“There is this difference: in the latter case, the fulmination is against what we have no reason to suppose is an evil; in the former case, you would attack with moral weapons what you know to be a wrong and an injustice immediately under your eyes and within your reach. If it could be proved that the comet is an evil, the Pope’s bull would not seem to me an absurdity; for I have faith in the operation of ideas, and in the triumph of truth and good throughout the universe. But the emancipation proclamation would not be futile; for it would give body and impulse to an idea, and that idea one friendly to right and to progress.”
The President rose, and, walking to the window, drummed a moment with his fingers abstractedly on the glass, then, returning to his chair, reseated himself and said: “As Chief Magistrate of the Republic, my first duty is to save it. If I can best do that by tolerating slavery, slavery shall be tolerated. If I can best do it by abolishing slavery, you may be sure I will try to abolish it. But I mustn’t be biased by my feelings or my sentiments.”
“Why not?” asked Vance. “Do not all great moral truths originate in the feelings and the sentiments? The heart’s policy is often the safest. Is not cruelty wrong because the heart proclaims it? Is not despotism to be opposed because the heart detests it?”
“Mr. Vance, you eager philanthropists little know how hard it often is for less impulsive and more conservative men to withstand the urgency of those feelings that you give way to at once. But you have read history to little purpose if you do not know that the best cause may be jeoparded by the premature and too radical movements of its friends. I have been blamed for listening to the counsels of Kentucky politicians and Missouri conservatives; and yet if we had not held back Kentucky from the secession madness, she might have contributed the straw that would have broken the camel’s back.”
“O Kentucky!” exclaimed Vance, “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot. So then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth! Mr. President, the ruling powers in Kentucky would hand her over bound to Jeff Davis to-morrow, if they dared; but they dare not do it. In the first place, they fear Uncle Sam and his gunboats; in the next place, they fear Kentuckians, of whom, thank God! there are enough who do not believe in slavery; and, lastly, they fear the nineteenth century and the spirit of the age. Better take counsel from the Rhetts and Spratts of South Carolina than from the selfish politicians of Kentucky! They will moor you to the platform of a false conservatism till the golden opportunity slips by, and new thousands must be slaughtered before it can be recovered.”
“Well, what would be your programme?”
“This, Mr. President: accept it as a foregone conclusion that slavery must be exterminated; and then bend all your energies on accelerating its extermination. We sometimes hear it said, ‘What! do you expect such a vast system—so interwoven with the institutions of the South—to be uprooted and overthrown all at once?’ To which I reply, ‘Yes! The price paid has been already proportionate to the magnitude of the overthrow.’ Before the war is over, upwards of a million of men will have lost their lives in order that Slavery might try its experiment of establishing an independent slave empire. A million of men! And there are not four millions of slaves in the country! We will not take into account the treasure expended,—the lands desolated,—the taxes heaped upon the people,—the ruin and anguish inflicted. It strikes me the price we have paid is big enough to offset the vastness of the social change. And, after all, it is not such a formidable job when you consider that there are not forty thousand men in the whole country who severally own as many as ten slaves. Why, in a single campaign we lose more soldiers than there are slaveholders having any considerable stake in the institution. Experience has proved that there could be universal emancipation to-morrow without bad results to either master or slave,—with advantage, on the contrary, to both.”[[36]]
“Well, Mr. Vance, we will suppose the Mississippi opened; New Orleans, Mobile, Charleston, and Richmond captured,—the Rebellion on its last legs;—what then?”
“With the capture of New Orleans and Vicksburg, and the opening of the Mississippi, you have Secessia on the hip, and her utter subjugation is merely a question of time. When she cries peccavi, and offers to give in, I would say to the people of the Rebel States: ‘First, Slavery, the cause of this war, must be surrendered, to be disposed of at the discretion of the victors. Secondly, you must so modify your constitutions that Slavery can never be re-established among you. Thirdly, every anti-republican feature in your State governments must be abandoned. Fourthly, every loyal man must be restored to the property and the rights you may have robbed him of. Fifthly, no man offensively implicated in the Rebellion must represent any State in Congress. Sixthly, no man must be taxed against his will for any debt incurred through rebellion against the United States. Under these easy and honorable terms, I would readmit the seceded States to the Union; and if these terms are refused, I would occupy and hold the States as conquered territory.”
“And could we reconcile such a course with a due regard to law?”