exists
only by the tolerance, so the rights of the minority exist
only by the forbearance, of the majority: no sure guarantees are possible.
Under the auspices of the democratic dogmas, with
their licentious inferences and latitudinous constructions, there is so much margin for evasions, that the
majority need seldom resort to direct violations of the
constitution in order to effect the worst purposes. The
first method, which is the usual one, is even more intolerable than the other. There is some merit in a
highway robber confronting you in the face of day and
boldly demanding your purse; but none in a sneaking
thief picking your pockets while persuading you of his
honesty.  In the first case, there are at least the virtues
of courage and candor; in the other, nothing but fraud
and cowardice. If I be robbed, what matters it to me
whether there be a pretext or no pretext? whether
there be a "higher law" or no law in heaven or on
earth for it?
The "higher law" doctrine, flowing directly, as I
have shown, from the democratic dogmas, leads to the
rejection of all municipal laws which may happen to be
offensive to the moral sense of a community: the passage thence to its interests is an easy one. Under such
a law, the abolition or the confiscation of property, so
far from being difficult, is almost inevitable. On pretense of conscientious scruples, this doctrine led vir
68 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
tually to the repudiation of the constitution on the
subject of slavery, and to the nullification of laws
passed by Congress for the more effectual execution of
the constitutional provisions on that subject.  In effect,
this is nothing more nor less than the abrogation of
laws made for the protection of property. The species
of property, thus taken away from the guardianship of
the law, makes no difference in the case. If the majority
assume the right of annulling the law in the respect of
one description of property, it will find, or create, a
pretext for withdrawing some other kind from legal
protection.
Here is revealed the most dangerous, the most revolutionary and anarchical tendency yet betrayed by the
fundamental dogmas of our government.   It clearly
indicates the necessary proclivity of the democratic
instincts toward that social vortex, the abolition or confiscation of all property, which, whenever it is reached,
will engulf society in irretrievable ruin. Nor is this
the first manifestation of the tendency of popular sovereignty in that fatal direction. We are not left ik
doubt as to its capacity that way. Its genius for such
work has been too often displayed, for us ever again to
mistake its power or inclination to repeat the same roAle
whenever the opportunity offers. History is not silent
on this part of its performances.   In Rome, more than
two thousand years ago, when popular sovereignty was
in the ascendency, it established a precedent on that
subject, which has ever since been quoted, as high
authority, by the tribunes of the people everywhere.
The Agrarian law of the Roman plebeians has been
held up, for imitation, to all subsequent ages which
69
7* 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
have witnessed the temporary domination of the populace. The division of property made in Rome, under
that law, took place under political circumstances but
little, if at all, different from the social conditions which
have obtained in this country; and the tendency of
things here, so far, points to a similar catastrophe.
Or, if we need an example of more modern date, it
is to France again we must go in order to obtain a presentment of what popular sovereignty is capable of doing
in this as in other respects. Whether it be in ancient
or in modern times, in Rome or in France, mankind is
ever the same; and, under similar circumstances, will
always act in pretty much the same way. Coelum, non
animum, mutant, qui trans mare currunt; the mere
crossing the Atlantic alters not the human mind: popular sovereignty, under whatever sky it plays its fantastic tricks, will still repeat itself; its aninmus is the same
in America as in Rome, as in France; and, until the
organization of humanity be changed, its conduct will
vary but little anywhere.
In France, then, the organs of democracy, at the
epoch of its highest intensification, announced in so
many words that "all property is robbery;" and though
no agrarian law was ever passed, that measure was
warmly advocated, and at one time became, next to the
guillotine, the most threatening aspect of the Revolution.  The preoccupation of the actors in the more
stirring scenes of their bloody drama suspended, for
the moment, this crowning Act of the Piece; and the
reaction, which in happy hour set in, snatched that distracted country from the very jaws of agrarianism.
Nothing but a little more time was needed for popular
70 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
sovereignty to run, on that occasion, the full circuit of
its usual career.  Under the whip and spur, which put
it to such high speed in the French Revolution, it broke
down before it could complete the last "quarter stretch"
to the goal which is the inevitable terminus of its natural
life. It met a premature ruin in the excess of its velocity;
and in its untimely end consisted the safety of society.
Nevertheless, during the short period of its rapid existence, it found time to confiscate nearly half the property of the nation, and not only to impoverish, but to
expatriate the wealthiest citizens of the land, for no
other crime but their obtrusive opulence. The possession of such large estates, beyond the necessary wants
of the owners, was in the highest degree offensive to the
noral sense of this conscientious principle. The proprietors of those estates were, in many instances, guillotined for the unpardonable sin of inheriting patrimonies
which "robbed" of the necessaries of life so many persons better than they, or as good. For these-involuntary
crimes against the moral sense or the interests of popular
sovereignty, the representatives of the nation's wealth
and power were inexorably decimated. The proscription began at the top of society; and the king himself
was beheaded for the unintentional offense of having
been unconsciously born to the inheritance of a crown.
As the heirships of fortunes and high social positions
entailed upon the hapless possessors the hereditaments
of crime and punishment, the decapitations and confiscations were rapidly descending to the lowest culprits,
when the recoil rescued the country from the oppression
of its multitudinous tyrants, and consigned it to the
tender mercies of a solitary despot.
71 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
It must not be forgotten that these deeds were enacted
in the bosom of the foremost nation of the world, at the
most enlightened period of its history; that the ranks
of popular sovereignty, on that memorable occasion,
contained some of the first men of the nation, or of the
age, or of any age or nation; that the alumnz of learn ing, of science, of art, of eloquence, statesmanship, and
war-sages, heroes, patriots, philanthropists-all that
were esteemed wise and good-flocked with the rest to
this standard of democracy, as symbolizing the cause
of civilization itself; that they identified the highest
social interests of humanity with the democratic principles, which were believed to be the renovators of society, and destined to carry it forward to perfection.
We must not, therefore, repeat the common error of
supposing it was the rabble only who enlisted in this
frightful crusade. The rabble were there undoubtedly,
all of them, in full force, a terrible array!  the very
orgie of Sans-Culottism! It was mainly into their hands
the Revolution ultimately fell; and it was they, principally, who carried it out of the benevolent designs in
which it originated.   They and their deeds were the
ultimatum of the Revolution, its last but necessary
corollaries, its real conclusions. The democratic principles, the premises from which those extreme consequences were drawn, were not wholly innocent of'the
horrid deductions; they authorized all the excesses which
were perpetrated in their name. In spite of those extravagances, and the signal failure of the democratic
principles to accomplish any of the marvels expected of
them, some of the first men of France, and elsewhere,
remained firm in the democratic faith to the last. The
72 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
Gracchi were the best and noblest of the Romans, they
were the "jewels of the State," brave, generous, humane; and yet their zeal for the popular cause hurried
them beyond the bounds of moderation and justice.
They passed the agrarian law from the purest of motives; and their lives fell a sacrifice to the energy of
their honesty.
SoCIALISM, a new term for agrarianism, and almost
the synonym of popular sovereignty, is so essentially
an offshoot of the democratic principles, that we can
scarcely doubt the r6le it is destined to play here some
day or other. This phrase is identical with communism,
a new French word corresponding with radicalism. The
idea it covers came into France cotemporaneously with
the democratic principles, or rather was suggested by
them at a very early period of their advent. Like other
democratic dogmas, it has ever since struggled for life
in European societies; but it is there kept down by the
strong hand of heavily armed governments.
Many years ago, socialism crossed the Atlantic, and
attempted to naturalize itself in this country. But it
was soon put to rest here by the cheap lands, the abundant resources, and the wondrous facilities for making
not only livelihoods, but fortunes.   Its arrival hither
was premature. None of the conditions of the times or
country were favorable to its immediate success. It
accordingly retired from the busy surface of society.
But it sleeps only: it is not dead; and may at any
moment start into active life and gigantic proportions.
Hitherto, confiscation was with us an idea only. It
was something about which we had heard and read a
great deal; but the practice of it was associated in our
73 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
minds with times of violence and with nations but im perfectly civilized. It was thought to be a relic of barbarism not at all applicable to our society. The progress
of civilization, the organization of justice on higher and
better understood principles, the enlightenment of education, and the superior claims of a mild and beneficent
Christianity were deemed to have left that method of
spoliation far behind in past ages when men were cruel
and rapacious. Confiscation has ever been a convenient
and fruitful pretext for the gratification of the black
passions of revenge and cupidity. It is at best but a
species of legalized robbery. Avarice and hatred alone
conspired to keep it alive'turing the worst periods of
history. We have shuddered as we perused those records
of barbarity; and have congratulated ourselves on being
elevated, by the terms of our civilization, far above the
reach of cruelties the practice of which degraded men
to the level of savages. While we have witnessed, in
the pages of history, human beings preying upon each
other like wild beasts, stripping each other of rights, of
property, of everything calculated to make life endurable, we have blessed the religion, the laws, the education
which rescued us from the possibility of such a fate.
Confiscation is unknown to our constitution.   It has
never found a place in our statutes. It is passing away
from modern usages everywhere; and is fast becoming
an anacronism of the age. The most advanced nations
practice it sparingly, or not at all.
But all this is now changed. Confiscation has ceased
to be with us a mere idea. Its practice is no longer a
novelty. It is not now, as formerly, one of the hearsays of history, terrifying us with the bare recital of its
74 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
cruelties. We have already familiarized our minds with
its performances. We have invoked it from the musty
traditions of the past. The law of nations, enacted ages
before our society was born, has furnished us with pre cedents for its use. The change has been like a turn of
the kaleidoscope. In a single day our civilization has
receded many centuries. Barbarities, thought to be obsolete, are revived; and we are not so much shocked by
their presence, as we were wont to be by their narratives.
We travel in a circle. We are playing the same history
over again. Our social ideas are turning back into old
political grooves; and we are seeking, in the explode[
institutions of rude epochs, for models which, in our
estimation, are alone worthy of imitation.
This war was begun with confiscations on a large
scale by both parties.   Each party aimed to fill its
empty treasury by despoiling innocent individuals of
their private property. The millions to be thus appropriated were coolly calculated.   There seem  to have
been no compunctious visitings of conscience for this
act of treachery, which was as cruel to the unsuspecting
victims as it was unworthy a great people.   Never was
there a punishment more undeserved. The crime for
which these persons suffered was that of residing in one
section of the country and owning property in the other.
They had all their lives been in the habit of considering
both sections as their common country. They could not
serve both sides-and perhaps were unwilling to serve
either side against the other. Their affections and their
interests were equally divided. They gloried in the
grandeur of the united nation, and would have laid
down their lives for its preservation against foreign
75 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
aggression.  Since the foundation of the government,
the laws and customs of either section had invited the
capital and labor of the other, with not only an implied
but an expressed pledge of protection. The intercourse
was mutual and unreserved. Their capital and labor
had enriched both sections. No suspicion of treachery
was entertained. In an hour they were betrayed. No
sufficient time was allowed them to secure the fruits of
their honest toil. Without any fault of theirs, they
were mercilessly delivered over to plunder, under the
imposing name of confiscation. This, then, was the impotent conclusion of the boasted progress of the age.
It was to obtain such results that man has suffered so
much and so long. He has drenched the world with his
blood to secure immunity against oppression and injustice; and in the end he finds himself suddenly turned
black to the age of Grotius, and Puffendorf, and Vattel.
Democracy, "the last hope of humanity," has been able
to conduct society only to this bad eminence, and a
reproduction of antiquated barbarisms is the sum of its
vaunted reforms. This is treading back its footsteps to
its favorite "state of nature" with frightful speed.
It is useless to attempt to fasten the blame of all this
upon any section. The administration at Washington,
acting as the organ of abolitionism, threatens to confiscate the property of eight millions of citizens, amounting
to countless billions of dollars' worth, just as soon as it
can obtain the power to do so.  This threat was not
prompted wholly by a sense of justice.  The rebellion
will be but the pretext for the anarchical principle now
presiding at the seat of government, to gratify one of
its strongest instincts.  The execution of the threat, if
76 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
carried out to the full extent promised, will be more
monstrous even than secession itself.   Thousands of
persons will fall victims to it who were as innocent of
secession as babes  unborn.   Secession  may  be suppressed, and good may be extracted from it; but the
other will be an unmitigated evil, the fatal consequences
of which will pursue the nation to its grave. Confiscation is neither just nor generous. Good citizens were
never made by such means. It neither deters from
guilt nor superinduces penitence. It is a punishment
fit for slaves, not for freemen. It is unworthy the dignity and true manhood of human nature, and indicates
no progress made in the science of government or in
enlightened culture. If Christianity and universal education-the peculiar boast of the age-can-prompt to
no loftier deeds, then they, too, must be counted among
the mournful failures of human experiments. Like the
constitution and government of this country,-both so
admirable in themselves,-Christianity, the daughter of
Heaven, and Education, her handmaiden, are neutralized
by the pernicious influences of social principles which
dissipate the human mind in endless abstractions, and
in futile efforts to realize ideas which are hostile to both
order and progress. As we advance further in this
investigation, we shall be more and more convinced of
the truth of this assertion. Each step we take will not
only strengthen our conviction, but will aid in conducting us to a solution of the present difficulties of our
situation. We have seen some of the effects of popular
sovereignty. There is another product of this dogma,
which imparts to it peculiar vitality and efficacy, which
must now be noticed, and its place assigned in this
77
8 
DEMAGOGUES.
general disorganizing and demoralizing process. That
product is the
DEMAGOGUES.
The effervescence incident to the working of such a
composition as our social system threw in time to the
surface of society, as it was bound to do, a class of persons of all others the most dangerous in a government
like this. Without the demagogues, the masses would
be innocent and democracy harmless. But the demagogues, thus developed, are the natural consequence and
complement of the system. The dogma of popular sovereignty, with its universal suffrage and majority rule,
having introduced the populace on the stage of politics,
and made them the dictators of society, they must of
course, in order to discharge their functions, supply
themselves with organs. These organs must represent,
as near as possible, their own intellectual caliber, express their ideas, cater to their passions, and subserve
their interests. The kind of persons thus to be acted
on, the means to be employed, and the ends to be obtained must tend to remove elevated minds and superior
understandings from a political career, and to deliver
over the government to charlatanism and inferiority.
Accordingly, presumptuous and enterprising mediocrity
has never before had so fortunate a chance. Popular
sovereignty has covered over the whole surface of society
with these social parasites, and consigned the government
almost exclusively to their hands. Of course they can
do no otherwise than work out their own political ideas,
and bring down the administration of government to the
78 
DEMAGOGUES.
level of their own moral and intellectual training. As
that standard falls far below the ideal of a pure Christianity and an ever-advancing civilization, which tends
to social perfection, it must contradict their aspirations,
and remain an obstacle to progress, until eliminated by
revolution, or by a rational method of reform.
The demagogues are a sort of summary or resumd of
all the vices of our political system. They represent it,
in its least favorable aspect, more correctly than any
other single feature can pretend to do. A detailed and
accurate description of the demagogues, would give a
very clear and precise notion of the system generally.
Belonging to a low social status,-commonly without
much education, without mental discipline, without virtue or common honesty, without fortune; negative in
all things but an ill-concealed hatred, not of wealth, but
of the wealthy, not of respectability, but of the respectable,-the demagogues yet possess a wondrous mental
activity, more of the character of cunning than intelligence. This cunning compensates, in some degree, their
ignorance, since it serves their bad ends more effectually
than the best education or the most cultivated intelligence could do without it. The restless activity of their
minds, thus guided by shrewdness, and untrammeled by
the restraints of an enlightened conscience, is more than
a match for the intellectual inertia of the masses, on
whom they operate. With little interest in the welfare
of the country, and regardless of consequences, they
will, to serve their selfish ends, cater to the worst passions of the multitude, on whom they depend for their
elevation. They are to the multitude what the vital
principle is to the body. They are the head, the brain,
79 
DEMAGOGUES.
of which the people are the working members. They
make the people acquainted with their own passions,
their wants, their desires. They tell them their rights,
their power, their influence in the government. Abundantly supplied with political clap-traps, and with a rude
eloquence compounded of Billingsgate and anecdotes,
they can and do, when the occasion comes about, inflame
to a white-heat the passions of the multitude, which are
then manifested like the torrent and the whirlwind. In
return, the people surrender themselves to their guidance, make them the exclusive managers of public
affairs, and elevate them, upon their shields, as it were,
like the old Roman soldiers, to the head of the government.   And  for this elevation they claim, like the
Pretorian guards, the usual bounty bestowed on such
occasions.
Here, then, is a combination which embodies the most
stupendous political power that can be conceived of, and
which no government or nation on earth can long withstand. It is a combination which mobilizes the masses,
and gives to democracy all its capacity for evil; for the
government thus administered is bound to reflect the
passions of the multitude, and to reproduce their ideas.
Without this alliance, the demagogues would be powerless, the masses motionless, democracy harmless, andshall I say it?-this war had never been begun, nor this
work written.
80 
EQUALITY.
EQUALITY.
This dogma, one of the three elements of the democratic trinity, has only been considered incidentally, in
connection with the other two, as constituting a unity.
If it be separated, and treated by itself, it will be found
not less disorganizing than the others. Like liberty of
conscience, or free inquiry, it is taken to be absolute
when it is only relative, and permanent while it expresses merely the attitude of minds engaged in breaking up the old system. When the dogma of equality,
in connection with its associate principles, had achieved
the overthrow of the theological and military regime, it
could not become otherwise than destructive to any new
organization of society that might be attempted upon its
suggestion, because its activity must then be directed
against the basis of any new classification whatever;
for, of course, any division of society into classes must
be inconsistent with the equality claimed for all.*
It has been justly said, that many truths lose their
force by repetition. The most absurd fallacies are perpetuated by similar means. They are repeated until
they are believed in. Being handed down to us as traditional truths, they are accepted, without examination,
as mere matters of course. The mind, from early familiarity with them, never thinks of questioning their claims
to veracity.  This is especially true of many of the social
maxims of modern times. For eighty-seven years we
* See Comte's admirable remarks on this subject, in his Positive
Philosophy.
8*
81 
EQUALITY.
have repeated so often the ad captandum assertion that
"all men  are created equal," until we have at last
brought ourselves to accept it as an ascertained fact.
No amount of experience and observation, nor the most
contradictory reasons, seem capable of shaking this belief from its fast anchorage in the modern mind. It is
an error so transparent that we have but to open our
eyes to see it, and yet we have repeated it into a truism
which it is treason against common sense to question.
" The inalienable rights of man" are spoken of with as
undoubting faith as if they really existed; and "right
reason," the most undefined of all verbal imposture, is
appealed to, as the conclusive foundation of this puerile
card-house of rickety abstractions. If these crotchets
had confined themselves to Fourth-of-July orations, there
would have been little need to interrupt a pleasant delusion; but when serious attempts are made to apply them
practically, and to form out of them a system of government upon which depends the welfare of society and the
happiness of humanity, then, like other time-honored
fallacies, they must be weighed in the balances.
The period of the American Revolution, when Mr.
Jefferson, acting as the organ of the American Congress,
brought forth his celebrated "Declaration of Independence," was the epoch of greatest political disturbance in
the world. The cause of this disturbance has already
been stated. Few minds, even of the largest caliber,
can resist being influenced by the popular sentiments of
the age in which they live. Mr. Jefferson very truly
reflected the spirit of his; and was so adapted to the
disposition of his cotemporaries, that he became, with
remarkable success, the most veritable organ of the revo
82 
EQUALITY.
lutionary movement of the times. The Declaration of
Independence, which he has the credit of composing,
contains a pretty accurate summary of some of the most
conspicuous revolutionary sentiments of the age, which,
in this country, were christened with the name of democratic principles. Among them, the dogma of equality
is rendered very prominent, and is made universal and
absolute by an unqualified assertion of it.
Thus considered, the principle of equality abrogates
the most conspicuous arrangement anywhere to be seen
in the universe, and reduces all things to that dead level
said to be hateful to gods and men. Certainly nothing
can be more abhorrent to nature than the equality here
asserted, for nowhere in her domain do we see anything
at all resembling it. If in the external world we see no
manifestation of any such principle, much less is it visible in the moral world. It is not possible to make men
equal, because they are not so. Nature has stamped
them with an ineradicable inequality which no artifice
can displace. Nor are they equivalent: the differences
are not compensatory; they are unqualified, and mark
an ascending and descending scale, the extremities of
which are as far asunder as the poles.   In no state
of association, therefore, can men possess an identity of
rights, beyond that of equal protection by the laws; and
the society which does not meet these natural disparates by some corresponding social arrangement, is only
preparing trouble for itself; the friction and irritation
caused by this want of fitness will allow humanity no
rest until it make its social state fit all the natural inequalities which exist in itself. Of all the disparates, of
which the world is so full, none are so marked as moral
83 
EQUALITY.
and intellectual inequalities. And while these superior
diversities, already so conspicuous in a natural way, are
being continually increased by the progress of civiliza tion, the simpler kinds, which most attract the attention
of superficial observers, are diminished in the same pro portion.
Since the advent of the democratic polity, an unusual
amount of attention has been given to the education of
the people, with the hope, no doubt, of elevating them,
by that means, to the level of their pretensions. Too
much cannot be said in favor of education; it deserves
all the encomiums which have been heaped upon it. But
what education can do for the people is very little indeed,
compared with the grand results, and the kind of results,
expected of it.  It can supply no faculty which nature
has denied, nor enlarge any which she has dwarfed. It
cannot make Newtons out of numskulls, nor Clays out
of clowns: with all the education in the world, the dunce
will still plod on in his native dullness; and without it,
genius, like the skylark, will still waft its notes to heaven
from the furrow in the field. So questionable is the
benefit which education (so called) confers upon those
minds to whom nature has been least bountiful, that in
many cases a deterioration rather than an improvement
characterizes the result.  Nature would thus seem to
resent man's futile efforts to disarrange her plans; for,
so far-from allowing her discrepancies to be diminished,
and all men and things to be blurred into one undistinguishable mass, the very artifices used for that purpose
are made, by her contrivance, to increase her disparates,
and to magnify the varieties in which she delights. For
while, in a well-regulated society, inferior minds receive
84 
EQUALITY.
very little advantage from education, and are sometimes
damaged by it, the amount of development of which the
highest orders of faculties are susceptible, and which
they derive from education, is almost incaiculable. Were
there none but common men in it, the world would wait
long for a statue of Appelles, a play of Shakspeare, a
composition of Mozart, and then not get them, though
it were full to repletion of what is commonly called education. HIomer composed his grand epic with perhaps
little or no knowledge of the art of reading and writing.
Some of the greatest men that ever lived scarcely ever
saw the inside of a school-house. Of the thousands annually sent forth from the walls of modern universities,
rarely does one confer honor on himself or his country.
The scientific marvels, which are transforming the world,
are the products of comparatively few great men, most
of whom get their education pretty much as the bird
gets its song. Without these rare souls, who cannot be
prevented from learning, Europe and America would be
at this day what Africa is, and ever has been, and ever
will be, with no other but the negro race to transform it.
To apply, then, the doctrine of equality to any assemblage of persons thus widely constituted and differently
developed, is to ignore the most obvious arrangement of
nature, and to violate the simplest law of natural justice.
Disparities thus fixed by nature are ineradicable, and it
is the first duty of society to provide for them; otherwise the dogma of equality, which seeks to obliterate
them, becomes anarchical, and directly hostile to its
original destination. It remains, moreover, an obstacle
to progress; no amelioration of any society, whose de
85 
EQUALITY.
liberations it sways, can be hoped for while its influence
lasts. If it be not otherwise extruded from the mind of
society, then its elimination by revolution is inevitable;
for no society can long exist in the state of anarchy
which its disorganizing tendencies superinduce.  As we
have seen, however, the absolute equality of the whole
human race, from their very birth, is dogmatically asserted in Mr. Jefferson's Declaration of Independence;
and this doctrine of perfect equality, without the slightest qualification, has ever since retained its original importance in the politics of this nation. The raid which
John Brown made into Virginia not many years ago
was mainly inspired by this fanatical sentiment. That
hostile incursion into a peaceable State, at a period of
profound national tranquillity, was called by John Brown
and his partisans a "continuation of the war of liberty
and equality which was begun in'76," and was justified
by the equality clause in Mr. Jefferson's Declaration of
Independence. It was the prelude to the present revolution, in which the doctrine of equality is deeply implicated.
During the fervor of the French Revolution-for it
is still to that epoch of French history we must go (I
hope it shall be our last visit) to see the working also of
this democratic principle when run out to its last consequences-the dogma of equality played so important a
part in that terrible drama that, for nearly ten years,
the Sans-Culottes were the virtual masters of the nation.
When the revolution broke out, the leveling process was
the first begun, and the last discontinued. The SansCulottic status was the prescribed social, moral, and
intellectual standard for the entire population. None
86, 
EQUALITY.
were allowed to ascend above it, and none could descend
below it. Aristocracy was the highest crime known to
the Sans-Culottic code: not only the offense was in all
cases capital, but the bare suspicion of it was punished
with instant death and confiscation. Even the scientific
spirit was stigmatized as tending to institute an aristocracy of knowledge, which was as offensive as any
other species of aristocracy. Many innocent persons
accordingly had their heads chopped off for no other
reason than because they were suspected of containing
a little too much learning. Genius, talents, respectability, or moral worth of any kind above the prescribed
standard, was a sure passport to the inevitable guillotine. So obnoxious was wealth, or fine clothes, or any
other distinguishing mark of superiority, that the opulent and fashionable, to save their lives, affected poverty
and the blouse, and the red flannel night-cap was seen
on every head. I have already noticed the narrow
escape of the French nation, at that epoch, from the
horrors of agrarianism; and it was mainly to the
dogma of equality that the peril was due.
It is useless to say that all the examples I have quoted
from the French Revolution were portentous or eccentric
incidents; that they were extreme consequences, or exceptional cases; that they occurred at a period of national
disorganization or national insanity; that that sort of
thing is now played out, and can never happen again.
Their legitimate descent from the democratic principles
is evident and certain. They were logical corollaries
of the premises whence they flowed. They were the
natural effects of those doctrines when considered as
absolute and released from governmental restraints. If
87 
EQUALITY.
they occurred at a period of national disorganization or
insanity, it was they that disorganized the nation, or
deprived it of its reason. Similar causes produce similar
effects: as soon as all the conditions favorable to a luxuriant development of the democratic polity are fulfilled
in this country, that polity cannot fail to re-enact similar
scenes here.
The present war affords ample proof of this assertion.
The events transpiring around me at this moment differ
but little from the worst scenes of the French Revolution. None but they who are spectators of them, and
have oracular proof of their reality, could believe in
their existence in the last half of the nineteenth century, and in a Christian nation. Before their actual
occurrence they would have seemed to us impossible.
They now indicate that civilization has made but little
permanent progress in this country. They show how
easy is a relapse toward barbarism when society is not
secured by the salutary restraints of government, and
when fanatical sentiments can take it out of the rules of
order and consign it to such disorderly courses. It is
not in times of peace, when men's passions are at rest,
that we can judge of the soundness of a nation's constitution: it is periods of disturbance which test the efficacy of its social principles. When the fanaticism of
any number of persons, however considerable, can upset
government, and in the name of law and under the sanction of legal authority perpetrate the most horrid outrages against justice and humanity, it is evident that
that government was never settled upon a solid basis,
and that its political principles have mortally corrupted
the minds of its subjects. Modern civilization, among
88 
EQUALITY.
the most advanced nations of Europe, has marked its
progress, not only by ameliorating the forms of civil
government and diminishing the causes of active hostilities, but also, in an especial manner, by softening the
ruder features of war when hostilities do occur. Under
these benign reforms, war never inflicts its cruelties on
private citizens.   The property and persons of nonbelligerents and the general harmony of society are as
much respected by an invading army as if it were a
time of peace.
The war now raging in this country has gone back
several centuries for the method of its conduct; and the
remark is equally applicable to both sides. The passions of hatred and revenge seem to animate the two
governments in a large degree, and to descend with
increasing bitterness through the officers to the common
soldiers.  These savage and ferocious sentiments are
participated in by large majorities of the people of both
sections.  On the part of one of the belligerents, the
war has been used as a pretext for confiscating a larger
amount of private property than was ever before known
in the history of the world; and a more reckless disregard of the commonest rights of humanity and of the
higher claims of civilization was never exhibited even
in the days of remotest barbarism. In the last analysis,
these base passions and cruel practices are clearly referable to the demoralizing tendencies of our social principles. The fanaticism inspired by those principles, and
not the exigencies of the war, as pretended, was the
real cause of the Emancipation Proclamation, which has
robbed non-belligerents of such an enormous amount of
private property. The war, too, has called forth many
9
89 
EQUALITY.
ostentatious exhibitions of the hatred which has rankled
so long in the bosoms of the fanatics of the North against
what they supposed to be the aristocratical sentiments
engendered by slavery in the Southern mind. Their
animosity seems to have been excited principally by
envy, and by a hatred, not of slavery, but of slaveowners. The possession of so many slaves was fatal
to that equality which it was the duty of this government to establish. I have seen in Northern newspapers
letters, purporting to come from the Federal army, declaring that the war must not end until these aristocratical
pretensions were "thrashed" out of the Southern mind,
and that domineering people were brought by poverty
and oppression to a proper sense of their insignificance.
If we pursue the dogma of equality to its practical
consequences in this society, we shall discover that it is
the same monster here it was in the French Revolution;
and that its offspring in both countries bear a familylikeness too striking to be mistaken. We all know the
prejudice existing here against aristocracy. Though the
law make it not a punishable offense, it is little less than
a crime in the estimation of popular opinion; and the
bare imputation of being an aristocrat is enough to consign the suspected individual to obloquy and ridicule, if
not to positive hatred and detestation.  In spite of this
prejudice, in no country in the world is the sentiment of
aristocracy stronger than here; but as yet it is cherished
in secret, and publicly denied. Already it animates
private circles, and it is beginning slily to influence
social relations in many ways too visible to be overlooked.  It thus manifests itself in society, because it
exists in human nature, and is equally irrepressible in
90 
EQUALITY.
both. If it be not recognized formally and regulated
by legal enactments, it will get itself recognized informally and regulated by methods so awkward as to breed
secret hatreds and ultimately open hostilities.
Liberty of conscience, from which is derived the dogma
of equality, implies the most fundamental of all equalities-the equality of intelligence. But it is precisely in
the moral and intellectual sphere that the greatest and
most radical of all inequalities is found to exist. It is
the difference between virtue and vice, between genius
and stupidity. The highest specimens of humanity fall
but "little below the angels," the lowest rise but little
above the brutes. There is a moral and social, as well
as a physical law of gravity. The most virtuous and
intelligent minds naturally gravitate toward the highest
places in society; and to these places, for the good of
all and the benefit of society, they are justly entitled.
It is preposterous to suppose that large masses of depraved men could ever live a great while together without the stringent bonds of successive gradations, having
the main governing strength in the apex. This is so
abviously one of the natural checks that ought to be
incorporated into every social system, that it is surprising how it could be deliberately excluded from the
constitution of any government. The exclusion cannot
fail to produce social irregularities, particularly where
the opposite or democratic element is retained by itself
and reigns alone. Nevertheless, to this exclusion, permanently and systematically, all the democratic dogmas
are irrevocably compromited.
