Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: July 22, 1864

Bright and dry again.

Gen. Johnston has been relieved. It would seem that Gen. Hood has made a successful debut as a fighting general in command of the army, since Gen. Johnston's removal.

A dispatch from Gen. Bragg, dated yesterday, states that the enemy is withdrawing from Arkansas, either to operate in Mississippi, or to reinforce Sherman.

Gen. Lee is opposed to retaliating on innocent prisoners the cruelties committed by the guilty in executing our men falling into their hands.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 252-3

Captain William M. Duncan to Mary Morgan Duncan, September 21, 1862

Sept. 21st.

Our Reg. is still working on the fortifications, and the work goes on well.  The Gen. is building five forts at this place, when finished they will be impregnable  The troops are coming in very fast—we have from 10,000 to 15,000 now, and when they all get here we shall have from 25,000 to 30,000.  They we expect to go to Arkansas and Texas where there are a few jobs to be done in the way of fighting.  Hindman is said to have a large force somewhere south of us, and if he does not attack us soon we will attend to him.  I am anxious for this war to close; not that I regret having enlisted to serve my country, but because I would like to be at home with my friends.

– Published in The Union Sentinel, Osceola, Iowa, Saturday, October 18, 1862, p. 2

To The Supporters Of The Government.

We have read without surprise, but not without indignation, the Proclamation of the President of the 8th of July, 1864.

The supporters of the Administration are responsible to the country for its conduct: and it is their right and duty to check the encroachments of the Executive on the authority of Congress, and to require it to confine itself to its proper sphere.

It is impossible to pass in silence this Proclamation without neglecting that duty; and, having taken as much responsibility as any others in supporting the Administration, we are not disposed to fail in the other duty of asserting the rights of Congress.

The President did not sign the bill “to guarantee to certain States whose Governments have been usurped, a Republican form of Government”—passed by the supporters of his Administration in both Houses of Congress after mature deliberation.

The bill did not therefore become a law: and it is therefore nothing.

The proclamation is neither an approval nor a veto of the bill; it is therefore a document unknown to the laws of the Constitution of the United States.

So far as it contains an apology for not signing the bill, it is a political manifesto against the friends of the Government.

So far as it proposes to execute the bill which is not a law, it is a grave Executive usurpation.

It is fitting that the facts necessary to enable the friends of the Administration to appreciate the apology and usurpation be spread before them.

The Proclamation says:

“And whereas the said bill was presented to the President of the United States for his approval less than an hour before the sine die adjournment of said session and was not signed by him—”

If that be accurate, still this bill was presented with other bills which were signed.

Within that hour, the time of the sine die adjournment was three times postponed by the votes of both Houses; and the least intimation of a desire for more time by the President to consider this bill would have secured a further postponement.

Yet the Committee sent to ascertain if the President had any further communication for the House of Representatives reported that he had none; and the friends of the bill, who had anxiously waited on him to ascertain its fate, had already been informed that the President had resolved not to sign it.

The time of presentation, therefore, had nothing to do with his failure to approve it.

The Bill had been discussed and considered for more than a month in the House of Representatives, which it passed on the 4th of May; it was reported to the Senate on the 27th of May without material amendment, and passed the senate absolutely as it came from the House on the 2nd of July.

Ignorance of its contents is out of the question.

Indeed, at his request, a draft of a bill substantially the same in all material points, and identical in the points objected to by the Proclamation, had been laid before him for his consideration in the Winter of 1862-63.

There is, therefore, no reason to suppose the provisions of the bill took the President by surprise.

On the contrary, we have reason to believe them to have been so well known that this method of preventing the bill from becoming a law without the constitutional responsibility of a veto, had been resolved on long before the bill passed the Senate.

We are informed by a gentleman entitled to the entire confidence, that before the 22d of June in New-Orleans it was stated by a member of Gen. Banks’s staff, in the presence of other gentlemen in official position, that Senator Doolittle had written a letter to the department that the House Reconstruction bill would be staved off in the Senate to a period too late in the session to require the President to veto it in order to defeat it, and that Mr. Lincoln would retained the bill, of necessary, and thereby defeat it.

The experience of Senator Wade, in his various efforts to get the bill considered in the Senate, was quite in accordance with that plan; and the fate of the bill was accurately predicted by letters received from New-Orleans before it passed the Senate.

Had the Proclamation stopped there, it would have been only one other defeat of the will of the people by an Executive perversion of the Constitution.

But it goes further.  The President says:

“And whereas the said bill contains, among other things, a plan for restoring the States in rebellion to their proper practical relation in the Union, which plan expresses the sense of Congress upon that subject, and which plan it is now thought fit to lay before the people for their consideration—”

By what authority of the Constitution?  In what forms?  The result to be declared by whom?  With what effect when ascertained?

Is it to be a law by the approval of the people without the approval of Congress at the will of the President?

Will the President, on his opinion of the popular approval, execute it as law?

Or is this merely a device to avoid the serious responsibility of defeating a law on which so many loyal hearts reposed for security?

But the reasons now assigned for not approving the bill are full of ominous significance.

The President proceeds:

“Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do proclaim, declare, and make known that, while I am (as I was in December last, when by proclamation I propounded a plan for restoration) unprepared by a formal approval of this bill to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration—”

That is to say, the President is resolved that the people shall not by law take any securities from the Rebel States against a renewal of the Rebellion, before restoring their power to govern us.

His wisdom and prudence are to be our sufficient Guarantees!

He further says:

“Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do proclaim, declare, and make known that, while I am (as I was in December last, when by proclamation I propounded a plan for restoration) unprepared by a formal approval of this bill to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration—”

That is to say, the President persists in recognizing those shadows of Governments in Arkansas and Louisiana, which Congress formally declared should not be recognized—whose Representatives and Senators were repelled by formal votes of both Houses of Congress—which it was declared formally should have no electoral vote for President and Vice President.

They are more creatures of his will. They cannot live a day without his support.  They are mere oligarchies, imposed on the people by military orders under the forms of elections, at which generals, provost-marshals, soldiers and camp-followers where the chief actors, assisted by a handful of resident citizens, and urged on to premature action by private letters from the President.

In neither Louisiana nor Arkansas, before Banks’s defeat, did the United States control half the territory or half the population.  In Louisiana, Gen. Banks’s proclamation candidly declared: “the fundamental law of the State is martial law.”

On that foundation of freedom, he erected what the President calls “the free Constitution and Government of Louisiana.”

But of this State, whose fundamental law was martial law, only sixteen parishes of forty-eight parishes were held by the United States; and in five of the sixteen we held only our camps.

The eleven parishes we substantially held had 233,185 inhabitants; the residue of the State not held by us, 575,617.

At the farce called an election, the officers of Gen. Banks returned that 11,346 ballots were cast; but whether any or by whom the people of the United States have no legal assurance but it is probable that 4,000 were cast by soldiers or employees of the United States military or municipal, but none according to any law, State or National, and 7,000 ballots represent the State of Louisiana.

Such is the free Constitution and Government of Louisiana; and like it is that of Arkansas.  Nothing but the failure of a military expedition deprived as of a like once on the swamps of Florida; and before the Presidential election, like ones may be organized in ever Rebel State where the United states have a camp.

