A. M. M., a Scotch Covenanter, to John Brown, November 23, 1859

New Alexandria, Penn., November 23.

Dear Sir: Permit a stranger to address you. I am the pastor of a congregation of people known as Scotch Covenanters — a people who refuse to incorporate with this Government by holding its offices or using its elective franchise on the ground that it refuses to perform the duty of Government either to God or man. It neither acknowledges the authority of God, nor protects the persons of its subjects; therefore we do not acknowledge it to be the moral ordinance of God for good to be obeyed for conscience' sake.

I do not address you from the expectation that you need any promptings to that fortitude which you have so nobly displayed, and which I doubt not is begotten in your soul by the Spirit of God, through a good conscience and a good cause. I have no fear but that your own familiarity with the word of God and the way to the Throne, will fortify your heart against the foul aspersions cast upon your character and motives by the purchased presses and parrot pulpits. He that fears God need fear no other. Still I know that the bravest heart may be cheered in the midst of sore trials by a kindly word from even a stranger. And, while the bulls of Bashan are roaring around you, it may be some consolation to you to know that there are some earnest Christians who regard you as a martyr to human liberty, and pray for a large outpouring of the martyr spirit upon you, and feel that in such a cause 'tis glorious to die. Whatever prudence may whisper as to the best course, God requires us to "remember them in bonds as bound with them," (Heb. xiii. 3,) and declares that "we know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren," (1 John iii. 14 ; "that we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren," (1 John iii. 16;) "and if any have this world's goods, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" (1 John iii. 17.) If these are the proper tests of Christianity, I think, at least, you have no reason to fear a comparison of character in that respect with your clerical traducers.

But, my dear brother, you will allow me to urge upon you a rigid inquiry into your motives to know whether you have taken up the cross for Christ's sake, as well as for the sake of His oppressed people? If you have made all this sacrifice for Christ and His cross, you have the promise of a hundred fold now in this life, and in the world to come eternal life, (Mark x. 29, 30.) Your character will be a hundred fold more than redeemed, and a hundred fold better legacy will accrue to your family than you could otherwise have left them.

I know that your mind is deeply exercised in behalf of the slave; but I would suggest to you another feature of "the irrepressible conflict," to which you may not have bestowed as much thought: God's controversy with this nation for dishonor done to His Majesty. This nation, in its Constitution, makes no submission to the King of kings; pays no respect to His Higher Law; never mentions His name, even in the inauguration oath of its Chief Magistrate. God has said, He "will turn the wicked into hell, and all the nations that forget God," (Ps. ix. 17.) To His Son He says, "The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted," (Isa. lx. 12.)

If you must die a witness for the "inalienable rights" of man, I desire that you would also set the seal of your blood to a noble testimony for the supreme authority and outraged majesty of God, and with your expiring breath call upon this guilty nation, not only to "let God's people go," but also to serve God with fear and kiss His Son lest He be angry."

You have been called before judges and governors, and "it has been given you what to say and how to speak," and I pray that when you are called to witness a good confession before many witnesses, that there will be given you living words that will scathe and burn in the heart of this great and guilty nation, until their oppression of men and treason against God shall be clean purged out.

Noble man! you are highly honored of God! You are raised up to a high, commanding eminence, where every word you utter reaches the furthest corner of this great country; yes, of the civilized world. What matter if it be from a scaffold, Samson-like you will slay more Philistines in your death, than you ever did or could by a long life; and I pray God that in your dying agony, you may have the gratification of feeling the pillars of Dagon's Temple crumbling in your grasp. O, feel that you are a great actor on a world-wide stage; that you have a most important part to play, and that while you are suffering for Christ, he will take care of you. He sends none a warfare on their own charges, and, "as the tribulations of Christ abound, the consolations that are by Christ will much more abound." Fear not to die; look on the scaffold not as a curse but an honor, since it has been sanctified by Christ. It is no longer, "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree;" that curse was borne by Jesus; — but now it is "Blessed is he that suffers for righteousness' sake; for his is the kingdom of Heaven."