Habit is said to be second nature. A habit of thinking has so much of first nature in it, that it is a per
91 
EQUALITY.
fectly safe foundation for any system we may choose to
build upon it. The habit of thinking that "some are
born to command and others to obey," established most
of the despotisms of antiquity. Upon the habit of thinking that "the powers that be are ordained of God," was
founded the practice of "passive obedience and nonresistance;" it also supported the law of "legitimacy,"
by which a certain person, whether he were virtuous or
vicious, a wise man or a fool, had, by reason of his birth
alone, and to the utter exclusion of everybody else, the
undoubted right to govern, and, at his sovereign will and
pleasure, to take away the lives of his subjects, and to
do without question or restraint any and every thing else
he might have a mind to. The habit of thinking that
the first-born son had the right to inherit all the family
honors and property, established the law of primogeniture, and not only reconciled younger brothers and sisters to the arrangement, but made them rejoice at and
glory in the provisions of a law which, while it consigned them to poverty and obscurity, transmitted the
estate entire to their elder brother. This habit of thinking has so far displaced what we would call first nature
that fathers and mothers have eagerly consigned their
daughters to the gloomy prison of a convent, and their
younger sons to the church or army, to insure their celibacy, that no remnant of the family might remain, but
the heir, to impair the future integrity of the estate.
If we go further back to more remote times and nations
-to ancient India, for instance-we shall find institutions still more monstrous (to our mode of thinking)
similarly supported. In short, there is no enormity in
government or morals which, to a deep-rooted and invet
92 
EQUALITY.
erate habit of thinking, may not seem perfectly natural
and eminently right and proper.
When a reaction, whether of a moral or a material
force, sets in, it seldom stops at that juste milieu, that
half-way ground, where alone safety resides. If, in a
moral sense, it start from one extreme point of absurdity,
it is almost certain to rush to the opposite extremity
which is not less absurd. Such has been precisely the
effect upon the human mind of its emancipation, by the
doctrine of liberty of conscience and its derivative dogmas, from those antiquated habits of thought, which
detained it so long, and perpetrated, in the name of
"right reason," absurdities which, to our habits of thinking, seem too monstrous for belief. The reaction, however, as in most cases it is so apt to do, has hurried
forward the human mind into other excesses, different
indeed in kind, but not at all less in degree. A deeprooted and inveterate habit of thinking that "all men
are created equal," and that it is impossible to make
them otherwise, that the people are the legitimate sovereigns, the only true fountain of all power, and that
they and they alone are entitled to govern, is now
gradually establishing another state of things not less
monstrous and absurd than that which has been abandoned.   Entertaining, then, an undisturbed belief in
their own supremacy and infallibility, in the indefeasible equality and liberty of all men, and in the duty of
society to organize these principles and carry them out
to their full intent and meaning, the people cannotdo
else than look with extreme loathing and disgust upon
pretensions of a contrary tendency. All assumptions
of superiority from any other quarter, and whatever
9*
93 
EQUALITY.
tends to limit their authority, are met with suspicions
and jealousies.  They are taught that there is nothing
more difficult in the management of the affairs of a
nation than of a family: that it is the juggle of keeping up impositions to blind the eyes of the vulgar, that
constitutes the intricacy of state: that the mysticism
of inequality has been the sole cause of all the evils
attendant upon human nature: that any man in society
may fill any place in government, and exercise its functions. Under the influence of these tuitions, and having
all the political power in their hands by the convenient
methods of universal suffrage and the ballot-box, they
admit to public offices none but persons of their own
caste and their flatterers. Vagabonds and loafers, men
utterly incapable of managing their own affairs, are not
unfrequently intrusted with the mismanagement of the
affairs of the nation. The demagogues are at the same
time the creatures and the masters of the people.   The
demagogues control the government by feeding the passions and prejudices of the multitude, and by gratifying
their desires. By reason of their representative character, of their approximation to the level of the masses,
of their low moral and intellectual caliber, the demagogues exclude the best men of the nation from the
service of the state by usurping those places which aejustly due to the latter.
This state of things cannot last. The momentum
which brought society to this condition is necessarily
progressive.   It cannot remain stationary.   It must
obey the original impetus which set it in motion, and
continue, with an ever-increasing velocity, to proceed
from bad to worse, until it meets its ruin in its own ex
94 
EQUALITY.
tremity.  In spite, then, of these complacent notions
of popular power and equality, the movement of society
is perpetually widening the breach between the ideas of
the people and the reality of things, between their social
theories and their social conditions.   Population increases faster than wealth, and the tendency of wealth
is to concentrate itself into the fewest number of hands.
The numerical increase of the poor, therefore, as compared with the rich, is in the compound ratio of those
two tendencies; and the interval between poverty and
wealth, between the poor and the rich, is perpetually
widening in the same proportion: the rich are ever
growing richer, and the poor poorer; the former are
ever becoming proportionally fewer, and the latter more
numerous.
Very soon, therefore, the people will begin to see
palaces rising around them, while they live in huts.
They will see men, apparently without labor, surfeited
with the luxuries of wealth, while they eat the hard
bread of poverty, earned by the sweat of their brows.
These, and many other contrasts not less violent, while
they contradict the people's preconceived notions of
universal equality and popular sovereignty, cannot fail
to rouse their indignation, and to direct their hostility
against what to them will seem an abnormal condition
of society too intolerable to be borne. All this time
their faith in their social theories will in no degree have
diminished; they will rather have gained strength every
day. Their efforts, therefore, will be unceasing to conform their social state to their social ideas.  They will
know but too well, by habits of thought contracted from
infancy, by the lessons of experience acquired at the
95 
EQUALITY.
ballot-box, by the teachings of the demagogues at the
hustings, by their daily conversations among themselves,
by the promptings of vanity and conceit never extinct
in even the lowest natures, that they have the right and
the power, legally or by revolution, to reform in society
whatever they may consider to be abuses. The pangs
of present sufferings, the forebodings of future misery,
the growing inequalities of classes will not be likely to
diminish their violence, or to moderate their innovations.
The constitution will be no bar to their reformatory
action.   They have long ago learnt to construe that
instrument according to their own ideas; and all laws
which contradict the fundamental principles of absolute
equality and popular sovereignty, or any other natural
right, are, by their interpretations of them, ipso facto
nugatory and of non-effect. Practice must and shall be
made to agree with precept. They will have already
seen their favorite dogmas wage successfully one stupendous war, and, under the flimsy pretext of "military
necessity," maintain their supremacy by confiscating an
incalculable amount of private property, and by reducing to their own pecuniary level eight millions of opulent
proprietors. The habits engendered by that war, confirming their habits of thought, will have familiarized
them with deeds of spoliation. The burning, destroying, appropriating the superfluities of wealth will no
longer be the "scarecrows" of their imaginations. Tradition, the fireside tales of those performances, enhanced
by distance and the embellishments of fancy, will make
it comparatively easy to reproduce them in some other
form, and on a scale not less grand.   Whenever, therefore, a war of castes shall break out in densely populated
96 
EQUALITY.
communities here, as sooner or later it is bound to do
with such a political system as ours, the horrors of the
French Revolution will at last find a parallel in the
enormities of this.
The disturbances which took place in Northern communities, soon after the declaration of war by Mr. Lincoln, and subsequently the riots in New York, had, it is
true, nothing of this character in them; they were not
occasioned by any hostility to aristocracy.   But they
bear witness to the dangerous social element that is
gradually maturing in those populous communities; to
the intolerant spirit of the rabble when their ideas or
passions are opposed; and to the merciless character of
their vengeance when roused.
To this it may be replied, that such perturbations as
those referred to are not peculiar to this society: that
they are of as rare occurrence here as elsewhere: that
they have happened to other communities as well; and
are liable to break out in any nation. My answer is,
not necessarily. They never occur except in nations
that are dominated by a libertine soldiery or a no less
libertine democracy.   They took place in Rome  at
epochs when the plebeians, and subsequently the Pretorian guards, had the ascendency there; in Turkey, under
the domination of the Janizaries; in France, of the
Sans-Culottes; and in other nations, upon the sudden
irruption of democracy, before it could be suppressed.
But, in this nation, they are a necessary element of its
social system; and are bound, sooner or later, to break
forth when occasion or opportunity offers. They are
inevitable to the natural working of the fundamental
principles of our society; and though they may be de
97 
EQUALITY.
tained long in inactivity, a time will come, with increase
of population and the growing disparity between wealth
and numbers, when they will manifest themselves like
the tornado and the earthquake.
Already, in the most crowded sections, where society,
fermented by principles so disorganizing, has thrown off
an undue proportion of demagogues, social agitations
have been attempted of the most pernicious description,
and so far suppressed only by the indifference of popular good sense, by the ridicule of the intelligent or
conservative classes, and by the difficulty of putting
in motion the lower orders.   During these agitations,
the subjects discussed, the societies organized, and
the measures proposed clearly indicate the demoralizing
tendency of the principles engaged. Among the disturbing elements most active on those occasions was
the doctrine of equality. Under its inspiration, clubs
were instituted for the promotion of "Women's Rights,"
the objects of which were to emancipate woman from
her subordination to man, and to elevate that fragile
sex to an equality with the lords of creation. According to the arrangements proposed, she was to enjoy not
only a domestic but a political equality as well; to be
released from all the restraints and obligations imposed
by connubial vows; to choose the fathers of her children, and to have as many fathers for them as she had
children, if she so desired; to be eligible to all political
offices; and to vote at all political elections.
In their many earnest discussions of this subject,
those social agitators seem to have demonstrated, satisfactorily at least to their own minds, the natural equality
of woman to man, without considering the difference of
98 
EQUALITY.
her organization, and the different social duties (that of
maternity, for instance) which that organization imposed
upon the sex. The ludicrous absurdity of their con templated reform seems never to have disturbed the
complacency of their thoughts, or to have raised a
doubt of the practicability of their plans. They do
not appear to have asked themselves the questions:
What was to be done with a Speaker of the House, or
a Presidentess of the Senate, in the seventh month of
her pregnancy? or a General-in-Chief, who, at the opening of a campaign, was " doing as well as could be expected"? or a Chief Justice with twins? Or, it might not
unfrequently happen that, at periods of high political
excitement and closely contested elections, many important voters would be "in the straw" and unable to
attend the polls, or, in their zeal for the cause, might
go out too soon and bring on serious complaints, to the
great discomfort of families and the derangement of
domestic order.
The institutions of marriage and the family, and the
rights of property, have been vehemently assailed by
large numbers of persons known as "Socialists" and
"Free Lovers." These frantic and licentious persons,
embracing equal numbers of both sexes, attempted reductions of their ideas to practice by forming extensive
organizations for that purpose. So far have these speculations penetrated into social life, that, as Comte remarks of the democratic period of French society, any
one is now at liberty in the large communities of the
North to make an easy merit of the most turbulent passions; so that, if such license could last, insatiable
stomachs might at length get to pride themselves on
their own voracity.
99 
EQUALITY.
True, these are but small irregularities, symptomatic
diseases, appearing on the surface of society, and no
serious evil has yet arisen from them, as they have hitherto been confined to the large metropolitan cities. But
they are premonitions of morbid tendencies, shadows
cast before of coming events; and those seething caldrons, the great commercial capitals, wherein are commingled, like the "hell-broth" of Macbeth's witches,
all the worst elements of our social system, cannot forever confine the ebullition within their own limits. They
are legitimate derivatives of the democratic principles,
and are chiefly valuable as affording examples on a small
scale of events which must take place on a large scale,
when society is ripe for their development.
But even if these minor disturbances be regarded as
examples of failure to pervert the democratic polity to
purposes of evil, it cannot be denied that the dogma of
equality has been more fatally successful in another
direction. Large numbers of persons in this country
became so transported with the apparent success of the
democratic polity here, that from being at first only the
champions of their own rights, they passed at length
into propagandists, and entertained the project of carrying the democratic faith over the whole earth. They
made no distinction of races; all men are created free
and equtal. But before going abroad, they must establish
the universality of the faith at home, and make it a unit
here. Four millions of Africans were held in bondage
in this "land of liberty:" these Africans were their
brothers and equals.
It was precisely here the dogma of equality, aided
by the doctrines of free inquiry and popular sovereignty,
100
.,:..::. 1.:: 
EQUALITY.
wrought with fatal effect. The ruling majority was at
the North; the Africans were at the South. No Northern interest was supposed to be compromised by such an
application of the equality principle. Indeed, the principle, to be consistent, could not refuse to elevate that
down-trodden race to the level of the Caucasian and of
liberty at the sacrifice of any interest. The masses, to
whom the appeal was made, and who controlled the ballot-box, listened with growing approval. There was law
and gospel for the doctrine; for, according to the Bible,
we are all descendants of Adam and Eve; and the new
Evangel of liberty and politics, the Declaration of Independence, makes them our equals and free by the
legacy of birth. Clearly, therefore, we had no more
right to enslave the Africans than the Africans had to
enslave us. The burning sun of their native clime had
blackened their skins; underneath the cuticle, they were,
like ourselves, Caucasians, and children of Adam. Not
only a common humanity, but a common parentage,
united us all. Common justice, therefore, as well as
common decency, demanded that the common rights of
humanity be extended to these oppressed brothers and
sisters. Like ourselves, they had souls to be saved;
their souls at least were white, if their skins were black.
In heaven they would be our equals,-why not here?
In slavery, their intellectual powers were repressed; in
freedom, what Washingtons and Newtons and Shak-'
speares might not issue from this reviled race!  "Was
not Hannibal," said one speaker, "an African, and
Scipio Africanus another?" In any case, our flag,
which was par excellence the banner of liberty, should
no longer float over four millions of slaves.
1Q
101 
EQUALITY.
Aside from all philanthropic, religious, or metaphysical considerations, the masses had a direct interest in
this view of the question.   They were laborers, and
labor itself was degraded by the degradation of their
brother African colaborers. Nay, more; the laboring
population was increasing, by immigration and generation, at a rapid rate in this country.  Within the memory of living men, the population had grown from three
to thirty millions-the laboring portion of that increase
being disproportionately great. With augmented facilities for immigration, and an enlarged basis for generation, what would it not do within the period of another
lifetime! Wages were already being disadvantageously
influenced by the increasing numbers of laborers. Capital was beginning, in this country, as in the overcrowded
States of Europe, to control and oppress labor. The
competition of four millions of slaves was no inconsiderable item in the economical view of the question. Emancipation -would speedily remove this competition. Have
not the negroes, liberated little more than a half century
ago, entirely disappeared from the Northern States?
There is no reason to believe that, unprotected by their
masters, they would last any longer in the South by the
side of white laborers. All experience proves that no
inferior race can long coexist in freedom by the side of
a superior race. The Indians of this continent were
unable to endure the presence of the "pale faces," and
have vanished before them. The natives of the Pacific
islands are decreasing inversely as the Europeans increase there. The negro, left to himself, will do likewise, and disappear in the same way. In a state of
slavery in the South, the negroes have multiplied, by
102 
EQUALITY.
generation, largely in advance of the whites; while, in
a state of liberty at the North, their numbers have
diminished almost to the point of extinction. At this
ratio of increase as slaves, before many generations
more they will monopolize the best portions of the
continent.
This is a specimen of the argument employed by
fanaticism in defense of universal equality. By this
summary it will be seen how effectually the argument,
when run out, destroys itself; the premises perish in the
conclusion, and the heresies of fanaticism are exploded
by the inexorable laws of statistics. It is difficult to
reason logically and consistently against the truth: the
argument sets out to prove the equality of all men, and
ends by establishing a general inequality of all men;
for it demonstrates that there are superior and inferior
races, and that negroes are so well adapted to slavery
that it is clearly their normal condition, and contains
the only terms on which they can coexist with the whites
in this country. The dictates of humanity, therefore,
as well as the dictates of reason, would seem to authorize
their continuance in the only state in which their existence can be preserved. It will also be seen, by the foregoing summary of its arguments, with what rapidity and
ease this species of fanaticism, beginning in purely philanthropic motives, glides into calculations of interest
and self-aggrandizement.
All vague notions of public good, degenerating into
an indistinct philanthropy, must succumb at last, as we
have just seen, to the energetic forces of a highly stimulated selfishness. A humane desire to emancipate the
negro, combined with the patriotic purpose of benefiting
108 
EQUALITY.
the country by substituting free for slave labor, may
have been the first impelling motive of the abolition
movement. But a party begun upon those principles,
and expanding into a controlling majority, would not
long confine itself to the narrow basis of its first organization. In the confidence of power, and consequent
enlargement of views, benevolent and patriotic designs
would in time come to be so far displaced by ideas of
self-interest, that the very worst perversions of which
the former were capable would be unhesitatingly used
for the aggrandizement of the latter.
The social malady must be very serious when all manner of persons, however inferior their intelligence, and
however unprepared, are stimulated, in the highest manner, and from day to day, to cut the knot of the most
intricate political questions, without any guidance or
restraint. A licentious freedom of individual minds,
such as this state of things indicates, is necessarily hostile to all true social order; for the great political rules
which should become habitual guides in determining
problems of that character, cannot be surrendered to
the capricious decision of an ignorant multitude without
losing their efficacy.
To all those philanthropic, religious, metaphysical,
and economical views of the abolitionists, the simple
and obvious reply was, that the Africans were slaves, so
recognized by the constitution, and that the rights of
property in them were guaranteed to the owners by the
most solemn provisions of that instrument. In the view
of abolitionism, this was a very silly replication, since it
was opposed to the commonest dictates of philanthropy
and patriotism, intensified by the strongest motives of
104 
EQUALITY.
self-interest; and no constitution was entitled to respect
which supports such an anomalous and abnormal state
of society. From the very nature of things, these views
were necessarily partial and sectional, since they were
entertained, in a section of our common country where
no slaves existed, by a set of persons whose interests
were supposed to be injuriously affected by slavery, in
opposition to the interests of another section, where
slavery legally and constitutionally existed. It is clear,
however, that if those views, partial, sectional, and unconstitutional as they might be, should ever come to be
entertained by a majority of voters, the constitution, in
the respect of that matter, would be obliged to give way
to the will of such a majority. From the very nature
of things again, those views must necessarily, in process
of time, take possession of a majority of the voters of
the nation, because the numerical preponderance of the
voting population was already very large in the section
where there were no slaves; and the numerical proportion of the voters of that section whose interests were
adverse to slavery was largely in advance of the number of those who were, to say the most and the least of
them, indifferent on the subject. This relative position
of the populations of the two sections, large as was
already the disproportion of numbers in favor of the
non-slaveholding section, was not stationary, but the
preponderance at the North was continually growing
larger and larger, and the increase was mainly in that
class which was hostile to the institution of the South.
It is not alone on the subject of slavery that this majority might declare itself in opposition to the constitution. There are many other subjects equally calculated
10*
105 
EQUALITY.
to call forth similar manifestations.   The tariff once
possessed and exercised this influence, and may do so
again. Instead of two, the country has now mrhany sectional divisions, the interests of each differing widely
from the interests of the others.  Sectional and party
majorities may at any time be hostilely arrayed against
any one of these, and the constitution be again unable
to protect the minority.
Thus it is apparent that the tendency of this government is to run into a government of party; and, from
the geographical divisions of the country, the ruling
party must necessarily be also a sectional party. This
arrangement would seem to be partial and antisocial
enough for all the worst purposes of despotism or anarchy; but it is not yet the worst: the ruling party
must also be a class party, and that class must consist
of the most inferior and least intelligent portion of the
nation's population; for, under the rule of universal
suffrage, the majority is unavoidably composed of the
lowest classes of society, the masses, animated by the
most knavish, the demagogues.   In the long run, a
government thus constituted cannot be otherwise than
oppressive.  The tyranny of such a majority is, of all
others, the most odious and intolerable, because irresponsible.  Like the pestilence that walketh in darkness, we feel its effects, but it is invisible, intangible,
and no man can question it or call it to account. It
has no head to be chopped off, like Charles I. or Louis
XVIII.; it cannot be captured and imprisoned, like
Napoleon; or expelled the country, like Louis Philippe.
It is without a local habitation or a name: it is everywhere in general, and nowhere in particular. Scat
106 
EQUALITY.
tered, like the leaves of the Sibyl, over the broad surface of the land, its decrees are gathered up at stated
intervals, and contain the fate of the nation.   On those
occasions, it is the ballot-box that, like the Lion of St.
Mark's, opens its mysterious jaws; and if the confiscation of four billions of dollars' worth of property issue
thence, why-it was the ballot-box that did it. If it
were possible to conceive of an organized tyranny like
this as being irremediable, society must perish, and men,
like brutes, wander in a state of nature.
This tendency of our government to become a government of party, and of the dominant party to become a
sectional and class party, has been fully realized.  The
majority which determined the Presidential election of
1860 was nothing more than a party and sectional organization. It had in it nothing of that broad, general,
and impartial character which should distinguish the
government of a great nation. Its object was not to
reconcile conflicting interests, to harmonize political
diversities, or unite social divergencies and govern all
with equal justice.  The dominant majority was organized exclusively at the North; and was composed of a
class of persons, the most inferior there, whose social
ideas were so peculiar and so partial that they had
nothing of general politics in them. The sole purpose
of one of the constituent elements of that majority was,
as its name indicates, to actualize or carry into practice
the abolition sentiments and arguments contained in the
above summary which I have made of them. It is not
conceivable that this lawless purpose could ever have
been peaceably accomplished, since it amounted to an
assault upon the rights and interests of another large
107 
EQUALITY.
section of the common country. Nor indeed is it certain that, under a wise and judicious system of resistance, legally and constitutionally conducted, it could
ever have been accomplished at all. But a wise and
judicious system of resistance, legally and constitutionally conducted, was precisely such a system of resistance
as, under the circumstances, was not at all likely to have
been adopted; for the same disorganizing principles
which influenced the conduct of one party equally influenced the conduct of the opposite party. But this is
not the place to exhibit the operation of this double
influence. Hereafter, the conduct of the South, and
the method of resistance she saw proper to adopt, will
be noticed in their appropriate place. It will then be
seen that the democratic principles have directed their
disorganizing influences with equal force upon both sections; and that, until human nature be changed, those
principles, in their present naked form, are unfit to
preside over a great and complicated society like this.
I have now completed the analysis which I proposed
to make of the democratic polity, by separating its dogmas and treating each by itself.  This analysis has
revealed the theoretical and practical tendency to excess which is inherent in each dogma; and it will be
seen that, when brought together in a state of combination, so far from counteracting or neutralizing the
vicious tendencies of each other, their union does in
reality augment the evil many times over; for, in point
of fact, either of those dogmas would be comparatively
harmless without the other two. I shall next proceed to
examine the influence which is exercised by the democratic polity over society; and this examination I shall
108 
PUBLIC MORALS.
conduct by decomposing the latter into its different social elements, and showing how each element is affected
by being brought under the exclusive domination of the
former.  To this end it becomes necessary, first of all,
to go to the basis of the social system, and examine into
the nature and extent of the injury, if any, which democracy may have inflicted upon society.
III. Public Morals.
As public morality is the foundation of society, if
that be rotten, the superstructure cannot be secure.
The first-thing, then, which this examination discloses
to us, as a peculiar feature of our social system, is the
unusual number of public offices, and the still larger
number of persons that, in every community, are hanging around to fill them. Many of these offices are created for no other purpose than to reward partisan zeal
at the expense of the public purse. The effect of this
measure, as unwise as it is wicked, is twofold: it increases
venality in proportion to the increase of offices; and it
withdraws from the useful occupations of life an extraordinary number of persons that otherwise might be employed'in a manner beneficial to themselves and to
society, but who, thus converted into vagabonds and
loafers, become nuisances to themselves and to the communities they infest. The number of office-seekers bears
an undue proportion to the number of offices to be filled.
For every successful applicant there are at least a dozen
disappointed ones.   Society thus becomes filled with
109 
PUBLIC MORALS.
crowds of discontented individuals, whose disappointment must awaken passions anything but favorable to
public tranquillity. During legislative sessions, man,
of these office-seekers and ex-office-holders constitute
themselves "Lobby members," as they are called; there
are always more such members in the galleries than there
are legally elected members in the halls of legislation,
and their business there is nothing else but organized
corruption.
Our frequent elections are the peculiar fruits of the
democratic polity.  The pretext.for their frequency is
that the doctrine of accountability may thereby be rendered as practical and efficacious as possible.  It is
pretended that it is only thus the people are enabled to
keep a firm hold on the fidelity of their agents.  Upon
the principle that short accounts make long friends,
public servants are required to give an account of their
stewardship at short intervals, in order that the people
may have the opportunity, as often as possible, of passing judgment upon their conduct; of continuing them
in office if their conduct be approved, or discontinuing
them if disapproved. This reason would be a very sufficient one if it were always carried out, or even pretty
generally acted upon. But these frequent elections,
whatever may have been the theory of their origin, are
practically not the least of the social evils of which we
have to complain. They are indeed the peculiar delight
of democracy, as it is only by and through them it exercises its power over society. That polity would be shorn
of much of its capacity for evil, and society would be
much more tranquil, if elections were much less frequent. As the people are of opinion that the govern
110 
PUBLIC MORALS.
ment is little else than an organ of their will: that it
was designed mainly to manifest their power: that, in
short, it is par excellence "the people's government,"
t3 contradistinguished from all other governments antecedent and cotemporaneous; and as they are taught,
and do believe, that every man in society has the right
and the capacity to fill any office in government, they
think that every man should have his turn at some office
or other. Hence the doctrine of rotation in office has
ever been a favorite dogma with the people, and perhaps is quite as responsible for the frequency of elections as the doctrine of official accountability. In any
case, whichever doctrine may bear the responsibility, it
too often happens that public functionaries have scarcely
had time to learn the A B C of their duties before they
are displaced by other neophytes, and these again by
other novices, before any of them could prepare themselves for usefulness in their offices.
The political hatreds and heats of.contest engendered
at these repeated elections by party rancors, cannot fail
to pass into personal and private animosities. Many a
quarrel that had no other origin has been quenched in
blood; and the peace of families and the harmony of
neighborhoods have been destroyed forever by political
differences of not the slightest moment to society. These
demoralizing effects are witnessed in the daily course of
our political conflicts, which are correctly spoken of as
a kind of warfare; for actual war cannot be more destructive materially than they in a moral point of view.
In the fury of these conflicts, the most conscientious
men habitually upbraid each other with wickedness and
folly. Not only individuals, but different sections of
111 
PUBLIC MORALS.
the country, hostilely arrayed, denounce each other in
epithets the most vile that can be invented by persons
ignorant of everything but the use of vulgar language.
If one party succeed by an unusual amount, or some
extraordinary method, of corruption, the opposing party,
after heaping upon its rival the most unmeasured abuse
for such practices, is sure, at a subsequent election, to
profit by the lesson, and so far follow the example as to
exceed if possible the corruption by which it was previously defeated.
On every serious occasion, at the polls and at public
gatherings, doctrines the most opposite are maintained
with equal warmth by persons equally entitled to confidence; and in the heat of debate, no extremity is too
absurd for their conclusions to be pushed. The greatest
strain a principle will bear is always put upon it, not
only in argument, but in practice. Pot-house politicians,
usually a contemptuous epithet in other countries, are
here too often the actual legislators; for that class of
persons are usually the most successful canvassers, and
carry a majority of elections. Wealth, learning, and
respectability are almost entirely excluded from legislative seats: the cry of'-'aristocrat" generally suffices
to defeat any man possessing a claim to either of those
qualifications. In the halls of legislation, log-rolling,
as it is called, is the necessary consequence of such
legislators: there is scarcely any local or personal legislation, however glaringly corrupt, but can be secured
upon this reciprocity principle.  "You help me, and I'll
help you," is a maxim of political wisdom soon learnt;
and he is the best politician and the most successful
statesman who succeeds best with it. Another perni
112 
PUBLIC MORALS.
cious consequence of this anomalous state of things is
the multiplication of laws beyond all human necessities:
many of them become dead letters at the moment of
their enactment, and few have ever any attention paid
to them. If one of these parvenu legislators can point
his constituents to a law which he has originated and
carried through, he passes for a Solon, and his return
at the next election is rendered almost certain. Every
"fellow," therefore, must have his law to parade, or he
is "nobody," and may expect to be retired by his constituents to the shades of private life.
Among the many evil practices peculiar to our social
system, the bestowal of offcial patronage, as rewards
for partisan services, stands pre-eminent. This patronage begins at the highest office of the government, and
descends to the lowest. The people are not slow to
imitate this example; they practice the same thing at
the ballot-box with a rigor that is absolutely merciless.
Patronage is reduced to a system: it is used as the
patrimony of party: every office is a largess, and must
be compensated by service to party. The practice has
proceeded to such lengths that none but party hacks
can hope for office or patronage; and these are bestowed,
not for any fitness on the part of recipients, but rather
for their unfitness, since they are notoriously, in a majority of cases, the most idle, worthless, and venal of
the nation's population.   This inquisition for spoils
takes place on every change of rulers, and at all primary elections. Viewed in the extent to which it is
carried here, it constitutes a species of depravity known
to no other government in the world. In all governients, more or less patronage is necessarily bestowed
11
113 
PUBLIC MORALS.
by the Chief Magistrate, and other public functionaries
holding under him; but in the exaggerated form in
which it obtains here, the habit is peculiar to our social
system. In England there are many offices which are
now held for life by persons who stand aloof from the
strife of parties.   These functionaries supply to the
State a valuable body of servants who remain unchanged
while cabinet after cabinet is formed and dissolved, who
instruct every successive minister in his duties, and with
whom it is the most sacred point of honor to give true
information, sincere advice, and strenuous assistance to
their superior for the time being.   To the experience,
the ability, and the fidelity of this class of men is to be
attributed the ease and safety with which the direction
of affairs has been many times transferred from tories
to whigs, and from whigs to tories.* In this country,
no such class of officials exist. As often as the administration is changed, an endless crowd of retainers is
liable to be ejected from office, and to be succeeded by
a set of new hands entirely ignorant of official duties,
and who are liable to be ejected in their turn before
they have half learned their business.   Servility and
corruption, ignorance and incapacity, in every department of government, must be the inevitable effects of
such a system.
The practice, whether at primary elections or by officeholders possessing official patronage, amounts to a proscription for opinion's sake, which, while it deprives the
country of its best and ablest citizens, drives into the
ranks of the dominant party all the base and venal, who
* See Macaulay's History of England.
114 
PUBLIC MORALS.
stickle at no dirty work to earn the rewards due to party
attachment. In proportion as the vile and corrupt are
drawn into- a party, good men are forced out of it, or
reduced to inactivity; for if they remain they cannot
consent to co-operate with such colleagues. As from
the nature of our social system the dominant party
must in time, if it does not already, constitute the government, it follows that the nation is in constant danger
of being subjected to the rule of the very scum of its
population.
"To the victors belong the spoils," has long been a
recognized political maxim of the first importance. This
principle of claiming a monopoly of office by right of
conquest, and of filling all offices, at primary elections,
by party organizations and for party aggrandizement,
must change, has already changed, the purpose of government from its true destination.   The tendency of
such a system is to elevate party claims above the
demands of patriotism; to make party attachments
stronger than love of country; to postpone the common
weal to personal interests; and to convert the government into a joint-stock concern for the benefit of individuals who control it.
Its evil effects cannot, and do not, stop there. Consequences so deleterious to the public interests, arising
from an organization of so partial a nature, cannot be
confined to government; they react upon the individuals
composing the party; they obliterate, in fact, the very
spirit and genius of individuality; they erase the lines
and marks which distinguish one individual from another; they destroy everything like independence of
thought and action; all men must surrender their own
115 
PUIBLIC MORALS.
convictions, in order to subserve the interests of party;
they must put on the harness of party, and work in
party traces; they must conform their thoughts and
actions, not to the dictates of their own reason, but to
the "usages of party," which is a Procrustean bed all
must fit at the cost of a mutilation at which human
nature shudders: in short, they owe fealty, first of all,
to party, which is their patron; and this primary allegiance leaves little room for, if it supersede not alto.gether, loyalty to country; and proscription is the iron
rod with which all this party discipline is enforced.
