CHAPTER XVII.

SLAVERY, DISUNION, AND THE WAR.

RAYMOND'S RETURN FROM EUROPE, AND HIS ENCOUNTER WITH SECESSION IN 1860 HIS UNWAVERING LOYALTY-CLEAR FORESIGHT— PROPHETIC UTTERANCES SPEECH IN ALBANY IN 1860- HIS LETTERS TO WILLIAM L. YANCEY -WAR-RAYMOND'S

PATRIOTISM -THE RIOT WEEK OF 1863, AND THE

TIMES RAYMOND'S ATTITUDE.

*

To return to Mr. Raymond. After a brief visit to Europe in 1859, he resumed his editorial chair, in season to meet and to do battle with the Secession element which was soon to plunge the nation into war. He early saw the danger, and was constant in warning and entreaty. When the blow fell he showed himself brave and loyal; and while the crisis was impending he was neither disheartened nor dismayed. His course through the whole of that trying period was eminently honorable, and thoroughly consistent, making so fair an offset to his errors of judgment after the conflict of arms had closed, that a broad charity may forgive, if it cannot forget, the latter.

That he was alive to the dangers of the hour; that he regarded Secession as a possible, or even a probable, event; and that with shrewd foresight he discerned the results of Secession, his public addresses, and the political articles from his pen which appeared in the year 1860, abundantly prove. In an elaborate speech on "The Political Crisis," delivered at a Union mass meeting in Albany, on the 12th of January, 1860, he discussed with great care the condition of the country, the responsibility for its disquietude, and the nature of the remedy. With clearer sight than many of his contemporaries

The year of the Italian Campaign, the events of which were discussed by Mr. Raymond in lively letters to the Times.

of like party faith, he warned his hearers that angry passion might, at any moment, light the flame of war; and, moreover, demonstrated by irrefragable argument that Slavery was but an incident of the impending contest; that the struggle was to be made between opposite systems of civil polity, and for the restoration of the balance of power in the South, as against the North, or, in the words of Mr. Seward's formula, an irrepressible conflict was to be fought out, soon or late.

"We are told," said Mr. Raymond, "that the fear of danger to the Union is idle and groundless; that the Union cannot be dissolved; that the interests of its sections bind it indissolubly together, and render its disruption impossible. I grant the difficulties of the case, the extreme improbabilities of the catastrophe. I concede fully that nothing but the madness of passion could prompt either States or individuals to such a step. But I have yet to learn that anything is impossible to nations, or to great communities, when they are frantic with rage or resentment. I should like to know what excess nations are not capable of, when they are profoundly swayed by the passion of fear or resentment against some real or some fancied wrong. Talk of national interest arresting the outbreak, or checking the sweep of national passion! What instance of the kind does history exhibit? Are not its pages filled with the record of wars waged, and governments overthrown, and rulers slain, and thousands slaughtered, in the heat of popular frenzy, and under the stimulus of popular passion? Did not France rush into a revolution which drenched her with blood? Did not England, under passionate fear and dread of the first Napoleon, plunge into a war which drained her of her children and her treasure; which loaded her with an inextinguishable debt, and which is even to this day felt, by its oppressive results, in every cabin and every workshop of the British realm? Were these the results of cool calculation of the national interest? Have the many revolutions which have taken place in France, in Germany, in Spain, and the Italian States, been the work of sober reflection, of careful consideration? All great movements of great communities are movements of passion. States and nations seldom or never stop to count the

cost.

The great events of history have been the offspring of aroused sentiment; of profound, pervading, resistless passion. If our fathers had foreseen the cost of independence, — had foreseen the years of toil and of suffering it would take to achieve it, they would scarcely have plunged, as they did, boldly, and with uncalculating faith in the unknown future, into the long and bloody war of the Revolution. It is when great bodies of men are stung by a sense of wrong, or frantic with apprehension of some impending danger, that they rush rashly into rebellion, daring the worst that may happen, and throwing to the winds all estimate of results."

Then, tracing minutely the causes of Northern ascendency and Southern discontent, he rebuked alike the extremists of the Abolitionist school, and the extremists of the South. For, with Lincoln and the greater proportion of the members of the Republican party, he had yet to be converted to Abolitionism by the events of a long and bloody war. He concluded with the following sharp analysis of the causes underlying the excitement of the time :

