Showing posts with label Franklin Pierce. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Franklin Pierce. Show all posts

Sunday, March 24, 2024

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: February 2, 1865

Bright and beautiful, and pleasantly frosty. Gen. Sherman is advancing as usual in such dubiety as to distract Gen. Hardee, who knows not whether Branchville or Augusta is his objective point. I suppose Sherman will be successful in cutting our communications with the South—and in depreciating Confederate States Treasury notes still more, in spite of Mr. Trenholm's spasmodic efforts to depreciate gold.

Yesterday the Senate passed a bill dropping all commissaries and quartermasters not in the field, and not in the bureaus in Richmond, and appointing agents instead, over 45 years of age. This will make a great fluttering, but the Richmond rascals will probably escape.

Military men here consider Augusta in danger; of course it is! How could it be otherwise?

Information from the United States shows that an effort to obtain "peace" will certainly be made. President Lincoln has appointed ex-Presidents Fillmore and Pierce and Hon. S. P. Chase, commissioners, to treat with ours. The two first are avowed "peace men;" and may God grant that their endeavors may prove successful! Such is the newspaper information.

A kind Providence watches over my family. The disbursing clerk is paying us "half salaries" to-day, as suggested in a note I wrote the Secretary yesterday. And Mr. Price informs me that the flour (Capt. Warner's) so long held at Greensborough has arrived! I shall get my barrel. It cost originally $150; but subsequent expenses may make it cost me, perhaps, $300. The market price is from $800 to $1000. I bought also of Mr. Price one-half bushel of red or "cow-peas" for $30; the market price being $80 per bushel. And Major Maynard says I shall have a load of government wood in a few days!

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2p. 406-7

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Lecture of Wendell Phillips: “The Lesson of the Hour,” Delivered at Brooklyn, New York, Tuesday Evening, November 1, 1859

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: Of course I do not expect—speaking from this platform, and to you— to say any thing on the vital question of the hour, which you have not already heard. But, when a great question divides the community, all men are called upon to vote, and I feel to-night that I am simply giving my vote. I am only saying "ditto" to what you hear from this platform day after day. And I would willingly have avoided, ladies and gentlemen, even at this last moment, borrowing this hour from you. I tried to do better by you. Like the Irishman in the story, I offered to hold the hat of Hon. Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, (enthusiastic applause,) if he would only make a speech, and, I am sorry to say, he declines, most unaccountably, this generous offer. (Laughter.) So I must fulfil my appointment, and deliver my lecture myself.

"The Lesson of the Hour?" I think the lesson of the hour is insurrection. (Sensation.) Insurrection of thought always precedes the insurrection of arms. The last twenty years have been an insurrection of thought. We seem to be entering on a new phase of this great American struggle. It seems to me that we have never accepted, as Americans, we have never accepted our own civilization. We have held back from the inference which we ought to have drawn from the admitted principles which underlie our life. We have all the timidity of the old world, when we think of the people; we shrink back, trying to save ourselves from the inevitable might of the thoughts of the millions. The idea on the other side of the water seems to be, that man is created to be taken care of by somebody else. God did not leave him fit to go alone; he is in everlasting pupilage to the wealthy and the educated. The religious or the comfortable classes are an ever-present probate court to take care of him. The Old World, therefore, has always distrusted the average conscience—the common sense of the millions.

It seems to me the idea of our civilization, underlying all American life, is, that men do not need any guardian. We need no safeguard. Not only the inevitable, but the best, power this side of the ocean, is the unfettered average common sense of the masses. Institutions, as we are accustomed to call them, are but pasteboard, and intended to be against the thought of the street. Statutes are mere milestones, telling how far yesterday's thought had travelled; and the talk of the sidewalk to-day is the law of the land. You may regret this; but the fact stands; and if our fathers foresaw the full effect of their principles, they must have planned and expected it. With us, Law is nothing unless close behind it stands a warm living public opinion. Let that die or grow indifferent, and statutes are waste paper—lack all executive force. You may frame them strong as language can make, but once change public feeling, and through them or over them rides the real wish of the people. The good sense and conscience of the masses are our only title-deeds and police force. The Temperance cause, the Anti-Slavery movement, and your Barnburner party prove this. You may sigh for a strong government, anchored in the convictions of past centuries, and able to protect the minority against the majority; able to defy the ignorance, the mistake, or the passion, as well as the high purpose, of the present hour. You may prefer the unchanging terra firma of despotism; but still the fact remains, that we are launched on the ocean of an unchained democracy, with no safety but in those laws of gravity that bind the ocean in its bed—the instinctive love of right in the popular heart—the divine sheet-anchor, that the race gravitates towards right, and that the right is always safe and best.