It is not only the individuals who are the active members or servile dependents of party that are thus injuriously affected.  It is by these methods the majority
is procured; and the majority rules not only government but society, not oily public life but private life.
Such a system, either directly or through an overpowering fear of public opinion, which it begets, controls
the citizen in his minutest affairs.   It regulates his
public actions, and dictates his fireside enjoyments; it
fetters his speech, and forces opinion itself. All spring
and elasticity of thought is destroyed; originality disappears. No one dares whisper his thoughts, till he
learns whether they are pleasing to the sovereign majority. An invisible public is the master, whose crushing tyranny extends to every relation of life.  There is
no resistance, for its victims are emasculated by fear.
It is treason to doubt the wisdom of the majority.
But the evil consequences of such a system go even
further yet, and invade every department of social life.
It is the nature of any system to be consistent with
itself. If it be established on false principles, it tends
unceasingly to develop all the pernicious effects of those
116 
PUBLIC MORALS.
principles, and forces everything around it to aid in the
development. Under such social conditions, therefore,
good men cease to avail themselves of their political
privileges; they retire in disgust to the obscurity of
private life; they shrink with horror from paying the
slightest attention to public affairs; they shun the polls
as places of contamination; they regard the ballot-box
as a solemn mockery, used only to cloak the designs of
a party whose leaders have already predetermined the
results to be obtained from it, and elected all their candidates beforehand; they look upon popular elections
as mere selfish contests for office; and accordingly they
abandon the government to the scramble of the bold,
the daring, and the desperate.
Here, then, is formed a party organization, held together by the strongest bands which the vicious part of
human nature can supply; that is, by the mercenary
ties of self-interest, by the fears of the timid, and by a
discipline so severe that nothing but revolution or universal anarchy can break through it. The tyranny of
such a system, while it lasts, surpasses the worst despotism on earth; for it crushes the soul and withers the
heart-all that is not mechanical is exterminated. The
most galling thraldom ever known, it assumes the most
dangerous form which modern times can supply; it
borrows the badges of freedom, and, under the shape
of government by the majority, it imperils all our individual rights, and threatens the very existence of freedom itself.   But it cannot endure.   With corruption
and intimidation as its only guarantees, it must demoralize the nation to the point of actual dissolution,
or revolution must snatch it from destruction. Distrust
11*
117 
PUBLIC MORALS.
and jealousy, fear and hatred, will conspire against it;
and civil war, if nothing else will, must at last square
the account by ruin or by rescue.
When this party organization shall have become sectional, as, sooner or later, it is bound to do in a country
of such magnitude and varied interests as this, and has
seized into its hands the reins of government, and is
exercising all its party instincts and party appliances,
upon what hypothesis would it be possible to predicate
the safety of the Union, except upon the supposition
that human nature, in other sections, had abdicated its
manhood, or surrendered its passions to abject fear or
to the wasting influence of corruption?
As for freedom of elections,-the very life-blood of
popular governments,-that, like many other free things
in this free country, is a myth-a pleasant delusion,
which, in our distress, it is well enough to cherish-but
no such thing exists. I speak not now of the interference of government by its army regulations, but of the
ordinary working of the system in times of profound
peace. A man cannot be reckoned very free in his
election, when a caucus nomination has left him no
choice of candidates. A few irresponsible individuals,
with no authority for doing so but the warrant of party,
have already predetermined his vote, without consulting
his wishes; or perhaps, worse still, have presented for
his acceptance a man whom, of all others, he would
most repudiate, and he is free to vote or not. Nor is
even this measure of freedom always allowed him: if he
eat the bread of dependence, his choice sometimes lies
between eating no bread at all or voting as directed.
This species of servitude is not always confined to the
118 
PUBLIC MORALS.
poor and needy, or to the humble laborer. Lawyers,
physicians, mechanics, all men who are dependent upon
public patronage for a livelihood, have sometimes been
reached, through their professions, by this all-pervading
proscription of party, and forced to submit to party
drill, to take their politics according to prescription,
and vote to order. A well-disciplined corps of officeholders, scattered all over the country, in every State,
county, town, and neighborhood, acting with incredible
zeal and union of purpose, use their official stations and
their offices to very little purpose other than that of influencing elections, of all grades, from the highest to
the lowest.   They advise, exhort, solicit friends and
partisans to greater exertions in the cause of party;
they wheedle, cajole, intimidate, resort to briberies direct
and indirect; everything is done, which patronage and
power can do, to influence elections, not only in the
General government, but in all State governments. No
office is too high, none too low, to escape their wondrous
activity and their marvelous ubiquity. But the greatest
levers for controlling elections are party organizations.
In this country of office-seekers and office-holders, there
are few men who have not political aspirations of their
own. This unfortunate ambition degrades the aspirants
at once to the level of the most abject servility. They
become the slaves of party, and must obey, without
question, its behests. Its nominations, however personally objectionable, command their unqualified support. They are perpetually called upon to electioneer
and vote for men against whom, perhaps, their very
gorge rises in opposition; but they must bolt the devil
himself, if required to do so; and it is the boast of many
119 
PUBLIC MORALS.
that they are fully up to this standard of party drill,
and could readily fulfill such a requirement.   It is
scarcely conceivable that such a state of things could
last for any length of time: its tendency is to go from
bad to worse, and must kill or be cured.
Nor is it alone freedom of elections which is so fatally
disturbed by official patronage and party organizations.
The FREEDOM OF THE PRESS is no less injuriously
affected by the same deleterious influences. A FREE
PRESS is very justly considered to be the PALLADIUM of
a people's liberties.  So highly were its services in this
respect rated, that it was the only profession which
enjoyed the high distinction of being expressly protected by constitutional enactments. In despotic governments, the press is always effectually muzzled, and
speaks only, if it speak at all, at the dictation of the
despot. But it may well be asked, if a purchased press
is more free than a fettered one? It certainly makes
little difference whether the manacles be put on by fear
or by favor. A pensioned press can no more speak the
truth than an enslaved one. The latter may be silent,
and thus become a sort of negative institution, calculated to do no sort of good. But a press, hired to lie
and mislead, to slander and traduce, becomes a positive
evil, calculated to do infinite mischief. Of the myriad
political presses in this country, large numbers of them
are the servile organs of party, looking alone to party
for support, devoted to its interests, speaking only and
always at its dictation, and ready to suppress the truth
or pervert it, or lie direct to advance the cause of party.
This is the most melancholy prostitution of which the
democratic principles have yet been guilty. It is a cor
120 
PUBLIC MORALS.
ruption of the very fountain of light and knowledge; a
demoralization of the intelligence of the nation. The
effusion of blood and tears which will be required to
wash out the stains of this pollution, and to restore
humanity and society to their lost integrity, is beyond
the power of human calculation. The earnest endeavors
of many generations will be needed to repair the damage; and, in the mean time, we can but weep over the
mistakes of the past, and invoke an early restoration
in the future.
In the midst of so much party rancor, of such personal and sectional hatreds, of such impure motives
and corrupt practices, all deep and steady convictions
must be rendered totally impossible; and no true political morality can be hoped for, by even the most sanguine disciple of democracy, while this state of things
lasts. The inevitable result of such a chronic epidemic
is the gradual destruction of the public morale; while
at the same time the seeds are planted of future strifes,
the subjects of which will be debated at the point of the
sword and at the cannon's mouth. Precisely such a
bloody exchange of ideas is that now being discussed,
in tones of thunder, over the broad surface of the land.
Whichever way, then, we look at it, politically, morally,
or, as we shall hereafter see, religiously, WAR lies like
the inevitable excess at the extremity of each view;
and the democratic principles, as established in the
frame of this society, must be regarded as possessing
no capacity for social organization.
121 
PRIVATE MORALS.
PRIVATE MORALS.
If such has been the spread of public demoralization,
private morality has fared little better.   The latter
could only be reached through the destruction of the
former: and now, that barrier being broken through,
the dissolving action threatens domestic, and even personal morality, which is the necessary foundation of
every other. In private life, natural sentiment has far
more influence than in public relations.   In all that
concerns domestic and personal affairs men think not
so much as theyfeel; and their conduct is much less
dependent on current opinions than is the case in public matters. While politics and public opinion, by their
ceaseless action and reaction upon each other, produce
whirlwinds of passion which are so destructive of public
morals, those home interests which cluster about the
domestic hearth are protected from the pitiless peltings
of the storm without by a kind of household Lares, the
genius loci, which render sacred the roof under which
they are sheltered.  The fanaticism of politics is little
less rabid than the fanaticism of religion. Some of the
blackest crimes recorded in history are due to ill-regulated public spirit. Men daily do for their party, for
their favorite poelitical schemes, what no inducement on
earth could tempt them to do for their individual interests. In their ordinary business relations, they would
shudder at the bare thought of committing a fraud which
they would perpetrate with exultation on the ballot-box.
Their reputation would be ruined forever in the eyes of
their fellow-men by the mere suspicion of a crime coin
122 
PRIVATE MORALS.
mitted in private life, which, in public relations, would
win the applause of a party or of a whole community.
In politics, the end too often justifies the means; and
men are apt to overlook the turpitude of the one in the
excellence of the other. It is more than probable that
all the wealth of France could not have bribed Robespierre to murder for hire one of the thousands whom he
murdered from motives of philanthropy. These evil passions and evil practices are seldom carried by men into
their family circles: they are usually shaken off at their
doors, with the dirt from their feet; or left in the halls,
with their overcoats; and they enter the sanctuaries,
where are enshrined their household gods, with pure
hearts overflowing with tenderness and love.  Private
morality, therefore, is so far removed from the influence
of political institutions, that the principles of the latter
must be insidious indeed if they can gain an entrance
so far into the human heart as to undermine all those
guards which nature has supplied to human conduct.
But the intrusion of individual analysis into those
sacred precincts, and the corrosive influence of an unlimited freedom of'discussion, could not be prevented
by any of those safeguards which nature has thrown
around the sanctuary of private life. The supremacy
of the individual conscience has greatly aided this intrusion; and the dogma of universal equality has suggested such license of sentiment and action as, under
better auspices, would cause the pure soul to shudder
with horror, and would paint the modest cheek with
blushes. There have not been wanting pretended reformers who have even denied the propriety of a subjugation of the passions to reason; and have proposed,
123 
PRIVATE MORALS.
as a fundamental dogma of their regenerated morality,
the systematic dominion of the former, which they have
striven, not to restrain, but to excite by the strongest
stimulants.* They have argued that the passions are
the strongest instincts of human nature, and the most
powerful incentives of human action; that the former
cannot be weakened without at the same time undermining the vigor of the latter; that therefore the passions, in all their impetuosity, were given for great,
wise, and good purposes; and that, so far from emasculating humanity, and reducing it to a cold and passionless machine by their systematic suppression, or by
their subordination to the mechanical influences of an
impersonal reason, the passions ought rather to be encouraged by a habitual indulgence of even their wildest
desires.   In the gratification of those desires, it was
further argued that the individual conscience must be
left as the sole judge and arbiter of the motives influencing individual conduct; and that it is the worst of
tyrannies for one person, or for any number of persons,
to impose upon others their conceptions of right and
wrong: that one person is as much entitled to his opinions as another or as any number of others: that, as
all have been left free to choose their own religious and
philosophical ideas, so, in like manner, all ought to be
left to an equally free choice of their code of moral
rules. It will thus be seen that political corruption and
moral corruption have, so far, ran together in parallel
lines; and that this doctrine is in exact conformity with
the right of individual judgment, first asserted by Mr.
* See Comte's Positive Philosophy.
124 
PRIVATE MORALS.
Jefferson, then repeated by President Jackson, and acted
on by South Carolina, and again repeated and re-enacted, until, descending through many minor channels,
public and private, it finally contributed its quota to
the swelling tide of causes which culminated in actual
revolution. Guided by the rules of this moral code,
the numberless isms which, under the name of social
reforms, have for years past ruffled the surface of Northern societies, have nearly all of them attacked some
cherished institution of private life, which was directly
compromised by an abrading discussion which brought
into question, without the possibility of solution, the
commonest duties of everyday life. Some of these have
already been mentioned out of their place; but a repetition of them will be pardoned for the sake of regularity.
The desire of sexual intercourse is doubtless the
strongest instinct of our animal nature: its licentious
gratification, if universally indulged by legal sanction,
would render social order a moral impossibility. With
what reverence, then, ought we to regard an institution
which so directs this passion that, instead of the disorder its license would occasion, the utmost harmony arises
from its regulated satisfaction! The institution of MARRIAGE, at the same time that it satisfies and disciplines
the most impetuous of our instinctive passions, lays the
foundation of another institution no less important. The
FAMILY is at once the basis of the social spirit and the
germ of the social organization. Families become tribes,
and tribes become nations; and the national unity finds
its type in the family. So sacred has this institution
ever been held, and so natural is the arrangement, that,
amid the fiercest revolutionary tumults, the Family has
125
12 
PRIVATE MORALS.
always been respected. But it was not to be hoped
that, while the democratic spirit was attacking every thing else, it should allow these institutions to escape.
Social equality, run out to its last extravagances, has
assailed both the above institutions; and Marriage and
the Family had doubtlessly, long ere since, been endan gered by serious innovations, if public decency and pri vate good sense had not, up to this time, interposed to
weaken the pernicious effects of democratic excesses. It
was even proposed to take from parents the guidance
and almost the acquaintance of their children, in order
to consign them to the care of society; and to take
from children the inheritance of their parents' property
accumulated on their behalf. In a moral and domestic
point of view, these propositions were as monstrous as
the proposals of another set of social reformers, who
advised the abolition of money and the recurrence to a
state of barter; the destruction of large cities with the
view to a restoration of rural innocence; and a fixed
rate of wages, and the same rate for every kind of labor.
All these recommendations, private and public, had for
their object the same end, to wit, the reduction of
society and humanity to a uniform system of the most
perfect equality. When, to assaults upon institutions
such as Marriage and the Family, we add the attacks of
the communists upon the rights of property, and of the
abolitionists upon the domestic institution of slavery,
with the view of subjecting them also, as all things else,
to the inexorable law of equality, such frenzy cannot
be regarded other than the most alarming symptom of
a tendency to social disorganization. It is no answer
to these charges to say that they are nothing else but
126
r-i, 
PRIVATE MORALS.
social eccentricities and individual absurdities, which
popular good sense is quite sufficient to restrain; and
that the best method to deal with them is to leave them,
as heretofore, to the wise reserve of public intelligence,
or to the inertia of public indifference, without imposing
on society the trouble of providing against them. The
sad experience we are now undergoing teaches us better
than that. These tendencies are genuine derivatives of
the democratic principles, and as such are necessarily
progressive as long as those principles are left dominant
in society. However feeble may be their first tentative
efforts, they will never intermit their energy until they
have destroyed either themselves or society by their
excesses.
So little attention has been paid to these vagaries, in
communities where they were most rife, that their correction has been abandoned to the ridicule of a few
humorists, and to the laughter of good-natured people
who had little or nothing to lose by their successes. But
it was too much to expect that these social reformations,
as they were called, at first privately begun, should
always or even long confine their activity to the narrow
sphere of their origin.   The organizations to which
they led afforded facilities to political interference too
tempting to be resisted. Accordingly, many of them
descended to the political arena, and, by adding their
passions to the fury of politics, not only complicated but
intensified the strife. It is by that means they are
enabled to vent their disorganizing influences, and bring
about social disturbances which endanger the existence
of society. Such was the origin and history of the
Abolition Association; and from that Association has
127
i,F 
RELIGION.
sprung the oecasion of our present difficulties. Still do
we travel in a vicious circle; and start from what point
we will, arrive at -last to this inevitable conclusion. Or
rather, such is the nature of the disturbing elements of
our social organization, that they make everything they
touch converge to one point, which is the necessary turn
of all social disturbances-WAR.
INFLUENCE OF DEMOCRACY ON RELIGION.
Religion, too, no less than public and private morality, has suffered from the dissolving action of social
principles so disorganizing.   The attrition of controversial debates, like that authorized by absolute liberty
of conscience and the right of free individual inquiry,
has worn away the very foundation of true piety, by
planting in the hearts of men religious hatred, (of all
hatreds the most devilish and infernal,) the rivalries of
sects, the anger of church quarrels, the animosities of
doctrinal controversies, the spirit of persecution and all
uncharitableness; instead of the spirit of peace on earth
and good-will to men.  How can there be genuine religion without harmony, and how can there be harmony
amid the confusion arising from setting up the individual conscience as the sole standard and arbiter of
religious truth?  A boundless inquiry which leads to no
decision, and an endless discussion which eats into the
heart and corrodes the soul, are not calculated to produce that tolerance which is the essence of religion, or
that benevolence which Christ taught from the mount,
or that forgiveness which he breathed from the cross, or
that peace of mind which passes understanding
128
t, 
RELIGION.
The questions which theology perpetually agitates
are, by their very nature, indemonstrable. They are
the absolute, the essence of things, or some notion which
shall be ultimate. But the absolute is inaccessible to
human inquiry. Absolute notions admit neither of proof
nor of reputation. The essence of things cannot be understood by man; and when he requires it of his reason,
he asks more than his reason can give. Man's mind is
neither absolute nor infinite, and to expect from it solutions that ire so, is to overlook the immutable conditions
of human nature. Yet there is nothing for which men
are more ready to fly at each other's throats and tear
out each other's hearts than for differences of opinion
on these impracticable questions, whose discussion can
generate no durable convictions nor obtain universal
assent. The sole vital principle of Christianity is charity, self-sacrifice, peace, and the forgiveness of injuries.
All other questions are but fragments of old, exploded
theologies which, floating, like waifs on the current of
time, have gathered about it only to obscure it. These
antiquated dogmas, dislodged by the friction of ages
from system after system, have gravitated toward the
living nucleus of Christianity, like the dust of old iron
around the magnet's point; and, while they do not constitute any part of its real life, have contrived to attract
the lion's share of attention, and to perpetrate all the
evils committed in its name. In every age, in every
form which religion assumes, in every theological system, these same old questions are forever reproduced:
their discussion is perpetually renewed: again and again
they reappear to disturb the peace of society, and to set
man in deadly feud with his brother man; and they are
12*
129
lk
r 
RELIGION.
left as indeterminate at last as at first, in order apparently that they may continue to distract the future as
they have distracted the past and the present.
Such were the questions that were set free by the
destruction of the Catholic unity, and were thrown, like
so many apples of discord, upon the world, to be discussed by every man to his heart's content. Upon the
occurrence of that memorable event, Protestantism filled
Europe with religious dogmas, with religious sects, with
religious wars-wars which desolated the nations and
drenched their soil with fratricidal blood. As numerous
as are those sects in Europe, they bear no proportion to
their numbers in this country, according to population.
Comte did not overstate the case when he said there
were, in the United States, hundreds of religious sects,
radically discordant, and incessantly parting off into
opinions which are little more than individual, which it
is impossible to classify, and which are already becoming
implicated with innumerable political differences. These
sects are so animated with the old spirit of controversial
theology, that they have come to regard each other with
a pious hatred which nothing but polemical divinity could
suggest. With a morality rather below than above the
average standard, they condemn to perdition all who are
without the pale of their peculiar system of salvation.
The absolute dogmas of their profession, fruitful as they
are of debate, are yet insufficient to detain them within
the sphere of religion. The misty regions of metaphysics and political ethics have peculiar charms for their
divines. Many of the preachers declaim little else than
party politics from their pulpits: by mixing up theological and social problems, they give to the latter the hue
130
r_ 
RELIGION.
and coloring of the former; and thus it is that, in this
country, political questions are endowed with the dangerous quality of breeding discords and animosities,
which nothing else but their association with theology
could ever give them.   There are few reformatory
schemes, however absurd and mischievous they may be,
with which this disputatious class of persons is not in
some way connected. Breach of unity, division, separation, contention, strife,-these are the motives from
which they derive their inspiration. Its wondrous activity no longer absorbed in the great work of decomposing the Catholic unity, Protestantism seems to have
turned loose its disorganizing dogmas upon itself and
upon society. To set bounds to our passions by reason,
to our errors by truth, and to our schisms by charity,these are the least of its thoughts. Its mission is dissolution, disunion, disorganization. The passions of mankind are the great instruments of its power; these it
stimulates by the most inflammatory declamations. The
awful terrors of religion, and not the sweet ministrations
of divine love, are the themes of its oratory.  Its god is
a god of wrath, of vengeance, of hatred, and persecution:
he sits upon a gloomy throne, with the bolts of Jove in
his hands, and a fiery hell yawning at his feet. With
these terrors, the poor victims are driven from one
excess to another: fear, and the cruelties which fear
inspires, drive all sentiments of love and union and
harmony from their hearts. The ministers of such a
faith are religious demagogues who rule their disciples
by their baser passions. Like the political demagogues,
they aim at power, influence; and popularity is the food
on which they subsist. The spirit of party animates
131 
RELIGION.
their words and deeds. To be the founder of a sect is
the height of their ambition. The more schismatic a
doctrine is, the more efficacious it is in accomplishing
their selfish ends. It was the spirit of sectarianism that
snapped the first cord by which the States were bound
together. Religious fanaticism took the initiative in the
unhallowed work of dissolution. A separation of the
Union was inaugurated by a separation of the churches,
North and South. The Catholic unity itself seems not
to have been more an object of hatred to Protestantism
than the Federal Union of the States; and its disorganizing tendencies were as mercilessly directed toward the
latter as they had ever been against the former. It denounced the Federal Union as a league with hell and a
compact with the devil. All the infernal enginery of
its frightful creed was brought to bear with ruinous effect
against its continuance.   The vengeance of Heaven and
the pains and penalties of eternal damnation were invoked against its supporters. All those bitter hatreds,
so native and so peculiar to its gloomy religion, and
which it knows so well how to rouse, were called forth,
like so many evil spirits, to breed discord and disunion.
Its pharisaical purity, which is more cruel and proscriptive than the blackest iniquity of earth, was foremost in
the van of disturbing causes. It is worthy of notice
that those Protestant sects which are most schismatic,
which are most intensely Protestant, which no organization can retain, and which are continually sloughing off
into isolated parties as individual as their extreme selfishness can make them,-those were the sects which were
most active in promoting the work of decomposition
which has at last been accomplished. They left no
132 
STATE RIGHTS.
means untried to sow dissension in the minds of mengoodly fields indeed for religious culture, but the worst
husbandry which religion ever practiced. They preached
treason. They exhorted rebellion. They allied themselves with whatever political or social reforms were most
likely to create dissidencies. It was the preachers, not
of these sects alone, but of most other Protestant sects,
who took in hand the abolition doctrine, and made it a
religious thesis; and, under that banner, it was they,
more than all other agencies combined, that contributed
to precipitate the present crisis.
IV. State Rights.
It now remains to consider the influence of the democratic doctrines on international relations, and see how
they affect the action of the individual States toward the
general government. It seems to me that, in this connection, they are not less disorganizing than in the
case of individuals. They will be found, I think, on
very slight examination, to have given rise to the idea
of national independence, which is but another name
for national isolation.  In this country the same thing
is called State sovereignty, whence is derived the doctrine of State rights, which has played so important a
part in the political history of this nation, and which
has contributed its quota to the present complication of
our national affairs. To understand aright this doctrine, and to comprehend clearly its influence on American politics, it will be necessary to trace it to its Euro
133 
STATE RIGHTS.
pean origin, and connect it with the rise of the democratic
polity in the sixteenth century. The r6le it has enacted
on the political stage of America will be found to differ
very little from its performance in the mother country.
Perhaps the most natural, certainly the most useful,
function of the papal power was that from the exercise
of which was derived the unity which was imparted to
the civilization of the Christian era. During the long
period of its reign, the Catholic Church maintained a
regulating authority over the principalities of Christendom, which extended not only to their spiritual but to
their temporal interests as well. It was solely by this
means that all Europe was banded together in one great
family of nations, and an intellectual convergence established, of which the present EIuropean civilization is the
last and highest expression. Instead of a Greek civilization, and a Roman civilization, and a variety of other
civilizations,-which diversity of civilizations was the
fatal idiosyncrasy of the Greco-Roman epoch,-Europe
has now one civilization, which, from its singleness of
design and unity of development, is fast harmonizing
the moral discrepancies of the world. This beneficent
arrangement-brought about by the stern exercise of a
power deemed at the time outrageously oppressivepromises to unite the human race in one grand political
combination, wherein will still be preserved national individualities, to the partial exclusion at least of those
international hostilities which spring from the radical
contrarieties of discrepant races, intensified and madly
directed against each other by the social prejudices of a
different development or a different civilization.
When the papal authority was politically annulled,
134 
STATE RIGHTS.
the dissolution of European order followed spontaneously
from the principle of liberty of conscience.   The work
of decomposition once begun, there seemed to be no end
to the process. The nations wheeled off into separate
orbits; owned no common center of attraction; asserted
their absolute independence of all external sovereignty;
nor would allow the least outside interference from any
quarter. Then began the doctrine of national isolation,
and mutual non-intervention, so rigidly and jealously
enforced up to this hour. Then began also the desolating wars which, for more than two hundred years,
depopulated Europe and retarded so fatally her national
prosperity. There was no power resident on the earth
that could interpose its authority or good offices to arrest
these suicidal conflicts; and the combatants were only
parted by mutual exhaustion. Religion shared the same
disorganization: from the bosom of Protestantism issued
innumerable Christian sects, as radically discordant as
the nations, whose wars they aggravated, and added
their own peculiar strifes to the general uproar.
Luckily for the fortunes of Europe at this crisis of
her fate, a compensating movement had already set in,
some two hundred years before, which had steadily progressed, and was still progressing, at the expense of
feudalism and the Free Cities. That system yielded
itself a prey to royalty, and was gradually absorbed
into the great empires that rose upon its ruins.  Thus
while European order was being destroyed, and the
nations were without co-ordination and without unity, a
recomposition of a different kind was going on, which so
aggrandized the nations and occupied their attention
that the former process was rendered comparatively
harmless.
135 
STATE RIGHTS.
But now, while all the material agencies, so active in
this age, are daily assimilating the nations more and
more, and preparing them for broader and more regular
associations, this spirit of national isolation, if allowed
to continue and be carried out to its utmost latitude,
would return'mankind to the condition of the middle
ages. It is only by a growing concentration of political
action that the increasing anarchy of the time can be
arrested. For this purpose, a subordination of the secondary to the principal political centers is needed. But
the tendency of national independence or national isolation is toward the greatest possible distribution of centers; and if the tendency be unrestricted, the process
would be carried on until the ruinous dispersion would
so far dissipate all political co-ordination that a complete dislocation of society would ensue, the decompositions of feudalisms would be repeated, and the wars of
antiquity would be renewed.
I do not pretend to say that it is even possible for
such a condition of things ever to recur. Happily the
nature of modern civilization saves us from the danger;
and history never repeats itself, or turns back in its old
channels. I am only designating the tendency of those
principles, and pointing out the difficulties toward which
they will precipitate society unawares, unless they be
checked by the introduction of some countervailing principle which will balance without destroying them.
So congenial with the military spirit is the democratic
polity, that any pretext will serve it for indulging its
warlike propensities.   The first direct effects of the
revolutionary movement begun under its auspices, were
the almost interminable wars which, during that epoch,
136 
STATE RIGHTS.
desolated Europe, and extruded from the nations all
political co-ordination. Proof of this warlike tendency
is seen, even at this day, in the respect paid by the
common people to the memory of Napoleon Bonaparte,
who, of all men, wasted the greatest amount of power
in efforts to restore the military system. It was during
the progress of this enormous expenditure of strength,
so wastefully applied, that the nations of Europe at last
saw the dangers to be apprehended from the dogmas of
independence and isolation, which they had so greedily
adopted   from th      e     start. But so jealous were these
dogmas, and so strong was the tendency to isolation,
that the continental nations could scarcely be bribed
by the subsidies of England to coalesce for their own
protection. If it had not been for the policy of nonintervention, and the absence of every principle of political order by which some sort of European unity could
be established, the French nation, under Napoleon Bonaparte, never could have plunged the world into such disastrous wars, nor have threatened the obliteration of
national boundaries on the continent. As it was, the
political map of Europe was, at one time, in danger of
being so altered that the military genius of a single
individual seemed not inadequate to the task of effacing
the work of near two thousand years. The danger, indeed, seems not to have passed entirely away yet. Such
a catastrophe is by no means improbable, even at this
day. The uneasiness of the nations at every movement
of France, and particularly at the restoration of the
Napoleonic dynasty, is evidence that some such fears
a    r    e     entertained.  It was to avert these dangers, and to
restore some sort of co-ordination, some sort of Euro
13
137 
STATE RIGIITS.
pean order or confederation, some regulating authority,
or centralized force, that the five principal powers entered into that singular league, of which we have since
heard so much, known as the Holy Alliance.
In this country, the same tendency to independence
and isolation manifested itself at a very early period.
The dogma of State sovereignty was warmly advocated,
and was recognized with little opposition at the very
inception of the government; and the doctrine of State
rights has ever since contributed not a little to the political disturbances of the nation.
The spirit of State sovereignty, as manifested in this
country, is identical with the spirit which, after the dissolution of the papal authority, separated the nations
of Europe into isolated States.  This isolation was so
unnatural, so abnormal, so lawless, that it was unreasonable to suppose so many independent States could coexist by the side of each other without conflicts.   The
nations of Christendom, clustered together in Europe,
belong to a single system of civilization. The abrogation of the papal power left no centripetal force to that
civilization. It was like withdrawing the sun from the
center of the solar system. No doubt the government
of the Vatican had ceased to answer the purpose which
it was so well calculated to subserve at the beginning,
and that its removal had become a work of imperious
necessity. But the first consequence of its abrogation
was a wild confusion which threw the different members
of the system, like so many orbless planets, into- collisions which, for a time, seemed to threaten their existence. It turned out in the end, however, as we have
just seen, that those very collisions which, at the mo
138 
STATE RIGHTS.
ment, appeared to be so disastrous, were the means of
developing the hidden unity which all the time lay beneath the differences presented by the actual spectacle
of Europe in that hour of confusion.  And thus, out
of the chaos and universal anarchy in which Europe
was enveloped, arose the first feeble beginning of a
European order, a common center of attraction, around
which all the nations of Christendom are destined to
gravitate, each revolving in an orbit of its own, obeying
one impulse, moving steadily to one end, which is yet
unknown, and which no nation has yet reached. In Europe, the occasions which led to the abrogation of the
papal power were the crushing weight of its despotism,
the severity of its unity, and the frightful abuses of its
authority.   In America, everything is reversed:  the
causes which are likely to result in the total or partial
destruction of State sovereignty and its derivative, State
rights, are the absence of a sufficient gravitating power
in the central government, the want of unity enough,
the ruinous dispersion of political force caused by so
many heterogeneous sovereignties, and the growing
abuses of too many unrestricted State rights. Europe
had to contend against the despotism of a too stringent
unity. The United States has to contend against the
despotism of too much license, of a lawless and ruinous
diversity. It was the democratic principles, in their
Protestant or religious form, which, in Europe, abolished
the unity of Catholicism, and brought on the dissolution
of European order which ensued. It was the same
principles, in their political form, which, in the United
States, laid the foundation of those democratic dissipations which have resulted in a dissolution of the Federal
139 
STATE RIGHTS.
