The American Union Speaker

by John D. Philbrick

I conjure you, if you desire ever to see renewed prosperity, giving business to your streets and wharves—if you hope to see your city become again the mart of the Western world, fed by its rivers for more than three thousand miles, draining the commerce of a country greater than the mind of man hath ever conceived—return to your allegiance. If you desire to leave to your children the inheritance you received from your fathers—a stable constitutional government; if you desire that they should in the future be a portion of the greatest empire the sun ever shone upon—return to your allegiance.

There is but one thing that stands in the way. There is but one thing that at this hour stands between you and the Government—and that is slavery. The institution, cursed of God, which has taken its last refuge here, in His providence will be rooted out as the tares from the wheat, although the wheat be torn up with it. I have given much thought to the subject. I came among you, by teachings, by habit of mind, by political position, by social affinity, inclined to sustain your domestic laws, if by possibility they might be with safety to the Union. Months of experience and observation have forced the conviction that the existence of slavery is incompatible with the safety either of yourselves or of the Union. As the system has gradually grown to its present huge dimensions, it were best if it could gradually be removed; but it is better, far better, that it should be taken out at once, than that it should longer vitiate the social, political, and family relations of your country. I am speaking with no philanthropic views as regards the slave, but simply of the effect of slavery on the master.

See for yourselves. Look around you and say whether this saddening, deadening influence has not all but destroyed the very framework of your society. I am speaking the farewell words of one who has shown his devotion to his country at the peril of his life and his fortune, who, in these words, can have neither hope nor interest, save the good of those he addresses; and let me here repeat, with all the solemnity of an appeal to Heaven to bear me witness, that such are the views forced upon me by experience. Come, then, to the unconditional support of the Government. Take into your own hands your own institutions; remodel them according to the laws of nations and of God, and thus attain that great prosperity assured to you by geographical position, only a portion of which was heretofore yours. B. F. Butler.

CCLXVIII.

RECONSTRUCTION OF THE UNION.

I am not for the Union as it was. I have the honor to say, as a Democrat, and as an Andrew Jackson Democrat, I am not for the Union as it was, because I saw, or thought I saw, the troubles in the future which have burst upon us; but having undergone those troubles, having spent all this blood and this treasure, I do not mean to go back again and be cheek by jole, as I was before, with South Carolina, if I can help it. Mark me now; let no man misunderstand me; and I repeat, lest I may be misunderstood (for there are none so difficult to understand as those who do not wish to)—mark me again,—I say, I do not mean to give up a single inch of the soil of South Carolina If I had been living at that time, and had the position, the will, and the ability, I would have dealt with South Carolina as Jackson did, and kept her in the Union at all hazards; but now that she has gone out, I would take care that when she comes in again she should come in better behaved; that she should no longer be the firebrand of the Union, ay, that she should enjoy what her people never yet enjoyed, the blessings of a republican form of government. And, therefore, in that view I am not for the reconstruction of the Union as it was. I have spent treasure and blood enough upon it, in conjunction with my fellow-citizens, to make it a little better, and I think we can have a better Union. It was good enough if it had been let alone. The old house was good enough for me, but the South pulled it down, and I propose, when we build it up, to build it up with all the modern improvements.

And one of the logical sequences, it seems to me, that follow inexorably and inevitably, from the proposition that we are dealing with alien enemies, is the question, what is our duty in regard to the confiscation of their property? And that would seem to me to be very easy of settlement under the Constitution, and without any discussion, if my proposition is right. Has it not been held from the beginning of the world down to this day, from the time the Israelites took possession of the land of Canaan, which they got from alien enemies, has it not been held that the whole of the property of those alien enemies belongs to the conqueror, and that it has been at his mercy and his clemency what should be done with it? And for one, I would take it and give it to the loyal man—loyal from the heart,—at the South, enough at least to make him as well as he was before; and I would take the rest of it and distribute it among the volunteer soldiers who have gone forth in the service of their country; and so far as I know them, if we should settle South Carolina with them, in the course of a few years, I should be quite willing to receive her back into the Union. B. F. Butler.

CCLXIX.

SPEECH AT THE UNION SQUARE MEETING IN NEW YORK.

But we are called upon to act. There is no time for hesitation or indecision—no time for haste and excitement. It is a time when the people should rise in the majesty of their might, stretch forth their strong arm, and silence the angry waves of tumult. It is time the people should command peace. It is a question between union and anarchy—between law and disorder. All politics for the time being are and should be committed to the oblivion of the grave. The question should be, "Our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country." We should go forward in a manner becoming a great people, But six months ago, the material prosperity of our country was at its greatest height. To-day, by the fiat of madness, we are plunged in distress and threatened with political ruin, anarchy, and annihilation. It becomes us to stay the hands of this spirit of disunion. The voice of the Empire State can be potential in this unnatural strife. She has mighty power for union. She has great wealth and influence, and she must bring forward that wealth and exert that influence. She has numerous men, and she must send them to the field, and in the plenitude of her power command the public peace. This is a great commercial city—one of the modern wonders of the earth. With all the great elements that surround her, with her commercial renown, with her architectural magnificence, and with her enterprise and energy, she is capable of exercising a mighty power for good in silencing the angry waves of agitation.