"Thou! born to eat, and be despised, and die, Even as the brutes that perish,"—
though we doubt if he could truly add,—
"save that thou Hast a more splendid trough and wider sty."
Then we were solemnly warned of our patriotic duty to "know no North and no South." This was the very impudence of ingratitude; for we had long known no North, and unhappily had known altogether too much South.
Then we were most plaintively adjured to to comply with the demands of the Slave Power, in order to save the Union. But how save the Union? Why, by violating the principles on which the Union was formed, and scouting the objects it was intended to serve.
But lastly came the question, on which the South confidently relied as a decisive argument, "What could we do with our slaves, provided we emancipated them?" The peculiarity which distinguished this question from all other interrogatories ever addressed to human beings was this, that it was asked for the purpose of not being answered. The moment a reply was begun, the ground was swiftly shifted, and we were overwhelmed with a torrent of words about State Rights and the duty of minding our own business.
But it is needless to continue the examination of these substitutes and apologies for fact and reason, especially as their chief characteristic consisted in their having nothing to do with the practical question before the people. They were thrown out by the interested defenders of Slavery, North and South, to divert attention from the main issue. In the fine felicity of their in appropriateness to the actual condition of the struggle between the Free and Slave States, they were almost a match for that renowned sermon, preached by a metropolitan bishop before an asylum for the blind, the halt, and the legless, on "The Moral Dangers of Foreign Travel." But still they were infinitely mischievous, considered as pretences under which Northern men could skulk from their duties, and as sophistries to lull into a sleepy acquiescence the consciences of those political adventurers who are always seeking occasions for being tempted and reasons for being rogues. They were all the more influential from the circumstance that their show of argument was backed by the solid substance of patronage. These false facts and bad reasons were the keys to many fat offices. The South had succeeded in instituting a new political test, namely, that no man is qualified serve the United States unless he is the champion or the sycophant of the Slave Power. Proscription to the friends of American freedom, honors and emoluments to the friends of American slavery,—adopt that creed, or you did not belong to any "healthy" political organization! Now we have heard of civil disabilities for opinion's sake before. In some countries no Catholics are allowed to hold office, in others no Protestants, in others no Jews. But it is not, we believe, in Protestant countries that Protestants are proscribed; it is not in Catholic countries that Catholics are incompetent to serve the State. It was left for a free country to establish, practically, civil disabilities against freemen,—for Republican America to proscribe Republicans! Think of it,—that no American, whatever his worth, talents, or patriotism,—could two years ago serve his country in any branch of its executive administration, unless he was unfortunate enough to agree with the slaveholders, or base enough to sham an agreement with them! The test, at Washington, of political orthodoxy was modelled on the pattern of the test of religious orthodoxy established by Napoleon's minister of police. "You are not orthodox," he said to a priest "In what," inquired the astonished ecclesiastic, "have I sinned against orthodoxy?" "You have not pronounced the eulogium of the Emperor, or proved the righteousness of the conscription."
Now we had been often warned of the danger of sectional parties, on account of their tendency to break up the Government. The people gave heed to this warning; for here was a sectional party in possession of the Government. We had been often advised not to form political combinations on one idea. The people gave heed to this advice; for here was a triumphant political combination, formed not only on one idea, but that the worst idea that ever animated any political combination. Here was an association of three hundred and fifty thousand persons, spread over some nine hundred and fifty thousand square miles of territory, and wielding its whole political power, engaged in the work of turning the United States into a sort of slave plantation, of which they were to be overseers. We opposed them by argument, passion, and numerical power; and they read us long homilies on the beauty of law and order,—order sustained by Border Ruffians, law which was but the legalizing of criminal instincts,—law and order which, judged by the code established for Kansas, seemed based on legislative ideas imported from the Fegee Islands. We opposed them again, and they talked to us about the necessity of preserving the Union;—as if, in the Free States, the love of the Union had not been a principle and a passion, proof against many losses, and insensible to many humiliations; as if, with our teachers, disunion had not been for half a century a stereotyped menace to scare us into compliance with their rascalities; as if it were not known that only so long as they could wield the powers of the National Government to accomplish their designs, were they loyal to the Union! We opposed them again, and they clamored about their Constitutional rights and our Constitutional obligations; but they adopted for themselves a theory of the Constitution which made each State the judge of the Constitution in the last resort, while they held us to that view of it which made the Supreme Court the judge in the last resort. Written constitutions, by a process of interpretation, are always made to follow the drift of great forces; they are twisted and tortured into conformity with the views of the power dominant in the State; and our Constitution, originally a charter of freedom, was converted into an instrument which the slaveholders seemed to possess by right of squatter sovereignty and eminent domain.
Did any one suppose that we could retard the ever-onward movement of their unscrupulous force and defiant wills by timely compromises and concessions? Every compromise we made with them only stimulated their rapacity, heightened their arrogance, increased their demands. Every concession we made to their insolent threats was only a step downwards to a deeper abasement; and we parted with our most cherished convictions of duty to purchase, not their gratitude, but their contempt. Every concession, too, weakened us and strengthened them for the inevitable struggle, into which the Free States were eventually goaded, to preserve what remained of their dignity, their honor, and their self-respect. In 1850 we conceded the application of the Wilmot Proviso; in 1856 we were compelled to concede the principle of the Wilmot Proviso. In 1850 we had no fears that slaves would enter New Mexico; in 1861 we were threatened with a view of the flag of the rattlesnake floating over Faneuil Hall. If any principle has been established by events, with the certainty of mathematical demonstration, it is this, that concession to the Slave Power is the suicide of Freedom. We are purchasing this fact at the expense of arming five hundred thousand men and spending a thousand millions of dollars. More than this, if any concessions were to be made, they ought, on all principles of concession, to have been made to the North. Concessions, historically, are not made by freedom to privilege, but by privilege to freedom. Thus King John conceded Magna Charta; thus King Charles conceded the Petition of Right; thus Protestant England conceded Catholic Emancipation to Ireland; thus aristocratic England conceded the Reform Bill to the English middle class. And had not we, the misgoverned many, a right to demand from the slaveholders, the governing few, some concessions to our sense of justice and our prejudices for freedom? Concession indeed! If any class of men hold in their grasp one of the dear-bought chartered "rights of man," it is infamous to concede it.
"Make it the darling of your precious eye! To lose or give 't away were such perdition As nothing else could match."