The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864

But there is another principle of vital importance involved in this election. The South, under the banner of Slavery, proceeded to secede from the Union, immediately after the result of the Presidential election of 1860 was made known. South Carolina seceded in December, 1860. Mississippi followed early in January, 1861, and the Cotton States all followed during that and the succeeding month of February. Now, Mr. Lincoln was not and could not be inaugurated as President until March, 1861. The South did not and would not wait for his inaugural address of that date to know, under the new condition of affairs, what would be the policy of his Administration. They did not and would not wait for any measures of his Administration, much less any act of the Government or of Congress, but proceeded to secede merely because Mr. Lincoln had been constitutionally elected to the Presidency by the people of the United States. Such an act was an overthrow of the great fundamental principle of all free government, namely, that the majority shall govern under the forms of the Constitution. It was an attack upon the right of suffrage, an assault upon the ballot box and the great principle of an elective President, as provided in our Constitution, and which lies at the very basis of free institutions. That principle is the vital element of our existence. It is 'the casing air' of liberty. Take it away, and freedom instantly expires. The right of suffrage is the great American right of every citizen, rich or poor, humble or exalted. It is the great palladium of our liberty. It is a Government, like a mighty pyramid, reposing on its broad and immovable base, the will and affections of the people. It is the people's Government, and therefore the people maintain it, and with us two millions of volunteers have rushed to its support. Therefore, while it is the best Government in peace, it is the strongest in war. But secession because of the election of a President, is not only war upon the Union, but war upon the elective franchise, the great fundamental principle of free government, and without which it is but a fleeting shadow. Democrats—people of all parties—my countrymen, while you are asked now by the Chicago Convention to vote against Mr. Lincoln, you would nullify by that very vote the right of suffrage, because, what is that suffrage worth, what is your vote but an empty form, if it may not elect your President? But if, because the minority who have voted against you, dissatisfied with your choice, can rebel, make war upon you, because you thus voted, and set up another President for that minority by force of arms, what is that but to say that the majority shall not rule; that the right of suffrage shall be nullified; that the Constitution, under which that vote was given, shall be overthrown? This is what the rebellion has done in attempting to destroy the Republic, merely because of the election of Mr. Lincoln. This arrogant and insolent slave-holding oligarchy would not even wait to hear what the President of your choice would say. They treated the President of your choice, and therefore they treated you and the Constitution under which you acted, with scorn and defiance. So long as you would act with them, so long as the Northern parasites would adhere to the Southern upas tree of Slavery, so long as the 'mudsills' of the North, as they arrogantly called you, would obey the orders of their Southern masters, so long as you would be their slaves, they would permit the President to be inaugurated. But so soon as you elected a President against their dictation, then your suffrages should be nullified by the rebellion of a minority against the majority. What is this but to say, that the majority shall not elect a President, and thus render the right of suffrage an empty form, striking at the fundamental principle of free government, and substituting the bayonets of the minority for the ballots of the majority of the people? Freemen of America, is it possible that by voting against Mr. Lincoln now because of the Southern rebellion, you will thus declare that the election of a President by the people is not to be maintained, but that his reëlection is to be defeated, and that his authority, as your President and as your representative, is therefore never to extend over the whole United States, because a rebellious minority oppose it by force of arms? This is one of the transcendent issues involved in this contest. It is in fact the great question whether the majority shall rule or the minority—whether self-government is an unreal mockery, or whether it is indeed a God-given right of man, born in the image of his Maker. You voted that Mr. Lincoln should be President of the whole United States. That was your decision at the ballot box. Has it been obeyed? No: an arrogant slave-holding minority has rebelled against it, and, within the boundaries of the area occupied by that minority, has suppressed your election by the bayonet, and substituted Jefferson Davis, one of the rebel leaders, in place of Abraham Lincoln. Within the limits of that rebellion, the power, under the Constitution, which you devolved upon Abraham Lincoln, has been nullified by force of arms, and now, if you abandon the war, or defeat his reëlection, your choice will have been nullified, and he never will have exercised throughout the United States the power given to him by your suffrages under the Constitution. Now the party in the North thus acquiescing in this destruction of the right of suffrage, dares to assume the sacred name of Democracy, which you know is but Anglicized Greek, meaning the power of the people. Shade of the immortal Jackson! the father and founder of the Democratic party, burst the cerements of the Hermitage, and blast with the thunders of New Orleans the wretched traitors who thus dare to profane the sacred name under which you were chosen President of the United States.

