The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 / Devoted To Literature And National Policy

by Various

THE BALTIMORE PLATFORM.

The Baltimore platform consists of eleven resolutions; and we may perceive at a glance the important respect in which it differs from the one adopted at Chicago. That confines itself to criticism and censure of those who are striving to uphold the Constitution and the Union against an armed rebellion, which it does not so much as by a single word condemn. This declares the purpose of the people 'to aid the Government in quelling by force the rebellion now raging against its authority;' so that its power shall be felt throughout the whole extent of our territory, and its blessings be restored to every section of the Union.

It is impossible to overlook this essential distinction of the two platforms. The one is full of the captious complaint of partisanship, intent on power, and oblivious of the highest duty of patriotism in this hour of the country's need; the other recognizes no higher duty now than the union of all parties for the sake of the Union. The one vainly cries peace when there is no peace; the other thinks not of peace except in and through the Union, without which there cannot be peace. Above all, the one takes us back to the former times of purely party strife, and seeks to revive the political issues of the past; the other, leaving 'the dead past to bury its dead,' keeps pace with the living present, and looks forward to a future of glory in a restored and regenerated Union. For it is folly to suppose there can ever again be 'the Union as it was.' This is a superficial phrase, which it is marvellous that any reflecting person can delude himself with. 'The Constitution as it is' is the motto that condemns it; for under the Constitution we are to have 'a more perfect Union,' as our fathers designed, and so stated in the Constitution itself. We are to have a constitutional Union in which every right guaranteed by the Constitution shall be maintained; and this was not so in 'the Union as it was.'

Thus it is that the Baltimore platform, after pledging the people to maintain 'the paramount authority of the Constitution and laws of the United States,' and approving the 'determination of the Government not to compromise' this authority, but holding out the same Constitution and laws as our only and the sufficient 'terms of peace' to all who will accept them, proceeds to take notice of what none but the wilfully blind fail to perceive, the changed aspect of the slavery question. It is impossible to hold the same position to-day in regard to this vexed question as in the days before the war. As an element of the politics of this country its aspect is wholly changed, and there is no sort of consistency in upholding our opinions of four years ago in reference to it. We do well to remember that consistency is not obstinacy. It is not an absolute, but a relative thing, and takes note of all the new elements which are ever entering into public affairs. The criterion of one's political consistency in our country is unfaltering devotion to the Union. If the measures he advocates look always to its paramount authority, his record is truly and honorably inconsistent. On the other hand, he who forgets the end of his labors in the ardor of seeking to save the means, is chargeable with the grossest inconsistency. What, therefore, consists with the perpetuity and strength of the Union? is the question which the American patriot proposes to himself.

It is in reference to this question that the Baltimore Platform challenges comparison with the one adopted at Chicago. For guided by the experience of the past four years (the culmination of fifty years' experience), and noting without fear the facts which that experience has revealed as in the clear light of midday, it declares that slavery is inconsistent with the existence of the Union. Does anybody deny it? Men tell us that the Union and slavery have heretofore, for more than half a century, existed together, and why may they not continue to exist in harmonious conjunction for the next half century? We are asked, moreover, with sarcastic disdain, if our wisdom is superior to that of the fathers. Our wisdom is not, indeed, superior to that of the fathers of the republic, but it would be far beneath it, and we should be unworthy sons of such fathers, if we undertook to carry out, in 1864, the policies and measures of 1764. The progress of affairs has developed the antagonism that was only latent before, but which, nevertheless, some of the wisest of our fathers foresaw; and it is now very clear that there is a terrible antagonism (no longer latent) between slavery and the principles that underlie the Constitution. The time has come to vindicate the wisdom of the Constitution by utterly removing what seeks to disgrace and destroy it—as it were a viper in the bosom of the nation.

