At the same time I must admit that you have invariably resisted all attempts to apply any practical check or remedy to the great and growing evil, stoutly maintaining that it was a local institution, and that we of the North had no right to meddle with it. I am well aware that you have stigmatized every effort to awaken public attention to its nature and tendency, or to point out methods, more or less available, of abolishing the system, as unconstitutional, incendiary, and quixotic. I concede that your indignation has always been in the abstract, and your zeal eminently conservative. Yet, as a moral man, with a New-England training, and a general disposition to indorse those principles which have made New England what she is, you will not deny, that, in a harmless and inoffensive way, you have been anti-slavery in your opinions.
But, once more, my friend, have you any reason to be attached to Slavery on political grounds? You have always been an earnest and uncompromising Democrat. You have always professed to believe in the omnipotence of political conventions and the sacred obligation of political platforms. You have never failed to repudiate any effort to influence party action by moral considerations. Indeed, I have sometimes thought that you must have selected as your model that sturdy old Democratic deacon in New Hampshire, who said that "politics was one thing, and religion was another." You have never hesitated to support any candidate, or to uphold any measure, dictated by the wisdom or the wickedness of your party. Although you must have observed, that, with occasional and infrequent eddies of opinion, the current of its political progress has been steadily carrying the Northern Democracy farther and farther away from the example and the doctrines of Jefferson, you have surrendered yourself to the evil influence without a twinge of remorse or a sigh of regret. You have submitted to the insolent demands of Southern politicians with such prompt and easy acquiescence, that many of your oldest friends have mourned over your lost manhood, and sadly abandoned you to the worship of your ugly and obscene idol. A Northern man, descended from the best Puritan stock, surrounded from childhood by institutions really free, breathing the atmosphere of free thought, enjoying the luxury of free speech, you have deliberately allied yourself to a party which has owed its long-continued political supremacy to the practical denial of these inestimable privileges. Yet, on the whole, Andrew, what have you gained by it? Undoubtedly, the seed thus sown in dishonor soon ripened into an abundant harvest of fat offices and rapid promotions. But winter—the winter of your discontent—has followed this harvest. Circumstances quite beyond your control have utterly demolished the political combination which was once your peculiar pride. You have lived to see the Dagon before which you and your friends have for so many years cheerfully prostrated yourselves fall to the ground, and lie a helpless, hopeless ruin on the very threshold of the temple where it lately stood defiant and dominant.
Have you ever had the curiosity to investigate the causes of this disaster? It is a curiosity which can be easily gratified. The Democratic party was killed in cold blood by Southern traitors. There never was a more causeless, malicious, or malignant murder. The fool in the fable who gained an unenviable notoriety by killing the goose which laid golden eggs, Balaam, who, but for angelic interposition, would have slain his faithful ass, were praiseworthy in comparison. Well might any one of the Northern victims of this cruel outrage have exclaimed, in the language of Balaam's long-eared servant, "Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto to this day? was I ever wont to do so unto thee?" And the modern, like the ancient Balaam, must have answered, "Nay."
But, alas for Northern manhood, alas for human nature corrupted by long possession of political power, after a short-lived, though, let us hope, sincere outburst of indignation, followed by protests and remonstrances, growing daily milder and more moderate, the Northern Democracy now begs permission to return once more to its former servitude, and would gladly peril the permanence of the Union, to hug again the fetters which it has so patiently and so profitably worn.
Lay aside party prejudice, for one moment, my dear Andrew, and tell me if the world ever saw a more humiliating spectacle. Slighted, spurned, spit upon by their ancient allies, compelled to bear the odium of an aggressive and offensive pro-slavery policy, tamely consenting to a denial of the dearest human rights and the plainest principles of natural justice, rewarded only by a share in the Federal offices, and punished by the contempt of all who, at home or abroad, intelligently and unselfishly studied the problem of our republican institutions, the Northern Democracy found themselves, at the most critical period of our national history, abandoned by the masters whom they had faithfully served, and whom many were willing to follow to a depth of degradation which could have no lower deep. And yet, when thus freed from their long slavery by the voluntary act of their oppressors, we hear them to-day clamoring for the privilege of wearing anew the accustomed yoke, and feeling again the familiar lash! Are these white men, with Anglo-Saxon blood in their veins, and the fair fame of this country in their keeping? Why, if the most abject slave that ever toiled on a Southern plantation, cast off by his master and compelled to claim the rights of a freeman, should, of his own deliberate choice, elect to return to his miserable vassalage, who would not pronounce him unfit to enjoy the priceless boon of liberty? who would hesitate to say that natural stupidity, or the acquired imbecility of long enslavement, had doomed him to remain, to the day of his death, a hewer of wood and a drawer of water?
