At the same time the people believe that the Constitution gives the Government ample powers to put down the rebellion, as they have also given it unlimited resources of men and money. It would not be true to say that they have always been satisfied with the progress and success of the Government in the use of these powers and resources. There was doubtless a time when the public feeling demanded a more clear and decisive policy, and more vigor in the prosecution of the war. The people would like to have had the whole military system of the country revised and made more perfect. They would be better pleased if measures had been seasonably taken by which we might have had a well-organized and well-drilled army of reserve, two hundred thousand strong. Appreciating, however, the circumstances of the country at the opening of the war, the gigantic magnitude of the rebellion, and the immensity and complication of the problems pressing on the Administration, they have on the whole been disposed to be patient and trustful. And as long as they believe there is an honest, earnest purpose in the Administration to extinguish the rebellion by force of arms, they will sustain it. What they would do if ever they should come to the conviction that the national existence is in peril through incapacity, selfish personal ambitions or treachery on the part of the Administration, it is not necessary to predict. The conjuncture is not likely to arrive. Of one thing, however, you may be sure: the great loyal body of the nation have no quarrel with Congress or with the Administration for any of the measures that are the objects of denunciation by you and your associates, and they hold the men who utter these denunciations to be worse enemies to their country than the rebels in arms—morally far worse than the great mass of the misguided followers of the rebel chiefs.
LETTER III.
SLAVERY.
Dear Sir: A considerable portion of your letter is taken up with a discussion of the rebel Vice-President Stephen's declaration touching slavery.
In his speech at Savannah, Mr. Stephens, speaking of the new Government which the rebels had set up, says: 'Its foundations are laid, its corner stone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition.'
One would think this was clear enough, and that it was doing no injustice to its substantial purport to say that Mr. Stephens here makes slavery the corner stone of his new Government. You say, however, that this is 'an egregious misapprehension,' that 'he has made no such declaration.' 'Let us learn' (you go on) 'what he actually did say. His language is this: 'The foundations of our new Government are laid, its corner stone rests upon'—what? slavery? no—'upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery,' which he then defines to be 'subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition.''
This is nice! How admirably your italic emphasis upon the first clause, your intercalated comments, and the slight way of bringing in the second clause, serves to bring out the full, undivided force of the whole sentence! What a charming union of acuteness and moral nobleness it exhibits! Equally admirable for the same qualities is your distinction between basing a government upon slavery and basing it upon a great truth about slavery. Mr. Stephens has said that the corner stone of his new Government rests upon the great truth that slavery is the natural and moral condition of the negro. He has not, therefore, said that it rests on slavery! And so you think yourself justified, do you, in your emphatic assertion that 'he has made no such declaration'? You stand impregnable and triumphant—on the words! You stick to what is 'nominated in the bond'—the very Shylock of criticism!
But not satisfied with this, you strengthen the case by argument: Mr. Stephens did not say so, or mean so, because he would have been very foolish if he had—so must every one be that thinks he did. Mr. Stephens's 'language' (you say) 'could not be applied to slavery; it would be a strange misapplication of terms to call slavery a physical, philosophical, and moral truth.' But irresistible as your logic is, did you really suppose that the 'plain men' who (according to your motto) in troubled times like these 'read pamphlets,' were any of them so stupid as to think that your wonderful distinction amounts to anything? Did you suppose any man of decent intelligence would fail to see that it makes no practical difference—since slavery, as an institution, was to be the inevitable consequence of the great truth about it—and that therefore Mr. Stephens's declaration amounts substantially to saying that slavery was to be the corner stone of his new Government; and so your assertion, that 'he has made no such declaration,' is a paltry verbal quibble, unworthy of a sensible and fair-minded man.
So of your way of proving that the rebel Government have adopted no such corner stone. It is like yourself, and unparalleled but by yourself. First, you allege that even if Mr. Stephens had said so, his individual assertion is no law for the Government; next, that 'there is not one word in the Constitution of the Confederacy that gives color to any such idea as slavery being the corner stone of their Government; on the contrary, section ix, article i, clearly repudiates it.' You did not quote the article you refer to. Your 'plain men,' when they come to see it, will perhaps have an opinion on the question why you did not. The article is as follows: 'The importation of African negroes from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States of the United States, in hereby forbidden, and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.'
Now did you really think that this article 'clearly repudiates' the idea of the rebels intending to have slavery for one of their fundamental institutions, or did you presume on the ignorance or stupidity of those you have undertaken to instruct in political knowledge? The article itself contains no such repudiation, nor is there anything to warrant your inference that such was its purport, and everybody that knows anything about it, knows that it is a gross misrepresentation of its real object to say so.