CONTENTS OF VOLUME X.
OUR FOREIGN RELATIONS:
SHOWING
PRESENT PERILS FROM ENGLAND AND FRANCE, NATURE AND CONDITION OF INTERVENTION BY MEDIATION AND ALSO BY RECOGNITION, IMPOSSIBILITY OF ANY RECOGNITION OF A NEW POWER WITH SLAVERY AS A CORNER-STONE, AND WRONGFUL CONCESSION OF OCEAN BELLIGERENCE.
Speech before the Citizens of New York, at the Cooper Institute, September 10, 1863. With Appendix.
Marcus. Quæro igitur a te, Quinte, sicut illi solent: Quo si civitas careat, ob eam ipsam causam, quod eo careat, pro nihilo habenda sit, id estne numerandum in bonis?
Quintus. Ac maximis quidem.
Marcus. Lege autem carens civitas estne ob id ipsum habenda nullo loco?
Quintus. Dici aliter non potest.
Marcus. Necesse est igitur legem haberi in rebus optimis.
Quintus. Prorsus assentior.
Cicero, De Legibus, Lib. II. cap. 5.
I have told,
O Britons! O my brethren! I have told
Most bitter truth, but without bitterness.
Nor deem my zeal or factious or mistimed;
For never can true courage dwell with them
Who, playing tricks with conscience, dare not look
At their own vices.
Coleridge, Sibylline Leaves: Fears in Solitude.
’Tis therefore sober and good men are sad
For England’s glory, seeing it wax pale
And sickly.
Cowper, The Task, Book V. 509-511.
The Government condemns in the highest degree the conduct of any of our citizens who may personally engage in committing hostilities at sea against any of the nations parties to the present war, and will exert all the means with which the laws and Constitution have armed them to discover such as offend herein and bring them to condign punishment.… The practice of commissioning, equipping, and manning vessels in our ports to cruise on any of the belligerent parties is equally and entirely disapproved; and the Government will take effectual measures to prevent a repetition of it.—Jefferson, Letter to Mr. Hammond, May 15, 1793: Writings, Vol. III. p. 559.
One spot remains which oceans cannot wash out. The slavery of the African race, which the North Americans had inherited from the ancient monarchy, was adopted and fondly cherished by the new Republic.… The logic of the Constitution declared that all men were free: the pride and avarice of the slave-owners, disowning the image of the Creator and the brotherhood of nature, degraded men of a dark color, and even all the descendants of their sons and daughters, to a level with oxen and horses. But as oxen and horses never combine, and have no sense of wronged independence, oxen and horses are better treated than the men and women of African blood.… But neither the philosophical dogma of the authors of the Constitution, nor the strict pedantry of law, can stifle the cry of outraged humanity, nor still the current of human sympathy, nor arrest forever the decrees of Eternal Justice.—Lord John Russell, Life and Times of Charles James Fox, Vol. I. pp. 364, 365.
To this condition the Constitution of this Confederacy reduces the whole African race; and while declaring these to be its principles, the founders claim the privilege of being admitted into the society of the nations of the earth,—principles worthy only of being conceived and promulgated by the inmates of the infernal regions, and a fit constitution for a confederacy in Pandemonium. Now, as soon as the nature of this Constitution is truly explained and understood, is it possible that the nations of the earth can admit such a Confederacy into their society? Can any nation calling itself civilized associate, with any sense of self-respect, with a nation avowing and practising such principles? Will not every civilized nation, when the nature of this Confederacy is understood, come to the side of the United States, and refuse all association with them, as, in truth, they are, hostes humani generis? For the African is as much entitled to be protected in the rights of humanity as any other portion of the human race. As to Great Britain, her course is, in the nature of things, already fixed and immutable. She must sooner or later join the United States in this war, or be disgraced throughout all future time; for the principle of that civilization which this Confederacy repudiates was by her—to her great glory, and with unparalleled sacrifices—introduced into the code of Civilization, and she will prove herself recreant, if she fails to maintain it.—Josiah Quincy, Address before the Union Club of Boston, February 27, 1863.
If British merchants look with eagerness to the event of the struggle in South America, no doubt they do so with the hope of deriving advantage from that event. But on what is such hope founded? On the diffusion of beggary, on the maintenance of ignorance, on the confirmation of slavery, on the establishment of tyranny in America? No; these are the expectations of Ferdinand. The British merchant builds his hopes of trade and profit on the progress of civilization and good government, on the successful assertion of Freedom,—of Freedom, that parent of talent, that parent of heroism, that parent of every virtue. The fate of South America can only be accessory to commerce as it becomes accessory to the dignity and the happiness of the race of man.—Sir James Mackintosh, Speech in Parliament, on the Foreign Enlistment Bill, June 10, 1819.
When a power comparable only to Thugs, buccaneers, and cannibals tries to thrust its hideous head among nations, and claims the protection and privileges of International Law,—a power which rose against the freest rule on earth for the avowed motive of propagating the worst form of Slavery ever known, having no legitimate complaint, or, if it had, certainly trying no constitutional means of redress, but plunging at once into arms, and that when the arsenals had been emptied and the fortresses seized by the treason of office-holders,—I hold it to be an offence against law, order, and public morality for a statesman whose words carry weight to speak at all of such a power without declaring abhorrence of it.—Professor Francis W. Newman, Letter to Mr. Gladstone, December 1, 1862.
I blame men who are eager to admit into the Family of Nations a state which offers itself to us, based upon a principle, I will undertake to say, more odious and more blasphemous than was ever heretofore dreamed of in Christian or Pagan, in civilized or in savage times. The leaders of this revolt propose this monstrous thing: that over a territory forty times as large as England the blight and curse of Slavery shall be forever perpetuated.—John Bright, Speech at Birmingham, December 18, 1862.