I still entertain the lingering hope that this nation will not add to its already full cup of crime the blood of your judicial murder, and I daily pray God "to hear the groaning of the prisoner, and loose those that are appointed to death," (Ps. cii. 20.)

I wish to be understood as addressing your companions along with you. Should this reach you, will you gratify me by letting me know. I greatly desire to know more of one in whom I feel so deep an interest.

I commend you to God and to the word of His Grace, that is able to keep you from falling, and present you faultless before Him with exceeding great joy.

Yours, for God and the Slave,

A. M. M.

SOURCE: James Redpath, Editor, Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, p. 395-7

Diary of George Mifflin Dallas, December 3, 1860

The news brought by the steamer from America is exciting. The political storm rages fiercely in the South, taking a reckless direction for secession, and produces a financial panic which cannot pass away without effecting a widespread ruin. The successful Republican party at the Presidential election are striving to appease and propitiate, but having, during the canvass, taken the “irrepressible conflict” ground, and having had the aid of the Garrisonian Radicals, who denounce the Constitution as a "League with hell," it seems natural that the South should regard their defeat as involving a destruction of their property and rights. If I could perceive among the leading men in the agitation of the South any staid, judicious statesmen, I should think the Union lost. I see only such uniformly violent, effervescing, and unsuccessful ranters as Yancey, Rhett, Keitt, Toombs, and I conclude that the local movements will yet be settled by the ballast near the keelson of the ship.

SOURCE: George Mifflin Dallas, Diary of George Mifflin Dallas, While United States Minister to Russia 1837 to 1839, and to England 1856 to 1861, Volume 3, p. 420-1

William Cullen Bryant to John Bigelow, Esq., December 14, 1859

new York, December 14, 1859.

Probably Mr. Seward stays in Europe till the first flurry occasioned by the Harper's Ferry affair is over; but I do not think his prospects for being the next candidate for the Presidency are brightening. This iteration of the misconstruction put on his phrase of “the irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery” has, I think, damaged him a good deal, and in this city there is one thing which has damaged him still more. I mean the project of Thurlow Weed to give charters for a set of city railways, for which those who receive them are to furnish a fund of from four to six hundred thousand dollars, to be expended for the Republican cause in the next Presidential election. This scheme was avowed by Mr. Weed to our candidate for mayor, Mr. Opdyke, and others, and shocked the honest old Democrats of our party not a little. Besides the Democrats of our party, there is a bitter enmity to this railway scheme cherished by many of the old Whigs of our party. They are very indignant at Weed's meddling with the affair, and between Weed and Seward they make no distinction, assuming that, if Seward becomes President, Weed will be “viceroy over him.” Notwithstanding, I suppose it is settled that Seward is to be presented by the New York delegation to the convention as their man.

Frank Blair, the younger, talks of Wade, of Ohio, and it will not surprise me if the names which have been long before the public are put aside for some one against which fewer objections can be made.

Our election for mayor is over. We wished earnestly to unite the Republicans on Havemeyer, and should have done so if he had not absolutely refused to stand when a number of Republicans waited on him, to beg that he would consent to stand as a candidate.

Just as the Republicans had made every arrangement to nominate Opdyke, he concluded to accept the Tammany nomination, and then it was too late to bring the Republicans over. They had become so much offended and disgusted with the misconduct of the Tammany supervisors in appointing registrars, and the abuse showered upon the Republicans by the Tammany speakers, and by the shilly-shallying of Havemeyer, that they were like so many unbroke colts; there was no managing them. So we had to go into a tripartite battle; and Wood, as we told them beforehand, carried off what we were quarrelling for. Havemeyer has since written a letter to put the Republicans in the right. “He is too old for the office,” said many persons to me when he was nominated. After I saw that letter I was forced to admit that this was true.

Your letters are much read. I was particularly, and so were others, interested with the one — a rather long one — on the policy of Napoleon, but I could not subscribe to the censure you passed on England for not consenting to become a party to the Congress unless some assurance was given her that the liberties of Central Italy would be secured. By going into the Congress she would become answerable for its decisions, and bound to sustain them, as she was in the arrangements made by her and the other great powers after the fall of Napoleon — arrangements the infamy of which has stuck to her ever since. I cannot wonder that she is shy of becoming a party to another Congress for the settlement of the affairs of Europe, and I thought that reluctance did her honor. I should have commented on your letter on this subject if it had been written by anybody but yourself. . . .