Union. In all probability, the latter country will have
to undergo calamities not greatly dissimilar or greatly
inferior to those experienced by the former, in order to
procure such a co-operation of the States as will suffice
for the development of a young, growing, and uniform
civilization. In any case, such a co-ordination will have
to be procured, let it cost what it will.
Theoretically, the federative system appears to be
the most simple of all forms of government; but in
practice, it has ever been found the most complex, the
most difficult of establishment, and the least capable of
being rendered efficient. The system, as established in
this country, consists in allowing each State to remain
entirely sovereign and independent within its own limits;
to leave to it all that portion of government which can
reside there, or which it can exercise; and to take from
it only so much of sovereignty as is indispensable to a
general society, in order to carry it to the center of this
larger society, and there to embody it under the form
of a central government. In this removal of jurisdiction from the States to the General government, the
least possible amount of power is conceded by the
States, and only this in cases of absolute necessity.
The difficulty in this species of government consists in
reconciling the amount of independence, or of local
liberty, which is left in the States, with the amount of
general order or of general submission, which in certain cases is supposed to have been conceded to the
central government.*
It is evident from this statement that here is a system
* See Guizot's History of Civilization in Euro]e.
140 
STATE RIGHTS.
which requires the most advanced stage of civilization
of which we can conceive. To render it efficient and
durable, the greatest amount of intelligence, of intellectual discipline, a thorough subordination of the passions to reason, an enlightened will, and a high sense
of public duty are peremptorily demanded. The reason
is plain enough.  Nothing can be more confiicting than
two sovereignties existing in the same system.   The
arrangement, indeed, involves a contradiction of terms,
and presupposes an absurdity. There can no more be
two sovereignties in one nation, than there can be two
suns in one system, or two Supreme Beings in one universe. The meaning of sovereignty is supreme power.
If one thing be supreme, there can be nothing else
above it, or its equal. If the States be sovereign, the
General government cannot be so. If, on the other
hand, the States part with the smallest possible degree
of power, and acknowledge obedience to any other
authority, they are no longer sovereign or independent.
Where one sovereignty, so called, limits another pretended sovereignty, neither is sovereign.   Nevertheless, each of these pretentious sovereignties will assert
its authority, because it has the name, and attempt to
make practical the idea contained in the word sovereignty, as against the other or opposing power. The
verbal imposture helps to magnify the real difficulties of
the case, which are sufficiently great without it. If to
these sovereignties we add the sovereignty of the people
and the supreme authority of constitutions, we have a
system of antagonisms, and not of reciprocating opposites such as we find in nature. To neutralize these
antagonisms we have only a voluntary obedience, which
13*
141 
STATE RIGHTS.
must be rendered by so many parties that the chances
of a universal or even a general concurrence are almost
infinitely diminished.   Hence the necessity of those
endless reconciliations and mutual concessions which
have procured for our system the prenomen of a "government of compromises." In one sense the vocable is
a happy one, because so many compromises are needed
that there is never a final adjustment, and we must go
on compromising and readjusting to the end of the
chapter. With a government so complex and embracing so many antagonistic elements, it would be wonderful indeed if, amid the almost infinite variety of interests
implicated in a large society like this, some question
should not arise, sooner or later, which would refuse to
be compromised, and which, adding itself, like the last
feather, to all the other causes of disturbance, should
not succeed in breaking down a system already burdened
beyond its strength. The danger is more or less imminent according as the state of civilization is more or
less advanced.  If the nation were restricted to a choice
population, with a high degree of enlightenment, a strong
sense of public duty, of mutual forbearance and selfsacrifice for the sake of general order, such a government might last and succeed well. Because, where a
voluntary surrender of individual liberty is concerned,
and no adequate means of coercion are provided, the
will of man and his free choice must concur in the establishment and maintenance of the system more than in
any other. But where the state of civilization is a low
one, and the government is confided to an ignorant multitude, who are more influenced by passion than reason,
the chances of collision are so greatly multiplied that
142 
STATE RIGHTS.
nothing short of a miracle could procure a long continuance of such a system.
The federative system is not a new form of government, or peculiar to the United States alone.  It is not
a first experiment, and we are not left in the dark as to
its probable action and future destiny. There is at least
one example so nearly resembling our own case that we
may accept it as an illustration of the system generally,
and of what is likely to be its fate here.
It was precisely this kind of government which feudalism attempted to establish in Europe from the tenth
to the thirteenth century; and which failed there for
the same reasons it is likely to fail here. The principles
it rested upon were identical with those on which is
based the federative systemn of the United States.  The
barons, or great proprietors, claimed to exercise absolute sovereignty each within his own domain, and affected
to yield to the suzerain, or to the general assembly of
barons, as much power as would suffice to establish a
central government for purposes of general order.* The
power thus conceded was, like that conceded by the
States to the Federal government, of the smallest possible degree; nor was that power ever allowed to be
used against themselves without dispute. If a baron
was displeased with a decision, he refused to concur in
it, and perhaps called in force to resist it. "Force, indeed," says Guizot, "was the only guarantee of right
under the feudal system, if force can be called a guarantee. Every law continually had recourse to force to
make itself respected or acknowledged. No institutions
* See Gutizot's History of Civilization in Europe.
143 
STATE RIGHTS.
succeeded under it. This was so perfectly felt that institutions were scarcely ever applied to."  The baronial
courts succeeded no better than our Federal courts.  If
a judgment was adverse to a party, and he felt himself
in a position to resist successfully, the decision could
only be enforced by the strong arm; and war generally
ensued. It will be seen at a glance how impossible it
was to establish permanently a system like this in a
world of ignorance and brute passions such as existed
at that epoch. As society could not endure in the fragmentary condition into which feudalism had divided it,
and no general order could be established, no law of the
general government be executed, and no guarantee given
but that of force, society must perish or feudalism be
destroyed. The latter was accordingly absorbed into
the great European empires existing at this day. But
it was not without a long series of the most cruel and
bloody wars ever waged on the earth, that the feudal
system was finally destroyed, and monarchy was left
without a rival or an enemy in Europe.
Being in antagonism with ancient order, to eliminate
which it was instituted, "the tendency of democracy
is to represent all government as being the enemy of
society, and the duty of society to be to keep up a perpetual suspicion and vigilance, restricting the activity
of government more and more, in order to guard against
its encroachments, so as to reduce it at length to mere
functions of police, in no way participating in the
supreme direction of collective action or social development." An application of this idea in all its completeness has been made by the States to the Federal government. The least degree of power has been doled
144 
STATE RIGHTS.
out by the former to the latter; and even that little has
been thought too much, and many efforts have been
made to abridge it. In the estimation of State sovereignty, the Federal government should be little else
than a sort of fiscal agent, to collect the public money
and disburse it at its dictation; to form treaties with
foreign powers, without entangling alliances with any;
to guard well the commerce of the States; extend the
frontiers of the nation,-all under its surveillance, and
on the sole condition of its approval. To do this, no
standing army worthy the name was allowed to exist,
for fear it might be turned against the rights of the
States.   The navy, though respectable in itself, was
efficient for little else than to absorb very successfully
five to ten millions of money annually. The distribution of offices, and the disbursement of the national
funds, in equal proportions to the different sections and
States, constituted themes of perpetual controversy.
To dwarf the proportions of the Federal government
and to render it as contemptible as possible, salaries
scarcely sufficient for a decent support were meted out
to the highest officers. Everything served as a pretext
to call upon the government to give an account-of its
stewardship, that it might never lose the sense of its
accountability to its thirty odd masters; and the poor
thing was badgered and harassed almost out of its
life.
All political problems of moment which have come
-up' r sTluoiii n since'tne'beinning ol- the national existence, have been mixed up with the doctrine of State
rights.   That disturbing principle has intruded itself
into all elections which have most agitated the country
145 
STATE RIGIITS.
during the last half century, and has intensified their
fury by its own jealousies.   The great questions of
Tariff, National Bank, Internal Improvements by the
General government, derived from it whatever political
rancor they possessed, and the decisions of them were
mainly influenced by its extraordinary energy no less
than by its arguments. Its spirit has been to the last
degree captious, exacting, and aggressive. It assumed
the right to nullify laws of Congress; to interpret the
constitution according to its own understanding, which,
of course, was according to its own interests or prejudices; and to disregard or respect decisions of the Federal courts, according as those decisions thwarted or
favored their own peculiar views.
This spirit was not peculiar to South Carolina alone,
or to any particular State or set of States. Hlowever
the motives might differ, and the arguments be varied,
any State, or set of States, was sure to appeal to its
own sovereignty whenever its necessities or its interests
might seem to require it. Massachusetts, who was deeply
interested in a protective tariff, blamed South Carolina
for nullifying a law of Congress on that subject, and
denounced the doctrine of nullification as a political
heresy. When her own passions were roused on a different subject, in which South Carolina was interested,
the heresy becomes orthodoxy in her own case, and her
allegiance to a higher law impelled her to the vortex of
nullification. Thus, between State rights and higher
laws, the Federal government was fast becoming a virtual nullity; the dogma of State sovereignty culminated;
and anarchy was rapidly taking the place of order. Like
the feudal barons, the States, in their relations with the
146 
NULLIFICATION.
General government, were beginning to consult only their
own interests or consciences; and like feudalism, the
independence is likely to perish in its own lawlessness.
The foregoing statement is sufficient to betray the
complexity of the federative system, and the difficulty,
if not impossibility, in the present state of civilization,
of maintaining for any length of time a form of government so difficult of reduction to practice. The same
statement will also serve to reveal the intricacy of the
political problems which, by the terms of our social system, are removed from the jurisdiction of the choicest
intellects, specially prepared by previous training for
that purpose, and consigned to the variable and arbitrary decisions of an ignorant and incompetent multitude. And, finally, it will show that such a form of
government, while it is sterile of order or of any reliable
guarantees, is most fertile of demagogues who, confederate with the masses, and supplied with the boundless
resources which the social system affords, could not fail,
some time or other, to initiate a catastrophe like the one
we are now witnessing.
NULLIFICATION.
It may be objected that the doctrines of State sovereignty and State rights, and all the collateral inferences
flowing from them, are not authorized by the premises
from which they are professedly drawn; that they are,
in fact, nothing but the sophistries of politics: false deductions from sound principles: the captious arguments
of disordered minds: fallacies employed by unprincipled
demagogues for their own selfish ends; and that the
147 
NULLIFICATION.
form Qf government ought not to be held responsible
for the evil consequences they have been made to bring
upon the country.
I do not think so. I shall not defend the demagogues
from any charge that may be brought against them.
That they are capable of any perversions, authorized or
unauthorized, and have contributed their quota to the
ruin of the country, is but too manifest. I would, if I
could, consign them, without benefit of clergy, to the
limbo of lost things, and there end their transgressions.
But I believe that the theory of State sovereignty, and
all its consequences, good or bad, even to this war, are
fairly deducible from the principles of democracy: that
they are logical corollaries flowing directly from the
foundation and structure of the Federal government;
and that the Federal constitution, its antecedents, the
method of its formation, the principles of which it is
composed, and the manner of its adoption, are answerable, not only for the demagogues, but for all the iniquities they have perpetrated.
A vigorous analysis will reduce the real origin of this
war to a controversy which was begun in the convention
which formed the Federal constitution, and which was
bequeathed as a legacy, along with the constitution
itself, to subsequent times.  In accepting the constitution, we accepted the quarrel it raised; and are now
terminating both together in the only way quarrels are
wont to be ended.  Stated in precise terms, the subject
of that controversy was: Whether the government, about
to be formed, should be a strong government, or a gov- /
ernment of limited powers only?
It is not my intention to reopen this controversy by
148 
NULLIFICATION.
renewing a debate which has already been of so exhaustive a character.  Like all political debates in this "free
country," with their boundless latitude of inquiry, the
discussion of this subject, while it exhausted the arguments pro and con., and still repeated itself, seemed destined never to determine anything, or to come to a termination itself.  The exasperation of mind consequent
upon such endless indecision could not fail, sooner or
later, to find a solution of the problems in dispute by a
resort to brute force.  The transferrence of the discussion, however, to the mouth of the cannon, does not
obviate the necessity of knowing precisely what it is we
are fighting about. An exact knowledge of this fact,
on the contrary, might help us to a speedier decision
than would otherwise be reached.
It would be next to impossible to suggest a new argument on either side of this question; and to repeat those
which have been employed again and again ad nauseam,
and to so little purpose, would be a work of supererogation. Indeed, it is now a mere matter of history, and
not of argument at all.  All I shall do, therefore, will
be to state the history of the case, announce the conclusions of arguments, and announce them in such manner
that no other demonstration shall be needed but the bare
statement of them. Any further verifications which may
be required can easily be found lying about all over the
legislative, judicial, and political literature of the last
two or three generations. It strikes me, however, that
these intellectual exuvi-e of an age not yet passed belong already to an extinct order of politics, and will
hereafter possess very little interest for any one but the
philosophic Iiistoi'iaii.'r the curious a-nticqualriani.  They
1-19
4 
NULLIFICATION.
were great in their day and generation, however, and
were the products of the best minds of the country, the
intellectual giants of that epoch, as great perhaps as the
greatest of any age or nation. I shall repeat none but
the conclusions of the choicest of those intellects: if
they support not my opinions, then my opinions must
fall to the ground.
It is immensely difficult to generalize, within the compass of a few pages, the details of a voluminous and
complicated history like this, and render them  at the
same time intelligible and veracious. Still more difficult is it to present them in the captivating form of a
drama, preserving all the dramatic unities, showing the
end contained, as it were, in the beginning, and the
beginning developing in the end, without losing the
thread which runs through all the intermediate parts
and connects them together. Nevertheless, such a narrative, appearing in a work like this, where but few
pages can be spared to it, must be done up in that way,
or be let alone. I deem it essential to a right understanding of my subject, to take some notice of this part
of our political history; and therefore, hit or miss, must
make the attempt to incorporate it here in a form sufficiently concise as not to occupy too much space, and
sufficiently comprehensive as that nothing material shall
be left out.
No doubt a very strong government would have resulted from the labors of the convention, if the inclination of its members had been alone consulted. A
majority of that assembly was well inclined to a much
more imposing form of government than was ultimately
adopted. But the patriotism of that body triumphed
150 
NULLIFICATION.
over its prejudices. The question finally resolved itself
into, not "what is best," but "what is attainable."  The
reason of this was, that no less than nine of the thirteen States were required for the adoption of the constitution.
Now, it could not but happen that, in a country of
such magnitude, a geographical line would sooner or
later be drawn, on one side or other of which the numerical majority would preponderate, and an interest be
found, or created, capable of being fostered by partial
legislation. This, indeed, was what had already taken
place. Near the center of the proposed Union, a line
of demarkation, even at that early day, was traced between two clashing interests, whose rival claims were
disturbing the harmony of the convention and threatening a disastrous termination to its labors. That line,
running east and west, existed then just where it does
now. The journal of the convention testifies of the
struggle between those opposing interests. All over
its face, we find evidences of their mutual efforts to
adjust the basis of representation in such a manner that
each would have the most weight on its own side of this
great fulcrum, on which the lever of power was to work.
Very soon, the necessity of a compromise became apparent to all, or no constitution, no general government,
no Union would be established; but things must remain
as they were, in their loose order, under the old Confederation. Indeed, so antagonistic was become the conflicting interests that were distracting the convention,
that any stronger government was despaired of.   A
proposition was accordingly made to retain the old Confederacy, and amend its articles with additional grants
151 
NUILLIFICATION.
of power. But this offer was rejected, and the plan of
a national government was reconsidered. It was then
conceded on all hands, that unless an adjustment of the
balance of power on some equitable principle, which
favored neither section to the prejudice of the other,
was come at, it was clear that the approbation of nine
out of the thirteen States could not be procured for the
adoption of the constitution. Accordingly such a com promise was attempted, and was thought to have been
secured. But this hostility continually broke out afresh,
wherever the contending interests of the two sections and
the sovereignty of the States were in the least concerned.
At this juncture, no party prenomens had been adopted on either side. The rival factions seem not even to
have given to each other nicknames, a custom which is
usually practiced on such occasions. But deducing their
titles from their principles, or rather from their measures, their most appropriate designations would be Centralists and Anticentralists. The prevailing party will
always choose its own name; and while it selects for
itself the most popular appellative it can find, it generally fixes on the other any invidious or reproachful
appellation it can invent. The adoption of the constitution was considered as a triumph of the Centralists,
inasmuch as the extremists of the other party were
rather opposed than otherwise to any other government
than that of the old Confederacy, from the inconveniences of which the country was now trying to escape.
Elated by this event, the Central party no sooner found
itself in the ascendant, than it assumed the popular
name of Federal, denouncing its adversary as the Antifederal party.   The latter, all the time, complained
1,52 
NULLIFICATION.
that they were wronged in this. They said their adver saries desired consolidation, while they wished to estab lish a league, (foedus,) and were, therefore, the only
true Federalists. But they protested in vain. Their
opponents insisted that the constitution established by
them was a true league, and the only practicable league,
and that they who had opposed its adoption were disunionists, opposed to any league, and, therefore, Antifederalists; and so the name stuck to them. By-and-by,
the Anticentral party, as I shall continue to call it,
acquired so much popular favor as to be allowed to
take a name of its own choosing; whereupon it called
itself the Republican party. The name of Federalist,
having been rendered odious by the unpopular administration of the elder Adams, the Centralists now attempted
to get rid of it, by calling themselves National Republicans, which was the most appropriate, indeed the only
appropriate name that party ever bore; but their adversaries continued to fling at them, on all occasions, the
disgraced name of Federalist as a term of reproach, and
as indeed the dirtiest thing that came to hand. The
Anticentral party, having borne the name of Republican
for more than a quarter of a century, at last, after the
election of General Jackson, who came in under the
State-Rights' or Anticentral banner, discarded that appellation as not sufficiently indicative of their real sentiments, and assumed one which they thought was more
accurately descriptive of their principles, and at the
same time most likely to captivate the popular heart:
they were henceforth known as the Democratic party.
Their opponents again followed their example: as the
name of National Republican had been dishonored by
14*
153 
NUI;  LLIFICATION.
the administration of the younger Adams, as the name
of Federal had been, a quarter of a century before, by
his father, the elder Adams, the Centralists adopted the
name of Whigs, for no other reason than because it was
borne by the successful party during the Revolution,
and was still held in high esteem. This name, it was
thought, would exactly balance, in the popular heart,
the name of Democrat, which the Anticentralists had
taken, and which proved to be the most attractive cognomen ever borne by any party in this country. But
the name of Whig did not suffice to win political battles
against the popular cause. Again defeated and broken
to pieces under that appellation, the Central party was,
for a long time, without any rallying name. Portions of
the disrupted party gathered together under the denomination of Native Americans, and were called, derisively,
Know-Nothings: in return, they nicknamed their adversaries Loco-Focoes. But the name of Native American,
and the principles it covered, identified them too closely
with the hateful measures of the elder Adams's administration, and they slowly melted away under that appellative.- In the mean time, other fragments of the broken
party, gathering recruits from stragglers in every direction, gradually reunited under the designation which the
Anticentralists, after bearing it with honor and success
during more than a quarter of a'century, had at last
discarded for the more popular one of Democrat. It
was, then, under the honored and successful name of
Republicans that the last agglomeration of the dispersed
Centralists, made up now of the "All-Sorts," chose to
renew their battles; the extreme wing of the party being
known by the name of Black Republicans, or Abolition
1,:-)4 
NTJLLIFICATION.
ists. Having won a decisive victory under this denomination, and broken up, not only the Anticentral or
Democratic party, but the Union itself, names have
again virtually changed into Unionists and Secessionists, which is the nearest approximation yet made to the
names I have given to the two parties in the convention.
In the matter of names, therefore, the two parties are
likely to end where they began; and, in another convention, fight their last great battle under the banners of
Centralism and Anticentralism.
I have thus, in limine, gone rapidly through the history of party names, for two reasons: first, in order
to identify the two parties respectively under all their
changes of nomenclature; second, in order to obviate
the necessity of again interrupting the narrative of facts
by frequent recurrences to this branch of the history.
So that now nothing remains but to trace, with equal
rapidity, the history of facts as illustrative of the motives
of the two parties, and of the quarrel which was first
sprung in the convention and continued to this day.
But before proceeding to this history it will first of
all be necessary to state succinctly and distinctly what
was the real question at issue in the convention. The
great trouble was, the difficulty of preserving the bal ance of power between the Northern and Southern sec tions of the country. Hence the danger of establishing
a common legislature, with any but very limited powers.
Northern members foresaw that the preponderance of
population would be largelv in their favor: that the
balance of power, therefore, would be on their side; and
that, in order to render that power available to Northern
interests, the government must be strengthened, and
155 
NULLIFIOATION.
Congress rendered, like the Parliament of Great Britain,
omnipotent, or as nearly so as possible. Southern mem bers were quite aware of all this, and sought to defeat
the scheme of the Centralists by weakening the General
government, restricting the powers of Congress, and
strengthening the rights of the States. Hence the prog ress of the quarrel to that point where a compromise was
deemed necessary, and was thought to have been secured;
but the controversy always returned upon the conven tion, whenever sectional interests or the rights of the
States were involved.
As no method of coercion seems to have been devised,
or proposed, or even thought of, all the rights claimed
by the States were conceded, in order to predispose them
to adopt the constitution. No evidence is to be found
in the proceedings of the convention, in its debates, in
any argument, suggestion, or clause of the constitution,
from which it can be inferred that the convention, or
any member of it, regarded the several States in any
other light than as being perfectly free to accept or
reject the constitution at its sovereign will and pleasure.
In the event of a rejection by one or more of them, no
forcible measure was proposed to meet the emergency.
If nine of the States adopted the constitution, then the
Union was to embrace those nine. If the others could
not be persuaded to come in, they were free to stay out.
If nine States did not accept, then the labors of the convention were to go for nothing. It is clear therefore
that, at that early day, the convention, and every member of it, and everybody else, considered each State as
at liberty to adopt the constitution or not, as it saw fit.
If this constitutes sovereignty, then the States were uni
156 
NULLIFICATION.
versally believed at that time to be sovereign. Whether
or not they lost their sovereignty at a later day, is
another question.
The next evidence we have of the animus of the convention, and of its opinion of the nature of the government it had formed, is to be found in the method provided for the adoption of the constitution. It was to be
adopted, not by a majority of all the people of all the
States, taken collectively, as Mr. Webster declared, but
by the people of each State, each acting for itself, in its
sovereign capacity. Accordingly, the people of each
State did vote separately, and not en masse with all the
people of all the States collectively.  If this were an
act of sovereignty, then the States were sovereign, and
believed to be so, up to the moment of entering the
Union.
To the same end, when a proposition was made to
declare the people of the United States a body politic,
or nation, it was rejected, and the very word nation and
all its synonyms and derivatives were carefully avoided,
and were never after allowed to appear in the constitution. The very first proposition adopted by the convention was originally expressed in these words: "That a
national government ought to be established," etc.
When parties were formed and their principles better
understood, the word "national" in this sentence became so offensive that it was expunged, and replaced
by the words "United States," that is, the several States
constituting the Union, or which have united for a specific purpose, and not the United States as a nation, or
consolidated empire, as Mr. Webster would have it mean.
The original preamble of the constitution ran in these
157 
NULLIFICATION.
words: "We, the people of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts," etc., naming all the thirteen
States, "do ordain, declare, and establish the following
constitution," etc. When the resolution was adopted
requiring the approbation of nine States to establish
the constitution, it was discovered that the preamble
and this resolution might come in conflict, and vitiate
the whole concern, as it was uncertain whether more
than nine would adopt it, and, of the whole thirteen,
which of them would constitute the nine; it was therefore agreed to alter the phraseology, and instead of
naming each State, to substitute the words "United
States." This is the explanation of the phraseology
employed in the constitution, of which Mr. Webster
made such an improper use, attempting to deduce from
it a purpose on the part of the convention to establish a
consolidated empire.
All these arrangements were the result, not of accident, but of design. The question of a consolidated
government was mooted in the convention, but met with
such vigorous opposition from the Southern States, that
the project was speedily abandoned. State pride, or
rather State sovereignty, taking the alarm at the insidious efforts of Mr. Hamilton, and other Northern members acting with him, to merge the separate State sovereignties into one great central government, set to, with
deliberate purpose, to extort an acknowledgment, in one
form or other, of their independence, in every provision
of the constitution in which it could be decently inserted.
In this, the Southern members, joined by no inconsiderable number of Northern delegates, were so successful,
that Mr. Hamilton retired in disgust from the conven
158 
NULLIFICATION.
tion, and did not resume his seat until toward its
close.
So far, then; as the opinion of the convention can be
taken as evidence in the case, the States were, in the
estimation of that body, not only sovereign before the
adoption of the constitution, but that sovereignty was
intended, with premeditated design, to be preserved and
continued, and was considered to have been effectually
preserved and continued, by the terms and provisions
of the constitution itself. The State of Rhode Island
was the last to ratify the constitution and enter the
Union. For a long time it was thought doubtful whether
she would do so at all. One of her objections was understood to be this very arrangement, by reason of which,
she said, the new Union would be no better than the old
Confederation. Rhode Island, in my opinion, was right;
and subsequent events have proved that she was so.
And now, at last, all the States having "acceded"
to the constitutional "compact,"-to use Mr. Calhoun's
pet phrase,-and the government being in full operation under the Presidency of General Washington, Mr.
Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, in connection
with other statesmen of his school of politics, including
some of the most brilliant intellects of the country,
attempted, by means of administrative measures and
legislative enactments, to accomplish that which he so
signally failed of achieving in the convention. General
Knox, one of the adherents of Mr. Hamilton, is understood, on the authority of Mr. Jefferson, to have proposed to General Washington to assume the crown before
the army was disbanded, and pledged its support to sustain him in the treason. The virtue of that great man
159 
NULLIFICATION.
defeated the treacherous design of his Secretary at War;
and the Anticentralists, with Mr. Jefferson at their head,
defeated all the indirect means of Mr. Hamilton and his
friends to centralize the government. The alleged abuse
of executive and legislative power during the administration of the elder Adams, who succeeded General Washington in the Presidency, called forth from the Anticentralists the celebrated Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
of 1798-99, drawn up by Mr. Jefferson, in which the
doctrine of State interposition, or State veto, or, in plain
terms, the right of nullification, which is but another
term for the right of secession, was for the first time
plainly enunciated, and became ever after a political
formula of that party. But long before that doctrine
expanded into actual nullification in South Carolina,
several other States were openly manifesting no inconsiderable degree of impatience under Federal rule. An
opinion prevailed that if the laws of a State were put
into a penal form, Federal jurisdiction could be ousted
from the limits of that State, because the State tribunals
had an exclusive jurisdiction over penalties and crimes,
and it was inferred that no Federal court could wrest
the authority from them. According to that principle,
the State of Ohio passed the laws taxing the branch of
the United States Bank, and high penalties were to be
enforced against every person who should attempt to
defeat her taxation. The question was tried. Mr. Clay
was counsel-at-law to bring suit against the State, and
to maintain the Federal authority. The trial took place
in the State of Ohio. Judgment went against the State.
It was expected that force would be used to resist its
execution. Indeed(l, a most imposing exhibition of force
160 
NULLIFICATION.
was made. Mr. Clay testifies that he never before in
his life saw such a brilliant display of arms and musketry that had been collected for the occasion; but in
the end no use was made of them, and the law was
allowed to go into execution. In Virginia, a case somewhat similar occurred. Persons were liable to penalties
for selling lottery tickets. It was contended that the
State tribunals had an exclusive jurisdiction over the
subject.   The case was brought before the Supreme
Court, and decided against the State. Again, in spite of
a threat of forcible resistance, the law had its course.*
For a period of a quarter of a century-from the
accession to power of Mr. Jefferson in 1801, to the end
of Mr. Monroe's second term in 1824-the government
was so completely in the hands of the Anticentral party,
that the controversy attracted comparatively little attention. Upon the election of J. Q. Adams to the Chief
Magistracy, of the nation, the quarrel broke out afresh,
and was not again allayed until it culminated in actual
nullification. When, subsequently, a subsidence did take
place, the country was still a smouldering volcano, quick
with the living fires of revolution, which nothing but
blood was destined to quench.
Mr. Adams, during his Presidency, openly espoused
the cause of centralism. No sooner was he installed in
office, than either his folly, or his frankness, prompted
him to call upon all the world to note the perfect identity between National Republicanism and old-fashioned
Federalism-which were but other names for centralism.
All the distinguished Federalists of the country came to
* See Mr. Clay's Speech on introducing the Compromise Bill.
1 5
161 
NULLIFICATION.
his banner. This was the most brilliant epoch of Amer ican politics, the Augustan era of her great statesmen.
The triumvirate which at that time shed such luster
over the debates of the American Senate was perhaps
never equaled, certainly never surpassed, by anything
of the kind in the world's history. Webster, Clay, and
Calhoun constituted a triplication of greatness, in a
single department of intellect, occurring at the same
time and place, and in such close juxtaposition, which
rarely happens anywhere or in any age. They were
the bright particular stars of the Senate chamber, and
were surrounded by a host of luminaries similar in kind,
and scarcely if at all inferior in degree. These intellectual giants met in deadly combat on this theme, which
Mr. Adams threw as a bone of contention in their midst.
Since the adoption of the constitution, the old controversy had assumed a somewhat different form: it now
turned upon the nature and extent of the powers conferred by the constitution on Congress and the General
government.   The Centralists, or, as they were now
called, the Federalists, in order to extend the powers
of Congress as far, and to as many objects as possible,
contended for the largest and most liberal construction
of the terms in which every grant of power is couched.
The Anticentral party, on the other hand, denied to
Congress and the General government every power but
what was specifically granted to it; and contended for
the most strict and rigid construction of each specific
grant. Upon this question, then, issue was joined. As
the specific grants of the constitution are so few, the
Centralists saw that they must fall short of their aim,
unless they could establish some principle authorizing a
162 
NULLIFICATION.
rule of construction which might justify the assumption
of powers not named in that instrument, or the extension ad libitum of those that are named. To this end,
a very cautious beginning was made in 1825. Mr.
Adams, in his inaugural address, threw out a feeler in
the shape of a sneer at all those who could think our
forefathers "so ineffably stupid" as to intend to restrain
Congress from doing whatever Congress might think it
advisable to do. Chancellor Kent, about the same time,
declared from his tribunal of authority that, "since 1812,
the progress of public opinion had been in favor of a
pretty liberal and enlarged construction of the Constitution of the United States." Mr. Chief Justice Jay
suggested the existence of a Union among the people of
this country long anterior to the Revolution, upon the
ground that they were all British subjects, owing allegiance to one monarch; that they were in a strict sense
fellow-subjects, and in a variety of respects one people.
Chancellor Kent seized upon this suggestion, and, in his
Lectures on the Constitution, asserts roundly "that the
association of the American people into one body politic
took place while they were colonies of the British empire
and owed allegiance to the British crown." This was
an unsupported proposition, of which the lecturer made
no further use than merely to state it.  This proposition, then, which was first suggested by Chief Justice
Jay, and put forth, naked and unsupported, by Chancellor Kent, was expanded and enforced, in the most
elaborate manner, by Judge Story, in his lectures as
Dane Professor of Harvard University. It was finally
adopted by Mr. Webster as the principal basis of his
arguments on the constitution.
163 
.NULLIFICATION.
Here, then, was the place "where the wild fig-trees
joined the walls of Troy." This was the ground on
which the Centralists relied to support their broad and
liberal constructions of constitutional grants of power,
and to extend the legislation of Congress to subjects
over which no specific grants of power were given. And
here it was that all who would defend the palladium of
States' rights must meet the enemy, and fight him back
fiom beneath this cover into the open plains of facts
and common sense. Mr. Tazewell and Judge Upshur,
of Virginia, met their brother legist in debate, and
found it but too easy to demolish the ill-chosen foundation on which that distinguished jurist relied to construct his arguments; and Mr. Calhoun and his allies,
I must confess it, were equally successful with Mr.