The President, by preventing this bill from becoming a law, holds the electoral votes of the Rebel States at the dictation of his personal ambition.

If those votes turn the balance in his favor, is it to be supposed that his competitor, defeated by such means, will acquiesce?

If the Rebel majority assert their supremacy in those States, and send votes which elect an enemy of the Government, will we not repel his claims?

And is not that civil war for the Presidency, inaugurated by the votes of the Rebel States.

Seriously impressed with these dangers, Congress, “the proper and constitutional authority,” formally declared that there are no State Governments in the Rebel States, and provided for their erection at a proper time; and both the Senate and the House of Representatives rejected the Senators and Representatives chosen under the authority of what the President calls the Free Constitution and Government of Arkansas.

The President’s Proclamation “holds for naught” this judgment, and discards the authority of the Supreme Court, and strides headlong toward the anarchy his Proclamation of the8th of December inaugurated.

If electors for President be allowed to be chosen in either of those States, a sinister light will be cast on the motives which induced the President to “hold for naught” the will of Congress rather than his Government in Louisiana and Arkansas.

The judgment of Congress which the President defies was the exercise of an authority exclusively vested in Congress by the Constitution to determine what is the established Government in a State, and in its own nature and by the highest judicial authority binding on all other departments of the Government.

The supreme Court has formally declared that under the 4th section of the IVth article of the Constitution, requiring the United States to guarantee to every State a republican form of government, “it rests with Congress to decide what Government is the established one in a State;” and “when Senators and Representatives of a State are admitted into the councils of the Union, the authority of the Government under which they are appointed, as well as its republican character is recognized by the proper constitutional authority, and its decision is binding on ever other department of the Government, and could not be questioned in a judicial tribunal.  It is true that the contest in this case did not last long enough to bring the matter to this issue; and, as no Senators or Representatives were elected under the authority of the Government of which Mr. Door was the head, Congress was not called upon to decide the controversy.  Yet the right to decide is placed there.”

Even the President’s proclamation of the 8th of December, formally declares that “Whether members sent to Congress from any State shall be admitted to seats, constitutionally rests exclusively with the respective Houses, and not to any extent with the Executive.”

And that is not the less true because wholly inconsistent with the President’s assumption in that proclamation of a right to institute and recognize State Governments in the Rebels States, nor because the President is unable to perceive that his recognition is a nullity if it be not conclusive on Congress.

Under the Constitution, the right to Senators and Representatives is inseparable from a State Government.

If there be a State Government, the right is absolute.

If there be no State Government, there can be no Senators or Representatives chosen.

The two Houses of Congress are expressly declared to be the sole judges of their own members.

When, therefore, Senators and Representatives are admitted, the State Government, under whose authority they were chosen, is conclusively established; when they are rejected, its existence is as conclusively rejected and denied; and to this [judgment] the President is bound to submit.

The President proceeds to express his unwillingness “to declare a constitutional competency in Congress to abolish Slavery in States” as another reason for not signing the bill.

But the bill nowhere proposes to abolish Slavery in States.

The bill did provide that all slaves in the Rebel states should be manumitted.

But as the President had already signed three bills manumitting several classes of slaves in States, it is not conceived possible that he entertained any scruples touching that provision of the bill which he is silent.

He had already himself assumed a right by proclamation to free much the larger number of slaves in the Rebel States, under the authority given him a discretion it could not exercise itself.

It is more unintelligible from the fact that, except in respect to a small part of Virginia and Louisiana, the bill covered only what the Proclamation covered—added a Congressional title and judicial remedies by law to the disputed title under the Proclamation, and perfected the work the President professed to be so anxious to accomplish.

Slavery as an institution can be abolished only by a charge of the Constitution of the United States or of the law of the State; and this is the principle of the bill.

It required the new Constitution of the State to provide for that prohibition; and the President, in the face of his own proclamation, does not venture to object to insisting on that condition.  Nor will the country tolerate its abandonment—yet he defeated the only provision imposing it!!

But when he describes himself, in spite of this great blow at emancipation, as “sincerely hoping and expecting that a constitutional amendment abolishing Slavery throughout the nation may be adopted, we curiously inquire on what his expectation rests, after the vote of the House of Representatives at the recent session, and in the face of the political complexion of more than enough of the States to prevent the possibility of its adoption within any reasonable time; and why he did not indulge his sincere hopes with so large an installment of the blessing as his approval of the bill would have secured.

After this assignment of his reasons for preventing the bill from becoming a law, the President proceeds to declare his purpose to execute it as a law by his plenary dictatorial power.

He says:

“Nevertheless I am fully satisfied with the system for restoration contained in the bill as one very proper plan for the loyal people of any State choosing to adopt it, and that I am, and at all times shall be, prepared to give the executive aid and assistance to any such people, so soon as the military resistance to the United States shall have been suppressed in any such State and the people thereof shall have sufficiently returned to their obedience to the Constitution and the laws of the United States, in which cases military Governors will be appointed, with directions to proceed according to the bill.”

A more studied outrage on the legislative authority of the people has never been perpetrated.

Congress passed a bill; the President refused to approve it, and then by a proclamation puts as much of it in force as he sees fit, and proposes to execute those parts by officers unknown to the laws of the United States and not subject to the confirmation of the Senate!

The bill directed the appointment of Provisional Governors by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.

The President, after defeating the law, proposes to appoint without law, and without the advice and consent of the Senate, Military Governors for the Rebel States!

He has already exercised this dictatorial usurpation in Louisiana, and he defeated the bill to prevent its limitation.

Henceforth we must regard the following precedent as the Presidential law of the Rebel States:

EXECUTIVE MANSION,               

WASHINGTON, March 15, 1864

His Excellency MICHAEL HAHN, Governor of Louisiana,

Until further orders you are hereby invested with the power expressed hitherto by the Military Governor of Louisiana.

Yours,

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

This Michael Hahn is no officer of the United States; the President, without law, without the advice and consent of the Senate, by a private note not even countersigned by the Secretary of State, makes him dictator of Louisiana!

The bill provided for the civil administration of the laws of the State—till it should be in a fit of temper to govern itself—repealing all laws recognizing Slavery, and making all men equal before the law.

These beneficent provisions the President has annulled.  People will die, and marry and transfer property, and buy and sell; and to these acts of civil life courts and officers of the law are necessary, Congress legislated for these necessary things, and the President deprives them of the protection of the law!

The President’s purpose to instruct his Military Governors “to proceed according to the bill”—a makeshift to calm the disappointment its defeat has occasional—if not merely a grave usurpation but a transparent delusion.

He cannot “proceed according to the bill” after preventing it from becoming a law.

Whatever is done will be at his will and pleasure, but persons responsible to no law, and more interested to secure the interests and execute the will of the President than of the people; and the will of Congress is to be “held for naught,” “unless the loyal people of the Rebel States choose to adopt it.”

If they should graciously prefer the stringent bill to the easy proclamation, still the registration will be made under no legal sanction; it will give no assurance that a majority of the people of the States have taken the oath; if administered, it will be without legal authority, and void; no indictment will lie for false swearing at the election, or for admitting bad or rejecting good votes; it will be a farce of Louisiana and Arkansas acted over again, under the forms of this bill, but not by authority of law.