The Union-savers, who include a pretty large body of commercial men, begin to look on our paper with a less friendly eye than they did a year ago. The southern trade is good just now, and the western rather unprofitable. Appleton says there is not a dollar in anybody's pocket west of Buffalo.

SOURCE: Parke Godwin, A Biography of William Cullen Bryant, Volume 2, p. 127-8

Charles Russell Lowell to Anna Jackson Lowell, June 19, 1861

Washington, June 19, '61.

Don't let any one blame Governor Andrew — he is good and thoughtful, and if he is sometimes misled by good nature, he is never hampered by ulterior personal aims; all the faculty of ways and means in the world, if so hampered, is a curse to the country. At least I am sometimes tempted to say so.¹

_______________

¹ As for our good and great War-Governor, the doubts concerning him when elected, his early unpopularity, and his triumphant record, I quote the words of that admirable citizen, the late Colonel Henry Lee of his staff: —

“Meeting the Governor just after his election, at a political levee, I refrained from joining in the congratulations generally expressed because I was afraid he might be one-sided and indiscreet, deficient in common sense and practical ability.  . . . I unexpectedly received a summons to a position upon his staff.  . . . Work began at once. But it is needless to repeat the hundred-times-told tale of Governor Andrew’s military preparations, the glory whereof has since been comfortably adopted by Massachusetts as her own — by right of eminent domain, perhaps — whereas in fact nearly all Massachusetts derided and abused him at the time, and the glory was really as much his individual property as his coat and hat.

“The war had begun, and Massachusetts, that denounced State which was to have been left out in the cold, had despatched within one week five Regiments of Infantry, one Battalion of Riflemen, and one Battery of Artillery, armed, clothed, and equipped. Behind every great movement stands the man, and that man behind this movement was the ridiculed, despised fanatic, John A. Andrew. As the least backwardness on the part of Massachusetts, whose sons had done more than all others to promote the ‘irrepressible conflict,’ would have endangered the Union and exposed us to the plottings and concessions of the Conservatives and ‘Copperheads,’ so her prompt response, in consequence of the courage and foresight of her Governor, strengthened the timid, rebuked the disaffected, cemented the Union, fused the whole country into one glow of patriotism.

“Saint Paul was not more suddenly or more thoroughly converted than were many of those who had, up to that week, been loudest in their lamentations, or denunciations of the Governor. Rich men poured in their gifts.  . . . Conservatives and Democrats rushed to pay their respects and to applaud the very acts which they had so deplored and ridiculed.”  (Memoir of Henry Lee, by John T. Morse, Jr. Boston: Little & Brown, 1905.)

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 212, 403-4

John M. Forbes to Nassau William Senior, June 18, 1860

Boston, June 18,1860.

My Dear Mr. Senior, — Thinking you may be interested in the antecedents of our promised ruler Lincoln, I send through my bookseller a copy of his speeches (and Douglas's) during their great fight for the Illinois senatorship — which form his chief record.

From such of them as I have read I get the idea that he is an earnest, rough, quick-witted man, — persistent and determined, half educated, but self-reliant and self-taught. These speeches, made before Seward's, show that Lincoln originated in these latter days the utterance of the “irrepressible conflict,” — and what is more, stuck to it manfully. Those who know him assure me that he is honest and straightforward and owned by no clique of hackneyed politicians.

Seward was killed by his association with the politicians who joined in the plundering of the last New York legislature, and by his speech in the Senate ignoring the irrepressible conflict and smoothing over his supposed radicalism.

