Both are objections of fact. Either is sufficient. Even if the belligerence seems to be established as fact, still its concession in this age of Christian light must be impossible, except under some temporary aberration, which, for the honor of England and the welfare of Humanity, should speedily pass away.
Again, fellow-citizens, I crave forgiveness for this long trespass. If the field traversed is ample, it has been brightened always by the light of international justice, exposing clearly, from beginning to end, the sacred landmarks of duty. I have been frank, disguising nothing and keeping nothing back, so that you have been able to see the perils to which the Republic is exposed from the natural tendency of war to breed war, as exhibited in examples of history, and also from the fatal proclivity of foreign powers to intermeddle, as exhibited in recent instances of querulous criticism or intrusive proposition, all adverse to the good cause, while pirate ships are permitted to depredate on our commerce; then how the best historic instances testify in favor of Freedom, and how all intervention of every kind, whether by proffer of mediation or otherwise, becomes intolerable, when its influence tends to the establishment of that soulless anomaly, a professed Republic built on the hopeless and everlasting bondage of a race; and especially how Great Britain is sacredly engaged by all the logic of her history and all her traditions in unbroken lineage against any such unutterable baseness; then how all the Christian powers constituting the Family of Nations are firmly bound to set their faces against any recognition of the embryo government.—first, because its independence is not in fact established, and, secondly, because, even if in fact established, its recognition is impossible without criminal complicity in Slavery; and, lastly, how these same Christian powers are firmly bound by the same twofold reasons against any concession of ocean rights to this hideous pretender.
It only remains that the Republic should gird itself to the majesty of its duties. War is terrible and hard to bear, with its waste, its pains, its wounds, its funerals. But in this war we are not choosers. We are challenged to the defence of country, and in this sacred cause to crush Slavery. There is no alternative. Slavery began the combat, staking life, and determined to rule or die. Let it die; and to this end the country must be aroused. We need a song like “Scots who have with Wallace bled.” The cause is greater now than then. We need words like those of Luther, “half battles.” Ours is another Reformation and another Revolution. The attempted revolution for Slavery we meet by a counter revolution for Liberty. That we may continue freemen, there must be no slaves; and thus our own security is linked with the redemption of a race. Blessed lot, amidst the harshness of war, to wield the arms and deal the blows under which the monster will surely fall! The battle is mighty; for into Slavery has entered the Spirit of Evil. It is persistent; for such a gathered wickedness, concentrated, aroused, and maddened, must have a tenacity of life which will not yield at once. But no might nor time can save it now.
That the whole war is contained in Slavery may be seen not only in the acts of the National Government, but also in the confessions of Rebel Slavemongers. Already the President has proclaimed that the slaves throughout the whole Rebel region “are and henceforward shall be free”; and in order to fix the irreversible character of this sublime edict, he has further announced “that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.”[157] An enlightened commission is constituted to consider how these thronging freedmen can be best employed for their own good and the national defence. Already the sons of Africa, as mustered soldiers of the Union, have shown a discipline and a bravery not unworthy of their ancient fathers, when the prophet Jeremiah said, “Let the mighty men come forth, the Ethiopians and the Libyans that handle the shield”;[158] and still further, by their stature, by their appearance in the ranks, and even by the unexpected testimony of sanitary statistics, according to which for every black soldier disabled by sickness there are more than ten white, thus making the army health of the black ten times as sure as that of the white,—by all these things they have shown that the Father of History, who is our earliest classical authority, was not entirely mistaken, when he spoke of Ethiopia as “the most distant region of the earth, whose inhabitants are the tallest, most beautiful, and most long-lived of the human race.”[159] Even if these acts of the National Government were less significant, all doubt is removed by the Rebel Slavemongers themselves, who, in Satanic audacity, openly avow that Slavery is the end and aim of the government they seek to establish, so that the whole bloody war they wage is all in the name of Slavery. Therefore, in battling against the Rebellion, we battle against Slavery. Freedom is the growing inspiration of our armies and the just inscription of our banners. Such a war is not a war of subjugation, but a war of liberation, to save the Republic from a petty oligarchy of taskmasters, and to rescue four millions of human beings from cruel oppression. Not to subjugate, but to liberate, is the object of our Holy War.
And yet British statesmen, forgetting for the moment all moral distinctions, forgetting God, who will not be forgotten, gravely announce that our cause must fail. Alas! individual wickedness is too often successful; but a pretended nation, suckled in wickedness and boasting its wickedness, a new Sodom, with all the guilt of the old, waiting to be blasted, and yet, in barefaced effrontery, openly seeking the fellowship of Christian powers, is doomed to defeat. Toleration of such a pretension is practical atheism. Chronology and geography are both offended. Piety stands aghast. In this age of light, and in countries boasting civilization, there can be no place for its barbarous plenipotentiaries. As well expect crocodiles crawling on the pavements of London and Paris, or the carnivorous idols of Africa installed for worship in Westminster Abbey and Notre Dame.
Even if the Republic were less strong, yet I am glad to believe that the Rebellion must fail from the essential impossibility of any such wicked success. The responsibilities of the Christian powers would be increased by our weakness. Behind our blockade there would be a moral blockade; behind our armies there would be the aroused judgment of the civilized world. But not on that account can we hesitate. This is no time to pause. Thus do I, who formerly pleaded so often for Peace, now insist upon Liberty as its indispensable condition,[160]—clearly because, in this terrible moment, there is no other way to that sincere and solid peace without which is endless war. Even on economic grounds, it were better that this war should proceed rather than recognize any partition, which, beginning with humiliation, must involve the perpetuation of armaments and break out again in blood. But there is something worse than waste of money; it is waste of character. Give me any peace but a liberticide peace. In other days the immense eloquence of Burke was stirred against a regicide peace. But a peace founded on the killing of a king is not so bad as a peace founded on the killing of Liberty; nor can the saddest scenes of such a peace be so sad as the daily life legalized by Slavery. A queen on the scaffold is not so pitiful a sight as a woman on the auction-block.
While thus steady in purpose at home, we must not neglect that proper moderation abroad which becomes the consciousness of strength and the nobleness of our cause. The mistaken sympathy which foreign powers bestow upon Slavery,—or, it may be, the mistaken insensibility,—under the plausible name of “neutrality,” which they profess, will be worse for them than for us. For them it will be a record of shame, which their children would gladly blot out with tears. For us it will be only another obstacle vanquished in the battle for Civilization, where, unhappily, false friends are mingled with open enemies. Even if the cause seem for a while imperilled by foreign powers, yet our duties are none the less urgent. If the pressure be great, the resistance must be greater. Nor can there be any retreat. Come weal or woe, this is the place for us to stand.