But when we come to the guarantees of future peace which Congress meant to enact, the forms, as well as the substance of the bill, must yield to the President’s will that none should be imposed.

It was the solemn resolve of Congress to protect the loyal men of the nation against three great dangers, (1) the return to power of the guilty leaders of the Rebellion, (2) the continuance of Slavery, and (3) the burden of the Rebel debt.

Congress required assent to those provision by the convention of the State; and if refused it was to be dissolved.

The President “holds for naught” that resolve of Congress, because he is unwilling “to be inflexibly committed to any one plan of restoration,” and the people of the United States are not to be allowed to protect themselves unless their enemies agree to it.

The order to proceed according to the bill is therefore merely at the bill of the Rebel States; and they have the option to reject it, accept the proclamations of the 8th of December, and demand the President’s recognition!

Mark the Contrast!  The bill requires a majority, the proclamation is satisfied with one-tenth; the bill requires one oath, the proclamation another; the bill ascertains voters by registering; the proclamation by guess; the bill exacts adherence to existing territorial limits, the proclamation admits of others; the bill governs the Rebel States by law, equalizing all before it, the proclamation commits them to the lawless discretion of military Governors and Provost-Marshals; the bill forbids electors for President, the Proclamation and defeat of the bill threatens us with civil war for the admission or exclusion of such votes; the bill exacted exclusion of dangerous enemies from power and the relief of the nation from the Rebel debt, and the prohibition of Slavery forever, so that the suppression of the Rebellion will double our resources to bear or pay the national debt, free the masses from the old domination of the Rebel leaders, and eradicate the cause of the war; the proclamation secures neither of these guaranties.

It is silent respecting the Rebel debt and the political exclusion of rebel leaders; leaving Slavery exactly where it was by law at the outbreak of the Rebellion, and adds no guaranty even of the freedom of the slaves he undertook to manumit.

It is summed up in an illegal oath, without a sanction, and therefore void.

The oath is to support all proclamations of the President during the Rebellion having reference to slaves.

Any Government is to be accepted at the hands of one-tenth of the people not contravening that oath.

Now that oath neither secures the abolition of Slavery, nor adds any security to the freedom of the slaves the President declared free.

It does not secure the abolition of Slavery; for the proclamation of freedom merely professed to free certain slaves while it recognized the institution.

Every Constitution of the Rebel States at the outbreak of the Rebellion may be adopted without the change of a letter, for none of them contravene that Proclamation, none of them establish slavery.

It adds no security to the freedom of the slaves.

For their title is the Proclamation of Freedom.

If it be unconstitutional, an oath to support it is void.  Whether constitutional or not, the oath is without authority of law, and therefore void.

If it be valid and observed, it exacts no enactment by the State, either in law or Constitution, to add a State guaranty to the proclamation title and the right of a slave to freedom is an open question before the State courts on the relative authority of the State law and the Proclamation.

If the oath binds the one-tenth who take it, it is not exacted of the other nine-tenths who succeed to the control of the State Government; so that it is annulled instantly by the act of recognition.

What the State courts would say of the Proclamation, who can doubt?

But the master would not go into court—he would seize his slave.

What the Supreme Court would say, who can tell?

When and how is the question to get there?

No habeas corpus lies for him in a United States Court; and the President defeated with this bill its extension of that writ to this case.

Such are the fruits of this rash and fatal act of the President—a blow at the friends of his Administration, at the rights of humanity, and at the principles of republican government.

The President has greatly presumed on the forbearance which the supports of his Administration have so long practiced, in view of the arduous conflict in which we are engaged, and the reckless ferocity of our political opponents.

But he must understand that our support is of a cause and not of a man; that the authority of Congress is paramount and must be respected; that the whole body of the Union men of Congress will not submit to be impeached by him of rash and unconstitutional legislation; and if he wishers our support, he must confine himself to his executive duties—to obey and execute, not make the laws—to suppress by arms armed Rebellion, and leave political rëorganization to Congress.

If the supporters of the Government fail to insist on this, they become responsible for the usurpations which they fail to rebuke, and are justly liable to the indignation of the people whose rights and security committed to their keeping, they sacrifice.

Let them consider the remedy for these usurpations, and having found it, fearlessly execute it.

B. F. WADE, Chairman Senate Committee.

H. WINTER DAVIS, Chairman Committee House

of Representatives on the Rebellious States.

SOURCE: New York Daily Tribune, New York, New York, Friday August 5, 1864, p. 5

Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, July 8, 1864

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, at the late session Congress passed a bill to "guarantee certain States, whose governments have been usurped or overthrown, a republican form of government," a copy of which is hereunto annexed;

And whereas, the said bill was presented to the President of the United States for his approval less than one hour before the sine die adjournment of said session, and was not signed by him;

And whereas, the said bill contains, among other things, a plan for restoring the States in rebellion to their proper practical relation in the Union, which plan expresses the sense of Congress upon that subject, and which plan it is now thought fit to lay before the people for their consideration:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do proclaim, declare, and make known that, while I am (as I was in December last, when by proclamation I propounded a plan for restoration) unprepared by a formal approval of this bill to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration; and while I am also unprepared to declare that the free State constitutions and governments already adopted and installed in Arkansas and Louisiana shall be set aside and held for naught, thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens who have set up the same as to further effort, or to declare a constitutional competency in Congress to abolish slavery in States, but am at the same time sincerely hoping and expecting that a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery throughout the Nation may be adopted, nevertheless I am fully satisfied with the system for restoration contained in the bill as one very proper plan for the loyal people of any State choosing to adopt it, and that I am, and at all times shall be, prepared to give the executive aid and assistance to any such people, so soon as the military resistance to the United States shall have been suppressed in any such State and the people thereof shall have sufficiently returned to their obedience to the Constitution and the laws of the United States, in which cases military Governors will be appointed, with directions to proceed according to the bill.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington this eighth day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-ninth.

[L. S.]

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

 Secretary of State.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series III, Volume 4 (Serial No. 125), p. 477-8

A New Lesson on Dying in the Last Ditch, September 15, 1864

Why didn’t Denmark die in the last ditch? Plucky as she has been she happens to be made of flesh and blood, and this sort of dying is not a thing for flesh and blood to do.  It may be talked about; all mankind has a weakness that way; but it never has happened, and never will.  Of course we refer to people collectively, and not to individuals.  A person here and there, seized with some sublime phrenzy may take death sooner than yield.  A people never dies thus, not even the bravest.  A man my commit suicide; a people cannot.  “Give me liberty, or give me death,” is a very fine sentiment, and ought, we suppose, to be universally adopted, and either lived, or died, up to.  But it isn’t done.  Men in general, somehow can’t overcome the instinct of self-preservation.  They’ll take any measure of wrong sooner than death.  “Better a living dog than a dead lion,” is a maxim that, we are afraid, commends itself to our pour nature now as much as ever.  Are there braver men on earth than Hungarians, or the Poles, or the Cireassians?  And yet have we not lately seen them all, as we now see the brave Danes, bow themselves to their conqueror, sooner than to fight to extermination?  They did this not in any want of courage.  They had courage enough.  It was precisely that no courage could help them that they stopped fighting.  Courage is of no avail without strength; and when their strength had been broken up by their enemies, submission came. Cowards yield because they won’t help themselves.  Brave men yield because they can’t help themselves.  That is just the difference between them.