The first evil lost him the confidence of the right sort of men, not because they believed him corrupt, but from the bad company he had been in and would probably be in again! His latter-day conservatism conciliated his enemies, who would not, however, vote for him, happen what might; and cooled the zeal of his radical supporters, and especially of the country people. I think on the whole the actual nominee will run better and be quite as likely to administer well when in. We shall elect him, I think, triumphantly, by the people; and avoid that abominable expedient, an election by the House, — filled as it is with so large a proportion of mere politicians. There is some danger that we shall be disgusted with a repetition of the log-cabin and hard-cider style of campaigning which was so successful in the Harrison election, but this is a minor evil compared with either having Douglas, with his filibustering crew, or a set of Albany wire-pullers under a Republican administration. . . .

Although you say nothing about it, I still hope you will come out this summer and take care of your young prince and see our heir apparent!

Yours very truly,

J. M. Forbes.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p.183-4

Charles Russell Lowell to Anna Cabot Jackson Lowell, June 30, 1860

Burlington, June 30, ’60.

It is interesting, is it not, to see Seward's “irrepressible conflict” so speedily illustrated at Baltimore. The quadrangular fight may result in the election of the worst man of the eight, General Lane of Oregon; but I hope that Lincoln will make a good enough run to prevent the choice going to the House or Senate. The Republican party is now so old that its followers have fallen into line, — and many will now vote for the candidate who four years ago would have gone for Douglas, had he stood in his present attitude towards the South. The wisdom in selecting Lincoln is now apparent, — a man from any other section of the country would have stood no chance in the Northwest against Douglas, whose personal popularity is immense.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 190-1

Charles Russell Lowell to George Putnam, May 24, 1860

Burlington, May 24, '60.

How does the Chicago platform and nomination please the Puritans, — it shows pluck, and that, in an American, generally argues strength. Deliberately I prefer Lincoln to Seward, especially since the latter's Capital and Labor speech, that shivered a little in the wind's eye. Lincoln is emphatic on the irrepressible conflict, without if or but. Had Greeley's pet, Bates, been successful, this State, at least, would have gone for Douglas. Since Douglas's last rally in the Senate, he stands in a Samson Antagonistic attitude, which is attractive to the Northwest.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 187-8

Senator James W. Grimes to Elizabeth S. Nealley Grimes, December 10, 1859

Washington, December 10, 1859.

One week of congressional life is over, and I think it to be the stupidest business I was ever engaged in. We have done nothing in the Senate but discuss “John Brown,” “the irrepressible conflict,” and “the impending crisis,” and no one can imagine where the discussion will stop. The House of Representatives is still unorganized, and daily some members come near to blows. The members on both sides are mostly armed with deadly weapons, and it is said that the friends of each are armed in the galleries. The Capitol resounds with the cry of dissolution, and the cry is echoed throughout the city. And all this is simply to coerce, to frighten the Republicans and others into giving the Democrats the organization of the House. They will not succeed.

I called on Mrs. Trumbull to-day. She is the only woman I have spoken with since I came here. I called on another, to whose party I was invited the other day, and did not go; but she was not at home. You cannot imagine how I dislike this fashionable formality. It is terribly annoying, and I think I shall repudiate the whole thing.

SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes, p. 121-2

Senator James W. Grimes to Elizabeth S. Nealley Grimes, December 6, 1859

Senate Chamber, December 6th

This body was organized yesterday; Mason, of Virginia, immediately introduced Harper's Ferry resolutions, which are to be taken up, and discussed this morning on the assembling of the Senate. So you see the excitement is to be kept up upon the irrepressible conflict question.

Mr. Sumner appeared in his seat yesterday, looking in vigorous health. We expect to hear from him in a great speech during the session. There is an immense crowd of people here for one purpose and another, but I keep out of it pretty much. I am as retired here as ordinarily at home.

SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes, p. 121

Diary of Rutherford B. Hayes, Monday, January 27, 1861

Six States have "seceded." Let them go. If the Union is now dissolved it does not prove that the experiment of popular government is a failure. In all the free States, and in a majority if not in all of the slaveholding States, popular government has been sucessful. But the experiment of uniting free states and slaveholding states in one nation is, perhaps, a failure. Freedom and slavery can, perhaps, not exist side by side under the same popular government. There probably is an “irrepressible conflict”* between freedom and slavery. It may as well be admitted, and our new relations may as well be formed with that as an admitted fact.

