Note.—In the course of the debate in the Senate on these grave propositions, a manly and eloquent speech was made on the 2d of March, 1861, by the Hon. Joseph Lane, a Senator from Oregon, who had been the candidate of the Democratic State-rights party for the Vice-Presidency of the United States, in the canvass of 1860. Some passages of this speech seem peculiarly appropriate for insertion here. General Lane was replying to a speech of Mr. Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, afterward President of the United States:
"Mr. President, the Senator from Tennessee complains of my remarks on his speech. He complains of the tone and temper of what I said. He complains that I replied at all, as I was a Northern Senator. Mr. President, I am a citizen of this Union and a Senator of the United States. My residence is in the North, but I have never seen the day, and I never shall, when I will refuse justice as readily to the South as to the North. I know nothing but my country, the whole country, the Constitution, and the equality of the States—the equal right of every man in the common territory of the whole country; and by that I shall stand.
"The Senator complains that I replied at all, as I was a Northern Senator, and a Democrat whom he had supported at the last election for a high office. Now, I was, as I stated at the time, surprised at the Senator's speech, because I understood it to be for coercion, as I think it was understood by almost everybody else, except, as we are now told, by the Senator himself; and I still think it amounted to a coercion speech, notwithstanding the soft and plausible phrases by which he describes it—a speech for the execution of the laws and the protection of the Federal property. Sir, if there is, as I contend, the right of secession, then, whenever a State exercises that right, this Government has no laws in that State to execute, nor has it any property in any such State that can be protected by the power of this Government. In attempting, however, to substitute the smooth phrases 'executing the laws' and 'protecting public property' for coercion, for civil war, we have an important concession: that is, that this Government dare not go before the people with a plain avowal of its real purposes and of their consequences. No, sir; the policy is to inveigle the people of the North into civil war, by masking the design in smooth and ambiguous terms."—("Congressional Globe," second session, Thirty-sixth Congress, p. 1347.)
Footnote 130:[ (return) ]
See letter of Hon. S. K. Bingham to Governor Blair, of Michigan, in "Congressional Globe," second session, Thirty-sixth Congress, Part II, p. 1247.
Footnote 131:[ (return) ]
See "Congressional Globe," ut supra. As this letter, last referred to, is brief and characteristic of the temper of the typical so-called Republicans of the period, it may be inserted entire:
"Washington, February 11, 1861.
"My dear Governor: Governor Bingham and myself telegraphed you on Saturday, at the request of Massachusetts and New York, to send delegates to the Peace or Compromise Congress. They admit that we were right, and that they were wrong; that no Republican State should have sent delegates; but they are here, and can not get away; Ohio, Indiana, and Rhode Island are caving in, and there is danger of Illinois; and now they beg us, for God's sake, to come to their rescue, and save the Republican party from rupture. I hope you will send stiff-backed men, or none. The whole thing was gotten up against my judgment and advice, and will end in thin smoke. Still, I hope, as a matter of courtesy to some of our erring brethren, that you will send the delegates.
"Truly your friend,
"(Signed) Z. Chandler.
"His Excellency Austin Blair."
"P.S.—Some of the manufacturing States think that a fight would be awful. Without a little bloodletting, this Union will not, in my estimation, be worth a rush."
The reader should not fall into the mistake of imagining that the "erring brethren," toward whom a concession of courtesy is recommended by the writer of this letter, were the people of the seceding, or even of the border, States. It is evident from the context that he means the people of those so-called "Republican" States which had fallen into the error of taking part in a plan for peace, which might have averted the bloodletting recommended.
"Washington, February 11, 1861.
"My dear Governor: Governor Bingham and myself telegraphed you on Saturday, at the request of Massachusetts and New York, to send delegates to the Peace or Compromise Congress. They admit that we were right, and that they were wrong; that no Republican State should have sent delegates; but they are here, and can not get away; Ohio, Indiana, and Rhode Island are caving in, and there is danger of Illinois; and now they beg us, for God's sake, to come to their rescue, and save the Republican party from rupture. I hope you will send stiff-backed men, or none. The whole thing was gotten up against my judgment and advice, and will end in thin smoke. Still, I hope, as a matter of courtesy to some of our erring brethren, that you will send the delegates.
"Truly your friend,
"(Signed) Z. Chandler.
"His Excellency Austin Blair."
"P.S.—Some of the manufacturing States think that a fight would be awful. Without a little bloodletting, this Union will not, in my estimation, be worth a rush."
CHAPTER IX.
Northern Protests against Coercion.—The "New York Tribune," Albany "Argus," and "New York Herald."—Great Public Meeting in New York.—Speeches of Mr. Thayer, ex-Governor Seymour, ex-Chancellor Walworth, and Others.—The Press in February, 1861.—Mr. Lincoln's Inaugural.—The Marvelous Change or Suppression of Conservative Sentiment.—Historic Precedents.
It is a great mistake, or misstatement of fact, to assume that, at the period under consideration, the Southern States stood alone in the assertion of the principles which have been laid down in this work, with regard to the right of secession and the wrong of coercion. Down to the formation of the Confederate Government, the one was distinctly admitted, the other still more distinctly disavowed and repudiated, by many of the leaders of public opinion in the North of both parties—indeed, any purpose of direct coercion was disclaimed by nearly all. If presented at all, it was in the delusive and ambiguous guise of "the execution of the laws" and "protection of the public property."
The "New York Tribune"—the leading organ of the party which triumphed in the election of 1860—had said, soon after the result of that election was ascertained, with reference to secession: "We hold, with Jefferson, to the inalienable right of communities to alter or abolish forms of government that have become oppressive or injurious; and, if the cotton States shall decide that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. The right to secede may be a revolutionary right, but it exists nevertheless; and we do not see how one party can have a right to do what another party has a right to prevent. We must ever resist the asserted right of any State to remain in the Union and nullify or defy the laws thereof: to withdraw from the Union is quite another matter. And, whenever a considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep her in. We hope never to live in a republic whereof one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets."[132]
The only liberty taken with this extract has been that of presenting certain parts of it in italics. Nothing that has ever been said by the author of this work, in the foregoing chapters, on the floor of the Senate, or elsewhere, more distinctly asserted the right of secession. Nothing that has been quoted from Hamilton, or Madison, or Marshall, or John Quincy Adams, more emphatically repudiates the claim of right to restrain or coerce a State in the exercise of its free choice. Nothing that has been said since the war which followed could furnish a more striking condemnation of its origin, prosecution, purposes, and results. A comparison of the sentiments above quoted, with the subsequent career of the party, of which that journal was and long had been the recognized organ, would exhibit a striking incongruity and inconsistency.