The Danes never protested so loudly that they would fight to the death, as for a week or two before they gave in.  Nothing is more common than this.  We saw it in the late Crimean war.  When the reverses and discomfitures of two campaigns culminated in the overthrow of Sebastopol itself, Russia had nothing to answer but an order for a new levy of 100,000 men.  From the Czar to the lowest serf, there was an outburst of continued defiance, so imposing that even the cool Richard Cobden who had once declared in Parliament that “Russia might be crumbled up like a sheet of brown paper,” issued a pamphlet maintaining that Russia was unconquerable, and that peace must be made with her own terms.  Yet a month did not collapse before the Czar made known his readiness to accept terms which not only conceded all the points originally in dispute, but others of a yet more humiliating character.  Just so did the Mexicans.  One of their last acts before submission was to create a Dictator, with absolute power for everything except submission; and a proclamation to the provinces, declaring resistance to the death.  This access of new defiance just before succumbing is perfectly natural.  The pride of the worsted party is always the last quality to yield.  It rallies when the strength no longer can.  It is the return of the spirit upon itself when the arm droops—a self-assertion, or self-protest of the soul, Necessarily incident, perhaps to its superiority over the flesh, but for all that, perfectly useless.  We don’t call such exhibitions mere bravado.  They are not.  On the contrary, they are the most apt to be seen in those who are most truly brave.  The higher in the spirit, the sharper the recoil.  At no time have our rebels protested stronger that they will never submit than they are now doing.  Jeff. Davis said the other day with unusual emphasis that “We will have extermination or independence.”  He felt so, undoubtedly; but the truth is, he neither.  His people will not take the one, and we have no intentions to give the other.  Precisely as Tennessee and Louisiana, and Arkansas have neither extermination of independence, so will it be with all the remaining eight States of the so-called Confederacy.  The twenty five millions of loyal states have the ability to overcome the remaining strength of this rebellion.  They mean to do it.  When it is done these people will do precisely what every other people at war have done when their strength was gone—they will submit.  They will yield when exhausted—will stop fighting when they can fight no longer.  All this talk about “extermination” is natural enough, and, after a fashion, credible, but it amounts to nothing.  It will not give these rebels on breath the more or less.  “The thing which hath been, it is that which shall be, and there is no new thing under the sun”—not even under this remarkable southern sun of ours.  We attempt no prediction when this submission will come through it sometimes seems to us that it cannot be far at farthest.  If it is certain that the rebellion has been greatly weakened in fighting material, and that the disparity between its available force and our own is daily becoming greater.  There are those who believe that even now it is sustained only by the hope the last draft ordered by President Lincoln will not be sustained by the Northern people and that he himself will be repudiated at the election in November.  It is expected by some who call themselves close observers, that the rebels will give up the fight next Winter, if this hope of theirs is not realized.  The submission my occur than, and it may not.  It is impossible to tell.  But the particular time is of no essential consequence.  It is enough to know that it must come sooner or later: and just as soon as the warning strength of the rebels comes to the point of exhaustion.  It would appear that we ought to expect an earlier submission than in the other wars we have averted to, because that submission involves no hard terms—nothing but a resumption of equal rights under the same broad Constitution.  But perhaps this rational inducement may have no such effect.  We do not calculate upon it.  We simply affirm that these rebels will succumb sooner than be exterminated, and that this yielding will be preceded by strong talk, and be sudden when it comes.  N. Y. Times.

SOURCES: “A New Lesson on Dying in the Last Ditch,” Janesville Daily Gazette, Janesville, Wisconsin, Thursday, September 15, 1864, p. 2; “A New Lesson on Dying in the Last Ditch,” The Tiffin Tribune, Tiffin, Ohio, Thursday, September 22, 1864, p. 1, “Highly Pertinent,” Detroit Free Press, Detroit, Michigan, Saturday, August 27, 1864, p. 2.

Nathaniel Peabody Rogers: Dr. Francis Wayland, October 20, 1838

We wonder if this learned divine has ever undertaken to convince men that their “responsibilities were limited” in regard to the removal of any other nuisance than slavery. We have not seen any portion of his "limitations," except that relating to slavery. Whether he has treated on them as to any other sin, we do not know. But what possessed him to think men needed reminding of the limitations of their obligations? Are they prone to works of supererogation? Are they apt to be rampant in the exercise of that “charity,” which “seeketh not her own,” to transcend the bounds of their duty? Is it necessary, in order to a proper husbanding of their sympathies, that they be warned and admonished against their too prodigal lavishment upon their fellow-men? Is it to be predicated of fallen, depraved men, that they will be likely to overrun their obligations? Need they be guarded against an extravagance like this? Need ministers of the gospel tax their ingenuity in a behalf like this? Generally this class of men have been engaged, on what they call in court “the other side;” in enforcing human obligations, and in setting forth and urging on men's consciences their terrible responsibilities—to remove from their minds and hearts erroneous notions of their limitation?. and of their own freedom from obligation.

We take it nothing can be clearer and more reasonable than the universal obligation to do to others as we would that they should do to us — and to do likewise for others. If we were slaves, does any doctor doubt we should desire our neighbors, if we had any, to try to rescue us? If our house was a-fire, should not we want our neighbors to help put the fire out? If we were in the water, going to the bottom, could we bear it that neighbors should go indifferently by, and let us sink — that they should merely pity us — in the abstract? The slavery case is exceedingly plain. Slavery is the creature of tolerance — of public sufferance. Southern slavery exists in northern sufferance. The North is the seat of American sufferance. It is the theatre of moral influence for this nation. There is no such influence in the South — that is, no reforming influence except by negative operation. What is the moral influence of New Orleans on the nation? What of Charleston, or Mobile, or St. Louis, or Richmond, or any of the states or people of which these are the capitals? What religious or moral enterprise ever originated, or advanced in any of these places or people? They no more influence the country, than gamblers, drunkards, thieves, religiously influence the church. The church influences them for good or for evil, according to her faithfulness or unfaithfulness in her Master's service. The North influences the South in the matter of slavery. Yea, the North acts with the South in slaveholding. They directly and professedly uphold the system wherever they have occasion. They tolerate it in the District of Columbia. They directly sustain it in the territories. They allow the slave trade between the states. They conspired with the South in the constitution, that the foreign trade in slaves should not be interrupted by Congress for twenty years. They voted that Arkansas should come into the Union, with a constitution guarding slavery with a two-edged sword, giving the slaveholder a veto upon an emancipating legislature, and the legislature a check upon the repentant slaveholder. They have voted to admit a system that forbids and discourages repentance of the sin of slaveholding, and makes it desperate. All this has been done solemnly and with deliberation, and in legislative form — and the whole nation has tacitly allowed those of its people who chose, to hold slaves. It has never been disreputable, but highly the contrary, to hold slaves in this country. Is not a nation answerable for the vices and crimes which are reputable and popular within its borders? If a nation has any moral influence, any moral standard, is it not responsible for what that standard does not condemn? Has not this nation cast all its presidential votes for two men, guilty at the very moment of the election and all their days before and since, of the crime of slaveholding — Andrew Jackson, a slaveholder and a slave driver, and voted for twice by a majority of the electoral suffrage of this nation, north and south — and Henry Clay, a slaveholder and a notorious compromiser in the service of the infernal system, voted for by the rest of the nation. Jackson chosen by northern men against Adams a northern man. And then a northern man abandoned by northern men, one and the same party, in favor of Clay, a southern slaveholder[.]