But, as if to render the humiliation of these Democratic leaders still more fruitless and gratuitous, mark how their overtures are received by their Southern brethren. Having sold their birthright, let us see what prospect our Northern Esaus have of gaining their mess of pottage. Perhaps no better illustration can be given of the state of feeling among the chiefs of the Southern Rebellion than is found in a letter from Colonel R.C. Hill to the Richmond "Sentinel," dated September 13th, 1863. It had been stated by a correspondent of the New York "Tribune," that, during a recent interview between General Custer (Union) and Colonel Hill (Confederate), at Fredericksburg, Virginia, Colonel Hill had assured General Custer that "there would soon be peace." After giving an explicit and emphatic denial to this statement, Colonel Hill (who, it would seem, commands the Forty-Eighth North-Carolina Volunteers) closes by saying, "I am opposed to any terms short of a submission of the Federals to such terms as we may dictate, which, in my opinion, should be, Mason and Dixon's line a boundary; the exclusive navigation of the Mississippi below Cairo; full indemnification for all the negroes stolen and destroyed; and the restoration of Fortress Monroe, Jefferson, Key West, and all other strongholds which may have fallen into their possession during the war. If they are unwilling to accede to these terms, I propose an indefinite continuance of the war until the now existing fragment of the old Union breaks to pieces from mere rottenness and want of cohesion, when we will step in, as the only first-class power on the Western Hemisphere, and take possession of the pieces as subjugated and conquered provinces."
To the same effect is a letter from Robert Toombs, who had been charged with a leaning towards a reconstruction of the Union. A short extract will suffice to show the spirit of the whole communication. "I can conceive of no extremity to which my country can be reduced in which I would, for a single moment, entertain any proposition for any union with the North on any terms whatever. When all else is lost, I prefer to unite with the thousands of our own countrymen who have found honorable deaths, if not graves, on the battle-field." And the recently elected Governor of Alabama puts to rest all doubts as to his desire for Southern independence, by saying, "If I had the power, I would build up a wall of fire between Yankeedom and the Confederate States, there to burn for ages."
The tone and temper of these extracts—and similar quotations might be made indefinitely—are exactly in keeping with everything that comes from the pens or the lips of the leaders of this Rebellion. And even those Southern statesmen who at the outset were opposed to Secession, and have never ceased to deplore the fruitless civil war into which the South has plunged the nation, are compelled to admit, with a distinguished citizen of Georgia, that "the war, with all its afflictive train of suffering, privation, and death, has served to eradicate all idea of reconstruction, even with those who made it the basis of their arguments in favor of disunion."
Rely upon it, this tone and temper will never be changed so long as the Rebels have any considerable armed force in the field ready for service. Unless we are willing to consent to a divided country, a dissevered Union, and the recognition of a Southern Confederacy,—in a word, unless we are prepared to acquiesce in all the demands of our enemies, we have no alternative but a vigorous prosecution of the war.
Fernando Wood and his followers ask for an armistice. An armistice to whom, and for what purpose? The Rebels, represented by their Government, ask for no armistice, except upon their own terms, and what those terms are we have already seen. It is idle to say that there are men at the South who crave peace and a restoration of the Union. Assume the statement to be true, and you have made no progress towards a satisfactory result. Such men are powerless in the hands of the guiding and governing minds of the conspiracy. The treason is of such magnitude, its leaders so completely control the active forces of the whole community, that the passive strength of Union sentiment cannot now be taken into the account. It would be a farce too absurd to be gravely considered, to treat with men who, whatever their disposition or numbers may be, are utterly helpless, unable to make any promise which they can fulfil, or to give any pledge which can bind any but themselves.