When we reflect on what the rebels had done and what they were doing when this resolution was passed, it seems incredible that sane men, having a spark of patriotism, could for one moment have tolerated its sentiments. The rebels had already deprived the United States of its jurisdiction and property in about one-fourth of its inhabited territory, and were rapidly extending their insurrection so as to include within the rebel lines all of the slave States. The lives and property of Union citizens in the insurgent States were at the mercy of traitors, and the National flag was everywhere torn down, and shameful indignities and outrages heaped upon all who honored it.
This resolution speaks of fulfilling the duties of the people of the North to the South. The first and highest duty of the people of the North to themselves, to the South, to their country, and to God, was to crush the rebellion. All speeches and resolutions against either the right or the propriety of coercion merely gave encouragement, "moral aid and comfort," more important than powder and ball, to the enemies of the Nation.
Do I state too strongly the mischievous, the fatal tendency of these proceedings? The resolution adopted by the peace Democracy of Ohio is addressed in terms "to the people of all the States, North and South," and in fact was sent, I am informed, to the governors of all the States.
In the South, Union men were laboring by every means in their power to prevent secession. Their most cogent argument was that the National government would defend itself by war against rebellion. To this, the rebel reply was, "There will be no war. Secession will be peaceable. The peace party of the North will prevent coercion. If there is fighting, it will be as Ex-President Pierce writes to Jefferson Davis, 'The fighting will not be along Mason and Dixon's line merely. It will be within our own borders, in our own streets.'"
For the evidence of the correctness of this opinion, the rebels could point confidently to such speeches and resolutions as those we are now considering. Governor Orr, of South Carolina, in a recent speech at the Charleston Board of Trade banquet, is reported to have said:
"I know there is an apprehension widespread in the North and West that, after the reconstruction of the Southern States, we shall fall into the arms of our old allies and associates, the old Democratic party. I say to you, gentlemen, however, that I would give no such pledges. We have accounts to settle with that party, gentlemen, before I, at least, will consent to affiliate with it. Many of you will remember that, when the war first commenced, great hopes and expectations were held out by our friends in the North and West that there would be no war, and that if it commenced, it would be North of Mason and Dixon's line, and not in the South."
Without pausing to inquire how much strength accrued to the rebellion in its earlier stages by the encouragement it received from sympathizers in the North, let us pass on to the spring and summer of 1861, after the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, and when the armies of the Union and of the rebellion were facing each other upon a line of operations extending from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. The most superficial observer could not fail to discover these facts.
In the South, where slavery was strongest, the rebellion was strongest. Where there were few slaveholders, there were few rebels. South Carolina and Mississippi, having the largest number of slaves in proportion to population, were almost unanimous for rebellion. Western Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, East Tennessee, had few slaves, and love of the Union and hatred of secession in those mountain regions was nearly universal.
The counterpart of this was found everywhere in the North. In counties and districts where the majority of the people had been accustomed to defend or excuse the practice of slave-holding and the aggressions of the slaveholders, there was much sympathy with the rebellion and strong opposition to the war. Men who abused and hated negroes did not usually hate rebels. On the other hand, anti-slavery counties and districts were quite sure to be Union to the core.
In Ohio, as in other free States, the Democratic party could not be led off in a body after the peace Democracy. Brough, Tod, Matthews, Dorsey, Steedman, and a host of Democrats of the Jackson school, nobly kept the faith. Lytle, McCook, Webster, and gallant spirits like them, from every county and neighborhood of our State, sealed their devotion to the Union and to true Democracy with their life's blood.