Webster.
During Mr. Adams's Presidential term, which, unlike his immediate predecessors', was not renewed, Mr.
Clay was Secretary of State, and Mr. Calhoun was
President of the Senate. Neither of those gentlemen,
therefore, participated in the unimportant skirmishes
which took place in Congress during that administration. This being the first time, for a quarter of a century, that centralism had arrived at power, it was
deemed but fair to allow it the opportunity, without
captious opposition, to unfurl its banner and display its
principles. Those principles finally succeeded, at the
close of Mr. Adams's single term, in actualizing themselves in the tariff act of 1828, commonly called, by its
opponents, the "Bill of Abominations." The passage
of this act transferred to General Jackson's administration, which immediately succeeded that of Mr. Adams,
164 
NULLIFICATION.
the strife which, at that epoch, raged with such fury
that it threatened a dissolution of the Union.
The tariff bill of 1828 was evidently and avowedly
passed more as a measure of protection than revenue;
but as the majority refused to amend the title of the bill,
so as to make it appear on the face of it that the duties
were laid for protection and not solely for revenue,
there was no chance of bringing the case before the
courts in order to obtain a judicial decision of its constitutionality. The entire South was very indignant at
the passage of a measure which it deemed so unjust
and oppressive, and looked to Mr. Calhoun for a solution of the difficulty. That gentleman could see but
two possible remedies: one was a repeal or modification of the tariff under the auspices of the incoming
administration; the other was what he called State
interposition or veto, the naked meaning of which was
nullification, or still worse, secession, or still worse yet,
dissolution of the Union.
The hope founded on the first of these alternatives
proving fallacious, the second alone remained as a
dernier ressort. Accordingly, South Carolina, with a
boldness which partook more of rashness than courage,
proceeded, on the 24th day of November, 1832, to pass
an ordinance annulling the operation of the tariff law
within her limits. Congress convening soon after, the
whole subject was placed before the Senate by a Message of the President, which was referred to the Judiciary Committee, who, thereupon, reported the bill
which has usually been called the Force Bill. Upon
the authority of this bill, the President issued his cele
15*
165 
\ NULLIFICATION.
brated Proclamation, and both parties proceeded to make
hostile preparations.
At this juncture, the State of Virginia, the most
powerful Southern member of the Union, interposed
her good offices. She earnestly entreated South Carolina to suspend her ordinance, and appeal once more to
the justice of Congress. Thus solicited, South Carolina agreed to suspend measures of forcible resistance
until every peaceable means for an adjustment of pending difficulties was exhausted. No express agreement
was made by Virginia, but a very strong implication
was raised by the method of her interposition, and by
the consent of South Carolina, at her solicitation, to
defer immediate action, that in the event Congress refusedl to afford the desired redress, the former State
wouldl join her fortunes with those of the latter.  It
cannot be doubted for one moment, if Congress had
denied the justice which was asked, that Virginia would
have felt herself bound by every principle of honor,
and by every consideration of interest, to make common cause with South Carolina; and if she had done
so, it is equally certain that the entire South would
have eventually become parties to the contest, and the
war, which has been thrown upon the present generation, would have come off then.
Apart from selfish considerations, there are many
reasons calculated to raise regrets that such was not
the case, since it is morally certain that such a conflict,
however it might be deferred, was bound to take place
some time or other. At that epoch, the fanaticism and
demagogism, which are now monopolizing  the counsels of the nation and covering the land with desola
166 
NULILIFICATION.
tion, did not exist. Public life was filled up with so
many great men, able statesmen, eminent characters,
with broad and liberal views, that their presence and
influence would have insured a generous conduct of the
war, waged upon lofty principles and in the true spirit
of an enlightened and disinterested patriotism.   The
character of the distinguished military chieftain who
then occupied the chair of State would have been a
sufficient guarantee against the imbecility, the blunders,
and charlatanry which are now protracting tile agony
of the nation almost to the point of dissolution. Under
auspices so favorable, there is scarcely a reasonable
doubt that the war would have been a speedy one as
well as a generous one; that not alone a flaming sword
would have flashed wrath and vengeance over the country, but the olive branch of peace would have gone
forth steadily and continuedly with the sword of justice; that power would have been tempered with mercy;
and, above all, that no act of ruthless vandalism would
have been committed, as has now been done, to put it
out of the power of the insurgents to propose terms of
capitulation, or even to speak of peace except as humble suppliants on their knees. Under such conditions,
there is every reason to believe that much if not all
of the private suffering and individual ruin which have
been entailed upon persons, many of whom were entirely innocent of the war, would have been avoided.
There would then have been nothing in the way of a
cordial reconstruction of the Union upon a broad and
solid foundation, which, perhaps, might have lasted for
an indefinite period.
On the other hand, there is no lack of reasons in
167 
NULLIFICATION.
favor of things as they are. At that early epoch, the
democratic principles had not sufficiently developed
themselves: they were not as well understood then as
they are now: they had not manifested all their tendency to license, or all their capacity for disorganization; and in all probability a reconstruction might
have taken place without those modifications which are
now inevitable before a permanent pacification can be
effected. So infatuated were this people in favor of the
democratic principles, and so little did they know of
their real character when unrestricted, that their agency
in our troubles seems never to have been suspected. It
has been wisely said, That fools rush in, where angels
fear to tread; and for real mischief, there is nothing
like a set of fools to perpetrate it; all villainies result
from a want of sense.  It does seem, therefore, that
fools and madmen were absolutely demanded for the
present crisis, in order to effect an utter demolition of
the existing order of things, and clear the way for a
future reconstruction of government on principles which
shall be self-sustaining and durable.
But to return to our narrative.   South Carolina,
then, at the instance of Virginia, suspended her Ordinance of Nullification, and made the desired appeal to
the justice of Congress.   The appeal was not made in
vain, for there were intellectual giants in those days,
and great men are always liberal, conciliatory, and forbearing. Mr. Clay had ever been the great pacificator
of his country's troubles.  Conciliation was  an office
for which his great heart and noble intellect appear to
have been peculiarly well adapted. He assisted at the
conference which, in 1814-15, negotiated the treaty
168 
.NULLIFICATION.
of peace between England and the United States, at
Ghent; he quieted, by compromise, in 1820-24, the
difficulties which were precipitating the nation into civil
war on the occasion of the admission of Missouri into
the Union; and he was not wanting, in the same capacity, on the occasion which had just arisen to call for
a fresh display of his compromising tendencies. In the
true spirit of a lofty and enlightened patriotism, he now
made an unhesitating sacrifice, on the altar of his country's peace, of his own cherished plans, and promptly
introduced into the Senate a bill, which ultimately
passed both Houses of Congress, called the Compromise
Act. This Act provided for the gradual reduction of
duties on imports, running through nine years, till they
were brought down, in 1842, to the revenue standarda measure which substantially met the views of South
Carolina. Her Nullification Ordinance was accordingly
withdrawn: the differences, which threatened such melancholy consequences, ceased for the moment; and harmony and peace were apparently restored.
So far, then, neither party seems to have taken or
lost anything by this motion. Beneath a treacherous
disguise, their real attitudes were but little changed.
An apparent tranquillity raasked a deadly hostility.
The respective principles'of the two parties remained
pretty much in statu quo ante bellurn. The question
was adjourned, not decided. The combatants drew off
with scowling brows. It was a truce, not a treaty: an
armistice, not an amicable adjustment. The nullifiers
were checked, not mated: they still sent forth their
notes of defiance: their curses were not minced or muttered, they were loud and deep: another time they
169 
NULLIFICATION.
would not be balked. At least something was gained
by this ebullition, this cropping out to the surface of a
hostility which had lain dormant, but uneasy in its
slumbers, during a whole generation.   Both  banners
were at last fairly unfurled: their mottoes flew high in
the air: there was no mistaking the question now. Accordingly there succeeded, to this armed and angry
pacification, many years of the stormiest politics that
ever tried a nation's stability.  Under their new name
of.Democrats, and with the powerful aid of Northern
allies, the old Anticentral alias Republican alias States'
Rights party succeeded in annihilating, at the ballot-box,
the new organization of their ancient enemy, the old
Central alias Federal alias National Republican party,
who now, like themselves, fought under a new alias,
the honored name of Whigs, of revolutionary memory.
This decisive engagement was again followed by another short period of treacherous tranquillity, and the
policy of the government was thought to be settled for
all time to come. But again the contest was delayed,
not determined. The hostility, indeed, was a radical
one: its cause lay at the heart of the nation, in the
very roots of the government; and the quarrel was
bound to renew itself at each succeeding generation,
and, at each renewal, with more deadly purpose. A
new occasion must be sought and found, indeed would
be sure to present itself, whereon the conflict would at
last become one of life and death, a war to the knife
and the knife to the hilt.
Looking back at this controversy from the point of
view we now occupy, and contemplating it in the form
it had acquired in 1832, the first things that strike us
170 
NULLIFICATION.
are the proportions to which it had grown, the prospec tive character it had acquired, and the threatening ex pression of its aspect at that juncture. It was no longer
a vague and undefined jumble of puerile abstractions:
its sudden and rapid development into the practical
measure of NULLIFICATION startles the mind like a clap
of thunder. Notwithstanding this Pallas-like form, in
which, at a single bound, it sprang all armed from the
midst of verbal disquisitions, the quarrel, nevertheless,
was no new one, abruptly sprung upon the country on
the spur of the moment and without antecedents. Possessing already a past, it now acquired a future. It
became a drama of three acts, of which Nullification is
the second. That measure is the "middle," of which
the "beginning" lies far back in the past, and the
"end" as far forward in the future.   The protasis
began in the convention; the epitasis was reached in
1832; and the catastrophe is now unfolding. Nullification, then, stands, like a double finger-board, half
way between the two extremities, pointing in both directions, marking the precise progress the quarrel had
made up to that point, and telling as well whence it
came as whither it tended.
The moral metempsychosis through which this controversy has passed, from the egg to the fly, from its
inception eighty-seven years ago to its denouement now
enacting, does not differ from the material metamorphoses
peculiar to all organized beings. The changes at different epochs are not more violent in the one case than
in the other. The Proteus, once declared, was bound
to complete the series of transmigrations, possessing
still an unbroken identity through many mutations of
171 
NULLIFICATION.
form, and over long periods of time.  The stages of its
developments are far asunder, but connected by a surprising unity of duration between acts, unity of place,
and unity of parties. Individuals, the dramatis persone, change, because at each period a single generation had passed off the stage; but the parties and the
motives are identical. The occasions of its manifestations are different, the cause is always the same. Its
methods of action vary, its spirit is a unit.
In the convention its elements were all rudimental,
in a state of envelopment, as it were; but they were all
there. In 1832 its elements exhibited a marked development, the quarrel acquired suddenly a vigorous and
decided organization, and gave the first indications of
its purpose, which was as yet feeble and uncertain. In
1861 its purpose was fully matured, and realized itself
in quick and terrible action.   In the convention the
occasion of its manifestation was of a purely sectional
nature, sectional interest; and this continued to be the
active motive of the quarrel throughout its whole life;
but, beyond its sectional character, the occasion or the
motive of the controversy was, in the convention, indefinite, indistinct, without form, and void.   The parties
merely averred that, from the magnitude and configuration of the country, there would necessarily be one section in which the numerical majority would declare itself
in preference to another; and that, in the most populous
section, some interest would be found, or created, on
purpose to be fostered, which would grow by fostering
until it dominated every other. What this interest might
be, was not then known or suspected. In 1832 the interest had already actualized itself in the tariff of 1828,
172 
NULLIFICATION.
said to be an oppressive measure, which discriminated
in favor of the North against the South. The negro
question, as a disturbing element of society, was not yet
fairly before the people; but abolitionism, as a social,
moral, and religious problem, was already propounded
and warmly discussed: it was only in the bud, but promised a robust growth and a foul flowering. In 1861 the
tariff, without losing its influence, gave precedence to
the question of slavery, which had now passed its bloom
and was arrived at its bitter fruitage. In the convention
the method of resistance was simply to reject the constitution, and leave things where they were. In 1832 the
method of resistance was the peaceable remedy of nullification, without secession. In 1861 the remedy was
secession, with flagrant war.
Throughout all these mutations, modifications, and
developments the real cause continued always the same;
the spirit one and indivisible. The first was sectional
jealousy, State sovereignty, State rights, or by whatever
other name it may be called. The other was the "spirit
of the age," derived from the revolutionary principles
already described, which liberated the human mind from
the tyranny of the old theological regime of the middle
ages, and which have ever since taken entire possession
not only of the mind of society, but of all individual
understandings in this country. This spirit has been
greatly intensified by a sense of wild and lawless liberty
inherent in the organizations of the people, inherited
from their old Scythian ancestors, who, more than a
thousand years ago, defied the arms of the Roman world,
and finally built empires of their own upon its ruins.
This hereditary love of personal freedom, of individual
16
173 
NULLIFICATION.
liberty, which the people brought hither, has been so
fostered by the physical conditions of the country, by
their habits and antecedents, until it has become as antisocial as was the temper of their savage progenitors. It
is a natural process to transfer this strong feeling of
personal independence to local associations, and thence,
by an easy transition, to one's own State, or even section, as opposed to that broader association, or general
society, which is too wide to be embraced by one's sympathies, and whose tendency is to obliterate all distinctions both of individuals and States.
174 
PART II.
CONSEQUENCES OF THIE WAR.
Geographical and Political Unities of the Nation.
IF the views set forth in the foregoing part of this
work be at all correct, I think there can be little doubt
as to the true genealogy of the present war. That it
was already a foregone conclusion of the fundamental
dogmas of the government at the moment of its estab lishment, none but a very common logic has been needed
to demonstrate. Assuming, then, that it has been fairly
deduced, as an inevitable consequence, from the spirit
of our social system, the question occurs: Will the war
satisfy that spirit, or quench its disorganizing tendencies
in the blood it is now shedding?
Many considerations, based on the passions and the
weak side of human nature, would seem to return a
negative answer. But every consideration of reason,
and justice, and sound policy requires that an instant
stop be put to this iniquitous strife, and that the higher
claims of humanity and civilization be attended to. The
war is so much the more iniquitous because there was so
little necessity for it, because indeed it was so purely
(175) 
GEOGRAPIIICAL AND POLITICAL
gratuitous, and because the age has gone by when
domestic quarrels were necessarily adjusted by such
methods.
At an earlier period of the world's history this war
might have been allowed to take its course and settle
the controversy in its own violent way; and indeed it
would have done so without let or hinderance, for the
world then knew no other way of settling disputes except by brute force.   But now humanity is too far
advanced in age to close its ears against the voice of
reason, and allow ignorance and brutal passions to take
its affairs out of its hands and dispose of them in the
manner a set of wild beasts might be supposed to do.
The nation which claims to be the advance guard of
civilization ought to know better and do better.
In point of fact, there is no necessary antagonism
between the northern and southern divisions of the nation of a nature to repel each other.  Their present
hostility is founded upon a misconception of the true.
interests of both parties; and a very little reflection will
suffice to rectify the errors of ignorance and passion.
The geographical configuration of the country predetermines it to a political unity, and points it out as the
locality of an empire of the first magnitude among the
powers of the earth. Its northern and southern sections, so far from being hostile to the peaceable action
of its social relations, are the positive and negative poles
of the nation, whose friendly antagonism is essential to
a healthy and vigorous exercise of the national functions: they are reciprocating opposites, admirably calculated, by their action and reaction upon each other,
to invigorate the national life to a point of intensity
never reached before perhaps by any nation.
176 
UNITIES OF THE NATION.
Owing to its peculiar physical conformation, this country never could have been the nursery of infant communities possessing civilizing instincts. It contains none
of those natural divisions, in which Europe is so rich,
capable of receiving the first small beginnings of incipient nations, and protecting them against each other until
they were able to protect themselves.   Europe is an
assemblage of just such marked contrasts and bold
reliefs, constituting a series of localities so fortified
against each other by natural barriers, that each has
been a cradle for nurturing, and the theater for bringing forward, a nationality of so much importance to the
full development of humanity that the civilization of
the world would have been incomplete without it.
Here, on the contrary, the whole country is open and
exposed from one extremity to the other, from the Arctic circle to the tropics. The only mountain barrier in
it is banished so far to the west as to give it an eastern
slope of more than a thousand miles from the Rocky
Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, with no obstacle to
overcome in the passage across greater than a few fine
rivers of no considerable width.   The climate of the
United States-though embracing twenty-five degrees
of parallel, and including nearly the entire temperate
zone of the northern hemisphere on this continent-is
so equalized by physical causes and by geographical and
astronomical laws as to offer no violent contrasts, nor
detract to any appreciable degree from its general character of unity.  It would seem, therefore, from these
and other causes, that this country was designed to receive a homogeneous people, with a ready-made civilization, who should form a single nation with no moral or
16*
177 
GEOGRAPHICAL AND POLITICAL
social diversities greater than its geographical disparities.
Accordingly, thus summoned, such a people did actually come to it in the fullness of time, with a civilization
already prepared, and formed at once a nation of the
kind described. As was prefigured by the geographical
unity of the place, the population have been in a large
degree homogeneous, and have continued the development of the civilization they brought with them in a
manner no less uniform and harmonious. Speaking the
same language, obeying the same laws, conquering under
the same flag, exulting in the same great men, owning
the same imperishable history, the inhabitants, from one
extremity to the other, have marched forward in a career
of civilization with a unanimity of sentiment and design
rarely equaled and never surpassed.
With a government adapted to the exigencies of the
nation, the small social differences which have grown
out of equally slight local diversities need cause no
other than a sense of mutual dependence and a desire
for the closest relations. Those differences will in fact
only serve to excite a more active life, a more extensive
and lasting interchange of all that each can give in
abundance to its rival. So far from being natural enemies, the two divisions are but too well adapted, too
truly made for each other; they have too much need of
each other, they are too much the complement of each
other, not to unite for their common interest. There
is between the two peoples a common basis, an essential,
indissoluble tie, which they are not at liberty to break.
But to insure a lasting co-operation of functions, a
durable interchange of mutual benefits, requires a per
178 
UNITIES OF THE NATION.
feet equilibrium of political forces between the two sections.  The balance once destroyed, a rupture of their
peaceable relations is inevitable. Notwithstanding its
moral and physical unities, which are very remarkable
for a territory of such magnitude, this country is still
too large, and its social interests are too diversified, not
to give rise to those divergencies of opinions which are
sure to find their ultimate solution in war, unless artificial arrangements be employed to reconcile their differences. To preserve this balance of power is the duty of
government. If the government be of a kind to excite
sectional hostilities instead of allaying them, it is not
adapted to the purpose of its creation. The tendency
of all social systems is to conform themselves to their
moral and physical surroundings. If they be hindered
in their destination, or if their spontaneous movement
be obstructed, strife, and sometimes ruin, ensues. Our
present difficulties are attributable to obstructions which
are offered to the spontaneous efforts of society to rectify
its incongruities. If for this instinctive movement of
society a rational method of development be substituted,
the inevitable confusions of the former may be obviated,
and the desired reforms be obtained by the peaceable
means of the latter. The first step to this end is to
ascertain the cause of disturbance. A class of persons
at the North, respectable for its numbers, believes the
disorganizing element is to be found in Southern society.
The people of the South, on the contrary, are of opinion
that the cause of disturbance is exclusively at the North.
The object of this work is to locate the evil in the fundamental principles of the government, which, acting
equally upon both sections, have become obstructive to
179 
SOUTHERN SOCIETY.
peaceable relations and to social order. As we have
already, in the first part of this work, had a glimpse of
Northern society, and will obtain other glimpses hereafter, I will now compliment the first of the above opinions by taking a rapid glance over the surface of Southern society, and see if we can discover any social element
there of a nature to justify such a belief.
Southern Society.
It is in Northern society that the democratic principles most manifest their license; because its laboring
population, constituting a majority of the inhabitants,
and as a class no better than the same class in all countries, are raised by the democratic principles to a political importance which enables them at any time, by their
votes, to determine elections and influence the policy of
government. It is in such communities that the dogmas of liberty of conscience, popular sovereignty, and
universal equality tell with fatal effect.
In Southern society, on the contrary, these principles
are comparatively harmless; because their excesses are
counteracted to no small degree by the system of labor
established there. The basis of labor being negro slavery, the country is restricted to a comparatively choice
population of whites. Four millions of slaves, (numerically equal almost to the whites,) who are denied the
elective franchise, go a long way to neutralize the ruinous effects of universal suffrage, and to limit the absolute
quality of popular sovereignty. Liberty of conscience,
free inquiry, and endless discussion find, to some extent,
a counterpoise in the same arrangement. Above all, the
180 
SOUTH ERN SOCIETY.
dogma of equality, while it is limited in its effects, is
also practically refuted, by a large population of efficient
laborers, who daily manifest their moral and intellectual
inferiority by their servility, and by a thousand evidences
of incapacity for any other position in civilized life than
the one they occupy.  In short, all the absolute dogmas
of democracy lose much of their energy and virulence
when brought in contact with this single element of
Southern society.
From the system of slavery proceed nearly all the
other social conditions of the South: it is a nucleus
around which all her social relations precipitate themselves, and form a homogeneous society of which domestic
slavery is the central principle. In consequence of this
arrangement, the populations of the South are almost
exclusively rural: with few exceptions, her very towns
possess more of a sylvan than an urban character:
agriculture, which separates the laborers in small squads
at vast intervals apart, is the main employment of the
country; and the strict discipline which is observed
renders large reunions both difficult and innoxious.
Under such conditions, dangerous disturbances are not
only of rare occurrence, but it is next to impossible for
tiem to happen at all.  The perfect subordination of
the laborers, spread thinly over wide surfaces: the
isolation of families, forming diminutive centers of
small communities bound together by the closest ties
of mutual affection, dependence, and interest: the
peaceful occupations of husbandry: the plenty which
everywhere abounds: the almost utter absence of want:
the intimate communion with nature; all things, in
short, tend to tranquilize society, and exclude the ex
181 
SOUTHERN SOCIETY.
citements and riotous scenes so common in denser cornm munities and in large manufacturing districts crowded
with free white laborers, who are at the same time noisy
politicians, debaters, and voters.
The intricate relations of capital and labor disturb
not the social quietude of the South; for her capital
and labor are united and harmonious: nor are her
slumbers broken by a growing apprehension of an everincreasing preponderance of the laboring classes: nor
by the rise and progress of a pauper population. There
the rights of property are never assailed, nor ever likely
to be, except from abroad.   No such an episode of
modern civilization as Mormonism could have proceeded
from the bosom of her society.  Associations of "Free
Lovers," "Women's Rights," "Communists," "Socialists," are never heard of in the South, except as echoes
from the North.
Contrasts, reliefs, are as much needed in the moral
as in the external world. No large society can do well
without them. They are needed as countervailing influences, as reciprocating opposites, to draw off and
counteract on the one hand the excesses of each other,
and to intensify on the other the national life. As long
as the equilibrium of political force was maintained between the two sections, the government worked comparatively well: the South attempted no interference
with Northern institutions: there was a continual interchange of benefits: it was all give and take. I will
not say, as some have said, that the South gave more
than she took; though that may be possible, it is hardly
probable: it is more likely the advantages were mutual,
and it is certain they were incalculable. Volumes would
182 
SOUTHERN SOCIETY.
be needed to enumerate all the material exchanges and
courtesies that aggrandized and beautified the social life
of the two sections, until the preponderance of political
force was transferred in a large degree to the North.
Then, instantly, these fine relations ceased: the entente
cordiale was interrupted: the disturbing power of the
democratic principles manifested itself: criminations
and recriminations followed: aggressions and retaliations began; and human folly culminated in this monstrous crime.
It will not do to say that the democratic principles
had nothing to do with this crime: that they are not
responsible for the follies and vices of men; and that
revolutions are liable to occur in governments where
democracy never reigned. Democracy has caused every
revolution which has taken place in the nations of
Christendom during the last three hundred years. It
cannot be denied that the democratic principles were
directly responsible for the abolition fanaticism at the
North: for the separation of the churches North and
South: for the bloody feuds in Kansas: for the John
Brown raid into Virginia: for the election of Mr. Lincoln on purely sectional and party grounds: for the
higher law doctrine: for the right of individual interpretations of laws and constitutions: for the doctrine
of State rights and its derivative right of peaceable
secession; and that all those events were but preludes
to the swelling theme of the present grand climax-the
legitimate finale to such ominous preparations.
So far was Southern society from possessing any disturbing quality, of which the North had a right to complain, that the society itself, in view of the disorganizing
183 
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE UNION.
tendencies at the North, was a saving clause in the constitution of the general society of the country from which
the North, at some future day, might have derived immense advantage. If a perfect balance of power could
have been maintained between the two sections, not only
would those material exchanges described above have
been kept up, and the national character have been
decorated and beautified by many courtesies and amenities of social life, but the conservative quality of Southern society would have gone far to have staved off to an
indefinite period the peril now so imminent to Northern communities.
Reconstruction of the Union.
But peace and those thousand benefits, ornamental
and useful, having passed away with the transferrence
of power, it now remains to consider whether and how
peaceable relations can be restored, and whether and
how a reconstruction of the Union can be effected: or
in the event of a final separation, what are likely to be
the probable effects of the war, and the consequent dissolution of the Union, upon the respective destinies of
the two nations.
This is a question of immense magnitude, and surrounded with many supreme difficulties. In the present
attitude of affairs, there would seem to be no way open
to a restoration of peace; and as for a reconstruction
of the Union, that event appears to be as far removed
from human understandings, or a probability of achievement, as the squaring of the circle. There are many
excellent persons in the South whose patriotism will be
184 
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE UNION.
shocked by the bare statement of such a proposition
as the restoration of the Union. In their opinion, the
bloody fields, broken hearts, ruined fortunes of the
South cry aloud for vengeance on the ruthless invader:
until these be atoned, and a fit retribution be visited on
the latter, their wrath, like that of Achilles, will know
no abatement.
There is no question but that vengeance will be meted
out to all parties according to their deserts; for the
moral government of this world is too well adjusted for
offenses to pass unpunished. Who are the guilty, who
the innocent, are not questions for us, with our passions
and prejudices, to determine. Then let us leave vengeance to whom it properly belongs, and think no more
of it.
Time and the unfolding of events will no doubt solve
this momentous problem in their own unprecedented
way; but also wise men, who will think without heat
and act without passion, can greatly facilitate the decision, and at the same time obviate unnumbered woes
which will arise if the solution be left to the blind forces
of nature, or to the natural course of events.  It is not
to be supposed that the destiny of this great country is
abandoned to the mere hazards of war: much less is it
consigned to the follies or caprices of a few silly individuals; chance has as little to do with the fate of this
nation as with the creation of the world: the course of
its civilization is predetermined by the laws of Infinite
Reason, which man cannot contravene; and however its
progress may be retarded or harassed by his crimes and
imbecilities, the eternal fitness and relation of things
will still carry it forward to its prescribed end. But
185
17 
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE UNION.
Providence is not wise for the sake of absolving men
from their duty. God has endowed us with reason in
order that we might help him to direct our own affairs
in a rational and not in a blind manner. In the providential government of the world there is ample room
left for the exercise of human virtue and folly, for the
devotion of the hero and the selfishness of the coward.
What, therefore, we can neither prevent nor accomplish,
we can at least delay or hasten by our good or bad conduct.
If there be any analogy in human affairs, or in the
epochs of history, we might possibly derive some light
from the past of humanity, or at least some consolation
in our misery by a comparison with other nations and
ages. One of the main obstacles in the way of a settlement seems to be the novelty of our environments: not
that the situation is unprecedented in history, but that
it is new to us, we never having had any such experience
before. As a people, taken en masse, we know little of,
and care less for, the social crises of past times. And
yet those times, if we interrogate them, might direct us
the route to our true destination. So far from being a
historical novelty, our situation is the commonest event
of the ages and the nations. During anterior epochs,
scarcely a generation of mankind has been allowed to
pass off the stage of life without participating in, or
witnessing, an internecine war such as ours. The blood
that has been spilt, the hearts that have been broken,
the fortunes ruined, the resentments roused, have not
been less than our own: in many cases, far greater;
and yet they seem to have been no bar to reconciliations. Witness the civil wars of England; and witness
too her perfect national unity at this day.
186 
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE UNION.
During the course of the sixteenth century, the emancipation of the human mind in spiritual matters, and
the centralization of power in temporal affairs, triumphed
at one and the same time all over Europe. The first
was a victory over the absolute power of the Church;
the second established itself on the ruins of feudalism.
So far, liberty of conscience and absolute monarchy
were in close alliance: they marched abreast over the
ramparts of the ancient ecclesiastical order and the
ancient feudal and municipal liberty. No sooner was
this double triumph achieved, than the struggle between
monarchy and democracy in civil society began. The
first shock between these two forces took place in England. If we except the wars of the Roses, which were
more dynastic than reformative, all the civil wars of
England, posterior to that epoch, were wars of liberty
against despotism; but it was the liberty of the people
against the despotism of the crown; the liberty of the
many against the tyranny of one. The crown had too
many prerogatives, the people too few. Royalty proclaimed itself absolute and superior to all laws; the
people claimed their ancient prerogatives. Issue was
joined upon these points, and the trial was by battle. A
series of revolutions followed. Each revolution was a
step toward an equilibrium of the political forces so
unequally divided: from each revolution, the people
came out with a little more power, and the king with a
little less; until finally, after more than a hundred years
of conflicts and truces, a perfect balance of power was
obtained, and peace settled down permanently upon the
nation.
Such was the real nature of the struggle which began
187 
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE UNION.
in England about the year of grace 1640.   But the
nation was very far from understanding the exact
nature of the case, as I have described it. She knew
not distinctly what she required, or what she was in
search of. She had not the slightest conception of the
immense magnitude of the quarrel, of the true points
at issue, or of the stupendous results to which it was to
lead. So far as her knowledge of the grand ends to be
obtained was concerned, she was a blind instrument in
the hands of a superior power. The first thing that
strikes us in that famous history is the apparent insignificance of the origin of those celebrated wars, the low
aims and mean purposes for which they were begun.
The great English Rebellion, as it was called, was
brought about ostensibly by an attempt of the king to
collect a tax of twenty shillings of ship money, which
one John Hampden, a gentleman of large fortune, refused to pay. But this slight cause was only the exterior envelope of ends incomparably greater. Those
sublime ends, of which no one thought at the time, of
which no one was conscious, were attained after many
long years of hard fighting. The others, the base motives, the wretched personalities, the individual passions
engaged in the strife, and which alone preoccupied the
minds of all the actors,-they, after making for a moment so much noise in the world, sink into deep oblivion,
and degenerate into uncertain anecdotes, which ordinary
history may search for and collect, but which the philosophy of history neglects as indifferent to humanity.
