Thus from every quarter the testimony accumulates. And yet, in face of these impartial and unimpeachable authorities, we are constantly told that Virginia was settled by “cavaliers.”
The territory now occupied by South Carolina originally constituted part of Virginia. Out of Virginia it was carved into a separate colony. Although differing in some respects, the populations seem to have been kindred in character. Ramsay, the historian of the State, in a work published at Charleston in 1809, says that “the emigrants were a medley of different nations and principles,” and that among them were persons “who took refuge from the frowns of Fortune and the rigor of creditors,” “young men reduced to misery by folly and excess,” and “restless spirits, fond of roving.” To these were added Huguenots from France.[403] But Grahame tells us that “not a trace of the existence of an order of clergymen is to be found in the laws of Carolina during the first twenty years of its history.”[404] And another historian says that “the inhabitants, far from living in friendship and harmony among themselves, have been seditious and ungovernable.”[405] Such a people were naturally insensible to moral distinctions, so that, according to Hewit, pirates “were treated with great civility and friendship,” and “by bribery and corruption they often found favor with the provincial juries, and by this means escaped the hands of justice.” All of which is declared by the historian to be “evidences of the licentious spirit which prevailed in the colony.”[406] Grahame uses still stronger language, when he says, “The governor, the proprietary deputies, and the principal inhabitants degraded themselves to a level with the vilest of mankind by abetting the crimes of pirates, and willingly purchasing their nefarious acquisitions.”[407] Such is the testimony with regard to South Carolina. To call such a people “cavaliers” is an abuse of terms.
I hope I do not take too much time in exposing a vainglorious pretension, which has helped to give the Rebellion a character of respectability it does not deserve. I dismiss it to general contempt, as one of the lies by which Slavery, the greatest lie of all, is recommended to the weak who can be deceived by names. But you will not fail to remark how naturally Slavery flourished among such a congenial people. Convicts and wretches who had set at nought all rights of property and all decency were the very people to set up the revolting pretension “of property in man.” If these were called “cavaliers,” and if their conduct was called “chivalry,” it was only under the ancient rule of opposites, because they were in no respect “cavaliers,” nor had they even the semblance of “chivalry.”
Not in Slavery or its battles is “chivalry” found, not in vain pretension, not in any indignity to the poor and lowly. From one who has studied it in its deeds, we learn that it is “that general spirit or state of mind which disposes men to heroic and generous actions, and keeps them conversant with all that is beautiful and sublime in the intellectual and moral world.”[408] How little of this in our Rebel slave-masters!
I come back to the postulate with which I began, that the present war is simply a conflict between Slavery and Liberty. This is a plain statement, which will defy contradiction. To my mind it is more satisfactory than that other statement, often made, that it is a conflict between Aristocracy and Democracy. This in a certain sense is true; but from its generality it is less effective than the more precise and restricted statement. It does not disclose the whole truth; for it does not exhibit the unique and exceptional character of the pretension which we combat. For centuries there has been a conflict between Aristocracy and Democracy, or, in other words, the few on one side have been perpetually striving to rule and oppress the many. But now, for the first time in the world’s annals, a people professing civilization has commenced war to uphold the intolerable pretension of compulsory labor without wages, and that most disgusting coïncident, the whipping of women and the selling of children. Call these pretenders aristocrats or oligarchs, if you will; but be assured that their aristocracy or oligarchy is the least respectable ever attempted, and is so entirely modern that it is antedated by the Durham bull Hubbuck, short-horn progenitor of the oligarchy of cattle, and by the stallion Godolphin, Arabian progenitor of the oligarchy of horses, each of which may be traced to the middle of the last century. And also know, that, if you would find a prototype in brutality, you must turn your back upon civilized history, and repair to those distant islands which witnessed an oligarchy of cannibals, or go to barbarous Africa, which has been kept in barbarism by an oligarchy of men-stealers.
Thus it stands. The conflict is directly between Slavery and Liberty. But because Slavery aims at the life of the Republic, the issue involves our national existence; and because our national death would be the despair of Liberty everywhere, it involves this great cause throughout the world. And so I would not for one moment lose sight of the special enemy; for our energies can be properly directed only when we are able to confront him. “Give me to see!” said the old Greek; and this must be our exclamation now.
Slavery, from the beginning, has been a disturber, as it is now a red-handed traitor. I do not travel back before the Revolution, but, starting from that great event, I show you Slavery always offensive, and forever thrusting itself in the path of national peace and honor. The Declaration of Independence, as originally prepared by Jefferson, contained a vigorous passage denouncing King George for patronage of the slave-trade. The slave-masters insisted upon striking it out, and it was struck out; and here was their first victory. At the adoption of the National Constitution, they insisted upon recognition of the slave-trade as a condition of Union; and here was another victory. In the earliest Congress under the Constitution they commenced the menace of disunion, and this menace was continued at every turn of public affairs, especially at every proposition or even petition touching Slavery, until it triumphed signally in that atrocious Fugitive Slave Bill which made all the Free States a hunting-ground for slaves. Throughout these contests Slavery was vulgar, brutal, savage, while its braggart orators and chaplains heralded its claims. Hogarth, in his famous picture of Bruin, painted Slavery, when he portrayed an immense grizzly bear hugging, as if he loved it, an enormous gnarled bludgeon, with a brand of infamy labelled on every knot, such as Lie Twelve, Lie Fifteen, and about his throat a clerical band, torn, crumpled, and awry. In the States where it flourished speech and press were both despoiled of freedom, and the whole country seemed to be fast sinking under its degrading tyranny. Everything in science, or history, or church, or state, was bent to its support. There was a new political economy, teaching the superiority of slave labor,—a new ethnology, excluding the slave from the family of man,—a new heraldry, admitting the slavemonger to the list of nobles,—a new morality, vindicating the rightfulness of Slavery,—a new religion, recognizing Slavery as a missionary enterprise,—a new theodicy, placing Slavery under the sanctions of Divine benevolence,—and a new Constitution, installing Slavery in the very citadel of Liberty. By such strange inventions the giant felony fortified itself. At last it struck the pioneers of Liberty in Kansas. There was its first battle. The next was when it took up arms against the National Government, and rallied all its forces in bloody rebellion. Thus is this Rebellion, by unquestionable pedigree, derived from Slavery, and the parent lives in the offspring.
Therefore, if you are in earnest against the Rebellion, you must be in earnest, also, against Slavery; for the two are synonymous, or convertible terms. The Rebellion is nothing but belligerent Slavery. It is Slavery armed and equipped in deadly grapple with Liberty.