We are already culpable for a part of this bloody war; for, better informed or less indifferent, less selfish or more adroit, above all, more wise, more sincerely the friends of what is right, we could, from London and Paris, have thrown into the midst of the combatants this declaration, which would have rendered the conflict ephemeral: “Never will either England or France, Christian nations, liberal nations, recognize the existence of a people seeking to found Liberty and Independence on Slavery!” The misfortune of the times, in obscuring our judgment, in dulling our passion for the beautiful ideas of Freedom, has, then, already made us participants, in some respect, in the rebellion of the people of the South, and, in order to mask what was gross and low in our voluntary error, we set up vague reasons of commercial policy and general policy at which our fathers would have blushed.… The truth is, that the revolt of the South is the most impudent and most odious insult that has ever been offered to the ideas of modern Civilization.—Journal des Économistes, Avril, 1864, Tom. XLII. p. 88.
The following speech[1] was delivered at the invitation of the New York Young Men’s Republican Union, at Cooper Institute, on the 10th of September, 1863. The announcement that Mr. Sumner had consented to address the citizens of New York on a subject so momentous attracted an audience numbering not less than three thousand persons, among whom were most of the acknowledged representatives of the intelligence, wealth, and influence of the metropolis. Long before the hour appointed for the delivery of the speech, the entrance-doors were besieged by an impatient and anxious crowd, who, as soon as the gates were opened, filled the seats, aisles, lobbies, and platform of the vast hall, leaving at least an equal number to return home, unable to gain an entrance to the building.
Of the following named gentlemen, who were invited to occupy seats upon the platform, a majority were present, while in the auditorium were hundreds of equally prominent citizens, who preferred to retain seats near the ladies whom they had escorted to the meeting.
Francis Lieber, LL.D., George Bancroft, Major-General Dix, Horace Greeley, George Griswold, John E. Williams, W. W. DeForest, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Abram Wakeman, Rev. Dr. Tyng, Cyrus W. Field, Alexander T. Stewart, Horace Webster, LL.D., Joseph Lawrence, John A. Stevens, Pelatiah Perit, James A. Hamilton, H. B. Claflin, T. L. Thornell, Colonel William Borden, William Goodell, Rev. Dr. Thompson, Rev. Dr. Gillette, William Cullen Bryant, Major-General Fremont, A. A. Low, John Jay, Henry Grinnell, James Gallatin, Cephas Brainerd, William B. Astor, William H. Aspinwall, Oliver Johnson, W. M. Evarts, William Curtis Noyes, Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, Shepherd Knapp, William H. Webb, James W. Gerard, Anson Livingston, Frank W. Ballard, Isaac H. Bailey, George B. Lincoln, General Harvey Brown, Rev. Dr. Shedd, Rev. Dr. Durbin, Peter Cooper, Major-General Doubleday, Charles H. Marshall, Marshall O. Roberts, Judge Bradford, Charles H. Russell, E. Delafield Smith, Hamilton Fish, Robert B. Minturn, Rev. Dr. Cheever, F. B. Cutting, Charles King, LL.D., Rev. Dr. Ferris, Ex-Governor King, George Folsom, Samuel B. Ruggles, S. B. Chittenden, Charles T. Rodgers, Mark Hoyt, Lewis Tappan, Rev. Dr. Storrs, Rev. Dr. Adams, Rev. Dr. Vinton, Daniel Drew, Francis Hall, George William Curtis, Judge Edmonds, Rev. Dr. Asa D. Smith, Truman Smith, William A. Hall, Prosper M. Wetmore, B. F. Manierre, George P. Putnam, E. C. Johnson, Rev. Dr. Osgood, Elliott C. Cowdin, Rev. T. Ralston Smith, J. S. Schultz, M. Armstrong, Jr., D. A. Hawkins, Edgar Ketchum, Joseph Hoxie, Rev. Dr. Bellows, General S. C. Pomeroy, James McKaye, George F. Butman, David Dudley Field.
David Dudley Field, Esq., who had been selected by the Committee as Chairman of the meeting, introduced Mr. Sumner to the audience in the following words.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,—At no former period in the history of the country has the condition of its foreign relations been so important and so critical as it is at this moment. In what agony of mortal struggle this nation has passed the last two years we all know. A rebellion of unparalleled extent, of indescribable enormity, without any justifiable cause, without even a decent pretext, stimulated by the bad passions which a barbarous institution had originated, and encouraged by expected and promised aid from false men among ourselves, has filled the land with desolation and mourning. During this struggle it has been our misfortune to encounter the evil disposition of the two nations of Western Europe with which we are most closely associated by ties of blood, common history, and mutual commerce. Perhaps I ought to have said the evil disposition of the governments, rather than of the nations; for in France the people have no voice, and we know only the imperial will and policy, while in England the masses have no powers, the House of Commons being elected by a fraction of the people, and the aristocratic classes being against us from dislike to the freedom of our institutions, and the mercantile classes from the most sordid motives of private gain. To what extent this evil disposition has been carried, what causes have stimulated it, in what acts it has manifested itself, and what consequences may be expected to follow from it in future, will be explained by the distinguished orator who is to address you this evening. His position as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations has given him an acquaintance with the subject equal, if not superior, to that of any other person in the country. He needs no introduction from me. His name is an introduction and a passport in any free community between the Atlantic and the Pacific seas; therefore, without saying more, I will give way for Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts.”
Amid the most marked demonstrations of satisfaction, expressed frequently by long-continued applause and hearty cheers, Mr. Sumner proceeded in the delivery of his discourse. The meeting adjourned about an hour before midnight.
Three New York newspapers and two in Boston printed the entire speech on the day following its delivery.