In the war now raging in this country, the parties
litigant are reversed; the actors have changed sides:
the cause is the same; the ends are the same. It is
188 
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE UNION.
still liberty, security, an equilibrium of political power
which is required, and which is sought for, though no
one seems to know it. But, in this case, it is the people who are the despots: the people have too much
power, the government too little. It is the tyranny of
the many which now oppresses society.  The people
have proclaimed themselves absolute, and superior to all
laws and constitutions. The minority have no guarantees of security against the majority. It is to achieve
liberty against license, order against anarchy, that this
war is waged. It is to restore an equilibrium of political forces; to re-establish the lost balance of power; to
check the excesses of one set of principles by the introduction of a countervailing set; to take the government from party and restore it to humanity, to the
nation; to obtain guarantees for the execution of laws
and the observance of the constitution,-these are the
purposes, the supreme objects of this revolution. It is
the rebellion of Society against the People; of the people against themselves. It is the cause of Civilization
which is being tried. It is the Future versus the Present which is the style of the suit. These great ends
cannot but be accomplished, though it may require a
hundred years for their achievement; for society cannot rest until based on their firm foundation. The other
motives, the paltry ambitions, the trivial interests, the
fanaticisms, the hatreds, the prejudices, the spirit of
revenge, whatever, in short, is personal or individual,
however they may figure in the strife, will disappear
from the grand denouement of the drama, and live, if
at all, only in memoirs and biographies.
In view of these facts, of the clear purposes mani
189
17' 
190  CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE.
fested by present hostilities, of the social wants of the
nation, of the known ends to be obtained, is it too much
to expect that rational men will hasten to anticipate the
designs of the Revolution, and terminate the war by
granting all its demands? How this is to be done, good
men and true only can determine. Let there be a grand
inquest of the nation: let Virtue and Wisdom preside
over it; and the issue cannot be doubtful.
But if this be not done, and the war be allowed to
terminate the quarrel in its own way: what, in that
case, is likely to happen? In that case, one of two
things is very likely to happen: either the Southern
Confederacy will gain its independence, or it will not.
The Consequences of Southernl Independence.
We will consider the first of these alternatives, as it
was the avowed object of the war, and suppose the independence of the Southern Confederacy achieved, and
the process of decomposition begun by a separation of
the Northern and Southern States. Is there any guarantee that this division, which will be the first, shall be
the last? What is to arrest the further continuance of
the process, and save society from dissolution?  The
doctrine of State rights has met with the most signal
success: it has established its rule by conquest: it has
won its spurs on the field of battle: it has demolished
all opposition: it has no rival in the field of politics:
the worst derivative of democracy, it will have accomplished not only itself, but it will have established also
its own darling derivative, the right of secession: flushed
with victory, then, what is to stay its progress? Is 
CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE.  191
there anything in the new constitution calculated to
protect the Confederate States from endless subdi
visions? Is the new alliance more binding than the
old?  Has  the Southern league, by reason of some
secret virtue which is in it, so limited the democratic
dogmas that they shall be constrained to act with
modest forbearance, and insure order without tyranny
and progress without excesses? Is society any better
protected from the caprices of opinion than before? In
short, has the Southern Confederacy constructed a
political system which, in the whole of its active development, shall be always fully consequent on its own
principles, and furnish accordant solutions on all the
various leading questions of the national polity?   If
this be not so, then whither are we drifting?
It is certain we are not tending toward order and
security: for those social virtues we shall be solely dependent, as heretofore, upon the reserve of popular
good sense, or be indebted for them to the intellectual
inertia so common to masses of men. But how long
can that generous forbearance, or that mental sluggishness, be counted on to endure? How long shall the
doctrine of State rights, so confident of its approved
strength, be able to suppress its disorganizing instincts?
The answer is patent: until a day or an hour furnish a
provocation or a temptation. Then, perhaps, will recur
another series of bloody fields, broken hearts, ruined
fortunes. And this miserable routine will be kept up,
until American society shall perish in its own decom positions, and American civilization be consigned to the
receptacle of things lost on the earth, provided God, in
his displeasure, should conclude to abandon us to our
follies. 
192  CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE.
We know the tendency of everything is to excess:
hence the necessity for checks and guards.  If State
sovereignty, in the paroxysm of another freak, see
proper to reassert its claim, shall the Confederate States
ignore its own principles, deny its own arguments, and
refuse the contumacious State or States the right of
peaceable secession? If so, whence will it derive its
authority? If not, what will bind together the States?
The interests of the States are by no means identical.
The pursuits of many of them are different, and will
call for corresponding differences of legislation.   In
short, there are diversities, however slight in appear ances, sufficient to create antagonistic views on many
social questions of the first importance. These antag onisms will find their simplest and easiest solution in
secession, where that doctrine is the recognized policy
of the nation, and the voluntary obedience of the States
is their only co-ordinating principle.
These views and questions are not wholly hypotheti cal: they are founded upon the nature of the Confed eracy itself; and the consequences they suggest must
flow necessarily from the establishment of such a sys tem. But, in order to verify this assertion, I will now
examine a little nearer into the real nature, meaning,
- and intent of this Confederation of States, and into
other consequences likely to flow from its actual char acter and purposes, as gathered from the design of the
framers of it. In order, then, to arrive at a correct
understanding of the true nature of the present arrange ment, we must examine it by the light with which Mr.
Calhoun has furnished us: we must construe it by his
interpretation of the composition of the old United 
CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE. 193
States: we must apply to it the pet phrases by which
that gentleman attempted to fritter away the binding
force of the Federal constitution; and in which design,
as things have turned out, he was but too successful.
These pet phrases of Mr. Calhoun were "constitutional
compact," as being more accurately descriptive of the
real character of the Federal constitution than any
other phrase; and also the word "accede," as descriptive of the manner by which the States entered the old
Union.   These phrases, of course, were designed to
cover a pet idea of that gentleman, which, interpreted,
means this: That the several States formed a " constitutional compact," not a union, to which each State
acceded as a separate sovereign community: that its
sovereignty was not lost, or in least impaired, by this
accession: that the States delegated to the General
government certain specified powers, to be exercised
jointly, reserving, at the same time, each State to itself
the residuary mass of powers, to be exercised by its own
separate government: that the General government was
not made the final judge of the powers delegated to it:
that it had no right to pass judgment on the constitutionality of congressional laws; but that this right belonged to the States: that, as in all cases of compact
among sovereign parties, without any common judge,
each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well
of the infraction of the compact as of the mode and
measure of redress.
According to Mr. Calhoun's political confession of
faith, it was further declared: that the people of the
United States never were united on the principle of the
social compact: that they were never formed into one 
194 CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHIIERN INDEPENDENCE.
nation or people: that the States composing the Union
always retained their sovereignty: that the allegiance of
their citizens was never transferred to the General gov ernment: that, in point of fact, the people of the United
States never did owe allegiance to the government of
the United States; and that the States themselves never
did part with the right of punishing treason, or with any
other right of sovereignty.
In using the phrase constitutional compact, the object
of Mr. Calhoun was to make the name of the government accord with the above idea of it. But, in reality,
the word constitutional, in this connection, conveys no
definite idea whatever: because a "compact" is identical with league, treaty, convention; they are all synonyms, alternative words, and cover the same meaning,
describe the same thing, or at least things between which
there is no essential difference; and when those words
are employed to describe the acts of sovereign States,
we would find it difficult to understand what was meant
by a "constitutional league or treaty between England
and France, or a constitutional convention between Austria and Russia." With equal propriety, we might speak
of a' "constitutional indenture of copartnership, a constitutional deed of conveyance, or a constitutional bill
of exchange."
As to the other term of Mr. Calhoun's phraseology,
descriptive of the manner by which the States entered
the old Union, that, too, was not without its peculiar
significance. The converse of the phrase "accede" is
secede: so that accession implies secession; and the
right to accede carries with it the right to secede. The
meaning of the word accede, when applied to political 
CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE. 195
associations, is to become a party, by agreeing to the
terms of a treaty, by one hitherto a stranger to it, as
the accession of a king to a confederacy. In this connection, the word accede implies an act of sovereignty,
and carries the same implication to its converse secede.
Whether or not this phrase was correctly used by Mr.
Calhoun, admits of doubt. At least, the propriety of
its employment, in the case to which he applied it, was
disputed, and, if not refuted, was ably discussed by Mr.
Webster. The propriety of its application, however,
to the present Confederacy admits of no doubt, and
renders secession an indisputable right appertaining to
the acceding parties; so far at least as mere verbal
authority, or the rules of syntax, can confer that right.
Such, then, according to Mr. Calhoun's political evangel, was the composition of the old United States, and
such the nature of the old Federal constitution. Whether
or not this be the true gospel, in the respect of the old
association, I pretend not to decide here. In any case,
whether true or false in theory, it has been terribly true
in practice. It will be perceived that this interpretation
renders the several States as absolutely sovereign and
independent as ever were the ancient Greek Republics,
or the modern Italian States; and that, according to
such a construction, it would be as impossible to bind
them steadfastly in one united empire, or to give to
them a radical unity, as it was to unite its ancient Greek
or modern Italian political congeners. The public acts,
therefore, of a national government formed upon such
a basis must necessarily be, to all intents and purposes,
in the last resort and in the last analysis of no manner
of effect whatever.   Because, it is clear if the States 
196 CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHIIERN INDEPENDENCE.
should ever exercise their sovereign right of secession,
which they can do at any moment with or without cause
alleged, there would then be no power left to execute
treaties, pay debts, or fulfill any other obligation. And
furthermore, if the General government should declare
war, one State, exercising her sovereign right, might, if
she saw proper to do so, make peace for herself: or if
the General government should make peace, one State
might continue the war on her own account. In such
event, the General government, or the other States,
would have no other means of redress, except by waging
war on the contumacious State; but that would be equivalent to a dissolution of the Confederacy.
Now, this was precisely the nature of the compact
which existed between the States, under the old Articles of Confederation, anterior to the adoption of the
late Federal constitution.  Under that Confederation,
Congress issued its requisitions on the States for their
quota of money for national purposes, and the States
neglected them: there was no power of coercion but
war; and Mr. Jefferson, in 1786-87, actually recommended this remedy to be tried. "There will be no
money in the treasury," said he, "till the Confederacy
shows its teeth;" and he suggested that a single frigate
would soon levy, on the commerce of the delinquent
State, the deficiency of its contribution.   But this,
again, would be war; and it is evident, as Mr. Webster
said, that a Confederacy could not long hold together
which should be at war with its members. The present
Southern Confederacy bears a very close resemblance,
in many respects, to the old Confederation of the States;
and as such, it is a retrogression of nearly a century to 
CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE. 197
a wretched condition of things from which the States
escaped with great difficulty and trouble.
A confederacy, then, is identical with a compact, a
league, a convention. And a confederacy of sovereign
communities, such as exists in the South, is nothing
else but a subsisting or continuing treaty, which rests
for support solely on the plighted faith of the sovereign
party.   This, indeed, is substantially the  definition
which Mr. Webster gives of a confederacy; and if his
authority be not good, there is none better in the world.
The Southern Confederacy, therefore, has no inherent
power of its own to enforce a fulfillment or continuance
of the treaty, longer than each of the States may see
proper voluntarily to observe it.  As sovereigns, the
States are subject to no superior power: each must
judge for itself of any alleged violation of the compact; and if such violation be supposed to have occurred,
each may adopt any mode or measure of redress which
it shall think proper to employ. Such is the nature of
a treaty, that "if a league between sovereign powers
have no limitation as to the time of its duration, and
contain nothing making it perpetual, it subsists only
during the good pleasure of the parties, although no
violation be complained of." Nay, even though the
confederation or treaty be declared, by one of its stipulations, to be perpetual, still it is evident that it subsists
only during the good pleasure of either of the sovereign
parties, although no violation be complained of. It was
on this principle that "the Congress of the United
States, in 1798, declared null and void the treaty of
alliance between the United States and France, though
it professed to be a perpetual alliance."
18
9 
198 CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE.
If a violation of the terms of the confederacy be
alleged, and the injuries be serious, or only pretended,
the suffering party, being sovereign and sole judge of its
own mode and method of redress, may indemnify itself
by reprisals; by cruising against the property of the
other members of the league; by authorizing captures,
and making open war. If, then, it be well understood
that such is the nature of the Southern Confederacy,
and with past experience of the instability of such governments or leagues, how is it conceivable that the Confederacy could even hope to obtain respect and credit
abroad? What foreign power would enter into treaty
with it? Who would lend it money? What guarantees
could it give for the fulfillment of public treaties, for the
payment of public debts, or for the continuance of its
own existence during a day or an hour? Such a government, now that we know its antecedents, would be
unable to inspire the least sense of security; prudent
citizens would not invest their means in real estate lying
within its limits; foreign capital would shun it, and
domestic capital would flow out of it. In short, it is
difficult to conceive how such a confederacy could hold
together during one generation, or even one decade.
In Church governments, where the only territory over
which the exercise of authority is to be extended is the
conscience, there any species of force is no doubt unwise,
impolitic, and illegitimate, for convictions cannot be coerced; in such case, voluntary obedience is the only rule
of action. Or, if the assumptions of democracy were
true; if all men were equal, equally wise and just, and
their wisdom and justice were supreme and infallible,
then compulsion would not be needed, nor would even 
CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE. 199
government itself be needed. But as long as human
nature remains as it is, civil government will always be
obliged to employ force to make itself obeyed. There
is no way of avoiding this; it is a necessary consequence
of human imperfection-an imperfection which resides
as well in power as in society, in nations as in individuals. Then, in the absence of any method of coercion, to suppose that a large number of States, with
jealous ideas of sovereignty, scattered over a vast extent
of territory, with greater or less diversity of interests,
will remain confederated together for any considerable
length of time, and yield a voluntary obedience to all
the laws which democracy, in its spirit of excessive legislation, shall see proper to enact, is a dream as wild as
was ever hatched in the brain of insanity. If there be
no organized force within sufficient for that purpose, an
external pressure, such as neighboring hostile States,
might serve to bind the States together for awhile; but
that is a very doubtful principle of cohesion, and wholly
unreliable. Under existing circumstances, therefore, a
dissolution of the Confederacy, at no distant day, would
seem to be inevitable; and whatever consequences, good
or bad, are liable to result from such a state of social
decomposition, are as certain to take place as if they
were already an accomplished fact. That these consequences cannot be good, no arguments are needed to
prove; that they will be fraught with dire evils to humanity and civilization, follows as a matter of course.
But if, owing to the conservative element of slavery
left in Southern society, a greater degree of permanence
be secured to social order and a co-ordination of the
States there, how will the case stand with the Northern 
200 CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHIIERN INDEPENDENCE.
tier of States? As soon as the integrity of the Union
shall have been violated by the contemplated division,
the contagion will have begun, the force of example will
be strong, new interests will solicit new combinations,
and the passions and follies of men, under the noxious
inspiration of the democratic principles, will again be
too strong for the dictates of reason and common sense.
Under these conditions, the social affinities remaining in
the North would scarcely be sufficient to overcome the
various antagonisms and disorganizing influences which
would be forever repelling the States from each other.
At first, the States would no doubt slough off in sections.
The Northwestern States could easily imagine that they
have few interests in common with the New England
States; and there are many hostile influences which
would tend to detach them from each other. The Pacific States are too far off to derive much benefit from
an adhesion to any portion of the old Union which might
hang together; and, in their case, there are geographical
divisions, and many natural causes, which might suggest
the propriety of a separate national independence. In
the end, in all probability, only alliances offensive and
defensive would be entered into by the States, as between foreign nations; and the drama of the little Greek
Republics of antiquity, with its melancholy catastrophe,
would be re-enacted here on a somewhat enlarged theater. If the parts of Appelles, Demosthenes, Pericles,
and other divine masters of Grecian Art, Eloquence,
and War, could be reproduced also, the evil would not
be wholly uncompensated.
Now, I do not pretend to say that the recurrence of
such a state of things is even possible, much less proba 
CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE. 201
ble: because the nature of modern civilization happily
forbids it; and the nature of modern civilization, with
equal felicity, forbids also the first division, or any division whatever. I am only pointing out the tendency of
the ideas engaged in this movement,-ideas which seem
to rule the Southern mind wholly as to its social plans
for the future, and of whose tendencies, or of the impossibility of their practical achievement, it appears to
be as ignorant as if it were set three thousand years,
back, at the commencement of History, with no Past to
enlighten it.  In order to expose more fully yet the
deceptive character of those ideas, and discover whither
we are drifting, if Providence should abandon us to our
own guidance, I will continue the perspective a little
further.
Assuming, then, that the integrity of each of the two
Republics will be preserved, that the unity of each will
remain unbroken, and no further decompositions take
place after the first division: how, in that case, are their
international relations to be regulated? Will hostilities
cease suddenly and forever with the subsidence of present disturbances? Will each nation be permitted to
actualize in peace its own social ideas, and to develop
undisturbed a civilization that shall contradict the idiosyncrasies or shock the sensibilities of the other? Will
that great element of modern civilization, commerce, by
its rivalries, its wondrous activity, its myriad individual
interests, throw no obstacles in the way of peaceable
relations?  There are no natural divisions-no British
Channel, no Alps, no Pyrenees, no Mediterranean, Baltic, or Black Seas, no Chersonese, no Bosphorus, no
Greek and Italian Peninsulas, or, in their absence, no
18* 
202 CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE.
Chinese Wall or other artificial barrier sufficient to localize the two nations and protect them from each other.
Everywhere, on the proposed line of division, they touch,
and, in a manner, surround each other. Everywhere
the country is open to invasion, and invites aggression.
In many places the two frontiers run into each other
and interlock, as if protesting, by their friendly embrace, against the political separation of that which
God hath joined together. The same protest is made,
with still more emphasis, by the Mississippi River: that
stream binds the Mississippi Valley indissolubly, as if
with bands of iron and brass; while it flows to the Gulf
of Mexico, it will bear upon its bosom the tide of war,
and its waves will redden with the blood of hostile
armies, unless the geographical unity of its great valley
unite into one nation the peoples who inhabit its upper
and lower shores. And, finally, the customs' regulations, along an almost boundless inland frontier, thus
interlaced, will not diminish the chances of collision:
nor will those social parasites, the demagogues, simplify
relations already too complex for international tranquillity.
If the institution of slavery, the immediate occasion
of the war and the separation, was deemed insecure in
the old Union, when the government of a mighty nation
and a thousand material interests were pledged to its
protection, what will be its condition when those guards,
feeble as they may have been considered, are withdrawn
from around it? Will our slaves escape less into the
free States, now become a foreign, perhaps a hostile,
nation? or will the Federal Congress pass other fugitive
slave laws for their restitution? 
SECESSION.
These are all questions which can arise only after the
accomplishment of a revolution. While the Union lasts,
they do not disturb us; they are then no questions at
all; they spring up to startle and haunt us only from
its grave. They are the dragon's teeth which we have
sown; and if we succeed in our design, they will make
the land bristle with bayonets, and yield us only the
bloody harvests of war and death.
Secession.
The above notice of the slavery question in this connection leads us to a review of the conduct of the Southern people in their adoption of secession as a remedy for
their real or fancied wrongs. A very slight examination
will suffice to show how far they were or were not justified in the employment of a measure which has turned
out to be so disastrous, and which, instead of curing,
has magnified the evil, and made that which was bad
enough before a thousand times worse. The same examination will disclose, too, to what extent the principles
of democracy have contributed, by their demoralization
of the mind of Southern society, to the precipitation of
the present crisis.
Whatever else may be said of it, the Federal constitution was at least not inimical to Southern interests: on
the contrary, it did all it could do to protect the rights
of the slave States. If some of the Northern States, bv
factious legislation, violated in effect one of its solemn
provisions, which was of peculiar interest to the South,
it was no fault of the constitution; and the Federal government, up to the day and hour of secession, was inno
203 - 
SECESSION.
cent of any bad faith on the slavery question. To the
best of its abilities, it had always guarded the rights of
property in the South as well as in the North; and
those clauses of the constitution which referred directly
to the subject of slavery'w ere perhaps the only important ones which had entirely escaped the impingement
of executive aggression. While, on all other questions
of moment, the General government had been accused
of attempts to trespass upon the constitution, and to
stretch its authority beyond the warrant of that instrument, not the slightest imputation of Punic faith had
ever attached to it on the subject of slavery. Amid the
storms raised by the abolitionists, the Federal government, whether the President came from the North or
South, had ever stood as firm as a rock. Against that
indomitable barrier the waves of fanaticism had always
broken themselves to pieces, and lay quelled at its base.
When fanaticism, thus rebuked, turned its attention to
the States, and was seducing some of them into its embraces, Congress, at the solicitation of the South, hastened to pass all the laws the latter required to strengthen
the constitution and protect slavery.  It was so well
understood by the earnest abolitionists that the Federal
constitution and Federal government were the only lions
in their path, that they deemed their removal a prerequisite of success, and advocated a dissolution of the Union
for that express purpose.  By an infatuation which would
almost seem to have been the work of the gods, the South
rushed upon its destiny, and did that for its enemies
which they could scarcely have ever done for themselves
at all. Those abolitionists, therefore, who understand
their business and the means best adapted to their trade,
204 
SECESSION.
rejoice at this madness of the South, and hail secession
as a sure earnest of success. They make no disguise of
their satisfaction, and are as much opposed to reconstruction, until their abolition work is accomplished, as
the South itself can be.
In no correct sense could the election of Mr. Lincoln
have been regarded as a triumph of abolitionism proper.
He was himself no abolitionist: he was a free-soiler only.
The abolitionists could not have elected a candidate of
their own: they therefore did the next best thing in
their power-they coalesced with the free-soilers; and
by their alliance did that for the free-soil candidate
which the free-soil party could not have done by itself.
However strong may be the affinity between the two
political sects, the Abolitionists and Republicans, they
are so far from being identical in sentiments or measures that many extreme abolitionists refused to cast
their votes for Mr. Lincoln, and to this day withhold
their confidence from him.
In the absence of any positive information on that
subject, it would be sheer folly to speculate as to what
might have been the policy or the general tendency of
Mr. Lincoln's administration, if, the South, hurried on
by an excited imagination, anticipating what of evil it
knew not, and prejudging Mr. Lincoln's course, had not,
by its premature action, forced him, perhaps against his
wishes, wholly into the arms of the abolitionists. If any
faith is to be attached to Mr. Lincoln's own declarations,
and to the plain wording of the platform on which he
was elected, nothing is left to conjecture on that subject.
But secession, it seems, like Satan reproving sin, refuses
to believe anything abolitionism can say, when the latter
denies its evil intentions.
205 
SECESSION.
Rejecting, then, all such disclaimers on the part of
Lincoln and the abolitionists as wholly unreliable, when
weighed against the passions of fanaticism, and reasoning solely from presumptive evidence, we are still forced,
from whatever point of view we may look at it, into conclusions adverse to the policy of secession. That measure, whether regarded as a means of defense against real
or supposed injuries, or as the expression of an abstract
political principle, is equally indefensible. On purely
moral grounds, it is still more reprehensible. Like abolitionism, it is a species of political fanaticism, thrown
off by the disorganizing tendencies of the democratic
principles; and as such it was bound to have its day of
grace, to reach its point of culmination, to commit its
maximum of evil, and then sink in darkness forever.
But to resume our line of argument. It is hardly
conceivable that, with the plain letter of the constitution before him, and his solemn oath to support it, Mr.
Lincoln could have been so far recreant to the obligations of honor and duty as to have committed a double
crime in a single act by violating the one at the expense
of the other; for a violation of the constitution would
have been a violation of his oath, a sacrifice of both duty
and honor at one and the same time. And thus to treason he would have added perjury for no other conceivable reason than to subserve the nefarious ends of a
reckless party, in whose prejudices he did not participate, and of whose fanaticism he did not partake. They
who believe oaths and duties are so easily violated, must
themselves have very loose notions of such obligations,
and judge others from their own consciences.
It is no answer to this argument to point to Mr. Lin
206 
SECESSION.
coln's alleged unconstitutional acts since his inauguration. In the first place, for those acts, if they be unconstitutional, it is well known he shelters himself under the
plea of "military necessity,"-a plea which, in cases of
flagrant war, is recognized as being well laid: in any
case, whether right or wrong, it is a plea for which secession itself is directly responsible, for it alone furnished
him with it. In the second place, it is not at all probable that, but for the previous action of the South anticipating his administration, and perhaps wrongly prejudging it, he would have so completely surrendered
himself to the guidance of the abolitionists, whose active
support he deemed himself forced, by the necessities of
his situation, to procure at any price.   True, if this
motive be well charged against him, his conduct is indefensible upon any such ground: none but a weak-minded
man, in a case of that kind, where his duty lay plain before him, would have ignored its dictates, and swerved
from the path of rectitude, under the plea of necessity.
Wisdom and virtue combined would have decided very
differently; and the country has the right to look for
this combination in one who is the elect, the choicest
mind, of a great nation of thirty millions of population.
Evil never does anything right.   There can be no
doubt that Mr. Lincoln's administration, since its unreserved surrender to abolitionism, has been a most vicious
one, and its policy the very worst that could have been
adopted: of all other policies, it was the one least
capable of bringing the war to a speedy and happy
termination; and the one best adapted to prolong it to
the latest period. No other line of conduct was so well
qualified to deepen the malignity of the strife, to cause
20T 
SECESSION.
the greatest amount of slaughter, to bring about so
much unnecessary individual suffering and ruin without
any compensating advantage, to plant in the hearts of
men those bitter hatreds, that spirit of revenge, which,
for the time being, transfer hell to earth, convert men
into fiends, and render reconciliation that much more
difficult and distant.
But, notwithstanding all this, secession is not the
proper party to bring accusations against abolitionism
on the score of unconstitutionality or any other vice: its
own huge crimes disqualify it from becoming a public
accuser: before it can consistently arraign the sins of
others, it must purge itself of its own darker ones.
Abolitionism and secession must, both of them, be considered in no other light than as two evil principles in
conflict, for which the democratic principles are directly
responsible; and it is devoutly to be hoped they will
end the strife by mutually destroying each other, when
honesty may stand some chance to come by its own. It
is not to justify the crimes of one of these principles
by enumerating the faults of the other that this book
is written, but to demonstrate how wantonly wicked
both of them are, and yet how inevitable they were as
logical sequences of the fundamental principles of government. As secession is now under review, my object
is to show that, so far from having a legitimate origin,
it was justified neither by facts, nor by any presumptive evidence, nor by any sound method of hypothetical
reasoning: that it was called into action by no urgent
necessity: that no immediate or even an early prospective danger threatened the interest it rushed to protect; but that it hurled the country into war gratuitously,
208 
SECESSION.
or from mistaken views, or from any motives save those
which were good and true.
There is a wide difference between a party out of
office, and the same party in office. It is seldom that
the extreme measures advocated by an opposition are
carried into practice when the responsibility which attaches to power is thrown upon its leaders. The abstract
sentiment of abolitionism has long ago been converted
by the demagogues into a mere political cry, an electioneering watchword, with no other meaning than belongs to all such shibboleths of party. However a few
misguided fanatics may still cling to its moral sense, its
original purpose, the demagogues use it only as a hobby
on which to ride into power. Once there, the ambition
of such persons is generally gratified; and their only
after-care is to sustain themselves in their seats. To
this end, they suddenly become very conservative, in
order to deprecate as much as possible the violence of
opposition, and because they must consider well the
practicability of measures for which they are directly
responsible, and which, unless they be eminently just
and feasible, may work their own downfall. Men in
power, in a government like this, soon learn the necessity of moderation and justice. A very short time,
under the pressure of official responsibility, may have
sufficed to tone down the vehemence of abolition frenzy
into an eminently conservative administration. In all
probability, office would have been the grave of abolitionism;  and its influence, as a disturbing element of
politics, might have ceased with its accession to power,
if a fair and peaceable trial had been granted it, or if
19
209 
SECESSION.
its passions had not been roused by the embarrassments
of a terrible war like this.
But this is arguing without the record, and wide of
the mark.   The actual case is much stronger.   The
simple facts are shortly these: 1st. The platform on
which Mr. Lincoln was elected recognized the constitutionality of slavery, and denied any intention of interfering with it in States where it already existed.
2d. Mr. Lincoln, though elected by the aid of the abolition vote, was himself no Abolitionist. 3d. If Southern
members had kept their seats, the Abolitionists would
have been so far in the minority in Congress that they
would have been unable, even if they had desired, to
do the least harm to slavery. 4th. During the last session of the 36th Congress, held under the administration
of Mr. Buchanan, Southern members were repeatedly
urged to accept constitutional amendments, by twothirds votes of both Houses, which would secure slavery
against the possibility of future disturbance, except by
revolution. These generous concessions were refused
by the Southern delegation.
The first and second of the above statements require
no further comment; the third and fourth call for some
additional notice and elucidation by proof. To the third
it was objected, that the abolition party had grown so
rapidly that, from an insignificant faction a few years
ago, it had already expanded into the controlling power
of the government; that this increase of strength was
daily progressing; that it was fast absorbing the whole
North; that there was no real sympathy in the breast
of any man north of Mason and Dixon's line in favor
of slavery or the South; that there was an innate hos
210 
SECESSION.
tility between the two sections which was inextinguishable; that very soon abolitionism would be in a position
to dictate its ideas to the nation; that it would be madness for the South to wait until the enemy was in actual
possession of the government; that the property of the
South would be ultimately confiscated by it, unless the
former sought timely safety in secession, which was the
only protection she had for her rights against the slow
but sure abrasions of abolition aggression.
To these objections all I have to say is, they were
not verified by facts. At the time they were made,
abolitionism was not the controlling power of the government: if it has become so since, temporarily and for
a special purpose, it is because secession made it so. So
far from increasing with such rapidity as to threaten an
early absorption of the entire North, it is now matter
of history that at the first congressional election, after
Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, the Abolitionists were defeated in every Northern State in which elections were
held. If the tide of Northern votes has since turned
in favor of the government, it is because the stubborn
resistance of the South has made it necessary to the
integrity of the Union, and to the very existence of the
North itself, to suppress the rebellion at any price. But
it is the propriety and necessity of secession as a remedial measure at the time of its adoption which I am
now discussing, and not the propriety or necessity of
the means employed by the Federal government, and
sanctioned by the North, for its suppression.
I now approach the fourth and last of the above statements; and in order to show the Southern people who
were their real enemies, and who the authors of their
211 
SECESSION.
present ruin, I propose to place this controversy in a
light still more clear, and to answer all hypothetical objections by facts which are of record and not to be disputed or argued about. For this purpose I shall run over
the journals of the last session of Congress held under
Mr. Buchanan's administration, and extract from them
everything relating to this matter. The review will disclose to the Southern people how effectually they allowed
themselves to be deluded by their treacherous servants.
Whether the delusion were willingly or unwillingly embraced; whether the people were deceived because they
wished to be deceived; and whether, if they had been
all the time well advised of what was going on, they
would or would not have supported their representatives
in the course they pursued, are questions for themselves
to answer to their own consciences. I shall acquit my
duty by revealing some of the secrets of that important
session of Congress, which, to my certain knowledge,
were known to very few persons in the South at the
time of their occurrence. The Southern press, to its
eternal disgrace, partook of the treason of her congressional demagogues, and was silent then, when, of all
times, it ought to have been most faithfully communicative.
The last session of the 36th Congress assembled on
the 3d day of December, 1860. During that session, or
rather on that day, the Senate was composed of twentyfive Abolition and Republican members on one-side, and
thirty-five Southern and Northern conservative members on the other side. The Abolitionists and Republicans were so far from being identical, that I shall not
designate them by one name, nor class them as one
212 
SECESSION.
party.   Indeed, so far from voting together on  all
questions touching Southern interests, it will be seen
that the Republicans generally voted against their Abo lition allies. The Southern and Northern conservative
members, on the contrary, were, on all such questions,
a unit. The Northern Democrats uniformly voted with
the South on all matters touching her interests, and
were prepared to go almost any lengths to meet her
wishes.
