Postmaster General Blair on the Cause of the War

In reply to a committee, who invited among others, Hon. M. Blair, Postmaster Gen., to participate in a meeting to be held at Cooper Institute, New York, to congratulate the country on the stand taken by President Lincoln in his special message, the Secretary says, that he does not concur in the proposition that certain States have “been recently overturned and wholly subverted as members of the Federal Union,” upon which the call is based.  His reason for not doing so is because “That is, in substance, what the Confederates themselves claim.”  This declaration is seized upon with avidity by the proslavery press and distorted into a position analogous to that which they themselves occupy.  The Democrat of yesterday morning does this with great gusto.  That Mr. Blair does not wholly agree with these Democratic slave drivers is evident from the following remarks which follow the above avowal:

“There are two distinct interests in slavery, the political and property interests, held by distinct classes.  The rebellion originated with the political class.  The property class, which generally belonged to the Whig organization, had lost no property in the region where the rebellion broke out, and were prosperous.  It was the Democratic organization, which did not represent the slaveholders as a class, which hatched the rebellion.  Their defeat in the late political struggle, and in the present rebellion, extinguishes at once and forever the political interest of slavery.  The election of Mr. Lincoln put an end to the hopes of Jeff. Davis, Wise, et id omne genus, for the Presidency of the Union, and hence the rebellion.  It extinguished slavery as a power to control the Federal Government, and it was the capacity of slavery to subserve this purpose alone which has given it vitality, for morally and economically it is indefensible.  With the extension of its political power there is no motive to induce any politician to uphold it.  No man ever defended such an institution except for pay, and nothing short of the power of the Government should provide sufficient gratification or ambition to pay for such service; and therefore Mr. Toombs said, with perfect truth, that the institution could only be maintained in the Union by the possession of the Government.”

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Tuesday Morning, March 18, 1862, p. 2