We have nothing to do with abolishing slavery, says the Doctor Wayland, either as citizens of the United States, or as men. Our responsibilities for its removal are all limited away. On the very face of our case, it is palpable and grossly evident, we say, that the northern people have at least as much to do with its abolition as the people of the south. They have at least as much to do with its continuation. They are as directly engaged in it. They have the control of it in the national councils wherever it exists within congressional jurisdiction. It is the North, and not the South, that prevents a legislative abolition of it in the District of Columbia. Slavery in the national district is a northern institution, and not a southern. It is the “peculiar institution” there of the North, and not of the South. Is it not so? We declare then, that, as citizens and as men, we at the North have something to do with the abolition of American slavery — ay, that we have every thing to do with it. We can abolish it, and we alone can. We ought to abolish it, and we alone ought to do it, as appears at first impartial glance.

“I think it evident,” says Dr. Wayland, “that as citizens of the United States, we have no power whatever either to abolish slavery in the southern states, or to do any thing of which the direct intention is to abolish it.” We do not perceive the propriety of the Doctor's language when he talks of a thing having an intention. Slaves have intentions, and the Doctor and his friends call them things—but how a thing to be done can have an intention — a “direct intention,” as the Doctcr says, is beyond our slight learning. Perhaps the Doctor meant tendency by intention — and meant to say that we could not do any thing the direct tendency of which is the abolition of southern slavery. That is to say, we, as citizens of the United States, may not vote in Congress against slaveholding in the District of Columbia, or in the territories, or against the slave trade between the states. We may not receive petitions in behalf of those objects — we may not petition Congress — we may not talk against slaveholding — or write against it — or pray against it — or sympathize with our fellow-men in slavery; because each and every one of these acts has a direct tendency to abolish slavery in the southern states. Slavery in the land is a system, a whole system, a custom, a crime, and but one crime wherever committed. It is not warrantable in one place, and not in another. It is not lawful in one state, and not in another. It is one entire, individual, undivided matter of fact every where in the land, as much as murder is —  and if it is denounced and condemned in the District of Columbia by Congress, it is as fatal to it, in the whole country, as if denounced in South Carolina by Congress, or any where else — more fatal to it. A blow struck against it, as existing in that district, would be a blow at the head of it, and it would be mortal, — not one having a direct tendency to kill the system — or a direct intention, as the Doctor hath it, — but a blow destructive in itself. It would fix the brand of infamy on every slaveholder's front throughout the nation. It would render him infamous even in the eyes of Americans. Dr. Wayland could set no limits to his infamy. It would seal him a criminal with the broad seal of the nation, the E pluribus unum. Who would vote for him for President then — who would send him ambassador to London — who put him in Speaker of the House — President of the Senate — Chief Justice of the United States? Who would shake hands with him at the capitol? Now he is first in office, first in honor. Slaveholding is passport to every distinction. We ask Dr. Wayland and his aid-de-camp Major Mordecai Noachus, if a vote by Congress on our petitions, abolishing slavery in the district, and making it capital to enslave a man there, as they would do if they made it penal at all, would not give the system the death blow in the South, even if abolitionists had done nothing to kill it elsewhere. Would not that single enactment do it? Self-evidently it would. Have we not a right, as citizens of the United States, to do this? The Doctor says no. We say, ay.

But not to follow this self-immolated man any farther now, we will say that we need not get a vote from Congress against slavery in order to its abolition there and every where. Congress! what is it? The mere dregs and precipitations, the settlings and sediments of the nation. It is as soulless as a corporation. It has no soul, no mind, no principle, no opinion. It is an echo, and that not always a true one. It is a mere catastrophe—an upshot. It will only mutter the word abolition, after it has become an old story through the country. We have struck slavery its death blow already. We need not contend with the Doctor about the power. “One thing you have done,” said an eminent judge to us, “you have driven the South to come out and declare directly in favor of slavery. Heretofore they have pretended to lament it, as an evil. Now they declare it is a blessing, and a righteous institution.” Have we not, said we, driven them to join the issue, before the world, in favor of slaveholding? “You have,” said the judge. Must they not maintain it before the world, said we, to save the institution from going down? “They must,” he replied. Can they maintain it? said we. “No,” said he, — and yet the judge is not an abolitionist.

We need not contend with this Wayland and wayward President for the power, as citizens or as men, to beat down southern slaveholding. We have exercised the power already, and the South knows it. We have waked the nation to discuss the demerits of the system and the question of the negro man's humanity; and they are discussing it, and amid the flash and fervor of the agitation the foul system dies. It can no more endure it, than owls can noon, or bats sunshine, or ghosts day-break. While Wayland is groping about in his metaphysics to get hold of some puzzle to embarrass us about the power, we will have exercised it to the full, and cleared the land of slavery. Then where will the Doctor find a market for his “limitations?” Slavery is a dead man already, unless Orator Rhett, and Professor Dew, and Colonel McDuffie, and General Hamilton, and doctor this, that and the other one, can maintain the precious creature in the argument, and get the verdict of an enlightened and purged christianity in its favor. To this conclusion it has already come. The question is stated — the issue joined — the pleadings closed — all demurring and abating and delaying past by. And now for the trial. Now, Slavery, hold thine own. The Doctor's question of our having the power comes too late.

SOURCE: Collection from the Miscellaneous Writings of Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, Second Edition, p. 39-44 which states it was published in the Herald of Freedom of October 20, 1838.

George S. Denison to Salmon P. Chase, December 25, 1862

(Private)

New Orleans, December 25th, 1862.

Dear Sir: The mail has just arrived and I see that, among other charges, Gen. Butler is accused of interfering in various ways with the Custom House, to the great injury of commerce.

Gen. Butler has interfered with the Custom House in four instances, but not more.

1st. He ordered me not to permit the shipment of specie and plate, without his written consent to each shipment. His object was to prevent property liable to confiscation, being removed from the country. The Prussian Bark, “Essex,” had received on board several large cases of silver — and by Gen. Butler's orders, I refused a clearance until these cases were delivered up. They were delivered up, and clearance was then granted.

2nd. Gen. B. took possession of about $2,000. worth of printer's paper in the warehouse, for his official newspaper, “The Delta” —on the ground that it was a military necessity.

3rd. He took possession of forty barrels of brandy (imported two or three years ago) for hospital purposes — as a military necessity.

4th. He took possession of ten bales of blankets for hospital purpose, as a military necessity.

In each of the last three instances, I have his written order to deliver up the articles to the officer presenting the order — and in each he settled, I suppose, with the owners of the articles. Except in the above instances, Gen. Butler has not interfered with the Custom House business. I make this statement for your information.