"The disturbances of the country connected with slavery are partly political and partly moral. So far as they are purely political, I have strong confidence that they will work out their own remedy in the natural course of events. In every country there must be a just and equal balance of power in the government, an equal distribution of the national forces. Each section and each interest must exercise its due share of influence and control. It is always more or less difficult to preserve their just equipoise, and the larger the country, and the more varied its great interests, the more difficult does the task become, and the greater the shock and disturbance caused by an attempt to adjust it when once disturbed. I believe I state only what is generally conceded to be a fact, when I say that the growth of the Northern States in population, in wealth, in all the elements of political influence and control, has been out of proportion to their political influence in the Federal Councils. While the Southern States have less than a third of the aggregate population of the Union, their interests have influenced the policy of the government far more than the interests of the Northern States. Without going into any detail to establish this fact, a general knowledge of the action of the government for the past ten or fifteen years, the decisions and composition of the Supreme Court, the organization of the committees in the Federal Senate, the rule that obtains in the distribution of Federal office, etc., are quite sufficient to show its general truth. Now the North has made rapid advances within the last five years, and it naturally claims a proportionate share of influence and power in the affairs of the Confederacy.

"It is inevitable that this claim should be put forward, and it is also inevitable that it should be conceded. No party can long resist it; it overrides all parties, and makes them the mere instruments of its will. It is quite as strong to-day in the heart of the Democratic party of the North as in the Republican ranks; and any party which ignores it will lose its hold on the public mind.

"Why does the South resist this claim? Not because it is unjust in itself, but because it has become involved with the question of slavery, and has drawn so much of its vigor and vitality from that quarter, that it is almost merged in that issue. The North bases its demand for increased power, in a very great degree, on the action of the government in regard to slavery and the just and rightful ascendency of the North in the Federal councils comes thus to be regarded as an element of danger to the institutions of the Southern States."

The questions at issue were further discussed by Mr. Raymond in the fall of 1860, in his celebrated "Letters to William L. Yancey," which are given in full in the Appendix to this volume. * In these letters, Mr. Raymond accepted a personal challenge from Mr. Yancey to a discussion of the bearings of Slavery, and the effects of Disunion, considering, first, the position of the Northern States in relation to the slave-trade in 1787; second, the motives and objects of the disunion movement in the South; third, the unconstitutionality and peril of Secession; and, fourth, the precise nature of the pending issue. In conclusion, he defined the duty of the North, and the true policy of the Slave States, in terms at once temperate, logical, and forcible. The Yancey letters are justly regarded as among the best of Raymond's productions; and in the light of subsequent events they attain a certain measure of historical value.

War began in April, 1861; the event so long dreaded occurring, at last, so suddenly that the whole North was stunned by the report of the guns that roared against Fort Sumter. Mr. Raymond was among the earliest of the effective champions of the Union. His editorial utterances, his public addresses, his conversation, influence, and example were unreservedly devoted to the highest expression of patriotic ardor; and even in the darkest hours of the long conflict, his faith never wavered, and his energy never failed. When the Fainthearts grew

* Appendix C.

weary of the way, he still fought on with voice and pen. When contemporaneous journals grew clamorous for Peace on any terms, however disgraceful,* the Times steadily encouraged the disheartened, stimulated the daring, and defied the foe. It is a lasting honor to Raymond that the newspaper over which he presided preserved a consistent and noble record.

A signal illustration of Raymond's courage in the presence of danger was given in the terrible "Riot Week" of July, 1863, when, under pretence of resisting a draft for troops, the mob of New York committed the vilest excesses, and for days held undisputed possession of the city, encouraged to deeds of violence by the Governor of the State, and by incumbents of judicial office, and sustained by the traitorous journals of the day. The offices of the loyal newspapers were put in posture of defence, to avert apprehended attack, and the proprietors of the Times planted revolving cannon in their publication office, and provided great store of other death-dealing weapons with which to repel invasion. Beneath the shelter of battery and bomb, Raymond steadily poured a galling fire into the ranks of the mob, its official supporters, and the editors who encouraged it. After the first news of the outbreak, the Times published the following in displayed type:

"CRUSH THE MOB!

"Mayor Opdyke has called for volunteer policemen, to serve for the special and temporary purpose of putting down the mob which threatened yesterday to burn and plunder the city. Let no man be deaf to this appeal! No man can afford to neglect it. No man, whatever his calling or condition in life, can afford to live in a city where the law is powerless, and where mobs of reckless ruffians can plunder dwellings, and burn whole blocks of

*For instance, the New York Tribune; which printed the following editorial paragraphs in 1863:

"If three months more of earnest fighting shall not serve to make a serious impression on the rebels; if the end of that term shall find us no further advanced than its beginning; if some malignant Fate has decreed that the blood and treasure of the nation shall ever be squandered in fruitless efforts, let us how to our destiny, and make the best attainable peace." -January 22, 1863.

"If the rebels are indeed our masters, let them show it, and let us own it. .. If the rebels beat Grant, and water their horses in the Delaware, routing all the forces we can bring against them, we shall be under foot, and may as well own it."― June 17, 1863.