The Present is apt to appear trivial and unimportant, while the Past and the Future are grand. Rarely do men know the full significance of the period in which they live, and we are inclined to sigh for something better in the way of opportunity,—such as was given to the hero of the Past, or as imagination allots to the better hero of the Future. But there is no occasion for this repining now. There is nothing in the Past, and it is difficult to imagine anything in the Future, more inspiring than our Present. Even with the curtain yet slightly lifted, it is easy to see that events are gathering, which, in their development, must constitute the third great epoch in the history of this Western Hemisphere,—the first being its discovery by Christopher Columbus, and the second the American Revolution. It remains to be seen if this epoch of ours may not surpass in grandeur either of its two predecessors, so that the fame of the Discoverer and the fame of the Liberator, of Columbus and of Washington, shall be eclipsed by the mild effulgence beaming from an act of godlike justice, creating within its immediate influence a new heaven and a new earth, and extending to other lands a life-giving example, so long as men struggle for rights denied, so long as any human being wears a chain. And this sublime act will be the present substitute for armies. The ancient Spartan, being asked, “Which is the greater virtue, justice or valor?” answered in memorable words, “Where justice is, there can be no need of valor.”
War is always an epoch. Unhappily, history counts by wars. Of these, some are wars of ideas,—like that between Catholics and Huguenots in France, between Catholics and Protestants in Germany, between the arbitrary crown of Charles the First and the Puritanism of Oliver Cromwell, and like that between our fathers and the mother country, when the Declaration of Independence was put in issue. Some originate in questions of form, some in the contentions of families, some in the fickleness of princes, and some in the machinations of politicians. England waged war on Holland, and one of the reasons openly assigned was an offensive picture in the Town-Hall of Amsterdam. France hurled armies across the Rhine, carrying fire and slaughter into the Palatinate, and involving great nations in most bloody conflict,—and all this wickedness is traced to the intrigue of a minister, to divert the attention of his sovereign. But we are now in the midst of a war which, whatever the reasons assigned by the unhappy men who began it, or by those who sympathize with them elsewhere, has an origin and mainspring so clear and definite as to be beyond question. Ideas are sometimes good and sometimes bad; and there may be a war for evil as well as for good. Such was that earliest rebellion waged by fallen spirits against the Almighty Throne; and such is that now waged by fallen slave-masters of our Republic against the National Government. I adopt the language of Milton, in his masterly prose, when I call it “a war fit for Cain to be the leader of,—an abhorred, a cursed, a fraternal war.”[205] Nor can any courage in Rebels give true honor. If victorious, they will be only Satanic saints of Slavery, with place in a most hateful hagiology.
If you will kindly listen, I shall endeavor to unmask this Rebellion in its Origin and Mainspring. Only when these are known can you determine how it is to be treated. Your efforts will be governed by the character of the adverse force,—whether regarded as motive power or as disease. A steam-engine is stopped at once by stopping the steam. A ghastly cancer, which has grappled the very fibres of the human frame, and shot its poison through every vein, will not yield to lip-salve or rosewater.
“Diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliances are relieved,
Or not at all.”
On the sixth of November last, the people of the United States, acting in pursuance of the Constitution and laws, chose Abraham Lincoln President. Of course this choice was in every particular perfectly constitutional and legal. As such, it was entitled to the respect and acquiescence of every good citizen. It is vain to say that the candidate represented opinions obnoxious to a considerable section of the country, or that he was chosen by votes confined to a special section. It is enough that he was duly chosen. You cannot set aside or deny such an election, without assailing not only the whole framework of the Constitution, but also the primal principle of American institutions. You become a traitor at once to the existing government and to the very idea of popular rule. You snatch a principle from the red book of despotism, and openly substitute the cartridge-box for the ballot-box.
And yet scarcely had this intelligence flashed across the country before the mutterings of sedition and treason began to reach us from an opposite quarter. The Union was menaced; and here the first distinct voice came from South Carolina. A Senator from that State, one of the largest slaveholders of the country, and a most strenuous partisan of Slavery, [Mr. Hammond,] openly declared, in language not easily forgotten, that before the 18th of December South Carolina would be “out of the Union, high and dry and forever.” These words heralded the outbreak. With the pertinacity of demons its leaders pushed forward. Their avowed object was the dismemberment of the Republic, by detaching State after State, in order to found a Slaveholding Confederacy. And here the clearest utterance came from a late Representative of Georgia [Mr. Stephens], now Vice-President of the Rebel States, who did not hesitate to proclaim that “the foundations of the new government are laid upon the great truth, that Slavery, subordination to the superior race, is the negro’s natural and moral condition,”—that “it is the first government in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth,”—and that “the stone which was rejected by the first builders is in the new edifice become the chief stone of the corner.”[206] Here is a savage frankness, with insensibility to shame. The object avowed is hideous in every aspect, whether we regard it as treason to our paternal government, as treason to the idea of American institutions, or as treason to those commanding principles of economy, morals, and Christianity, without which civilization is no better than barbarism.
And now we stand front to front in deadly conflict with this double-headed, triple-headed treason. Beginning with those States most peculiarly interested in Slavery, and operating always with intensity proportioned to the prevalence of Slavery, it fastens upon other States less interested,—Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia,—and with much difficulty is prevented from enveloping every State containing slaves, no matter how few: for such is the malignant poison of Slavery that only a few slaves constitute a Slave State with all the sympathies and animosities of Slavery. This is the Rebellion which I am to unmask. Bad as it is on its face, it becomes aggravated, when we consider its origin, and the agencies by which it is conducted. It is not merely a Rebellion, but it is a Rebellion begun in conspiracy; nor, in all history, ancient or modern, is there any record of conspiracy so vast and so wicked, ranging over such spaces both of time and territory, and forecasting such results. A conspiracy to seize a castle or to assassinate a prince is petty by the side of this enormous, protracted treason, where half a continent is seized, studded with castles, fortresses, and public edifices, where the Government itself is overthrown, and the President, on his way to the national capital, narrowly escapes most cruel assassination.