It will be seen, then, by this classification, that the
South had, on her side, a clear majority of ten in the
Senate; and if the Republicans who voted with her on
many important questions be counted, the majority was
much greater, sufficiently great indeed to have carried
by a two-thirds vote any amendment of the constitution which the South might have desired for the better
security of slavery. In the House of Representatives
her majority was proportionately quite as large; and
there, too, the same phenomenon on the part of the Republicans was repeated.   To say, therefore, that the
South, during this session of Congress, was unable to
procure the passage of any law, or compromise, or concession, or amendment of the constitution she might
have asked for, is simply preposterous. It will be seen,
as we advance, that the only difficulty was to get her
representatives to accept of any such measures, even
when, in the friendly spirit of compromise, they were
good-naturedly thrust upon them in spite of all their
efforts to the contrary. All that Southern members
had to do, as facts will prove, was to propose the measures most agreeable to them, and they would instantly
have passed into laws; or, if required, they would have
19*
213 
SECESSION.
been engrafted, by a two-thirds vote of both Houses,
into the constitution of the United States. But so far
from desiring such compromises, all the efforts of Southern representatives were directed, as I shalf show, to
defeat every measure which was proposed for the benefit
of the South. Yet such was the temper of Congress,
that many resolutions, calculated to quiet the fears of
the South, were offered and passed, in spite of all the
treacherous schemes of Southern members to suppress
them.
Such, then, was the composition, and such the conciliatory spirit of the 36th Congress, when, early in the
session, Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, offered, in the House
of Representatives, the following resolution, which was
passed by an overwhelming majority:
"Resolved, That neither Congress, nor the people,
nor governments of the non-slaveholding States have
the right to legislate upon or interfere with slavery in
any of the slaveholding States of the Union."
On this occasion, many Republicans voted for the resolution; the Abolitionists proper all voted against it; and
many Southern members refused to vote at all. The
silent members offered as a plea for their contumacy,
that the resolution was nothing but a law of Congress,
and as such was liable to be repealed at any moment.
To meet this objection, Mr. Corwin, of Ohio, an ardent
Republican; proposed to engraft into the constitution,
by a two-thirds vote of Congress, an amendment distinctly forbidding any Northern State or Congress from
interfering, in any manner whatever, with slavery in
the Southern States.   This proposition was adopted,
by a two-thirds vote, in the House of Representatives;
214 
SECESSION.
and, but for the dissolution of the Union which took
place, would this day have been a part and parcel of
the constitution of the United States.
On the 4th day of December, 1860, the day after
Congress met, Mr. Buchanan, according to usage, delivered his Annual Message to both Houses of Congress.
A large portion of his Message was devoted to what he
called the distracted state of the country. Mr. Boteler,
of Virginia, immediately moved that so much of the
President's Message as related to the distracted state
of the country be referred to a select committee of one
from each State, which was agreed to. Mr. Hawkins,
of Florida, as soon as his name was announced, arose
and asked to be excused, saying that Florida wanted
no compromise. Seven days later, Mr. Boyce, of South
Carolina, asked to be excused for the same reason.
Later in the session, Reuben Davis, of Mississippi, asked
to be excused, because Mississippi wanted no compromise. Notwithstanding these defections, the committee
proceeded to the discharge of its duties; and through
Mr. Corwin, its chairman, reported the following propositions:  1. A joint resolution to amend the constitution, by
providing that no future amendment be adopted interfering with slavery in the States without the consent of
all parties.
2. A bill enabling the people of New Mexico to form
a constitution, and be admitted into the Union, with or
without slavery.
3. A bill to amend the fugitive slave law, by removing the trial of the alleged fugitive from the jurisdiction
of. the State to which he had escaped, to the United
215 
SECESSION.
States Court of the State from which he is charged to
have fled.
These resolutions were deemed to have embraced every
concession the South could desire.   Nothing seemed
wanting to render slavery as secure as it was possible
to make it. Laws had already been passed, granting
to all citizens of the United States the right of removing
with their property to the territories, defining slaves to
be property, and guaranteeing protection to the owners.
The session was far advanced when the report came
up for consideration. Many of the States had already
seceded; and as each State left the Union, its representatives retired from Congress; comparatively few
Southern members, therefore, occupied their seats when
the report was called up. When first offered to the vote
of the House, the report failed of receiving the requisite
two-thirds majority to make it a'clause of the constitution, there being 129 votes cast for it, and 70 against it.
Subsequently, however, it was called up for reconsideration, and this time received the constitutional sanction
of the House, having been passed by a two-thirds vote
of 133 for it, to 65 against it; 48 Republicans voting for
it, all the Abolitionists voting against it, and few Southern members voting at all. On the second of March,
the last day but one of the session, it also passed the
Senate-yeas 24, nays 12-12 Republicans voting for
it, all the Abolitionists voting against it, and so many of
the Southern States having seceded that there were not
enough members left to act upon an amendment of the
constitution to make it binding.
The bill to organize New Mexico as a State, allowing
her to come into the Union with or without slavery, was
216 
SECESSION.
laid upon the table by the contrivance of Southern members and their Northern friends-Mr. Vallandigham and
his party and every Southern member then in the House
voting to kill the bill by laying it on the table.
The bill to amend the fugitive slave law was passed
by a vote of 92 yeas to 82 nays; 65 Republicans voting
for the bill, all the Abolitionists voting against it, and
very few Southern members either voting at all, or voting
against it.  The bill, however, failed to become a law for
the want of time to consider it in the Senate.
The history of the Crittenden Compromise exhibits
the same disingenuousness on the part of the representatives of the cotton States, and discloses the absurdity of
attempting a reconciliation, where one party was predetermined against it on any conditions whatever. On the
3d of January, 1861, Mr. Crittenden introduced in the
Senate his famous resolution, which, in substance, was
nothing more than a restoration of the old Missouri
Compromise line of 36~ 30', north of which slavery
should be prohibited, and south of which slavery should
be established. On the 14th of January, 1861, Mr.
Clark, of New Hampshire, moved an amendment to Mr.
Crittenden's resolution, striking out all after the word
"resolved," and inserting, "that the provisions of the
constitution, as they now are, are sufficient to maintain
the unity of the Republic and the peace of the country."
It was the vote to be taken on this amendment which
was to decide the fate of the Compromise; and the his tory of this vote, and its sequel, clearly reveal the pre concerted plan and purpose of the Southern conspirators
in Congress. On the nineteenth of January Clark's
amendment was put to the vote. Just previous to taking
217
0 
SECESSION.
the vote, a resolution to adjourn was negatived by yeas
and nays-yeas 25, all Republicans and Abolitionists;
nays 30, all Northern Democrats and Southern menMr. Douglas being unavoidably absent.   This  vote
showed the presence of 55 Senators in the Senate
Chamber, when the question, by yeas and nays, was
taken on Clark's amendment, which resulted as follows:
yeas 25, nays 23, being 7 votes less than on the previous vote for adjournment. The solution of this apparent
anomaly is very simple: six Southern Senators sat in
their seats, refusing to vote, and purposely allowing
Clark's amendment to be agreed to, and the Compromise to be defeated, when they could just as easily have
turned the scales the other way.  The silent members
were Slidell, of Louisiana; Benjamin, of Louisiana;
Hemphill, of Texas; Iverson, of Georgia; Johnson, of
Arkansas; Wigfall, of Texas. No sooner was the result announced to the Senate than it was flying over the
wires, rousing the indignation of the Southern people
with the startling intelligence that the North had refused
to make any compromise, and that slavery was doomed.
The consequences which were expected to follow this
announcement were the immediate secession of still reluctant States; and the expectation was realized.
It would not be difficult to multiply similar evidences
of treachery on the part of Southern demagogues in
Congress, if indeed that can be called treachery where,
for anything I know to the contrary, a majority of their
constituents may have been willing victims, and would
have applauded the unworthy artifices of the former if
they had been known to them. But I have said enough
to betray as well the animus of the Southern delegation
218 
SECESSION.
as the friendly disposition toward the South of Northern
members, not even excepting Republicans, the more immediate partisans of Mr. Lincoln, the President elect.
It is clear, therefore, from this expose, that when secession began there was no immediate or prospective danger
threatening Southern interests, except from our own
madness; and it is as certain as anything can be that,
but for that madness, slavery would have gone as safely
through Mr. Lincoln's administration as it had gone
through that of Mr. Buchanan or any other. Slavery
never rested on a firmer foundation than at the commencement of this war, which was inaugurated avowedly
for the purpose of perpetuating it; but which, by a kind
of retribution, apparently directed by Heaven, has destroyed it instead. It was indeed as secure as it was
possible to make it under our form of government.
But therein precisely lay the main difficulty. The
cause of our woes lurked in the form of our government.
Without, perhaps, any man being able to account to
himself satisfactorily for his want of faith, experience
taught us all to feel, rather than to understand, the
danger that threatened us from that quarter-a danger
not the less fearful because vague and undefined and
not fully understood. The South had some knowledge
of the tumultuous, wild, capricious, and dangerous opinions of the Northern States,-their mobs, confusion, outbreaks, and incendiary doctrines,-which left nothing
sacred, nothing secure, and which threatened the stability of all those pillars of society upon which man had
been accustomed to lean in hope and safety: these dangerous influences the South had long suspected, and as
long dreaded; she knew they must and would increase
219 
SECESSION.
with the progress of time and the growth of population;
she knew that population at the North was increasing
with fearful rapidity, and that the bulk of that increase
was of a character to render the licentious dogmas of
democracy that much more disorganizing. Under these
circumstances, she felt that a storm of some sort was
brewing, and that her only safety was to be sought and
found in her own conservative institutions. Where else
could she hope to find protection from so many disorganizing influences? What was there in the nature of
the Federal government calculated to inspire confidence
that, in the hour of peril, it would be able to come to
her rescue? The South knew that the government of
the United States was a government of the numerical
majority; that such a government must become, had
already become, a government of party; and that in
process of time that party must become, had already
become, sectional, and influenced by sectional ideas and
sectional interests.  Under such conditions, with the
doctrines of unbounded freedom of inquiry, of absolute
popular sovereignty, universal suffrage, and universal
equality as its fundamental principles, there was in the
Southern mind a vague dread, an undefined apprehension of the utter insufficiency of the guarantees of the
constitution, whenever the majority, in its character of
absolute sovereignty, saw proper to break through its
meshes. True, the majority was with the South to-day,
but it was perhaps more from courtesy or policy than
because it was real, and was liable at any moment to
shift against her. The very facility with which amendments to the constitution were proposed and carried in
her favor, was calculated to inspire dread rather than to
l(.assure her.
220 
SECESSION.
Let us contemplate, for one moment, the melancholy
instance of this superstitious fear which was afforded by
the conduct of the Southern delegation during the last
session of the 36th Congress. There sat in that fatal
Congress, during that disastrous session, the bare nucleus
of a party, a mere faction, few in numbers, stern as a
decree of fate, and more appalling to Southern imaginations than the Archfiend himself, if he had just risen
from Tophet to confront them. The Abolitionists, numerically insignificant as they then were, and deriving their
chief importance from association with a larger faction,
were regarded as composing the only growing party of
the country, and as likely to be, at no distant day, the
arbiters of the nation's destiny.   Their late alliance
with the Republicans, and the joint success they had
just achieved, seemed to forestall their natural increase,
and by a single bound to place them at once in possession of government. Animated by a fanaticism which,
in one form or another, had always carried desolation
over the earth and strewed the pages of history with
narratives of wreck and ruin, they were deemed to be
as resistless as they were known to be inexorable; hence
the interest which was attached to their vote, and the
terror which was felt at the uncompromising attitude of
their hostility. As their vote never swerved in a single
instance from their principles, and was steadily cast in
opposition to every measure calculated to favor slavery,
Southern members were deaf and blind to everything
else transpiring around, and reckless of the immense
majorities showered upon them, on all occasions, for
their exclusive benefit. They made no account of the
20
221 
SECESSION.
kind offices of their Northern friends to allay their fears.
They heard nothing, saw nothing, but the "raw-headand-bloody-bones" that sat before them and frowned
upon their cause. They only knew the Abolitionists
conceded nothing; all else was naught to them. This
was childish terror, a senseless panic, which was inexcusable if it were real, and their conduct was still more
reprehensible if it were affected. Nothing could be more
erroneous than the opinions thus entertained of the then
importance of the Abolitionists; or more groundless than
the fears of the South, anticipating a future danger never
likely to approach except by reason of her own folly.
But, alas! how unfit were such men as Benjamin and
Slidell, and others of that ilk, to encounter the horrid
phantom their distempered imaginations had conjured
up, or to meet in combat the feeble enemy into whose
merciless power their fears or their treason contributed
to deliver, naked and defenseless, a great and prosperous
people!
How strange and inexplicable, except upon the grounds
I have taken, has been the change so suddenly wrought
in the peaceable relations of this country! As in the
days of Nullification, there were no oppressions experienced under the old Union calling for an extreme measure like this: there were no invasions of public liberty,
no ruin to private happiness, no long list of rights violated, or wrongs unredressed, to justify to history this
wanton assault upon the free constitution of a free
nation. At the time this work of dissolution and destruction was begun, the whole land lay smiling in peace
and rejoicing in plenty. A general and high prosperity
pervaded the country; and the South participated to
222 
SECESSION.
the full in all those evidences of material abundance and
national progress.
Assuredly, under such conditions, the South should
not have been the first to throw away a constitution
which, like the shield of Achilles, covered her all over,
from head to foot; and which, whatever it might become
thereafter, was at least impervious at that time. She
should have held fast to that instrument as long as a
fragment of it was left sufficient to hold by. If the
constitution had to be violated, let others, if they chose
to do so, commit the breach, and bear the responsibility
of the guilty deed. So long as the constitution lasted,
the South was in no danger; her interests could be
reached only over its ruins; and beneath those ruins,
by whomsoever caused, her society must be buried forever. It is a clear case, therefore, if she wished to preserve her institutions, that her battles, whether in hall
or field, ought to have been fought under cover of its
sacred aegis: she ought to have spent her last breath,
her last drop of blood, if need were, in its defense; for,
after HIeaven, that constitution and the old flag were
the only safeguards she possessed on this earth. While
the whole world else was banded against her institution,
the Federal constitution and the Federal government
were straining every nerve for its protection. Nothing
was wanting, on the part of her congressional representatives, but a little wise and temperate patriotism, a
little courageous virtue, the heroism of conscious rectitude, to face the frowning specter which overcame them
like the dread shadow of the future, and it would have
vanished into thin air, never again perhaps to have been
heard of.
223 
SECESSION.
By this judicious course, this patriotic and heroic
conduct, four years would have been gained, perhaps
many four years, which would have been of immense
value to the South. If, after that epoch, the increase
of the abolition vote had realized her fears, and given
to that party a numerical preponderance which nothing
else could have countervailed; and if fanaticism had at
last broken down the bulwarks of the constitution, and
committed an overt act of aggression against the South,
through the constituted authorities of the General government,-then, in that case, the South would have been
rendered morally and physically invincible, even in the
questionable method of redress she so prematurely
adopted. But even then she ought to have fought for
the constitution, not against it: with that instrument
in her hands, and beneath the old consecrated banner
of the nation, it was clearly her policy and her duty to
have gone forth as the peculiar champion of the Union,
the constitution, and her rights under them. From
such a vantage-ground, no argument, no after-reflection,
no sober second thoughts could have driven her. She
would then have united not only all the slave States in
one unanimous and simultaneous coalition, but, against
a provocation so indisputable, she would have enlisted
the sympathies, perhaps the co-operation, certainly the
approval, of Northern conservatives and the wise and
just of the whole world. Against an opposing front so
formidable, it is hardly probable this war would have
been waged at all; but a peaceable revolution instead
might have rectified all causes of complaint, and established the integrity of the Union, upon an enduring
basis, for an indefinite period to come.
2294 
SECESSION.
Such a course, however, so patriotic and so judicious,
would have gone far to demonstrate the capacity of the
people for self-government, and to justify the establishment of society upon the basis of an exclusive democracy and the federative system.   But the truth was,
and is, that not one in ten of the Southern people
knew, or yet knows, anything of the real facts of the
case. They believed, and still believe, many of them,
that Mr. Lincoln and the Northern people were pledged
to the immediate abolition of slavery and the ruin of the
South; and that now the Abolitionists had acquired the
reins of government, they possessed the power to carry
out their wicked purposes, and would inevitably do so.
The demagogues, if they knew better, instead of correcting this misconception of the people, encouraged it
rather, and did all in their power to aggravate the evil
and precipitate the crisis. And thus it was that ignorance and knavery, as personified in the majority, and
acting through the functions of government, have been
mainly instrumental in bringing about this wide-spread
ruin for no adequate cause whatever. All the facts
which have led to this disastrous war demonstrate the
unfitness of the democratic principles, in the present
state of civilization, to reign alone at the foundation of
government, and still more the unfitness of a federative
system like this to bind together innumerable States
possessed of populations so little qualified to deal with
the intricate problems implicated in its general form
and structure. In such a government, order may prevail for vetrs, and flatter the patriot with an apparent
realization of his fondest hopes of social perfection;
but a day or an hour shall come at last, which will
20*
225 
SECESSION.
balk the calculation of years, and terminate forever the
hopes of the philanthropist.
But it is useless to push conjectures and arguments
further in this direction. We can know nothing now
with certainty as to what might or might not have taken
place, if a different course had been pursued. What we
do know, with only too much certainty, is the stern
reality of the horrors that now beset us. That something better might have been devised, we can well conceive; but how anything worse could have been hit
upon, it is difficult to imagine.   If there had been
any just cause for secession and its inevitable consequences, or if the pretended causes which the Southern
people so gratuitously assumed had really existed, then
one could submit with patience and even exultation to
the cruel sacrifices hourly demanded by the demon of
destruction. In that case, the noble heroisms which,
on the part of the South, already decorate the annals
of the war, and hang like garlands around her armies,
would give such an earnest of success that the faintest
heart might well grow bold in the confidence of ultimate
triumph. Emulous of so much glory, cased in the triple
armor of a righteous quarrel, and fighting for that which
was attainable, not one of her sons but would march with
undoubting faith to her banner, as to the oriflamme of
Liberty, and proudly conquer beneath its folds, or as
proudly die in its defense.
As it is, we can lay no such flattering unction to our
souls. The justice of our cause was not beyond the
reach of doubt: we did not even complain of any grievance unredressed: the oppressions against which we rebelled were not flagrant,-they were prospective only,
...
226 
SECESSION.
they existed merely in possibility, and might or might
not have taken place: those outrageous tyrannies which
drive a generous people into revolt were, in our case,
not even inchoations. Happy at home, respected abroad,
enjoying a degree of liberty and prosperity never experienced by any people before, our glorious country
has been plunged into the depths of misery by the
wanton spirit of a licentious democracy. Impelled by
the instincts of an unmitigated selfishness, intolerant of
law or order, we have trapped ourselves in a dilemma
we cannot escape, either horn of which is sufficient to
gore us to death. For if we gain our independence,
we shall gain only ruin in the end, since we must inevitably perish by the principles for which we are contending; if, on the other hand, we are vanquished-we
must call on the gods for mercy, not on abolitionism.
Thus are we sacrificing the lives of our brave and generous youths fighting for-we know not what.
Alas! what do I say?  Mr. Lincoln has at last, since
the war began, furnished us with a pretext. He alone,
as the organ of abolitionism, could have afforded secession a plausible excuse for prolonging a strife so causelessly begun. His ill-advised proclamation, as unjust
as it was impolitic, was alone wanting to convert a wanton rebellion into a defensive contest, and to enlist the
heart and patriotism of the entire South in a life-anddeath struggle for her just rights. Secession now points
to Mr. Lincoln's abolition war policy as a verification of
its worst fears; congratulates its sagacity in having penetrated so long beforehand into the lurking designs of
its wily enemy; triumphantly proclaims that the war
was not begun a day too soon; and truly declares that
227 
SECESSION.
the Southern people have now no choice but to fight
on, so long as the present policy is adhered to.
Thus do we travel in a vicious circle, from which it
seems impossible to escape. Caught up in a whirlpool,
made by the action and reaction upon each other of two
evil principles, we are carried on, nearing each moment
a vortex which must engulf us at last, unless rescued
by some power not now visible to mortal eye. Secession, as if envious of the national prosperity, made haste
to mar so much happiness, and, with reckless indifference to consequences, precipitated the country into a
calamity too frightful to contemplate. A generous forbearance practiced long enough; a continued prosecution
of the war upon constitutional principles, without the
aid of abolitionism; a magnanimous policy persisted in
to the last; a scrupulous, even a tender, respect for
the persons, the rights, the property of non-combatants; an unwearied perseverance in pursuing a course
so lofty, so chivalrous, would, at a comparatively early
day, have achieved an easy triumph over the outrageous
revolt of the lawless principle of secession. The South
herself, if sufficient time had been allowed her under the
milder treatment of a constitutional regimen, would have
recovered her reason and corrected her error much sooner
than she is likely to do under existing circumstances.
Her own reflection, undisturbed by subsequent provocations, would have contributed more than all the armies
of the North to the speedy cure of her temporary aberration. A better opportunity could not have occurred
to prove, by example, to the South that the North had
no evil designs upon her institution; that in spite even
of a provocation so flagrant as that of secession, the
228 
SECESSION.
latter was still determined to hold by the constitution,
and save the Union by it alone, or perish with it in the
conflict. This would have been the sublimity of human
virtue, and the very dignity of true manhood. An example so lofty, conduct so disinterested, could not have
failed, sooner or later, to excite the emulation of the
South, convince her of her error, and win her back to
a sense of duty. It would have bound her heart in the
chains of love, respect, and gratitude; and insured a
happy reunion cemented by the ties of cordiality and
good-will.   This is the more probable, because there
were thousands of the best men in the South who never
gave their consent to secession from the first; and, though
overborne for the moment by the clamors of ignorance
and passion, were quietly working a slow but sure reaction in public sentiment in favor of the Union.
But this happy rectification was not destined to so
easy an accomplishment.   Different counsels prevailed.
Political mountebanks were at the helm of State. Secession had a worthy rival in the field, offspring of the
same polity, which could not afford to lose an opportunity so favorable for a little sharp practice of its own
in the way of mischief making. It was the very occasion, aptly prepared to its hand, which abolitionism had
been so long watching and praying for; and now that
secession, as if demented by the gods, had blindly fallen
into the trap, no excuse must be afforded for its escape
thence. And thus, between the two, a carnival of death
is instituted, where demons preside, and at which humanity shudders.
It is in vain for the South to plead this after-act of
abolitionism in justification of her first offense.   The
229 
SECESSION.
initiative was hers: she inaugurated the war; and history cannot hold her innocent of the crimes now enacting
on her soil. A consciousness of imprudence, of precipitancy, if not of guilt, must disturb her peace of mind
amid her victories and defeats. God was not in the
wind, nor the earthquake, nor the fire which passed by
Elijah in Horeb's mount; but after these came a still
small voice, which was the divinity that spoke within
him. So must it be with the South in this day of retribution. The God of vengeance is passing by; but there
is no deity in the slaughters of her battle-fields: they
are evidences of the divine wrath instead. Amid these,
the whispers of any uneasy conscience must make themselves heard above the din of arms, suggesting, with
their still small voice, that "Perhaps all was not done
for the best: the blood of our sons might have been
spared: their lives, after all, may have been sacrificed
to a mistake: a little more prudence, forethought, forbearance, and these ensanguined plains, now red with
the blood of so many noble hearts fallen in vain, might
have been blooming with the harvests of life! And
who are they that were appointed to think for us, to
advise us, to lead us, and who could conduct us only to
this ruin, to these bloody graves?" Ah, my countrymen! it is a fearful thing to know that many thousand
voices are daily ascending to heaven, crying, with sobs
and breaking hearts, for vengeance on such multitudinous crimes, or for errors little short of crimes! Reflecting men should think twice, and hesitate long, before
plunging a nation in such wholesale calamity: statesmen
are not needed for this work of destruction-savages
would do it as well.
230 
SECESSION.
The amnesty of war has been most inconsiderately
proclaimed by a shallow philosophy, on the ground of
the great benefits which result from it to humanity and
civilization. This is nothing more than a justification
of the means by the end, supposing the opinion to be
true. But war is a huge evil, and man is not permitted
to do evil that good may come of it. It is the province
of God only to bring good out of evil. "It cannot be
but that evil shall be done in the world, and that good
will come of it, but woe be unto the evil-doer," is the
denunciation of Heaven. There is nothing which can
happen in this world, however disastrous for the moment, but a benefit of some sort will grow out of it,
sooner or later, to some one or other, simply because
good necessarily comes of all things. But only fools
or madmen will purposely bring wreck and ruin on the
present in order that some unknown future advantage
may haply spring thence. The present is wisely enjoined to take the best possible care of itself, and leave
the future to do the same: if, in spite of the utmost
precaution to stave off the evil, the future derive any
benefit from the unavoidable misfortunes of the present,
nothing is to be said against it. War is an abnormal
condition of society: it seldom fails to inflict signal
vengeance on those who bring it about, or are engaged
in it: it is the shirt of Nessus, the gift of a malignant
spirit to those who invoke it: it is the destruction of all
social order, while it lasts, and the relentless enemy of
the present.   The benefits which flow from it to the
future are no doubt consolations to posterity, but very
inadequate compensations to the immediate sufferers: it
is poor consolation to the victims of the middle ages
231 
SECESSION.
that we, at this day, are reaping the advantages of their
bloody wars. Men never divide except upon the elements of error: about the truth there can be no differ ence of opinion: in every aspect of truth, all must coincide; for truth is the faithful expression of reality.
Wherever there is dissension, disagreement, there is
error. It has often been said that both sides of a quarrel cannot be right; that one at least must be wrong:
it is nearer the truth to say that both are wrong. War,
therefore, must always be absurd; for it is only error
which causes the combat, and nothing but evil can come
of it to the combatants. The very existence of war is
prima facie evidence that there is a great wrong somewhere, of which it is the retribution. War never occurs
where right and equity, good sense and love of truth,
prevail; for these make us tolerant. Internecine wars
are the necessary concomitants of a corrupt society and
a feeble government. A weak government indeed is
the greatest crime which can be committed against society; and it is sure to bring its own punishment, in
the shape of endless revolutions, as long as it lasts.
The frantic intolerance which seized the Southern
mind at the announcement of Mr. Lincoln's election,
and the hot haste with which the entire population flew
to arms and challenged the North to combat, as the only
mode of redress they would accept, even before it was
certain there was anything to redress, affords an instance
of those moral epidemics, or national insanities, which
happen periodically in even the best-regulated nations.
Nothing can more clearly indicate the necessity of a
strong government, well guarded at every point, than
the certain recurrence of those perilous moments which,
232 
SECESSION.
when they do happen, tear to pieces a feeble government
such as ours was, and consign to ruin an entire generation, perhaps the nation itself.  If the government be
strong enough to resist the first onset, time will be
afforded for reflection, and the danger will pass away
with the return of reason and sober thoughts. The
people, when acting in multitudes, are always impulsive,
inexorably cruel and reckless; but they are also as cowardly as they are cruel, because, being as yet unorganized, they know their weakness, and readily yield to a
disciplined force when promptly directed against them
with merciless vigor. If the government be too weak
to meet thus the first-shock, time will be afforded the
insurgents for organization, and civil war ensues.
If the government of the United States had possessed
any portion of this so much needed strength and energy,
the mania of the Southern people would have been innoxious, and order had prevailed to this day. But the
doctrine of State rights was stronger than the Federal
government; and it was precisely the vigor of the former
which had caused the feebleness of the latter. The sentiment of contempt which had always been entertained
for the Federal authority, when weighed against the sovereignty of the States, was not calculated to breed in the
Southern mind that salutary fear of the power of government which, if it had existed, would have effectually
restrained any manifestation of its disorganizing proclivities. The fatal ease with which the South knew or
thought she could accomplish her ideas of secession,
contributed as much as anything else to plunge the
country into this vortex. This was no doubt one, per                         21
233 
SECESSION.
haps foremost, among many other moving causes; but
also the cruel sympathy of Mr. Buchanan's administration, and the no less cruel tenderness and dilly-dallying
of Mr. Lincoln's initiatory proceedings,-both of them
results of an insufficient government,-cannot be held
entirely innocent of aiding and abetting to fix the movement and to bring it to a head. At least, whatever
difference of opinion may be entertained of the complicity of the two latter, there can be none as to that of
the former.
The doctrine of State rights had been too long preached
in the South, not to be practiced there some time or
other; it was too great a favorite to be kept suspended
and held in abeyance forever; the time was at last come
for it to manifest its quality, to show that it was as terrible in action as it was sublime in repose, and that it
possessed all the practical efficiency that was theoretically claimed for it. So incontestable appeared the doctrine of State sovereignty, and the concurrent right of
the States peaceably to quit the Union when they pleased,
that few men in the South believed a gun would be fired
against secession. It was inconceivable to them that a
principle, which was cotemporaneous with the existence
of the nation, which was laid down by Mr. Calhoun, and
the justice of which could be deduced, past all manner
of doubt, from the terms of the compact, should be disputed at this late day-and by whom?  By the Federal
government? Why, the Federal government was nothing
but a creature of the States; the latter had created it,
and, by their sovereign will and pleasure, could dissolve
it. It was a mere partnership concern, voluntarily entered into by independent States for certain specified
234 
SECESSION.
purposes; and because the States went into it voluntarily, they could go out of it at their option.
As for the claims of civilization, the right of humanity
to stable government and permanent security, the inviolability of laws, and the reform of abuses by legal means,
-these things were little considered, and scarcely even
thought of by the many. The sentiment which dominated most minds was a sense of lawless liberty, the unrestrained freedom of doing as they pleased with their
own; this indeed was a natural right which belonged as
well to States as to individuals, and as such was inalienable, and admitted of no qualifications; it was always
held in reserve for fit occasions, suspended, not abolished; and the time was come for it to resume the rude
vigor of its fere nature.  If all other arguments fail,
the law of revolution remains; that right at least is
indisputable. The right of resistance, which was instituted by their forefathers, and constitutes the glory of
those good old times, had come down to them unimpaired, and should suffer no deterioration in their hands.
Their hearts and their arms were as stout as those of
their ancestors, and should re-enact the splendors of the
past. Welcome, then, the sacrament of death! for of
no value is a nation until baptized with blood.
Such were some of the ideas that presided at the
grand national saturnalia of secession which was celebrated with so much eclat down South little more than
two years ago. It was, in a somewhat modified form,
one of those orgies of liberty which have characterized
every epoch of modern history, since the introduction
upon its stage of those barbarians that sacked the Roman
world, and erected upon its ruins empires of their own.
235 
SECESSION.
A leading trait of those savage tribes was a sentiment
of personal independence, a love of individual liberty,
displaying itself without regard to consequences, and
with scarcely any other aim than its own satisfaction.
This element of their untamed nature they introduced
into modern civilization. It was an element unknown
among the Romans, and is scarcely perceptible in any
of the civilizations of antiquity.  "The liberty we meet
with in ancient civilizations," says Guizot, "is political
liberty. It was not about his personal liberty that man
troubled himself, it was about his liberty as a citizen.
Hie formed part of an association, and to this alone he
was devoted." The liberty which the barbarian engrafted on modern civilization was quite a different
affair: it was personal, individual freedom; the right to
do as he pleased with himself and all that belonged to
him; the pleasure of enjoying in full force and liberty
all his powers of mind and body, without being obliged
to render an account to any one of his conduct. It is
from these barbarous hordes, which overran the old
Roman empire, that are derived the populations of all
modern European nations. The base of tlis population
is derived from the most sturdy, independent, licentious,
and turbulent of those old barbarians, to wit, the old
Norse and Scandinavian tribes, the vikings and searovers of early times, nature's democrats, as they have
since been called. Their wild nature has never been
entirely eliminated from their descendants to this day;
the same turbulence, the same licentiousness, the same
sense of independence are yet latent in their nature;
and however those traits of character may slumber for
a time, they still break forth on every suitable occasion.