I send you a paper containing Gen. Butler's farewell address, and Gen. Banks' proclamation concerning the Emancipation Proclamation. Each article explains itself. From appearances, I judge that Gen. Butler intends to join the extreme radicals, as the Democratic papers term the only party which (as it seems to me) appreciates the position. The Texas men are bitterly disappointed that they cannot invade Texas at once, and think great injustice has been done them. It seems to me that the thorough opening of the river is of most consequence just now — after which the whole Southwest falls easily. Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas are pretty well drained of men, but full of corn and cattle. The Rebels would like to retreat thither, but if the river is opened at once, they will be forced back toward, or into, Alabama. With the loss of the Three Southwestern states, the rebels lose one-half their material resources. They could not break through the line of defence (Mississippi River) to recover it. In no other way can the Confederate cause be so much injured, with so little expenditure on the part of the Gov't. of men, time and money. The Arkansas, White and Red Rivers and, in Louisiana, various bayous, enable Gunboats to penetrate in all directions to the heart of the country. Fifty thousand men, together with the Union forces now in Arkansas and at El Paso (Texas), would be fully able to accomplish this in two or three months, after the opening of the river — and provided Emancipation attended the march, success would be absolutely certain. Louisiana is virtually subdued already and wishes herself back in the Union. 1 hope Gen. Banks will adopt some such plan as the above and have told him so. Lest he might mistake my political position, I took the first opportunity to tell him also, what my opinions were, particularly in regard to Slavery.

According to the best information I can get — the rebels have at Vicksburg 12,000 men — at Jackson (and Grenada), 40,000 — & at Port Hudson, 20,000. The men are said to be deserting very fast. Port Hudson is twenty miles above Baton Rouge and is said to be much stronger than Vicksburg. Many believe that to be the point (instead of Vicksburg) where the great fight will be.

Our troops are moving up to Baton Rouge, where perhaps 20,000 have already arrived. All the old (Butler's) regiments will probably be sent up. I should judge that the attack on Port Hudson would take place in about ten days. Gen. Banks is expected to command in person.

Mobile is not fortified with such strength as is represented by Southern accounts. The Rebel gunboats there are of very little account. I have just seen a reliable (white) man who escaped from there five weeks ago. Admiral Farragut can take the place whenever he chooses.

Please do not authorize more officers for the Appraiser's Department, to be sent here from New York. One, Mr. Paulson, appointed by your order, has just arrived. He is one too much. I understand still another is to come. I want to keep down expenses, and this expense is entirely unnecessary. Mr. Sarjeant did wrong in making such representations as he did to you, concerning the want of Examiners here.

SOURCE: Diary and correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. 2, p. 342-4

Nathaniel Peabody Rogers: Constitutionality of Slavery, September 8, 1838

The second “unprovided-for difficulty” of the Keene Sentinel, in the way of the anti-slavery movement is, that “slaves are property.” We deny that they are property, or that they can be made so. We will not argue this, for it is self-evident. A man cannot be a subject of human ownership; neither can he be the owner of humanity. There is a clear and eternal incompetancy on both sides, — on the one to own man, and on the other to be owned by man. A man cannot alienate his right to liberty and to himself, — still less can it be taken from him. He cannot part with his duty to be free — his obligation to liberty, any more than his right. He is under obligation to God and humanity and his own immortality, to retain his manhood and to exercise it. He cannot become the property of another, any more than he can part with his human nature. It would be utterly repugnant to all the purposes of his creation. He is bound to perform a part, which is totally incompatible with his being owned by any body but himself; which requires that he keep himself free. He can't be property, any more than he can be a horse, or a literal ass. We commend our brethren of the Sentinel to the eighth Psalm, as a divine authority touching the nature and destination of man. He can't be property — he can't be appropriated. His mighty nature cannot be coped by the grasp of ownership. Can the Messrs. Sentinel be appropriated? We put it sternly to them, in behalf of their, and our own, and the slave's common nature, — for we feel that it is all outraged by their terrible allegation. Can the editors of the Sentinel become property? the goods and chattels, rights and hereditaments of an owner? If they can't, no man can. If any man can, they can. Can the Hon. Mr. Prentiss, with all his interesting qualities and relations, by any diabolical jugglery, be converted into a slave, so as to belong to one of his fallen, depraved fellow-men? Can he suppose the idea? Is he susceptible of this transmutation? He is, if any body is. Can he be transferred, by virtue of a few cries and raps of a glib-tongued auctioneer? Could a pedler sell him, from his tin cart? Could he knock him off, bag and baggage, to the boldest bidder? Let us try it. No disrespect to our esteemed senior. — We test his allegation, that a man is property. If one man can be, any man can — himself, or his stately townsman, Major-General Wilson, who would most oddly become the auction platform. If a man can be property, he can be sold. If any man can be, every man can — Mr. Prentiss, Gen. Wilson, Rev. Mr. Barstow — every man. Let us try to vendue the Sentinel. Advertise him, if you please, in the Keene paper. On the day, produce him — bring him on — let his personal symmetries be examined and descanted on — his sacred person handled by the sacrilegious man-jockey, — let him be ordered to shift positions, and assume attitudes, and display to the callous multitude his form and proportions — his points, as the horse-jockey would say. How would all this comport with the high sense of personal honor, wont to be entertained by the Sentinel? How would he not encounter a thousand deaths rather than submit to it? How his proud spirit, instinct with manhood, would burst and soar away from the scene! Who bids? an able-bodied, capable, fine, healthy, submissive, contented Boy, about fifty — sound wind and limb — sold positively for no fault — a field hand — come of real stock, — faithful, can trust him with gold untold — will nobody start him? — shall we have a bid? — will nobody bid for the boy? Now we demand of our respected brother, whose honor is as sacred in our regard as in his own, what he thinks of the chattelism of a slave, — for we indignantly lay it down as an immovable principle that the Hon. John Prentiss is as legitimate a subject of property and of sale, as any the lowest of his race.