But there is another grave objection to the McClellan platform adopted at Chicago. It is its intentional ambiguity. The Convention was composed of unionists and disunionists, of peace and war Democrats, as they style themselves, and the platform was adapted to suit the views of both these parties in and out of the Convention. It was a platform upon which the temple of Janus was to be closed, but with side doors at either extremity, into one of which the peace men with their olive branches should enter, and the war men in full military array in the other, and the lion and the lamb meet together in the centre in cordial agreement. But, it appears that the war men in this case were only asses in lions' skins, for in the compromise between antagonistic principles and candidates, the peace men got far the better of the bargain. While there were some vague and glittering generalities in favor of the Union, they were connected with conditions which rendered the destruction of the Union certain, namely, an armistice and cessation of hostilities, accompanied by the false and flagitious declaration, calculated to encourage the enemies of our country at home and abroad, namely, that the war to suppress the rebellion was a failure. Remember, soldiers, that the McClellan platform declares that your battles are failures; that your blood has been shed in vain; that your arms can never crush the rebellion; that you are inferior in courage to the slave-holding rebels; that you must admit your defeat, throw down your muskets, return in disgrace to your homes, disband the army, lay up the navy, recall Generals Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Meade, and Gilmore, and Admirals Farragut, Porter, Dupont, Davis, and Winslow, and leave it to the civilians of Chicago, Vallandigham, Harris, Long, Pendleton, and others, to negotiate a peace.

Now what is an armistice? It is defined to be a suspension of the war for a limited period. There may be conditions added, but none are named in the McClellan Chicago platform. Of course, then, it means a cessation of hostilities by land and sea. Indeed, the platform is weaker than this, for it proposes directly a 'cessation of hostilities,' not by land only, or by sea only, but, of course, by both, as the words are general. Now then, the blockade of the rebel ports, and the capture or destruction of blockade runners and their cargoes, is war upon the ocean. This blockade, then, is to be abandoned during the armistice, for there is to be a cessation of hostilities upon the ocean and the land.

During this interval of peace, when there is to be no blockade of the Southern ports, what is to follow? By their own accounts and estimates, the Confederates have within their limits, in cotton (at present prices), tobacco, and naval stores, a value exceeding one billion of dollars in gold. Now then, so soon as the armistice was agreed upon, the war upon the ocean, including the blockade, having ceased, the whole of this cotton, tobacco, and naval stores, would be shipped to Europe, or partly to Nassau, on the way to Europe, and this enormous amount realized by the Confederate government in gold. We know what tremendous disasters have been produced by the cotton famine in England, France, and other countries. Now, the first effect of such shipments would be the total ruin of all our manufactures of cotton and other textile fabrics. But another still more serious result would follow. We know that Louis Napoleon is the bitter enemy of the Union; we know that he has again and again declared that we could not suppress the rebellion; that he has earnestly thrice endeavored to persuade the British Government to unite with him in acknowledging the independence of the South—twice through efforts made directly upon the British Cabinet, and once through Roebuck and Lindsay, members of the House of Commons, to induce it by a parliamentary vote to compel the British Ministry to unite with the Emperor in acknowledging the independence of the South. That Louis Napoleon is our bitter enemy, is proved also by the French-Mexican war, in which England, and even Spain, separated from him. It is proved also by the diplomatic correspondence of Jefferson Davis, and by his friendly and approving recognition of the establishment of the French Imperial Government in Mexico. It is further proved by Louis Napoleon's own letter, in which he declared, that one of the objects of the Mexican war was the establishment of the equilibrium of the Latin race upon the American continent. It is farther demonstrated by the proceedings of the French in Mexico, and especially recently at Matamoras, in the mutual aid given and received by the French and Confederate forces. Now, what is the meaning of establishing the equilibrium of the Latin race on the 'American continent'? In the first place, it means European military intervention; in the second place, it means to embrace not only Mexico, but the whole Latin race on the American continent. By the Latin race is included all Spanish America. It means, then, in the future, if our Government is overthrown, that all Spanish America, from the northern boundary of Mexico to Cape Horn, is to be consolidated into one great Power under imperial sway. It means to include in this vast empire the command of the Isthmus of Tehauntepec, the route by Central America (about which Louis Napoleon has written so much), by Honduras and Chiriqui, but more especially the Panama, as also the Atrato routes.

In the great future, whoever commands these routes, especially together with that of the Isthmus of Suez, which I visited a few months since, and which Louis Napoleon has nearly completed, will command the commerce of the world, and, as a consequence, ultimately control the institutions of the world. Such are the tremendous problems teeming in the brain of Napoleon the Third, and all, as he believes, depending upon the destruction of the American Union. I speak of what I know from a residence now of nearly two years in Europe. Thus it is that Louis Napoleon intends to bring us within the centrifugal gravitation of the European balance of power. This wonderful man proposes to extend this system from the old continents to the new, embracing both, and thus hold in his grasp the equilibrium—the balance of power of the world. We may well imagine what that equilibrium will be when Napoleon the Third shall hold the balance in his hands. Already he has considerable possessions (insular and continental) in North and South America, and Mexico, under Maximilian, is substantially a French dependency. He holds Algiers. He is colonizing Egypt (as I myself saw this year) by his railroads and canals. He has seized and colonized Cochin China and Annam. He has made Italy a dependency on the bayonets of Franco. Now then, under these circumstances, when the blockade shall have terminated, and Jefferson Davis, who is quite as ambitious and even more talented than Louis Napoleon, shall hold in his hand more than a billion of dollars' worth of Southern products ready for immediate shipment, may he not, and will he not say, through his most able and adroit diplomatic representative at Paris, 'Recognize the independence of the South, and all these products shall be shipped for sale in France, and to French manufacturers,' and thus enable France to crush for the present the cotton manufacturers of all the rest of the world. It is well known in Paris that Mr. Slidell is upon terms of the most intimate association with Louis Napoleon, and has thoroughly convinced him that we cannot suppress the rebellion. Is it not, then, clear, anxious as Napoleon is for the success of the South, that he would, in the event of McClellan's election, at once recognize Southern independence. Indeed, it is the boast of the Confederate leaders in Europe, since the adoption of the platform at Chicago, that, upon the election of their candidates, without waiting four months for the inauguration in March next, Napoleon will at once recognize the Confederate government. Indeed, I do not doubt, from the circumstantial evidence (although I do not know the fact), that there is already a secret understanding between Jefferson Davis and Napoleon the Third to recognize the independence of the South upon the election of the Chicago candidates. Why wait four months, until the 4th of March next, when the American people, by indorsing the Chicago platform, shall have declared for peace, with the additional announcement in that platform, that the war for the suppression of the rebellion has failed?

If, indeed, that war has failed, and we cannot thus suppress the rebellion, it would not only be the right, but, upon the principles of international law, the duty of every foreign power to acknowledge Southern independence. Thus is it that the Chicago McClellan platform invites recognition. What is the meaning of the recognition of the independence of the South by France, under such circumstances? It means war. It means, in the first place, commercial treaties stipulating great advantages in favor of France, and perhaps other Powers. It means, of course, the overthrow of the blockade, so as to carry out those treaties. It means conditions destructive of our interests, and favorable to the recognizing Powers. It means advantages and discriminations in tariffs and tonnage duties, and navigation privileges, which would exclude us from Southern ports, including New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi, and deprive us of the markets of the South. Such a recognition, then, with its attendant consequences, means war—war not only with France, but probably with England and Spain, and other Powers. Doubtless, upon the election of the Chicago candidates, Napoleon would again ask the Ministry of England to unite with him in recognizing the independence of the South, and to participate in the benefits of the proposed commercial treaties. Who can say that England, under the dangers and sacrifices incurred by a refusal, would again decline the offer?

It is clear, then, that the election of the Chicago candidates involves the most imminent peril of war with France, if not with England, both acting then in alliance with the Confederate government. That my country even then would accept the contest rather than the dishonor and ruin of disunion, I do believe; but who can predict the result of such a conflict? My countrymen, we are speedily approaching the very edge of a dark and perilous abyss, into which we may be soon plunged by the election of the Chicago candidates; I implore you not to make the dread experiment. You must know that there will be no recognition of the independence of the South by France or England, or any other Power, if Abraham Lincoln should be reëlected in November next. The American people will then have loudly proclaimed, through the ballot box, that they can and will subdue the rebellion by force of arms; and that they will continue to negotiate from the mouths of our cannon, until the Southern armies shall have been dispersed and vanquished. Upon the news of the reëlection of Mr. Lincoln reaching Europe, the Confederate stock, now waiting the success of the Chicago candidates, will fall, like Lucifer, to rise no more. American securities, including those of the Federal and loyal State Governments, of railroads, and other companies with real capital, will all be immensely appreciated. The difference in favor of our country, including the rise in greenbacks, would be equivalent in a few months to hundreds of millions of dollars. Nor is it only our stocks that will rise at home and abroad, but the national character will be immensely exalted. The friends of our country and liberty in Europe, including the grand mass of the people, will echo back the exultant shouts of freedom as they roll on from the Pacific to the Mississippi, from the Mississippi to the lakes, and, bounding from the glad Atlantic, are carried by steam and lightning to the shores of Europe. The fetters of American Slavery will be broken by such a result, and man—immortal man, of whatever race or color, born in the image of his Maker, will emerge from chatteldom, and rise to the dignity of our common humanity.

There is one point still remaining of vast importance. It is the question of Slavery, so far as it yet lingers within our borders. Without entering upon other aspects of that case, we call attention to the proposed amendment for the purpose of abolishing Slavery on the recommendation of Congress and the ratification of three fourths of the States, as provided in the Federal Constitution. This is recommended by Mr. Lincoln, and it is a plank in the Baltimore platform. It passed the Senate by a more than two-thirds vote, but was defeated, by the Democrats, by a vote of 69 to 94, in the House, thus failing to receive the two-thirds majority of both Houses of Congress as required by the Constitution. If, as has been heretofore shown, Slavery is the great enemy of the Union, and was the sole cause of the rebellion, why not extirpate the cause of the war? Why not remove what may remain of Slavery after the war is ended, by the proposed amendment, as recommended by Mr. Lincoln? This is a war and a Union measure, calculated to crush the rebellion, to maintain the Union, and to prevent any future effort to effect its overthrow. This measure, which would settle finally and forever the Slavery question, will succeed at an early period, if Mr. Lincoln should be reflected. But this measure the Democrats oppose, and desire to keep open the Slavery question, for no object that can be perceived, except to renew the old party alliance between Slavery South and its Northern supporters, with a view to party triumphs. If General McClellan succeeds, Slavery, so far as it still exists, will be cherished, maintained, and perpetuated. The viper will be warmed into life again, and although it might perhaps recoil for the present, it would only be to strike at some future period with greater force and venom at the life of the Republic. These men tell us they are for the Union as it was. Are they for the revival of such scenes as were perpetrated by Brooks in the American Senate? Are they for the Kansas frauds and murders and forgeries, including the forgery of a constitution? Are they for the right of secession, or, while they dispute the right of a State to secede, do they deny with Buchanan and Pendleton the right of the Government to prevent its secession? Are they against secession, but against coercion also? Are they against rebellion, but opposed to its overthrow by force! Throughout the South, under the Union as it was, there was no freedom of speech or of the press, on any question connected with Slavery. Are they for the sale, under the Union as it was, even of free negroes into perpetual bondage? Are they for the denial of the rights of Northern citizens throughout the South? Above all, are they for the renewal of the African slave trade, as notoriously occurred in 1859 (during the Administration of Buchanan), at Savannah, in Georgia, when the wretched victims, just stolen from their native homes in Africa, were carried to Savannah, and there, in defiance of the Federal Constitution, openly distributed by sale among the boasted chivalry of the South? If the Chicago candidates and their party are for these things—if they are for the Union as it was in these respects, I am against them. I am for the Union (as clearly intended by the fathers and founders of the Government) as it will be when Slavery (its great, and, in fact, its only domestic foe) shall have been entirely extinguished. While I am for the extinction of Slavery as a Union and as a war measure, I am consoled by the reflection that, while it will secure the perpetuity of the Union, it will vastly increase our wealth and power, and advance all our industrial and material interests. For several years past I have examined this question, and, in various essays, published at home, but more especially abroad, have proved by official statistics, from the censuses of 1850 and 1860, that, under the system of free labor and free schools which exist in the North, as compared with the South, the product of the Free States is $217 per capita, and that of the slave-holding States $96 per capita. Also, that the lands of the South are worth $10 per acre, and of the North $25 per acre. It was further proved by me, in those essays, by the same official data, that, exactly in proportion to the number of slaves is the decreased production per capita in the Slave States; that of South Carolina, with 402,406 slaves and 291,388 whites, being $66 per capita, and of Delaware, with 90,589 whites and 1,798 slaves, being $143 per capita; while that of Massachusetts, with her sterile soil and severe climate, and far inferior natural advantages, was $235 per capita; and the same rule was also shown to hold in counties of the same Slave States, those counties with few slaves always producing more per capita than those having many. The result was, as shown by the census, that if the production of the South in 1859 had been equal per capita during the same year to that of the Free States, the additional value of the Southern products would have been $1,531,631,000 in 1859, and in the aggregate of the decade from 1859 to 1869, $17,873,539,511, exclusive of the addition from the annual reinvestment of capital. The addition, then, to the value of the products of the South in a single year, caused by the substitution of free for slave labor, would be nearly equal to our whole present national debt, while in the aggregate of the ten years succeeding it would be nearly ten times greater than the whole national debt, thus leaving us far richer after the next census, as a consequence of increased production, notwithstanding the national debt, than if the rebellion had never occurred. Thus is it that the ways of Providence are justified to man, and that Slavery chastises its own advocates, while its overthrow brings increased wealth and safety and honor and happiness and prosperity to the country. While I do not advocate, then, the abolition of Slavery in defiance of the Constitution, because it would make us more wealthy and powerful, more honored, happy, and prosperous, yet I rejoice that in supporting emancipation, as Mr. Lincoln does, as a Union and as a war measure, the overthrow of this accursed institution will be attended with countless benefits to my country and mankind. Suppress the rebellion by the overthrow of the Southern armies, and re-establish the Government throughout all our wide domain upon the broad and eternal foundations of freedom, truth, and justice, then neither domestic traitors nor foreign despots will ever dash against its adamantine base. There it will stand, and stand forever, the mighty continental breakwater between the continents of Asia and of Europe, against which the breakers of internal faction, and the waves of despotic power would dash in vain. To that home of the oppressed, to that asylum of genuine and universal freedom, millions from the Old World would then come, and unite with us in strengthening and maintaining a Government based upon the rights of humanity, and sustained by the affections of the people. While our physical force and accumulating wealth would thus be rapidly and vastly augmented, our moral power would be increased in a still grander ratio. Then the cry of tyrants, that self-government is a phantom, and republics a failure, would cease to oppress the listening ear of humanity. Then the chains would soon fall everywhere from the limbs of the slave. Then the reactionary and feudal party of Europe, now so loudly proclaiming republics a failure, while exulting over the anticipated fall of the American Union, would retire discomfited from the contest, while the rights of man would be immensely promoted, and civilization advance, at a single bound, more than in the lapse of many centuries. The great liberal party of England, headed by those immortal champions Bright and Cobden, would rouse like giants refreshed from their slumber, and carry the flag of the vote by ballot and extended suffrage triumphantly throughout the British realm, while Ireland, oppressed Ireland, would then receive the fullest justice. Then, indeed, all past differences between England and America would be sunk forever in fraternal concord, and the peace of the world be maintained. Then Napoleon the Third, who keeps an army of 600,000 men as a standing menace to Europe and the world, and who has just, for the present, and for the present only, extinguished in blood the freedom of Mexico, must abandon his ambitious projects, or shiver his diadem upon the adamantine rock of popular freedom.