If you will bear with me yet longer in allusions which I make with reluctance, I would quote, as my unanswerable defence, the words of Edmund Burke, when addressing his constituents at Bristol.
“And now, Gentlemen, on this serious day, when I come, as it were, to make up my account with you, let me take to myself some degree of honest pride on the nature of the charges that are against me. I do not here stand before you accused of venality or of neglect of duty. It is not said, that, in the long period of my service, I have in a single instance sacrificed the slightest of your interests to my ambition or to my fortune. It is not alleged, that, to gratify any anger or revenge of my own or of my party, I have had a share in wronging or oppressing any description of men, or any one man in any description. No! the charges against me are all of one kind,—that I have pushed the principles of general justice and benevolence too far,—further than a cautious policy would warrant, and further than the opinions of many would go along with me. In every accident which may happen through life, in pain, in sorrow, in depression, and distress, I will call to mind this accusation, and be comforted.”[114]
Among the passages in eloquence which can never die, I know none more beautiful or heroic. If I invoke its protection, it is with the consciousness, that, however unlike in genius and fame, I am not unlike its author in the accusations to which I have been exposed.
Fellow-citizens, a year has passed since I addressed you; but, during this time, what events for warning and encouragement! Amidst vicissitudes of war, the cause of Human Freedom has steadily and grandly advanced,—not, perhaps, as you could desire, yet it is the only cause which has not failed. Slavery and the Black Laws all abolished in the national capital; Slavery interdicted in all the national territory; Hayti and Liberia recognized as independent republics in the family of nations; the slave-trade placed under the ban of a new treaty with Great Britain; all persons in the military and naval service prohibited from returning slaves, or sitting in judgment on the claim of a master; the slaves of Rebels emancipated by coming within our lines; a tender of compensation for the abolition of Slavery: such are some of Freedom’s triumphs in the recent Congress. Amidst all doubts and uncertainties of the present hour, let us think of these things and be comforted. I cannot forget, that, when I last spoke to you, I urged the liberation of the slaves of Rebels, and especially that our officers should not be permitted to surrender back to Slavery any human being seeking shelter within our lines; and I further suggested, if need were, a Bridge of Gold for the retreating Fiend. And now all that I then proposed is embodied in the legislation of the country as the supreme law of the land.
It was as a military necessity that I urged these measures; it is as a military necessity that I now uphold them, and insist upon their completest and most generous execution, so that they shall have the largest scope and efficacy. Not as Abolitionist, not as Antislavery man, not even as philanthropist,—if I may claim that honored name,—do I now speak. I forget, for the moment, all the unutterable wrong of Slavery, and all the transcendent blessings of Freedom; for they do not belong to this argument. I think only of my country menaced by rebellion, and ask how it shall be saved. But I have no policy, no theory, no resolutions to support,—nothing which I will not gladly abandon, if you will show me anything better.
“If you know better rules than these, be free,
Impart them; but if not, use these with me.”[115]
And now, what is the object of the war? This question is often asked, and the answer is not always candid. It is sometimes said that it is to abolish Slavery. Here is a mistake, or a misrepresentation. It is sometimes said, in cant language, that the object is “the Constitution as it is and the Union as it was.” Here is another mistake or misrepresentation, which becomes more offensive when it is known that by “the Constitution as it is” is meant simply the right to hold and hunt slaves, and by “the Union as it was” is meant those halcyon days of Proslavery Democracy, when the ballot-box was destroyed in Kansas, when freedom of debate was menaced in the Senate, and when chains were put upon the Boston Court-House. Not for any of these things is this war waged. Not to abolish Slavery or to establish Slavery, but simply to put down the Rebellion. And here the question occurs, How can this object be best accomplished?