We must show that our Government is strong enough not only to control, but also destroy, the interest which arrays itself in arms and war against it. It is useless, surely, to deny that the Southern Confederacy means slavery. Over and over again the Southern journals have asserted, and Southern politicians have said, that free labor was a mistake, and that slavery was the true condition of labor. That these are the deliberate convictions of the Southern leaders, and these the doctrines on which the Montgomery constitution is based, no reflecting person can hesitate to believe; and the boastful declaration of the rebel vice-president, that slavery was the corner stone of the rebel confederacy, serves to confirm our conclusion beyond possibility of doubt. What these things prove is nothing more nor less than that the Union with such an element in it to feed the ambition of politicians with, as this slavery has shown itself to be, is henceforth impossible. For we see now that for the sake of slavery the slaveholding leaders are willing to destroy the Government. Who can complain if the basis of their rebellious scheme is annihilated? The answer to those who say, Touch tenderly the institutions of the South, is, Nay, but let them first cease their rebellion. Therefore, so long as the rebellion lifts its unblushing front against the Government, so long it is the duty of every lover of the Government, in the language of the third resolution of this platform, to 'uphold and maintain the acts and proclamations by which the Government, in its own defence, has aimed a death blow at this gigantic evil.'

But that makes us, Abolitionists, says the reader. Be it so. Are we not willing to be Abolitionists for the sake of saving the Constitution and the Union? And if, despising our proffers of 'the Constitution as it is,' which we have now held out to them for three years and a half, the rebels continue to defy the authority of the Government, who can complain if we proceed to adopt an amendment to the Constitution that shall leave no possibility of slaveholding treason hereafter? Surely none but themselves. Let them, then, come back and vote against it; for three fourths of all the States must concur in such an amendment before it can become part of the Constitution. Ah, the leaders of the Southern rebellion know full well how the great masses at the South would vote on such a measure! Let us be ready, then, acting not for ourselves alone, but also for our deluded brethren of the South, who are to-day the victims of a military usurpation the most monstrous the world ever saw, to put the finishing stroke to the scheme of this Confederate rebellion by adopting the proposed amendment.

The fifth resolution commits us to the approval of two measures that have aroused the most various and strenuous opposition, the Proclamation of Emancipation and the use of negro troops. In reference to the first, it is to be remembered that it is a war measure. The express language of it is: 'By virtue of the power in me vested as commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and Government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion.' Considered thus, the Proclamation is not merely defensible, but it is more; it is a proper and efficient means of weakening the rebellion which every person desiring its speedy overthrow must zealously and perforce uphold. Whether it is of any legal effect beyond the actual limits of our military lines, is a question that need not agitate us. In due time the supreme tribunal of the nation will be called to determine that, and to its decision the country will yield with all respect and loyalty. But in the mean time let the Proclamation go wherever the army goes, let it go wherever the navy secures us a foothold on the outer border of the rebel territory, and let it summon to our aid the negroes who are truer to the Union than their disloyal masters; and when they have come to us and put their lives in our keeping, let us protect and defend them with the whole power of the nation. Is there anything unconstitutional in that? Thank God, there is not. And he who is willing to give back to slavery a single person who has heard the summons and come within our lines to obtain his freedom, he who would give up a single man, woman, or child, once thus actually freed, is not worthy the name of American. He may call himself Confederate, if he will.

Let it be remembered, also, that the Proclamation has had a very important bearing upon our foreign relations. It evoked in behalf of our country that sympathy on the part of the people in Europe, whose is the only sympathy we can ever expect in our struggle to perpetuate free institutions. Possessing that sympathy, moreover, we have had an element in our favor which has kept the rulers of Europe in wholesome dread of interference. The Proclamation relieved us from the false position before attributed to us of fighting simply for national power. It placed us right in the eyes of the world, and transferred men's sympathies from a confederacy fighting for independence as a means of establishing slavery, to a nation whose institutions mean constitutional liberty, and, when fairly wrought out, must end in universal freedom.

We are to consider, furthermore, that from the issuing of the Proclamation dates the organization of negro troops—a measure that is destined to affect materially the future composition, as it is believed, of our regular army. This is 'the employment as Union soldiers of men heretofore held in slavery,' which the fifth resolution asks us to approve. Can we not approve it? The fighting qualities of the despised 'niggers' (as South Carolina chivalry terms the gallant fellows who followed Colonel Shaw to the deadly breach of Wagner, reckless of all things save the stars and stripes they fought under) have been tested on many battle fields. He whose heart does not respond in sympathy with their heroism on those fields, while defending from disgrace his country's flag, need not approve. The approval of the country will be given, nevertheless. There can be nothing better said, on this point than President Lincoln's own words, as reported lately by Judge Mills, of Wisconsin, to whom the President uttered them in conversation. They cover also the question of the Proclamation, and will fitly conclude our discussion of these two important measures: