CHARACTER OF THE SECESSION MOVEMENT. · 71 matter what may be the physical strength which the Government has at its command. Under such circumstances, to send a military force into any State, with orders to act against the people, would be simply making war upon them." The Attorney-General limited the exercise of the powers of the Executive, in the matter in question, to a simple protection of the public property. If he could not collect the revenue on account of insurrection, he had no warrant for the use of military force. Congress might vote him the power, yet he doubted the ability of that body to find constitutional permission to do so. It seemed to him, that an attempt to force the people of a State into submission to the laws of the Republic, and to desist from attempts to destroy it, would be making war upon them, by which they would be converted into alien enemies, and "would be compelled to act accordingly." If Congress should sanction such an attempt to uphold the authority of the National Government, he wished to know whether all of the States would "not be absolved from their Federal obligations? Is any portion of the people,” he asked, "bound to contribute their money or their blood to carry on a contest like this?" The Attorney-General virtually counseled the President to suffer this glorious concrete Republic to become disintegrated by the fires of faction, or the blows of actual rebellion, rather than to use force, legitimately at his service, for the preservation of its integrity. The vital weakness in the arguments of the conspirators, and of those who adopted their peculiar political views, appears at all times in the erroneous assumption, as premises, that States, as such, had seceded, and that the National Government, if it should take action against rebellious movements, must of necessity war against a "Sovereign State." The undeniable fact opposed to this argument was, that no State, as such, had seceded, or could secede; that the secession of certain States had been declared only by certain politicians in those States, who were usurpers, as we shall observe hereafter, of the rights and sovereignty which belonged only to the people; that only certain persons in certain States were in rebellion, and that the Government could only act against those certain persons in certain States as individuals collectively rebellious, like a mob in a city. Therefore, there could be no such thing as the "coercion of a State." That which the conspirators and the politicians so adroitly and effectively exhibited as "coercion" was an unsubstantial phantom, created by the subtle alchemy of sophistry, for an i-moble purpose—an invention of disloyal metaphysicians in the Slave-labor States, bearing, to undisciplined and unreasoning minds, the semblance of truth and reality. If we shall keep this fact in mind clearly, as we proceed in our consideration of the events of the civil war, we shall perceive the wisdom, righteousness, and dignity of the National Government, and the opposing qualities in its enemies, from the beginning to the end of the troubles. The President followed the counsel of his legal adviser in the preparation of that part of his Message which related to anticipated insurrection. But before yielding wholly to that counsel, he said, in discussing the doctrine of the right of a State to secede :-" In order to justify secession as a constitutional remedy, it must be on the principle that the Federal Government is a mere voluntary association of States, to be dissolved at pleasure by any one 72 THE PRESIDENT'S SOUND VIEWS. of the contracting parties.' If this be so, the Confederacy is a rope of sand, to be penetrated and dissolved by the first adverse wave of public opinion in any of the States. In this manner our thirty-three States may resolve themselves into so many petty, jarring, and hostile republics, each one retiring from the Union without responsibility, whenever any sudden excitement might impel them to such a course. By this process, a Union might be entirely broken into fragments in a few weeks, which cost our fathers many years of toil, privation, and blood to establish." In these wise, truthful, and statesmanlike sentences the President cast off the restraints of the meshes of political and personal difficulty in which he was evidently entangled; and by so doing he gave unpardonable offense to the conspirators. With the freedom of will and judgment which that momentary relief gave him, and with a lofty conception of the dignity of the Republic and his own position, he continued:-"This Government is a great and powerful Government, invested with all the attributes of sovereignty over the special subjects to which its authority extends. Its framers never intended to implant in its bosom the seeds of its own destruction, nor were they, at its creation, guilty of the absurdity of providing for its own dissolution. It was not intended by its framers to be the baseless fabric of a vision, which, at the touch of the enchanter, would vanish into thin air; but a substantial and mighty fabric, capable of resisting the slow decay of time, and of defying the storms of ages. Indeed, well may the zealous patriots of that day have indulged fears that a government of such high powers might violate the reserved rights of the States, and wisely did they adopt the rule of a strict construction of these powers to prevent danger. But they did not fear, nor had they any reason to imagine, that the Constitution would ever be so interpreted as to enable any State, by her own act, and without the consent of her sister States, to discharge her people from all or any of their Federal obligations." These were brave words, and the President had constitutional and popular power to follow them with corresponding brave actions. But a sense of restraint seems to have paralyzed his will, and while he declared that the forts and other public property must be protected, he yielded every thing to the conspirators by saying, in their own phraseology, that there was no power known to the Constitution to compel a "seceding State" to return to its allegiance. He saw no way in which a "subjugated State" could be governed afterward; and even if the National Government had the power to compel the obedience of a State, "would it be wise to exercise it, under the circumstances?" he asked. In the fraternal conflict that would ensue, a vast amount of blood and treasure would be expended, rendering future reconciliation impossible. He declared that the States were colleagues of one another; and if some of them, he said, "should conquer the rest, and hold them as subjugated provinces, it would totally destroy the whole theory upon which they are now connected. If this view of the subject be as correct as I think it is," he said, "then the Union must utterly perish at the moment 1 This, as we have observed, is the vital principle involved in the doctrine of Supreme State Sovereignty, and the corner-stone of the foundation on which the great rebellion rested for justification. Against this cornerstone the President hurled the conclusions in this paragraph. AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION PROPOSED. 73 when Congress shall arm one part of the people against another, for any purpose beyond that of merely protecting the General Government in the exercise of its proper constitutional functions. . . . Congress possesses many means of preserving it by conciliation; but the sword was not placed in their hands to preserve it by force." Having declared that secession was a crime, and the doctrine of State Supremacy a heresy dangerous to the nationality of the Republic, but that both might be indulged in to the fullest extent with impunity, because the Government, as an executive force, was constitutionally and utterly impotent to protect the nation against rebellious hands uplifted to destroy it—in other words, that the hands of wicked assassins were ready with strength to crush out the National life, but the Republic possessed no power, excepting that of moral suasion, to protect and preserve that life-the President proposed to conciliate its enemies, by allowing them to infuse deadly poison into the blood of their intended victim, which would slowly but as surely accomplish their purpose, in time. To do this, he proposed an "explanatory amendment" to the Constitution, on the subject of Slavery, which should give to the conspirators every thing which they had demanded, namely, the elevation of the Slave system to the dignity of a national institution, and thus sap the very foundations of our free government. This amendment was to consist of an express recognition of the right of property in slaves, in the States where it then existed or might thereafter exist; of the recognition of the duty of the National Government to protect that right in all the Territories throughout their Territorial existence; the recognition of the right of the Slaveowner to every privilege and advantage given him in the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850; and a declaration that all the State laws impairing or defeating that law were violations of the Constitution, and consequently null and void. January 10, 1561. This Message, so indecisive, and, in many respects, inconsistent, alarmed the people. They felt themselves, in a measure, adrift upon a sea of troubles without a competent pilot, a compass, or a pole-star. As we have observed, it pleased nobody. In the Chamber of the United States Senate, when a motion for its reference was made, it was spoken lightly of by the friends and foes of the Union. Clingman, of North Carolina, who, misrepresenting the sentiment of his State, was the first to sound the trumpet of disunion in that hall, at this time declared that it fell short of stating the case that was before the country. Wigfall, of Texas, said he could not understand it; and, at a later period," Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, said in the Senate, that it "had all the characteristics of a diplomatic paper, for diplomacy is said to abhor certainty, as nature abhors a vacuum; and it is not within the power of man to reach any fixed conclusion from that Message. When the country was agitated, when opinions were being formed, when we are drifting beyond the power ever to return, this was not what we had a right to expect from a Chief Magistrate. One policy or the other he ought to have taken." "He should have taken the position," he said, either of a "Federalist, that every State is subordinate to the Federal Government," and he was bound to enforce its authority; or as a State Rights Democrat, which he professed to be, holding that "the Constitution gave no power to the Federal Government to coerce a State." He said, truly, "That the ·74 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE MESSAGE. President should have brought his opinion to one conclusion or another, and, to-day, our country would have been safer than it is." Senator Hale, of New Hampshire, said that, if he understood the Message on the subject of secession, it was this:-"South Carolina has just cause for seceding from the Union; that is the first proposition. The second is, that she has no right to secede. The third is, that we have no right to prevent her from seceding. He goes on to represent this as a great and powerful country, and that no State has a right to secede from it; but the power of the country, if I understand the President, consists in what Dickens makes the English constitution to be-a power to do nothing at all. Now, I think it was incumbent on the President of the United States to point out definitely and recommend to Congress some rule of action, and to tell us what he re commended us to do. But, in my judgment, he has entirely avoided it. He has failed to look the thing in the face. He has acted like the ostrich, which hides her head, and thereby thinks to escape danger." So thought the people. They saw great dangers, but could not comprehend the fearful proportions of those dangers. Had they done so, they would almost have despaired. They watched with intense interest the rising waves of rebellion in the Slave-labor States, and heard with alarm the roaring of their surges in the halls of Congress. Their thoughts often wandered back to an earlier period in their history, when a Chief Magistrate had the courage to check by a menace, and would have crushed by the force of arms, if it had been necessary, the foul serpent of rebellion, that appeared a generation before as a petted monster, among the politicians of South Carolina, and was exhibited to the people whenever Calhoun waved the EXPRESSIONS OF THE CLERGY. 75 ⚫ sorcerer's wand. In the contrast between Jackson and Buchanan, which that retrospect exhibited, they saw cause for gloomy forebodings. 991 Patriotic men wrote earnest letters to their representatives in Congress, asking them to be firm, yet conciliatory; and clergymen of every degree and religious denomination-Shepherds of the Church of Christ, the Prince of Peace-exhorted their flocks to be firm in faith, patient in hope, careful in conduct, and trustful in God. "This is no time for noisy disputants to lead us," wrote Bishop Lay, at Fort Smith, Arkansas. "We should ask counsel of the experienced, the sober, the God-fearing men among us. We may follow peace, and yet guard our country's rights; nor should we, in concern for our own, forget the rights and duties of others." "In our public congregations, in our family worship, in each heart's private prayers," wrote Bishop Mellvaine, of Ohio, "I solemnly feel that it is a time for all to beseech God to have mercy upon our country-not to deal with us according to our sins— not to leave us to our own wisdo:n and might-to take the counsels of our senators and legislators, and all in authority, into His own guidance and government.""These evils are the punishment of sin," wrote Bishop McFarland, of Hartford, Connecticut, to the clergy of his diocese, "and are to be averted only by appeasing the anger of Heaven. You will, therefore, request your congregation to unite in fervent prayers for the preservation of the Union and the peace of the country. For this intention, we exhort them to say, each day, at least one 'Our Father' and one 'Hail Mary;' to observe with great strictness the Fast-days of this holy season; to prepare themselves for the worthy reception of the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist, at or before Christmas; to give alms generally to the poor, and to turn their whole hearts in all humility to God." More than forty leading clergymen of various denominations in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania united in sending forth a circular letter, in the January 1, form of an appeal to the churches, in which they said:-"We cannot doubt that a spirit of candor and forbearance, such as our religion prompts, and the exigencies of the times demand, would render the speedy adjustment of our difficulties possible, consistently with every constitutional right. Unswerving fealty to the Constitution justly interpreted, and a prompt return to its spirit and requirements wherever there may have been. divergence from either, would seem to be the first duty of citizens and legislators. It is our firm, and, we think, intelligent conviction, that only a very inconsiderable fraction of the people of the North will hesitate in the discharge of their constitutional obligations; and that whatever enactments are found to be in conflict therewith will be annulled." They urged the necessity of a more candid and temperate discussion, on the part of the press and the pulpit, of moral and political questions-a greater regard "for the rights and feelings of men." 1861. 1560. So early as the close of October," that venerable soldier, Lieu- 6 October 30, tenant-General Winfield Scott, the General-in-chief of the armies of the Republic, perceiving the gathering cloud betokening a storm, spoke Pastoral Letter of Bishop Henry C. Lay, December 6, 1860. - Pastoral Letter to the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese of Ohio, December 7, 1860. * Pastoral Letter to the Roman Catholic Clergy of the Diocese of Hartford, December 14, 1860. |