In the closing session of Mr. Chandler's Congressional service Senator Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia, in the course of a reply (on May 10, 1879) to a declaration of his on the previous day that "there were twelve Senators on the other side whose seats were obtained and are held by fraud and violence," again read and commented upon "the blood letter." Mr. Chandler promptly answered as follows:
Mr. President, this is the fourth time since 1861 that allusion has been made to a letter written by me to the Governor of the State of Michigan; first it appeared in a newspaper published in Detroit; a copy was sent to me and a copy was likewise sent to the late Senator Powell. The letter was a private note written to the Governor and no copy retained. Senator Powell approached me with his copy of the letter and asked if it was correct. I told him I did not know; I had written to the Governor of Michigan a private note and had kept no copy and could not say whether this was correct or not. He told me that if it was a correct copy he would wish to make use of it, and if it was not he did not propose to make use of it. I said, "Sir, I will adopt it, and you may make any use of it you please." So to-day that is my letter. If not originally written by me, it is mine by adoption.
And, Mr. President, what were the circumstances under which that letter was written? I had been in this body then nearly four years listening to treason day by day and hour by hour. The threat, the universal threat daily, hourly, was, "Do this or we will dissolve the Union; if you do not do that we will dissolve the Union." Treason was in the White House, treason in the Cabinet, treason in the Senate, and treason in the House of Representatives; bold, outspoken, rampant treason was daily and hourly uttered. The threat was made upon this floor in my presence by a Senator, "You may give us a blank sheet of paper and let us fill it up as we please, and then we will not live with you." And another Senator stood here beside that Senator from Texas and said, "I stand by the Senator from Texas." Treason was applauded in the galleries of this body, and treason was talked on the streets, in the street cars, in private circles; everywhere it was treason—treason in your departments, traitors in the White House, traitors around these galleries, traitors everywhere!
The flag of rebellion had been raised; the Union was already dissolved, we were told; the rebel government was already established with its capital in Alabama; "and now we will negotiate with you," was said to us. Upon what basis would you negotiate? Upon what basis did you call your peace convention? With rampant rebellion staring us in the face! Sir, it was no time to negotiate. The time for negotiation was past.
Sir, this was the condition of affairs when that letter was written; and after Mr. Powell had made his assault upon me in this body for it I responded, relating what I have related here now with regard to it, and I said, "I stand by that letter," and I stand by it now. What was there in it then, and what is there in it now? The State of Michigan was known to be in favor of the constitution and the Union and the enforcement of the laws, even to the letting of blood if need be, and that was all there was and all there is in that letter. Make the most of it!
The Senator from Georgia says that I did not shed any blood. How much blood did he shed?[18] [Laughter.] Will somebody inform us the exact quantity of blood that the Senator from Georgia shed?
Mr. Hill, of Georgia: The difference between us is that I was not in favor of shedding anybody's blood.
Mr. Chandler: Nor I, except to punish treason and traitors. Sir, the Senator is not the man to stand up on this floor and talk about other men saving their own blood. He took good care to put his blood in Fort Lafayette where he was out of the way of rebel bullets as well as Union bullets. He is the last man to stand up here and talk to me about letting the blood of others be shed.
Mr. President, I was then, as I am now, in favor of the government of the United States. Then, as now, I abhorred the idea of State sovereignty over National sovereignty. Then, as now, I was prepared even to shed blood to save this glorious government. Then, as now, I stood up for the constitution and the Union. Then, as now, I was in favor of the perpetuity of this glorious government. But the Senator from Georgia, was, as he testified before a committee, "a Union secessionist." I have the testimony here before me. Will somebody explain what that means—"a Union secessionist?" Mr. President, I should like to see the dictionary wherein a definition can be found of "a Union secessionist!" I do not understand the term. He says they have the right to have a solid South, but a solid North will destroy the government. Why, Mr. President, the South is no more solid to-day than it was in 1857.... It has been solid ever since, and it was no quarrel with the North that made it solid. It was solid because it was determined either to "rule or ruin" this nation. It tried the "ruin" scheme with arms; and now, having failed to ruin this government with arms, it comes back to ruin it by withholding supplies to carry on the government. Sir, the men have changed since 1857. There is now but one member on this floor who stood here with me on the 4th of March, 1857. The men have changed, the measures not at all. You then fought for the overthrow of this government, and now you vote and talk for the same purpose. You are to-day, as you were then, determined either to rule or ruin this government, and you cannot do either.
This letter was also for years constantly quoted and denounced by the Democratic press of Michigan with the hope of by this means breaking the Senator's hold upon the confidence of the people of his State. He uniformly met these attacks, not only without the shadow of apology, but with the most emphatic defiance. On the stump he repeatedly declared that "that letter was a good one," that he would not qualify a sentence nor retract a word of it, that he "stood by it" without reservation, and that he believed when he wrote it and knew afterward that it pointed out the only path in which the nation could then walk with honor and with safety. Time has shown that Mr. Chandler was right and that the men who deprecated his boldness were wrong, and that the real statesmanship of the winter of 1860-61 was that which proposed not to parley with, but to draw the sword upon, "foul treason." The paper which at that time first printed "the blood letter" and made it the text for unsparing and constant denunciation of its author was edited by a man who grew to be one of the foremost of American journalists, and—always hostile to Republicanism—published in 1879 the chief Northwestern organ of Independent opinion, which said, in announcing Mr. Chandler's sudden death in its city: "To superior intellectual endowments he united a force of will and resolution of purpose that hesitated at no obstacle. Few men ever displayed in a more remarkable degree the courage of opinions. No dread of unpopularity, no fear of consequences, ever troubled him. His famous 'blood-letting letter,' written near the opening of the Southern rebellion, was a faithful manifestation of the man. When frightened party chiefs of the North were running up and down with peace propositions to placate Southern fire-eaters and patch up a new truce between free civilization and slave barbarism, Zach. Chandler stood up in his place in the Senate and in terms of intense, bitter scorn, denounced all such efforts as the pitiful manifestations of political cowardice and folly. He had no word of regret to utter upon the departure of the Southern Senators; but told them that the North would whip them back, and that in their humiliation the bond of nationality would be strengthened. He had no dread of the threatened blood-letting, but believed it to be the only way of curing the Southern ulcer, and that the nation would afterward be the healthier for it." And
"Thus the whirligig of Time brings in his revenges."
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Bangor, Me., "Union."
[17] Detroit, Mich. "Free Press."
[18] An allusion to the common report that, during a secret session o£ the Confederate Senate, William. L. Yancey received injuries in a personal encounter with H. H. Hill from which he finally died.