I do not content myself with a single objection to this outrageous consummation. There is another, of a different nature. Assuming, for the moment, what I glory to believe can never happen, that the new Slave Power has become independent in fact, while the national flag has sunk away exhausted in the contest, there is one objection which, in an age of Christian light, thank God, cannot be overcome, unless, after solemn covenants branding Slavery, the great powers shall forget their vows, while England, the declared protectress of the African race, and France, the declared champion of “ideas,” both break away from the irresistible logic of their history, and turn their backs upon the past. Vain is honor, vain is human confidence, if these nations, at a moment of high duty, can thus ignobly fail. “Renown and grace is dead.” Like the other objection, this is of fact also,—for it is founded on the character of the pretension claiming recognition, which constitutes fact. Perhaps it may be said that it is a question of policy; but it is of policy which ought to be beyond debate, if such fact be established. Something more is necessary than that the new power shall be de facto independent. De facto it must be fit for independence; and, from the nature of the case, every nation will judge of this fitness in fact. Undertaking to acknowledge a new power, you proclaim its fitness for welcome and association in the Family of Nations. Can England gazette such a proclamation, elevating the whippers of women and sellers of children? Can France permit Louis Napoleon to do the same?
Here, on the threshold of this inquiry, the true state of the question must not be forgotten. It is not whether old and existing relations shall be continued with a power permitting Slavery, but whether relations shall be commenced with a new power, not merely permitting Slavery, but building its whole intolerable pretension upon this Barbarism. “No new Slave State” is a watchword with which we are familiar in our domestic history; but even such cry does not reveal the full opposition to the new revolt against Civilization,—for, even if disposed to admit a new Slave State, there must be, among men who have not yet lost all sense of decency, undying resistance to the admission of a new Slave Power with such an unquestioned origin and such an unquestioned purpose as that which now flaunts in piracy and blood before the civilized world, seeking recognition for its criminal chimera. Here is nothing for nice casuistry. Duty is plain as the moral law or the multiplication table.
Look for a moment at the unprecedented character of this pretension. A President known to be against the extension of Slavery was duly elected by the people in the autumn of 1860. This was all. He had not entered upon his duties. But the apostolic Slavemongers saw that Slavery at home must suffer under the popular judgment against its extension; they saw that a vote against its extension was a vote for its condemnation; and they rebelled. Under this wicked inspiration, State after State pretended to withdraw from the Union, and to construct a new Confederacy, whose “corner-stone” was Slavery. A Constitution was adopted, declaring these words: (1.) “No law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed”[106]; and (2.) “In all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several States, the institution of Negro Slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial Government.”[107] Do not start. These are the authentic words of the text. You will find them in the Rebel Constitution.
Such was the unalterable fabric of the new government. Nor was there any doubt or hesitation in proclaiming its distinctive character. Its Vice-President, Mr. Stephens, thus far remarked for moderation on Slavery, as if smitten with diabolic light, undertook to explain and vindicate the new Magna Charta. His words are familiar, but they cannot be omitted in a complete statement of the case. “The new Constitution,” he said, “has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution, African Slavery, as it exists among us,” which he proceeds to declare “was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.” The Vice-President announced unequivocally the change that had taken place. Admitting it was “the prevailing idea of most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the Laws of Nature, that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically,” he denounces this idea as “fundamentally wrong,” and proclaims the new government “founded upon exactly the opposite idea.” Here is no disguise. “Its foundations,” he avows, “are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man,—that Slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.” Not content with exhibiting the untried foundation, he boastfully claims for the new government priority of invention. “This our new government,” he vaunts, “is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.… This stone, which was rejected by the first builders, ‘is become the chief stone of the corner.’” And then, as if priority of invention were not enough, he proceeds to claim for the new government future supremacy, saying that it is already “the nucleus of a growing power, which, if we are true to ourselves, our destiny, and our high mission, will become the controlling power on this continent.”[108]
Since Satan first declared the “corner-stone” of his new government, and openly denounced the Almighty Throne, there has been no blasphemy of equal audacity. In human history nothing but itself can be its parallel. The gauntlet is thrown down to heaven and earth, while a disgusting Barbarism is proclaimed as the new Civilization. Here is a new method, a novum organum, to usher in the world’s future. Two years are already passed,—but, as the Rebellion began, so is it now. A Governor of South Carolina, in a message to the Legislature, as late as 3d April, 1863, takes up the boastful strain, and congratulates the Rebel Slavemongers that they are “a refined, cultivated, and enlightened people,” and that the new government is “the finest type that the world ever beheld.”[109] God save the mark! Such, doubtless, was the speech of the African tyrant, as he sat in state on the prostrate bodies of his subjects and rejoiced in this manifestation of power. A leading journal, more than any other the organ of the Slavemongers, repeats the original vaunt with more than the original brutality. After dwelling on “the grand career and lofty destiny” before the new government, the “Richmond Examiner” of 28th May, 1863, proceeds as follows. “Would that all of us understood and laid to heart the true nature of that career and that destiny, and the responsibility it imposes. The establishment of the Confederacy is, verily, a distinct reaction against the whole course of the mistaken civilization of the age. For Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity we have deliberately substituted Slavery, Subordination, and Government. Reverently we feel that our Confederacy is a God-sent missionary to the nations, with great truths to preach. We must speak thus boldly; but ‘whoso hath ears to hear, let him hear.’” This God-sent missionary to the nations it is now proposed to welcome at the household hearth of the civilized world.
Unhappily, there are old nations already in the family still tolerating Slavery; but now, for the first time, a new nation claims admission there, which not only tolerates Slavery, but, exulting in its shame, strives to reverse the judgment of mankind, making this outrage its chief support and glory, so that all recognition of the new power will be recognition of a sacrilegious pretension,
“With one vast blood-stone for the mighty base.”
Elsewhere Slavery has been an accident; here it is the principal. Elsewhere it has been an instrument only; here it is the inspiration. Elsewhere it has been kept back in becoming modesty; here it is pushed forward in all its brutish nakedness. Elsewhere it has claimed nothing but liberty to live; here it claims license to rule, with unbounded empire at home and abroad. Look at this candidate power in its whole continued existence, from Alpha to Omega, and it is nothing but Slavery. Its origin is Slavery, its mainspring is Slavery, its object is Slavery. Wherever it appears, whatever it does, whatever form it takes, it is Slavery and nothing else; so that, with the agonizing despair of Satan, it might cry out:—
“Me miserable! which way shall I fly