We dispose of the position that “slaves are property,” by utterly and indignantly denying the possibility of it. We will rescue our brethren of the Sentinel from the imputation of this murderous idea, by erasing the semicolon after “property,” and making but one sentence of the second “difficulty,” turning it into an opinion that “slaves are property by the constitution and the laws;” throwing the infamy on to the old framers of the constitution, and all of us who have lived under it, with power to amend or nullify it. It would sink the whole of us. Constitution and laws! Is the Sentinel of opinion that a constitution could be framed by men, or by existences in the shape of men, that, instead of protecting human liberty and rights, should annihilate them? A constitution to enslave men! What would you say of a British constitution, that enslaved a British subject? Would you not scout the idea of it — of the British possibility of it? and can it be done here, and was it done here by revolutionary sages, who could not brook the restraints of British liberty? A constitution, that should provide for the enslavement of a man, would be a legal abortion. The bare engrossing of it would nullify it. It would perish by spontaneous annulment and nullification. It could not survive its ordination — nor could its infamous framers. We deny that an enslaved man is property by the constitution, and we might deny that any man can be enslaved under our constitution, and consequently, that he could be chattelized, if a slave were admitted to be property. Things may be appropriated — persons may not. They are self-evidently not susceptible of appropriation or ownership. By the constitution every body is spoken of as a person — no mention is made of human things. If a slave is alluded to, in that instrument, as a possible existence in point of fact, it is under the name of “person.” “Three fifths of all other Persons” — “migration or importation of persons” — “no person held to service.” These are the only instances in it where allusion is made to slaves, — and it no more, in those allusions, sanctions enslaving, than it does “piracies and felonies on the high seas,” which it also expressly recognizes, as they say of slavery. So it says “person,” where it solemnly asserts that “no person can be deprived of liberty or property, but by due process of law.” This clause prohibits the slightest approaches to enslaving, or holding in slavery, which is continued enslaving. No person's property can be taken from him; not his life even; infinitely less his Liberty, without due legal process. It is idle to say, that the framers of the constitution, or. those who adopted it and acted under it, did not mean to save the colored man from slavery, by this clause. In law they are to be held to mean so, because they said so. The intent of the framers is now to be gathered from what they said in the instrument itself — not their colloquies at the time or before or after — but what they put down in imperishable black and white. It is what they inscribed on the parchment for all time, that they legally intended, and there we are to go to get at their intent. If the words are obscure and ambiguous, we may gather their intent by aid of concomitant circumstances, &c. But there is no ambiguity here. The clearest words and best understood and most trimly defined of any we have, here set forth the essential doctrine, (without which a community of thieves and pirates could scarcely be kept together,) that life, liberty and property are sacred. Enslave man and leave him these three, and you may do it, maugre this clause of the constitution. However, you must leave him, by virtue of other clauses, a few other incidentals, such as compulsory process for calling in all witnesses for him, of whatever color; the inviolate right to be secure in person, house, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures; right of trial by jury in all cases over twenty dollars' value; the free exercise of religion, of speech, of the press, of peaceable assembly and of petition; the civil rights of republican government, which is guarantied to him in every state in this Union; the privileges and immunities of citizens in every state; in short, you must allow him a string of franchises, enumerated accidentally in that part of the old compact, called the preamble, viz., justice, domestic tranquillity, common defence, general welfare, and, finally, the blessings of liberty to himself and to his posterity; — moreover you may add, in repetition, — for in securing these breath-of-life sort of rights, people run a little into superfluity of words — you may add the unsuspendible privilege of habeas corpus — the old writ of liberty; — and perfect exemption from all attainder, or enslaving a man's children on his account. We will mention one more — that is the uninfringible right to keep and bear arms. All these and many other rights and immunities, "too numerous to be mentioned,” are secured to him by adamantine provisions in the constitution, and if you can chattelize him under them, so that Austin Woolfolk can trade in him, at your capital, or Wade Hampton or the American Board, can buy him and use him up in their service, or Doctor Ezra Styles Ely speculate in his soul and body, then your doctrine, Messrs. Sentinel, is sound, that he is recognized as property by the constitution.

We claim some exceptions, however, in case we cannot overthrow slavery in the slave states, by force of the national constitution. We cannot allow you to enslave any body in old Virginia. Look at her law paramount in our caption, declaring the Birth-Right, Inalienable Liberty Of All Men. In Maryland the right is constitutionally set forth a little stronger. You must not enslave a man in Maryland, — and we can't allow you to lay a finger on his liberties in the district of Columbia, because the constitutions of Virginia and Maryland are still paramount law there, by congressional adoption, at the acceptance of the cessions. And if he runs away from the district or a territory, or either of those two states, we can't allow you to arrest him and send him back.

We ask our legal friends, who think lightly of this “fanaticism,” to look into this constitutional and legal matter of slaveholding. We would like especially, that some of the neighbors of the Sentinel would give some exposition, during the coming convention, of the lawfulness of enslaving people in this country. We ask the Keene lawyers how this is. We want “the opinion of the court.”

For ourselves we venture the opinion, in light of what glimmerings of law scintillate about our vision, that holding a man in slavery is a violation of the law of this land, and of every part of it, not excepting our gory-fingered sister Arkansas, or our carnage-dripping sister Alabama, the haunt of christian enterprise from New England and the worn-out slave states in the north. A constitution that can avail to protect republican liberty to a single member of this community, inviolably secures it to every man, and condemns and prohibits slavery. It cannot otherwise be. Slavery is a mere matter of fact — in the face of the constitution — in the face of each state constitution — in the face of every court of justice which soundly administers the law of any state — in face of every thing, but a tyrant public sentiment, and a diabolical American practice.

The enslaved of the country are as much entitled to their liberty as any of us, by the law as it is. They have a right to throw off all violation of it by force, if they cannot otherwise. Nay, it is their duty to do so, if they can, — for it is not injury merely, that they are submitting to — not wrongs. They are rendered incapable of suffering injury — incompetent to endure wrong. The accursed system, that preys upon them, makes things of them — exterminates their very natures. This they may not submit to. They ought to prevent it, at every expense. They ought to resist it, as the Christian should the devil, for it wars upon the nature of man, and devours his immortality. If they could heave off the system by an instantaneous and universal effort, they ought to do it Individually we wish they could do it, and that they would do it. We may be wrong in this opinion — but we entertain it. If our white brethren at the South were slaves, we should wish them instantaneous deliverance by insurrection, if this would bring it to them. We wish our colored brethren the same. We do not value the bodily lives of the present white generation there a straw, compared to the horrible thraldom, in which they hold the colored people, and we value their lives as highly as we do the colored people's. But insurrection can't effect it. It must be done by the abolitionists. They must annihilate the system by force of their principles, and as fast as possible. And they must increase their speed. Men will have to groan and pant in absolute brutality, with their high and eternal natures bound down and strangled amid the folds of this enslaving devil, until we throw it off. To the work then, and Heaven abandon the tardy! If you wish to save your white brethren and yourselves, we commend you to this work, in sharp earnest We tell you, once for all, there is no time to be Inst!

There is no end to the theme — there must be to this article. We deny the truth and existence of the Sentinel's two difficulties, and if, in fact, they both existed, our movement “provides for them.” The people collectively have the power to declare slavery a crime in the slave states. Congress has the power to do what amounts to the same thing — by direct action. They can declare it criminal in the capital, and how long would it be esteemed innocent elsewhere? They can punish enslaving in the district, and the man-traffic between the states as piracy. Lex talionis would enslave the perpetrators — but that would be devilish, and ought not to be inflicted. But if hanging is lawful in any case, it is in this.

If the people collectively and Congress have no legal power over the slavery of the slave states, abolitionists have the power, ample and adequate, and they will “provide for the difficulty.”

The constitution and the laws do not recognize the slaves as property. We call for the proof. The Sentinel avers it. Let them point us to the spot where. And could they do this, the abolitionists have the power (consult rule of three for the time it will take) to change and redeem both the constitution and the laws, and transmute this property back again to humanity.

SOURCE: Collection from the Miscellaneous Writings of Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, Second Edition, p. 15-21 which states it was published in the Herald of Freedom of September 8, 1838.

George Thompson: Lecture at Lowell, Massachusetts, October 5, 1834

On Sunday evening, October 5th, GeoRGE THOMPsoN, Esq. the abolitionitst, delivered a lecture on Slavery in the Town Hall, Lowell. The spacious room was filled some time before the commencement of the proceedings, and when Mr. Thompson began his lecture, there were upwards of one thousand persons present. The meeting was opened with singing and prayer.