__________

* This phrase had first been used by William H. Seward in a speech at Rochester, New York, October 25, 1858.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 4

Republican Landmarks

The attempt now making to revive the Republican party on an extra-constitutional platform which contemplates the erasure of a large number of stars from the National flag, makes this a fitting time for considering how far such an attempt is justified by the antecedents of the Republican party or the principles on which it was brought into power.  We will not measure the new creed by the standard of the Convention which nominated Mr. Lincoln, at Chicago.  The Chicago platform was a compromise, in which “advanced” Republicans, like Mr. Greeley, were willing to soften their more radical views in order to conciliate conservative voters.  A truer exposition of the aims of the Republican party is found in the speeches of the recognized leaders who furnished it with ideas, gave impulse and vitality to its movements, and infused into it the courage by which after ten years’ effort, it won its great national triumph.

Among these leaders Mr. Seward held the foremost rank, both in fact and in estimation of the party.  There was no Republican statesman with half his brains and accomplishments that had hodld of his political intrepidity.  During the long struggle of the party for existence and power, Seward boldly led where but few had the courage to follow.  Nobody can have forgotten the storm of obloquy that was raised by his famous “higher law” speech in the Senate.  The offensive doctrines of that speech were almost the sole stock in trade of the opponents of the Republican party, until they were again startled and shocked by the celebrated “irrepressible conflict” speech, delivered on the stump at Rochester in the autumn of 1858.  We may safely take these memorable speeches, which have made such a great figure in the political history of the last decade, as the most advanced landmarks of the most daring and aggressive Republicanism.

If it has been deemed expedient, during the progress of this war to sink even the Chicago platform out of sight, what shall be said of an attempt to revive the Republican party on principles beside which the “higher law” speech and the “irrepressible conflict” speech “pale their ineffectual fires?”

These were both emancipation speeches; but they were both fundamentally wrong, or else emancipation is possible without any such extra-constitutional resorts as Mr. Sumner and his coadjutors now propose.  Both of those noted speeches, though accepted with applause by radical anti-slavery men, were fundamentally wrong, or else emancipation is not even desirable by the sudden, violent, destructive methods which a few men are now found to advocate. – In the “higher law” speech, Mr. Seward in language of which time is already vindicating the wisdom, and will more fully vindicate it with the progress of events, said:

“It seems to me that all our difficulties, embarrassments, and dangers, arise, not out of perversions of the question of slavery, as some suppose, but from the want of moral courage to meet THIS QUESTION OF EMANCIPATION as we ought.  Consequently, we hear on one side demands – absurd, indeed, but yet unceasing – for an immediate and unconditional abolition of slavery; as if any power except the people of the Slave States could abolish it, and as if they could be moved to abolish it  BY MERELY SOUNDING THE TRUMPET LOUDLY, AND PROCLAMIMING EMANCIPATION, WHILE THE INSTITUTION IS INTERWOVEN WITH ALL THEIR SOCIAL AND POLITICAL INTERESTS, CONSTITUTIONS, AND CUSTOMS.”

On the other hand Mr. Seward declared that he equally disapproved of the views of our statesmen who say that slavery has always existed, and only GOD can indicate the way to remove it:

“Here, then,” he said, “is my point of separation from both these parties.  I feel assured that slavery will give way, and must give way TO SALUTARY INSTRUCTIONS OF ECONOMY AND TO THE RIPENING INFLUENCES OF HUMANITY; THAT EMANCIPATION IS INEVITABLE AND THAT IT IS NEAR; that it may be hastened or hindered; and that whether it shall be peaceful or violent depends upon the question whether it be hastened or hindered; that all measures which fortify slavery or extend it, tend to the consummation of violence; all that check its extension or abate its strength tend to its peaceful extirpation.  But I will adopt none but lawful, constitutional, and peaceful measures to accomplish even that end; and none such can I or will I forgo.  Nor do I know any important or responsible political body that proposes to do more than this.  No free state claims to extend its legislation into a slave state.  None claims that Congress shall USURP power to abolish slavery in the slave states.  None claims that any violent, unconstitutional, or unlawful measure shall be embraced.  And, on the other hand, if we offer no scheme or plan for the adoption of the slave states, with the assent and co-operation of Congress, it is only because the slave states are unwilling, as yet, to receive such suggestions, or even to entertain the question of emancipation in any form.”

