Secrets of the Late Rebellion, Now Revealed for the First Time

by Jacob R. Freese

"Article II. As it cannot be doubted that the liberty of the press is the most powerful means used by the pretended supporters of the rights of nations to the detriment of those princes, the high contracting powers promise reciprocally to adopt all proper means to suppress it."

The representatives of this government in Europe got hold of these articles soon after, and duly communicated them to the State Department at Washington; and the newspapers of this country also got hold of them, and for awhile had considerable to say about them; but erelong the excitement of both government and people died out, and things went on in their usual way. How many times since then the powers of Europe have met in secret conclave and reaffirmed what they then said, and adopted secret measures whereby to carry out these resolves, is not generally known, for the reason that the excitement following their first promulgation gave them warning that whatever they said or did in that direction thereafter had better be with closed doors, and under the most sacred pledges of profound secrecy.

The congress at Vienna was held soon after they had lodged the First Napoleon safely at St. Helena, and when all the world seemed to be applauding them for the act, and hence their outspoken boldness in denouncing representative forms of government and the liberty of the press. Indeed, in view of what they had all just witnessed, and some of them severely felt, it was not at all unnatural that they should have adopted the two articles quoted; and that they should have ever since felt that there was an irrepressible conflict between the "divine right of kings" and representative forms of government—between the absolute rule of kings and the liberty of the press, and that one or the other must eventually supersede the other. Hence, with them it became a question of self preservation—the very first law of nature—and under such circumstances it was not at all wonderful that they resolved just as they did.

They had recently witnessed the final act of a French drama and tragedy combined—the French Revolution, and the career of Napoleon as a consequence thereof—which they regarded as results of a representative form of government and of the liberty of the press; but which were results rather of irresponsible personal government and license of the press. They had seen or read of the assembling of a French parliament that had refused to register the royal edicts; they had witnessed or read of the disputes between the king and parliament, and the death soon after of Louis XV.; from thence they had observed the spread of liberal opinions and the accession of Louis XVI. to the throne of France; next, they had seen or read of the calling together of the States-General, and how they, soon after assembling, had assumed the name of the "National Assembly;" they knew of the dismissal of Neckar; the destruction of the Bastile; the abolishment of the privileges of the nobles and clergy, and of the first insult offered to the king and royal family; of Robespierre's government and the dreadful disorders accompanying it; of Lafayette's resignation; of the trial and execution of Louis XVI. and of his queen, Marie Antoinette, and of the Duke of Orleans; of the Convention's abjuration of the Catholic religion and substitution of reason in its place; of the abolition of the Sabbath; of the tens of thousands beheaded, or otherwise slaughtered, in Paris; of how Napoleon Bonaparte had finally appeared upon the scene, and for a while seemed to still the troubled waters; but how he erelong not only usurped the crown, but commenced war upon almost every nation of Europe; how in a hundred battles fought by him, at Austerlitz and elsewhere, he had been successful in almost every one; how he had finally invaded Russia and thus defeated himself; how he was afterwards made to resign and sent in banishment to Elba; how he had again reappeared in France and resumed power; how all the allied powers of Europe then determined upon his destruction; how he was defeated at the battle of Waterloo; how he afterwards surrendered himself into the hands of the English; and how, on the 17th of October, 1815, he was landed at St. Helena a prisoner of war.

All this they knew, and all this they set down as the natural results of a representative form of government and the liberty of the press, and hence it was that the first two articles of the treaty, from which we have heretofore quoted, were specially aimed against them; and a solemn pledge made, each to the other, that they must be destroyed. Of course, no mention was made in that treaty of the United States; for to have done so would have been virtually a declaration of war; but as it was then generally believed among the sovereigns and princes of Europe that the French Revolution of 1789 was a natural outgrowth from the American Revolution of 1776, and that Lafayette was at the bottom of it all—having imbibed the ideas from George Washington, John Adams, John Hancock, and other revolutionists of America,—the inference is plain and unmistakable that those two articles were aimed at the United States, and that the word "Europe"—where it reads they "engage mutually, in the most solemn manner, to use all their efforts to put an end to the system of representative governments in Europe"—was only meant as a blinder.

But, it may next be asked, allowing all this to be so, have they been doing anything since that time whereby to carry out any such intention?

To this inquiry, we answer yes, and will now proceed to show, briefly but unmistakably, how they have been carrying out such intentions; and this, too, comes legitimately under the head of "Secrets of the Late Rebellion, now Revealed for the First Time," since no one, to our knowledge, has ever heretofore shown the close relationship and unity of purpose between these same European governments and the Democratic party of the United States; and how, in the late rebellion (as in many instances before that time), they joined hands to destroy this government, and to break down the liberty of the press.

The first two political parties in the United States were known as Federal and Republican. In 1800, John Adams was the candidate of the Federalists for a second presidential term, and Thomas Jefferson the candidate of the Republicans. Jefferson was elected, and took his seat as President of the United States on the 4th of March, 1801. After a time, these two names gave way to Whig and Democratic. These continued until the name Republican took the place of Whig, in 1856-60. In its earlier days the Democratic party, as a party, was as pure and patriotic as any party that ever existed in this or any other country; but when the question of "Protection to Home Industry" (of which Henry Clay was the leading champion in his time) became a prime question in American politics; and when, because that this question involved the interests of European capitalists and manufacturers, Augustus Belmont, of New York city (a European by birth, a Jew, and the agent in this country of the Rothschilds', the great Jew banking-house of Europe, to whom almost every sovereign in Europe was indebted for loans), became the Chairman of the National Democratic Executive Committee—from that moment the Democratic party, as a party, became as completely in the interests of European sovereigns, capitalists, and manufacturers, as though every member of the party, as well as its head and front, had been born a European. We are not, of course, attempting to write a history of parties. To do so would require a volume of itself, and a large one at that. We have only made this running sketch that those not familiar with general history may readily see and understand the unmistakable historical relationship which exists, and which has existed for some forty years past, between the Democratic party, as a party, and European governments, European capitalists, and European manufacturers.

With this fact in mind, it is easy to understand why ninety out of every one hundred European emigrants who come to this country attach themselves to the Democratic party; easy to understand why the entire influence of the Roman Catholic Church (which is the church of nine-tenths of the sovereigns of Europe) should be thrown in favor of the Democratic party; easy to understand why more than ninety-five out of every one hundred Jews who come to this country from Europe attach themselves to the Democratic party; and easy to understand why, in the late rebellion, the Democratic party, as a party, cooperated with English lords, with English capitalists, and with English manufacturers (as shown in previous chapters of this volume), in trying to break down this government, and establish a slaveocracy in its stead—the leaders (not the masses) well knowing that this would soon give way to a yet more concentrated form of government in order to hold their slaves in subjection—neither a landed and family aristocracy, like that of England, or an absolute monarchy, like that of Austria, in either of which cases a representative or republican form of government and the liberty of the press would have been effectually and forever suppressed.

The answer, then, to the two questions, Why it lives? For what purpose it lives? are, to the first, Because of the additions made to the party from year to year from foreign emigration; and to the second the answer is, For the purpose of playing into the hands of European sovereigns, European capitalists, and European manufacturers, with a view to set aside a representative form of government, and destroy the liberty of the press in this country; and these answers we give, it will be observed, not from a political, but from a historical, stand-point—facts which cannot be controverted, and deductions from those facts as natural and as undeniable as that we know arsenic to be a poison, because it invariably kills when taken in certain doses. And that the Democratic party, as a party, is as deadly a poison as arsenic we know to be true, because it has killed its thousands and tens of thousands, than which we want no other or better proof than is furnished by the preceding chapters of this volume.