The following is a faint sketch of Mr. Thompson's discourse, which occupied an hour and three quarters in the delivery.

He (the lecturer) felt truly grateful for the present very favorable opportunity of discussing before an American audience, the merits and bearings of a question, which, more than any other that could agitate their minds, was connected with the honor, happiness, and prosperity of the people of this land. He besought a kind, patient, and attentive hearing. He asked no favor for his doctrines, his arguments, or his opinions. Let these be subjected to the severest ordeal. Let them be tested by reason, truth and scripture, and if they squared not with the dictates and requirements of these, let them be repudiated. The West Indies had already witnessed the operation of the great measure, which the justice and humanity of the British Nation had obtained for the slave. All eyes were now turned towards the United States of America, to see if that land of Liberty, of Republicanism, of Bibles, of Missions, of Temperance Societies, and Revivals, would direct her matchless energies to the blessed work of enfranchising her slaves, and elevating her entire colored population.

As a feeble and unworthy instrument in the hand of Him, without whom there was neither wisdom, nor strength, nor goodness, he (Mr. T.) had come amongst them to tell of the conflicts and triumphs he had witnessed in his native land, and to encourage, and, if possible, aid his brethern here in the accomplishment of a similarly great and glorious object. His was no sectarian or political embassay. Higher and broader principles than those of politics or party animated and sustained him. He came not to uphold the dogmas of a faction, or to expound the charter of human rights according to the latitude, longitude, clime, or color. As a citizen of the world, he claimed brotherhood with all mankind. The medium through which he contemplated the varied tribes of this peopled earth, was one which blended all hues, and brought out only the proud and awful distinctive mark of one common nature — “the image of God.” He honored that ‘image in whomsoever he found it, and would labor lest a prize so glorious should be lost, lest a being so capable should be wretched here and forever. Such were the views he cherished, and the principles he maintained, and he hoped he should be enabled to discuss them with temper and christian charity. He knew that men were all compounded of the same common elements — all sinful, erring and guilty; and, therefore, it became not any human being to assume the tone of innocence or infallibility, but to address himself to others as their fellow sinner, and be grateful to God, if divine grace had caused him in any degree to differ from the rest. He deemed such feelings perfectly consistent with a fearless denunciation of vicious principles and oppressive practices. Towards sin in every form, no mercy should be shown. A war of extermination should be waged with the works of the devil, under all their manifold and delusive appearances, and that man was the truest and kindest friend of the sinner, who, with a bold and unsparing hand, dragged forth to light and condemnation the abomination that would have ruined his soul.

After this introduction, the lecturer took a compendious view of slavery as its exists in the Southern States. He spoke of it as reducing man to the condition of a thing — a chattel personal — a marketable brute — the property and fee simple of his fellow-man — consigning the helpless victim to bondage, wretchedness, ignorance and crime here, and ruining his soul forever and ever. The lecturer next proceeded to speak of the prevailing prejudice against the free people of color, and attributed it principally to an antichristian and guilty feeling of pride. That this prejudice did not originate in a natural repugnance to color, was evident from the fact, that while the colored person remained in a state of civil and intellectual degradation, no indisposition was shown to the nearest physical approach. It was only when the colored person attempted to rise in intellect or station to a level with the white, that the hatred and prejudice appeared. He (Mr. T.) solemnly and affectionately exhorted all who heard him to renounce their cruel and unholy antipathies. This prejudice was an offence against God. The controversy was not with him who wore the colored skin, but with the being who had formed him with it. Who was bold enough to stand before God, and vindicate the prejudice which dishonored and defaced the image and superscription of the Deity, as stamped upon his creature man?

Such was the state of things in these christian States. What was the remedy? The immediate emancipation of the whites from prejudice, and the blacks from slavery. Mercy implored it. Justice demanded it. Reason dictated it. Religion required it. Necessity urged it.

Fear cried, “No! The danger of immediate emancipation!”

Prejudice exclaimed, “You want to amalgamate the races — to break the cast to lift the blacks into our ranks. It must not be!”

A misguided Patriotism spread the alarm, “The Union is in danger!”

Interest muttered, “You will ruin our manufactures you will destroy our commerce — you will beggar the planter!”

Despotism vociferated, “Let my victims alone! Rob me not of my dominion!” and a

Mistaken philanthrophy would set on foot a piecemeal reformation, and recommend gradualism for the special benefit of the pining slave.

Whom, then, should they obey? He boldly answered, God; who required that men should “cease to do evil.” But that he might not be accused of dealing only in abstract views of this question, he would take up the various objections to immediate emancipation, and endeavor to show that in the eye of reason and selfishness too, they were groundless and absurd.

Mr. Thompson proceeded to prove the safety, practicability and advantages of immediate emancipation. It would be impossible to do justice to this part of the lecture in this brief notice.

The question was frequently asked, “Why should New England interfere in the slave-system of the South?” Because, said Mr. T., the slaves are your fellow-men — they are your neighbors, and you are commanded to love them as yourselves, and to remember them in bonds as bound with them. They are your fellow-citizens — declared to be so by your glorious Declaration of Independence. You supply the South, and therefore are connected with this trade of blood. You consume the produce of the South, and thus effectually promote the cause of oppression there. You are taxed to maintain the Slavery of the South. You are in the habit of giving up the slaves of the South who seek refuge amongst you. Your colored citizens are liable to be seized and sold, if they go to the South. You live under the same Constitution as the South, and are therefore bound to amend that constitution, if it be at present unjust in any of its parts. Your Congress has supreme control over the District of Columbia, Arkansas, and Florida, and you ought, therefore, to call for the immediate extinction of Slavery in these places. You exert a powerful influence over the South and the States generally. You are able to control the destinies of the shaves in this country. You are responsible to God for the employment of your moral energies. Come, then, to the work. First, let the question be fairly discussed amongst you. Do not be afraid to entertain it. Sooner or later, you must grapple with it. The speedier the better. Discard your prejudices. Give up your pre-conceived opinions, and bring to the consideration of this great subject, open and impartial minds, a tender regard for the interests of your fellowman, — a sincere and enlightened desire for your country's true honor and greatness, and a deep sense of your accountability to God.

Mr. Thompson next addressed the ladies present, and urged the necessity of their engaging in this work of mercy. It was not a political, but a moral and religious question. All were called upon to labor in the cause — all were able to do so. While some preached and lectured on the subject, others could distribute tracts, collect contributions, and converse with their friends. The principles of justice and truth would thus be diffused — prejudice and ignorance would give way, and an amount of influence finally created, sufficient to purge the stain of slavery forever from the land.

Mr. Thompson was listened to throughout with the most profound attention, and every appearance of deep interest. The Rev. Messrs. Rand, Twining, and Pease, were present. At the conclusion of the lecture, the last named gentleman gave out a hymn suited to the occasion, which was sung by the choir, and after a benediction had been pronounced, the audience separated.

SOURCE: Isaac Knapp, Publisher, Letters and Addresses by G. Thompson [on American Negro Slavery] During His Mission in the United States, From Oct. 1st, 1834, to Nov. 27, 1835, p. 1-5