Mr. Seward’s repudiation of all sudden, violent, or unconstitutional means for effecting emancipation is again asserted in the closing paragraph of this very able and celebrated speech:

“While we leave slavery to the care of the states where it exists, let us inflexibly direct the policy of the government to circumscribe its limits and favor ITS ULTIMATE EXTINGUISHMENT.  Let those who have this misfortune entailed upon them, instead of contriving how to maintain an equilibrium that never had existence, consider carefully how at some time – it may be ten, or twenty, or even fifty years hence – by some means, by all means of their own and WITH OUR AID, WITHOUT SUDDEN CHANGE OR VIOLENT ACTION they may bring about the emancipation of labor, and its restoration to its just dignity and power in the state.”

More than eight years elapsed after the delivery of this speech before Mr. Seward mad his well-abused exposition of the “irrepressible conflict.”  His mind, meanwhile, had undergone no change, except to acquire increased confidence in the universal triumph of freedom throughout our national borders.  A single quotation will sufficiently illustrate his views of the methods by which this triumph will be achieved:

“It remains to say on this point only one word to guard against misapprehension.  If these states are to again become universally slaveholding, I do not pretend to say with what violations of the Constitution that end shall be accomplished.  On the other hand, while I do confidently believe and hope that my country will yet become a land of universal freedom, I DO NOT EXPECT THAT IT WILL BE MADE SO OTHERWISE THAN THROUGH THE ACTION OF THE SEVERAL STATES, CO-OPERATING WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, AND ALL ACTING IN STRICT CONFORMITY WITH THEIR RESPECTIVE CONSTITUTIONS.”

We submit that we have clearly established to position which we undertook to maintain, namely, that the new scheme for breaking down the state governments of the South for the purpose of bringing slavery within the control of Congress is not Republicanism.  Whatever may be its merits or its disadvantages, it flies in the teeth, not only of the Chicago platform, but of the most advanced views which have ever been accepted by the most radical wing of the Republican party. – {New York World.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 8, 1862, p. 1

The Insurrection At Harper’s Ferry

This is altogether the most alarming and daring insurrectionary demonstration that ever has been made in the United States.

It is a natural corollary to the “irrepressible conflict” doctrine – an emanation and an essence of black Republicanism.

The plan seems to have been deliberately preconcerted. To what extent the leading Sewardites are complicated in it, by their aid and advice, may never be ascertained.

It cannot be reasonably doubted that it was formally inspired by them; and we hope means will be found to bring every guilty wretch connected with it to condign punishment.

The slaveholding states are now more distinctly forewarned than ever as to that which Black Republicanism is prepared to consummate when it gets possession of the reins of the national government. It is the part of wisdom for them to forearm.

In the mean time let the metropolitan authorities look vigilantly and act diligently on behalf of the security of the District.

Let every well disposed resident consider himself a special constable, for the purpose of ascertaining the iniquitous dens of incendiary Sewardites.

That there are desperate Abolitionists in the community prepared to apply the match to the Union cannot be reasonably doubted.

Have the National Era and Republic any subscribers in this city? If so, such are in hostile array to its durable well being.

We suspect that the bloody scheme of Harper’s Ferry had its aiders and abettors in Washington. – We shall not be surprised if it is a concentrating point for the concocting of desperate Black Republican schemes.

The time for striking was in all likelihood arranged here. No moment was so favorable as that which brought the intelligence of triumphant Sewardism in Pennsylvania, Ohio, &c.

Happily, we have an Executive who knows how to conscientiously discharge its duty. Suppose it were represented by a Seward, a Chase, a Banks, or any other Black Republican, what would be the condition of the country?

There must be no temporizing policy pursued towards the insurgents. Their enormities have been such as to turn mercy itself into an executioner.

– Published in The North Carolina Weekly Standard, Raleigh, North Carolina, Wednesday, October 26, 1859, p. 1