236 
SECESSION.
The same is true of the element of personal freedom
which they introduced into modern civilization, and
which is so conspicuous in this society: that social element has not yet been wholly tamed down to the gentle
restraints of law and order, nor has it yet been fully
assimilated by conversion into institutions. The one is
not yet the civilized man, nor the other the civilized
principle, complete. The social natures of both require
to be further developed before society can be perfected
by them. In view of these elements of our population
and society, the restraints of force, of a strong government, and a vigorous discipline are more needed and
exist to a less extent here than in any nation in the
world.
Hence, then, the character of the ideas, enumerated
above, which were mainly instrumental in hurrying the
Southern people into their rash and unpremeditated
revolution; they were identical with the democratic
principles which have been implicated in so many similar revolutions in Europe, and which finally established
themselves at the foundation of this government, and
are only just now beginning to break out into their old
accustomed revolts and to seek the gratification of their
natural desire for war. Of course the Southern mind
was, to some degree, influenced by other ideas of a
graver character, which possessed more dignity and
truth, and were entitled to more respect.  I have only
marked these to show the extent to which the public
mind can be demoralized by a set of loose and disjointed
principles acting for any length of time through the
functions of government; and also to show how little
21*
237 
SECESSION.
stability and security can be looked for in a government
where they prevail.
The love of individual liberty is a precious sentiment
which should never be absent from any nation or government; it has produced lasting benefits wherever it
has existed; and it is to be hoped that it will never depart from the heart of man, nor ever become functus
officio in society. The right of resistance, which flows
directly from the above sentiment, is a sacred right
which no sane man can wish to see abolished. If that
principle were erased from the mind of society, it would
be prepared to put on the shackles of servitude. But
any government is radically vicious in which the right
of resistance, however incontestable it may be in the
abstract, is not practically rendered forever inactive and
useless. Inasmuch as it is a natural right, an imperishable instinct of human nature, and cannot be ignored
socially, it is the duty of society to absorb it, that is, to
incorporate it into its own artificial structure, into free
institutions, that is, again, to organize it and supply it
with laws. Thus regulated, and armed with the full
legalized power of the State, it needs not to break out
into arbitrary acts and brute violence; it would have no
occasion for revolutions; it would completely inutilize
civil wars; it would become at once a moral and social
force of the first magnitude; and would guarantee the
stability of society by insuring the execution of justice
legally. This is the great end, the chief perfection, of
social order.
There is a wide difference between this legal resistance, judicially established in the frame of a well-regulated society, and that lawless resistance which springs
238 
SECESSION.
arbitrarily from individual wills, or from the caprices of
opinion, with or without legitimate provocation, of which
it is the sole self-constituted and self-sufficient arbiter.
It is clear that, where this right exists and can be exercised at pleasure, there is no security for anybody or
anything; no legal right can coexist with it; it is a terrible antisocial right, inasmuch as its only appeal is to
brute force, to war, which is the destruction of society
itself.
Such was the nature of the resistance inaugurated by
secession at the South. But it was called into action
by conduct no less arbitrary, lawless, and reprehensible
at the North. Abolitionism is not a whit less guilty
than secession. One was the inevitable consequence of
the other; and both resulted from the fundamental principles of the government. If abolitionism has a right to
exist at the North, secession has a right to exist at the
South: one follows the other as a logical corollary.  To
suppress forcibly secession at the South, while abolitionism is allowed to prevail at the North; nay, to employ
the latter to sit in judgment upon and punish the former;
to allow one guilty principle to arraign, try, convict, and
execute sentence upon a not more guilty adversary, is a
despotism of so vile a character that human nature shudders at the very thought of it. If one of these principles is wrong, both are wrong; and that both are wrong
is a fact as evident as the fact of the war which they
have produced, or of which they have been the occasion.
If the calamities which this war is causing, and the desolation it is bringing on the country, are moral and material benefits, then must abolitionism and secession be
accounted virtues of the first water. But if the tree in
239 
SECESSION.
this case be judged by its fruits, and the latter are so
bitter, then how is it possible for the good men and true
of both sides to look on the infernal confusion which
these two devilish principles are producing, and not
make some effort to consign them to their place below?
If they were angels and ministers of grace, and brought
with them airs from heaven, and not blasts from hell, as
they are doing, they could not be more tolerated in their
respective sections than they seem to be. Nero fiddled
while Rome was burning. The nation is bleeding to
death, and not a finger is lifted to stop the effusion of
blood. Those who are not fighting like wild beasts, are
preying like harpies on the vitals of the land, and think
only of turning its misfortunes to their profit. Or, peradventure, like Sodom and Gomorrah, the nation is given
up to its fate, because there are not good men enough in
it to save it. Of the ease and rapidity with which society
can be broken up and man degenerate toward the savage
state, the South is now a most melancholy illustration;
her present condition is a transient return to barbarism,
and clearly attests the barbaric origin of the people.
But if this much can be said of the South, what less can
be said of the Goths and Vandals who have so needlessly
wrought all this desolation? Their footsteps can be
traced by the ruins they have left wherever they have
gone; and their cruelties and spoliations attest how
little they have derived from their boasted civilization
and the benevolent teachings of Christianity.
In any case, if we would have peace and order restored and society revived, let justice, first of all, be
done on every side; for without it, it is in vain to hope
for peace, or order, or anything but strife and confusion.
240 
SECESSION.
Therefore, before secession can be justly called on to lay
down its arms, it must be shown that abolitionism has
been suppressed, or at least relegated from the head of
government. For, I repeat, how monstrous it is for one
guilty principle to be placed in the chair of State to
judge and punish an accomplice perhaps less guilty, certainly not more so, than itself! The perpetration, under
existing circumstances, of such an instance of injustice
as the establishment of practical abolitionism into a principle of government, and even seating it in the Presidential chair, is equivalent to a consecration of endless
rebellion. One wrong is generally the fruitful parent
of many more. Other instances of injustice cannot fail
to spring up by the side of one so flagrant, and in the
end the perpetual revolt of society will be a co-ordinate
branch of government.
Such a state of things would by no means be a social
novelty. It would not be the first time society was
established on the basis of popular resistance. This
condition, to which we appear to be drifting, would be
exactly analogous to the social organization of the FREE
CITIES of Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
Those'cities constituted the most marked feature of European civilization at that epoch; their society resembled
our own in more respects than one; and the resemblance
is fast becoming still more striking. Their government
consisted of two very simple elements-the general assembly of all the inhabitants, and a magistracy invested
with almost arbitrary power, under the responsibility
and surveillance of yeneral insurrections. These popular outbreaks were the only guarantees of good government; they passed into a co-ordinate branch of the
241 
SECESSION.
constitutional organization of the corporations, and were
as confidently looked for, and as constantly made their
appearance, as any other municipal regulation. Guided
as they were by the blind, licentious, furious spirit of
democracy, they soon put an end to all security, and
consigned the Free Cities, like feudalism, to absorption
by monarchy and the great empires.
When I assert that abolitionism is directly responsible
for secession, and make it equally guilty of the war,
there may seem to be a contradiction, in my argument,
with the previous declaration, and even proof, that secession was purely gratuitous and uncalled for. It is true
that secession, as a general principle, depends not for
its existence on abolitionism, or anything else exclusively; but as it lurks in the fundamental principles of
society, and there is nothing in the form of government
to prevent it, it is liable to break out at any moment, on
any provocation, or no provocation at all. Nevertheless, in the present instance abolitionism did precede
secession, waked it in its lair, roused its fury, and by a
thousand taunts and threats gave direction to its rage
by making it believe,-whether falsely or not makes no
difference, since it was done on purpose, with malice
aforethought and with evil intent,-by making it believe,
I say, that the darling institution it was invoked to protect was in danger of extinction. Whether or not the
demagogues knew better than this is doubtful; but if a
few intelligent men were better posted, the majority of
the people were not, and were conscientious in their
belief of the wrongs intended them. It was the ignorant majority, therefore, a fundamental feature of the
government and its very mainspring, which, in this in
242 
SECESSION.
stance, did the mischief.  The South is notoriously thinskinned on the subject of slavery, and is ready to take
alarm at anything that wears the semblance of danger
that way. Her fears once excited, she is as prompt and
fierce in defense of her institution as a tigress of her
cubs, and not more discriminating. If her discretion
had been equal to her valor, the latter would have been
less exercised than it has been of late. This blind impulse is further intensified, and perhaps rendered more
belligerent than it might otherwise be, by the reputation
the Southern people have somehow or other acquired of
being the descendants of "Cavaliers,"-not of "Roundheads," like the Northern people,-and of possessing all
the "chivalry" of the land. Some fool has told them
this, and they have no better sense than to believe it.
The belief, whether well or ill founded, makes them as
ready to fight as to eat, not because there is any necessity for it, or because they have more stomach that way
than others, but because they think it incumbent on them
to support their character of being regular Boanergeses,
(sons of thunder.) The shrewd abolitionists, aware of
this weakness, goaded them on to a practical assertion
of it by the most bitter taunts they could think of: they
told them their chivalry was nothing but gas; that "they
could not be kicked out of the Union;" dared them to
try to leave it, and they would soon be kicked back;
and then there was something about "blue cockades"
being as scarce as "blue roses" round about Charleston
as soon as a United States frigate made its appearance
there, or something to that effect. This childish nonsense had more effect than one would suppose: it was
more than so much puerile vanity and conceit could
243 
244
stand: like a parcel of school-boys they had been dared,
and at once determined that it was unbecoming "Southern chivalry" to take a dare from a set of canting, puritanical snobs: the prick-eared knaves should "be made
to feel Southern steel and smell Southern powder," etc.
This may seem a rather ridiculous analysis of secession; but trivial as these causes appear, when predicated
of a great nation waging gigantic wars, and marching
majestically along the grand highway of history, they
were not without their influence, and ought not to be
overlooked; nor are they more puerile than the motives
which have ever influenced mankind in the production
of history through all past ages. When dramatically
written, and carefully winnowed of the personalities,
passions, vanities, and base motives, which are always
the secondary or immediate causes of its details, history
reads very loftily, and gives one sublime ideas of the
dignity of human nature. But history, too, has its grotesque and vulgar side, its ridiculous and comic aspect.
M. Cousin has said something like this; and he has also
said there are no individuals in great wars and battles,
only their causes appear there. But the cotemporary,
the actual spectator, sees nothing else but individuals:
they crowd the stage of history and fill the fields of
battle, they and their miserable little passions; and,
however trivialities may vanish from the philosophy of
history, they alone occupy its annals.  We  may also
learn from this analysis that the majority of men, whatever they may become hereafter, are yet little more than
grown-up children; and if society is ever destined to
escape the inconveniences arising from their unruly impulses, they must still be subjected to the discipline of a
SECESSION. 
SECESSION.
species of government not greatly dissimilar from that
exercised over children.
Now, if the South had felt that confidence in the capacity and inclination of the Federal government to protect
her interest, which every government ought to inspire in
its subjects, it is hardly probable she would have resorted
to arms to protect herself. And it is unquestionably
true that if the government had possessed the requisite
amount of strength, and been dispossessed of its party
character, abolitionism never could have culminated to
that summit of power at which the South became so
alarmed; and, in all probability, neither abolitionism
nor secession had ever been heard of.   The South,
therefore, should no more be held to a criminal accountability for secession than the North for abolitionism;
for it is well known the Abolitionists advocated the same
measure as a means of accomplishing their unconstitutional designs, and were only prevented from carrying it
into execution by the want of strength to do so. "The
Union," to use their own words, "was a league with hell
and a compact with the devil," and the sooner it could
be made to "slide," the better.   hence the insults they
heaped upon the Southern people, and their successful
efforts in making the latter a cat's-paw to effect their own
ruin. If secession, therefore, be a capital offense, as no
doubt it is, the plea of se defendedo is clearly admissible in extenuation of punishment. In any case, the
Abolitionists ought to be the last to bring accusations
against it. To be consistent and just, they ought to
recuse the case; and common sense and common equity
would sustain the recusation.
But granting secession to have been an anachronism,
22
245 
SECESSION.
and therefore wrong, when it was first instituted as a
means of self-defense, because the South was not then
directly assailed by any overt act of aggression, and
because it was unknown what might or might not have
been the future policy of Mr. Lincoln's administration,
the subsequent adoption by that administration of the
abolition programme changes the entire aspect of the
case. The indorsement by the Federal government of
the abolition policy, as manifested in its conduct of the
war, no matter from what cause it was made, puts the
South legitimately on the defensive, and keeps it there
as long as its rights are thus assaulted. Leaving out of
view altogether the constitutionality of the question, and
the belligerent right of "military necessity," the question resolves itself into one of a predetermined policy, a
foregone conclusion; and the nature of this policy, of
this predetermination, depends entirely upon the animus of the Federal administration and of the Northern
people. What, then, is the ulterior purpose,.the principal aim, of the Federal administration? Is the purpose a single one, or does it include the accomplishment
of more than one design in the same end?  And does
the administration, in the adoption of that purpose,
whatever it may be, single or multiple, truly represent
the wishes of the Northern people? Is it the design of
the administration, first of all, to make use of the war
as a suitable occasion, aptly prepared to its hand, for
the abolition of slavery, as a prime consideration and
end to be achieved for its own sake? And is it further
the purpose of the administration to confiscate the property of the South, or any portion of it? or to deprive
her of any of her political rights? or to inflict any other
246 
SECESSION.
species of punishment upon the Southern people, or upon
any portion of them? If these be the fell purposes of
the administration, and they accord with the wishes of
the Northern people, then there is nothing more to be
said about it. If they have the power to execute these
designs, to carry out such purposes, to accomplish such
wishes, no one of course can prevent them; the might,
in this case, gives the right. But, then, it is clear this
foregone policy of the Federal government must also
predetermine the course of the Southern people. Their
all is at stake; and their enemy leaves them no choice
but, win or lose, to stand the hazard of the die: they
must take counsel only of necessity, derive their inspiration from a single alternative, and, with the generous
courage of a noble despair, die with arms in their hands;
and that they will thus dare to die, who that knows them
will dare to doubt?
From this view of the case it follows that, though
originally in the wrong, the South has changed places
with the Federal government, and is actually forced, by
the policy of the latter, to continue the war as long as
she can. While her dearest interests are assailed, and
the very existence of her society and of everything she
possesses in the world is threatened, the South is deprived, by the peculiar attitude of the Federal government, of even the ability, much more the inclination, to
enter into any compromise looking to a restoration of
the Union under the constitution: because such a compromise would be nothing else but a compact with her
avowed enemy, who, in making it, surrenders no aggressive right, but maintains the same hostile posture to the
last. It would be the dictation of dishonorable terms
247 
SECESSION.
by a conqueror to a conquered people. It would be
to restore the Union without the equal benefits of the
Union. It would be to reinstate the constitution without conceding to the South an equal participation in the
rights conferred by the constitution. It would be, in
short, only a miserable parologism, a contradiction of
terms, a conclusion unauthorized by the premises, false
in logic, false in principle, false, above all, to that magnanimous nobility of nature which should characterize a
great and free people, who, loving liberty for its own
sake, should scorn to impose servile terms upon their
erring brothers.  Rather let the fatted calf be killed in
honor of the returning prodigals, and the past be forgiven and forgotten in a cordial reunion of hearts as
well as of States; or if the past must be remembered at
all, let it be remembered only to correct the errors which
have led to such disastrous results.
But there is one other consequence which flows from
this policy of the Federal government and the Northern
people-if such indeed be their policy. By its adoption
of practical abolitionism, as manifested in its conduct of
the war,-to say nothing of the wholesale confiscation
which is threatened,-the administration at Washington
ceases to be a General government of the entire nation,
constitutionally administered upon principles of equal
and impartial justice, and degenerates into-what was
a foregone conclusion of the democratic principlespurely and exclusively a government of party. It was
equally conclusive from the first that this ruling party
must ultimately become purely sectional, residing in a
particular portion of the common country rather than
in another, favoring the peculiar interest of that section,
248 
SECESSION.
and of course become antagonistic to some other interest,
which it must in time destroy. It is precisely to this
point our politics have at last arrived, on the supposition
of the foregoing policy being adhered to and fully carried out; and this war must be considered as being the
last term, the necessary consequence of the fundamental
principles of this government. As long, then, I repeat,
as her present belligerent attitude is forced upon her by
,the continuance of these facts, the South has no choice
but to carry on the war to the last extremity; and if
she must perish by superior force, she will at least
perish with her harness on, and fighting like a nation
that deserves to be free.
To disarm secession, therefore, or to put it in the
wrong and keep it there, it is first of all incumbent on
the Washington administration to plant itself immovably on the constitution, disavow abolitionism, and by its
method of conducting the war afford the South no pre text for a longer continuance of her disorganizing be havior. This change of war-policy on the part of the
Federal administration will be a prelude to other things:
it will be the first note of a summons to parley: it will
prepare the Southern mind to listen to the voice of
reason, and return to a sense of duty, a duty it owes
to itself, to the nation, to humanity, to civilization.
The concession thus far will be mutual, and the pride
or honor or interests of neither party need be considered
as having been compromised. The Federal government
at least will have rectified its error, will have made the
amende honorable; and if the South, after her bitter
experience, refuse to meet advances thus made in the
spirit of candor and good fellowship, she must bear the
249 
CONCLUSION.
responsibility of whatever consequences may follow her
contumacy. But it is not anticipated by those who
know the state of the public mind at the South, that if
the foregoing conditions be fulfilled by the Federal government, any serious difficulty will remain in the way of
reconciliation.
Conclusion.
I will not encumber these pages with specifications of
organic changes which may seem to be required by the
general welfare in the structure of government. I have
already said enough to indicate the general character of
those alterations which, in my opinion, are peremptorily
demanded, not perhaps as prerequisites of a reconstruction of the Union, but as indispensable to its perpetuity
thereafter.   It is not for me  to particularize those
changes. I shall not endanger the favorable reception
of these remarks by descending to minutias, about which
all minds may disagree. It is for the assembled wisdom
of the nation to determine what those fundamental modifications shall be, and to introduce such specific innovations into the form of our government as the nature of
the case may seem to require.
That those necessary alterations will ever be voluntarily made, or this war suddenly arrested and a peaceable reconstruction of the Union effected by compromise,
is more than the most sanguine dare hope for.  If it
should be so, it will be the first time in the history of
the world that a great revolution has been arrested in
mid career, and turned back upon itself, by the wise
forethought of the very persons who began it. Such
250 
CONCLUSION.
an achievement would be the glory of the age, and the
triumph of civilization over the passions of mankind.
It would proclaim the approach of a social science destined to illumine the world, and to countermand revolutions for all time to come.
But this is almost too bright a vision for the human
imagination to indulge. It is to be feared the time is
not yet come for so much illumination, and that this
revolution must run the usual career of violence and
bloodshed. There is something deeply melancholy in
the contemplation of a spectacle so fraught with ruin
and desolation brought on themselves by men who aim
only at realizing their ideas of social order. But in all
great events of this kind, how many ignorant and "disastrous efforts must be made, before the successful one!"
Human ignorance is the fruitful source of all the woes
that afflict human society.  It is sad to see a great
nation, like a sightless Polyphemus, deprived of the
light of reason, hurling destruction around, because it
knows not what else to do, what it wants, or how to
right its wrongs. Helpless in our ignorance, we can
only weep over so much heroism wasted, so much blind
effort misdirected, so much brute force abused. But is
not the loss of so much courage, of so many sacrifices
and endeavors, of so much virtue, a sorrowful sight? It
is true, as Guizot remarks of these revolutions, that
Providence, upon all such occasions, in order to accomplish His designs, is prodigal of courage, virtues, sacrifices-finally of man; and it is only after a vast number
of ignorant attempts apparently lost-after a host of
noble hearts have fallen into despair-convinced that
their cause was ruined-that it triumphs at last.
251
1, 
CONCLUSION.
Such has ever been the nature of the painful progress
of society through the dreary ages of the past. Revolution after revolution, each apparently more disastrous
than the other, have brought it thus far forward on its
bloody path, only to consign it, alas! to another, which
still repeats the sad story of man's endless failures to
realize his ideas of order and happiness. This is what
is called the spontaneous development of civilization,
directed solely by the blind forces of nature. But there
is another species of development,-it is the reflective
method by which the social evolution unfolds itself,
guided by reason and the wise forethought of enlightened statesmen, and an intelligent community who study
social laws, and by their knowledge of them give to
civilization the direction it wishes to take.
At an earlier period, the very existence of laws which
were perpetually transforming society in spite of itself
was not even suspected; hence the blind struggles, the
fruitless efforts, the ruinous endeavors that were made
to resist them. But now we know more than was known
then; and it is our disgrace and our punishment that
we make so little use of this knowledge. We thrust
forward presumptuous demagogues, whom we call statesmen, and seem not to know that our ills are come of
their ignorance.   The eagles being retired from our
political sky, these birds of night come forth, and brood
all our woes. When, therefore, our errors recoil upon
ourselves, andwe know not what else to do, we fall to
cutting each other's throats. This we call statesmanship; and our great men are they who can do only this.
If the foregoing remarks have disclosed anything,
they have discovered to us the "danger, the evil, the
252 
CONCLUSION.
insurmountable vice of absolute power."   It matters
not where this power may reside, whether in one man
or in many, in a monarch or a majority, in a king or
the people; nor by whatsoever name it may be called,
whether a theocracy, an aristocracy, a monarchy, or a
democracy,-its effects in every case are the same; and
it is never otherwise than destructive of the main ends
for which society is established.   Wherever  a single
principle controls the movement of society, there tyranny is inevitable; for nothing is more complex than
social interests, and if but one principle be allowed at
the basis of government, then only one interest will be
represented, which will dominate all others. It is the
duty, and should be the peculiar event of our time, to
recognize the important fact that all power, whether
belonging to governments or people, bears within itself
a natural vice, a tendency to abuse, is accompanied
with an almost invincible craving to exercise and diffuse
itself, which call for the most stringent limitations that
human ingenuity can impose upon it. In systems of
government, the only method of limiting political forces
is by admitting all principles, interests, rights, to a full
representation in the frame of society; to give to all
these "a free manifestation and legal existence;" and
to so adjust all that they shall check and balance, without destroying each other. "Nothing but a system
which insures all this, can restrain every particular
force or power within its legitimate bounds, and prevent
it from encroaching on the others." This is one social
law with which we are now well acquainted; and we
know equally well that such are not the terms of our
23
253 
CONCLUSION.
social system; but that democracy reigns there alone,
and tyrannizes every other interest.
We have also discovered, in the course of this investigation, one other fact of no little importance. We have
learned that principles of order and progress should coexist in the same social system; that both security and
movement, stability and advancement, conservatism and
amelioration are essential to social existence.   Every
system which contains not this double advantage, this
compound virtue, is vicious, incompetent, and is speedily
abandoned. Any system, to be permanent, must provide for order for the present and progress for the
future. We are but too well aware that our social system is not built upon this plan: that its foundation is
too narrow: although it pretends to be founded upon
tle broad basis of the whole people, it is \not so in
reality, for there is but one force, one interest, one
principle of human nature there. We know, therefore,
we cannot but know, that the failure of our system is
due to the absence of general interests and general
ideas: that everything about it is, as yet, too special,
too individual, too local: that its government of the
majority is nothing else but the government of party:
that this party government must ultimately become
purely sectional: that the federative compact is nothing
but a system of voluntary obedience, which is equivalent
to no obedience at all: that the policy of the government depends at all times upon the caprices of individual opinions: that at this very moment the government is lending itself to the passions of fanaticism;
and that, finally, a long and powerful process of centralization is needed, before our society can become at
254 
CONCLUSION.
once extensive, solid, and regular-objects which all
societies necessarily seek to attain.
The only parallel to this state of things which the history of modern times affords is that of Italy; and the
condition of utter decomposition to which we are hastening renders the parallel all the closer and the lesson
it teaches so much the more instructive. I cannot do
better here than to close these remarks by a quotation
from M. Guizot's able work on the History of European
Civilization, in which he so well describes the melancholy condition of Italy, arising mainly from the same
causes which are about to subject our unhappy country
to a similar fate. The quotation will be found at pages
220, 221 of the second volume, edited in this country by
Professor Henry, of the University of the City of New
York.
"In looking at the history of the Italian republics,
from the eleventh to the fifteenth century, we are struck
with two facts, seemingly contradictory, yet still indisputable. We see passing before us a wonderful display
of courage, of activity, and of genius; an amazing prosperity is the result: we see a movement and a liberty
unknown to the rest of Europe. But if we ask what
was the real state of the inhabitants, how they passed
their lives, what was their real share of happiness, the
scene changes; there is perhaps no history so sad, so
gloomy: no period, perhaps, during which the life of
man appears to have been so agitated, subject to so
many deplorable chances, and which so abounds in dissensions, crimes, and misfortunes. Another fact strikes
us at the same moment: in the political life of the greater
part of these republics, liberty was always growing less
255 
CONCLUSION.
and less. The want of security was so great that the
people were unavoidably driven to take shelter in a systern less stormy, less popular, than that in which the
State existed. Look at the history of Florence, Venice,
Genoa, Milan, Pisa; in all of them we find the course
of events, instead of aiding the progress of liberty, instead of enlarging the circle of institutions, tending to
repress it; tending to concentrate power in the hands
of a smaller number of individuals. In a word, we find
in these republics, otherwise so energetic, so brilliant,
and so rich, two things wanting-security of life, the
first requisite in the social state, and the progress of
institutions.
"From these causes spring a new evil, which prevented
the attempt at republican organization from extending
itself. It was from without-it was from foreign sovereigns-that the greatest danger was threatened to
Italy. Still this danger never succeeded in reconciling
the republics, in making them all act in concert; they
were never ready to resist in common  the common
enemy. This has led many Italians, the most enlightened, the best patriots, to deplore, in the present day,
the republican system of Italy in the middle ages, as
the true cause which hindered it from becoming a nation; it was parceled out, they say, into a multitude of
little States, not sufficiently master of their passions to
confederate, to constitute themselves into one united
body.  The regret that the country has not, like the
rest of Europe, been subjected to a despotic centralization which would have formed it into a nation, and
rendered it independent of the foreigner.
"It appears, then, that republican organization, even
256 
CONCLUSION.
under the most favorable circumstances, did not contain,
at this period, any more than it has done since, the
principle of progress, duration, and extension.   We
may compare, up to a certain point, the organization
of Italy, in the middle ages, to that of ancient Greece.
Greece, like Italy, was a country covered with little
republics, always rivals, sometimes enemies, and sometimes rallying together for a common object. In this
comparison the advantage is altogether on the side of
Greece. There is no doubt, notwithstanding the frequent iniquities that history makes  known, but that
there was much more order, security, and justice in the
interior of Athens, Lacedremon, and Thebes, than in the
Italian republics. See, however, notwithstanding this,
how short was the political career of Greece, and what
a principle of weakness it contained in this parceling
out of territory and power.   No  sooner did Greece
come in contact with the great neighboring States, with
Macedon and Rome, than she fell. These little republics, so glorious and still so flourishing, could not coalesce
to resist. How much more likely was this to be the case
in Italy, where society and human reason had made no
such strides as in Greece, and consequently possessed
much less power!"
This reads like what might have been the future history of the innumerable little republics which secession,
if it were able, would set free on this continent. The
ruin of the nations of antiquity was owing to the smallness of their extent. Their diminutive size exposed
them almost exclusively to the influence of individual
passions, and delivered them up a prey to those social
vermin, the demagogues. One man could communicate
257 
CONCLUSION.
his passions, from the stand of the orator, to the whole
Athenian republic, and, in an instant, transport them
into the wildest excesses.* The wars of the middle ages
are attributable to pretty much the same cause. Greece,
by the pure force of individual genius, rushed like a
meteor to the zenith of power, blazed for a solitary instant in the dazzled eyes of the world, then sank in
darkness forever: her society had no broad foundation
in the full development of all the elements of human
nature: the revolution of ideas was hindered by the
overbearing influence of individual passions: in disturbing the empire of intelligence, they retarded its development. The same is true of all ancient communities.
Troy, Carthage, and other nations, whose territorial
extent was confined to little more than the mural limits
of a city, were extinguished each by a single blow, and
went out like falling stars. England was once a heptarchy, with seven kings and as many independent
nations; and her life was a state of perpetual warfare,
like that of kites and daws and wild beasts: nor was
she an exaggerated type of most of the medieval States.
Similar causes cannot produce dissimilar results: there
is no reason to believe that this country, similarly partitioned, could escape a similar fate. Italy is only just
now beginning to experience the commencement of that
political convergence which alone can give her the importance which is her due among the great powers of
the earth. At the same moment, and with such an example in her eyes, a portion of this already great and
rising nation is spending her blood and treasure, with a
prodigality which is without a precedent, in order to
* See M. Jouffroy on Philosophy of History.
258 
CONCLUSION.
reduce herself and the nation to the woeful plight from
which Italy is escaping with so much difficulty.
But it is useless to run this parallel further, since it
is morally and physically impossible that such a catastrophe can befall us in this age, when, by the laws of a
political gravity, the most stupendous recombinations
are taking place among the powers of the world, and
when mighty empires alone can command that sense of
security, permanence, and respect so dear to the heart
of man.   Happily, the nature of modern civilization
and the laws of geography save us from the danger.
This process of decomposition was begun too soon or
too late. It matters not now what may be the immediate verdict of this war: it may decide for or against
the cause its martial arrays were impanneled to try: its
ultimate consequences are quite another thing; they
appear not in the fight; they summoned no armies to
the field; no man thinks of them, or battles for them;
but, while other issues occupy exclusive attention, while
the poor motives of the immediate actors appear to direct
the strife, they alone remain the last resolution, the imperishable residuum of the conflict. These ulterior consequences, so important but so invisible, depend not so
much upon the will of man as upon the force of things;
that force, which is sometimes called Providence, which
leaves forever behind the past and determines the future,
and by which the world is carried forward instead of
backward, that force is beyond human control; all that
man can do is to observe its movement and follow its
direction: if he go counter to its tendency, he will be
crushed by the collision; it still proceeds athwart human
designs to its own ends.
259 
CONCLUSION.
The magnificent destiny of this nation is predetermined and inevitable.   Its integrity is already placed
beyond the reach of any man or set of men to destroy
it. Though the nation be severed for a time, it will reunite in firmer bonds. It is borne to empire on the
current of fate.   The accumulated energies of many
thousand years, of the entire past, are converging to its
defense, and are pledged to its aggrandizement.  Take
courage, then, you whom Providence raises up in these
wretched days. What seems to be the hour of dissolution, is but the beginning of a higher existence. A
germ of future life is fermenting in the bosom of this
corruption. The horrors we now witness are not the
pangs of death, but the throes of a mighty parturition.
Though it be amid the clash of arms, and millions be
slain in obedience to the bloody rites of a barbarous
ignorance, forth from this hecatomb of slaughtered victims will issue a new birth,. which shall terminate the
lawless interregnum of force, and renew the youth of
humanity. This Avatar of the future, with which the
womb of Time is now so rich, will come in the panoply
of Peace; it will be the transformation of society; it
will combine order with progress, conservatism with
amelioration; it will give us LIBERTY WITH LAWS, AND
GOVERNMENT WITHOUT OPPRESSION.
THE END.
260