Somewhat briefly stated, such is the idea of American civilization; uncompromising faith—in the average selfishness, if you choose—of all classes, neutralizing each other, and tending towards that fair play that Saxons love. But it seems to me that, on all questions, we dread thought; we shrink behind something; we acknowledge ourselves unequal to the sublime faith of our fathers; and the exhibition of the last twenty years and of the present state of public affairs is, that Americans dread to look their real position in the face.

They say in Ireland that every Irishman thinks that he was born sixty days too late, (laughter,) and the world owes him sixty days. The consequence is, when a trader says such a thing is so much for cash, the Irishman thinks cash means to him a bill of sixty days. (Laughter.) So it is with Americans. They have no idea of absolute right. They were born since 1787, and absolute right means the truth diluted by a strong decoction of the Constitution of '89. They breathe that atmosphere; they do not want to sail outside of it; they do not attempt to reason outside of it. Poisoned with printer's ink, or choked with cotton dust, they stare at absolute right, as the dream of madmen. For the last twenty years, there has been going on, more or less heeded and understood in various States, an insurrection of ideas against the limited, cribbed, cabined, isolated American civilization, interfering to restore absolute right. If you said to an American, for instance, any thing in regard to temperance, slavery, or any thing else, in the course of the last twenty years—any thing about a principle, he ran back instantly to the safety of such a principle, to the possibility of its existing with a particular sect, with a church, with a party, with a constitution, with a law. He had not yet raised himself to the level of daring to trust justice, which is the preliminary consideration to trusting the people; for whether native depravity be true or not, it is a truth, attested by all history, that the race gravitates towards justice, and that making fair allowance for differences of opinion, there is an inherent, essential tendency to the great English principle of fair play at the bottom of our natures. (Loud applause.) The Emperor Nicholas, it is said, ordered his engineers to lay down for him a railway from St. Petersburg to Moscow, and presently the engineers brought him a large piece of card-paper, on which was laid down, like a snake, the designed path for the iron locomotive between the two capitals. "What's that?" said Nicholas. "That's the best road," was the reply. "What do you make it crooked for?" Why, we turn this way to touch this great city, and to the left to reach that immense mass of people, and to the right again to suit the business of that district." "Yes." The emperor turned the card over, made a new dot for Moscow, and another for St. Petersburg, took a ruler, made a straight line, and said, "Build me that road." (Laughter.)

"But what will become of this depot of trade?—of that town?" "I don't know; they must look out for themselves." (Cheers.) And omnipotent democracy says of Slavery, or of a church, "This is justice, and that is iniquity; the track of God's thunderbolt is a straight line from one to the other, and the Church or State that cannot stand it must get out of the way. (Cheers.) Now our object for twenty years has been to educate the mass of the American people up to that level of moral life, which shall recognize that free speech carried to this extent is God's normal school, educating the American mind, throwing upon it the grave responsibility of deciding a great question, and by means of that responsibility, lifting it to a higher level of intellectual and moral life. Responsibility educates, and politics is but another name for God's way of teaching the masses ethics, under the responsibility of great present interest. To educate man is God's ultimate end and purpose in all creation. Trust the people with the gravest questions, and in the long run you educate the race; while, in the process, you secure not perfect, but the best possible, institutions. Now scholarship stands on one side, and, like your Brooklyn Eagle, says, "This is madness!" Well, poor man, he thinks so! (Laughter.) The very difficulty of the whole matter is, that he does think so, and this normal school that we open is for him. His seat is on the lowest end of the lowest bench. (Laughter and applause.) But he only represents that very chronic distrust which pervades all that class, specially the timid, educated mind of these Northern States. Anacharsis went into the forum at Athens, and heard a case argued by the great minds of the day, and saw the vote. He walked out into the streets, and somebody said to him, "What think you of Athenian liberty?" "I think," said he, "wise men argue causes, and fools decide them." Just what the timid scholar two thousand years ago said in the streets of Athens, that which calls itself the scholarship of the United States, says to-day of popular agitation, that it lets wise men argue questions, and fools decide them. But that unruly Athens, where fools decided the gravest questions of polity, and right, and wrong, where it was not safe to be just, and where property, which you had garnered up by the thrift and industry of to-day, might be wrung from you by the prejudices of the mob to-morrow; that very Athens probably secured the greatest human happiness and nobleness of its era, invented art, and sounded for us the depths of philosophy; God lent to it the noblest intellects, and it flashes to-day the torch that gilds yet the mountain peaks of the old world; while Egypt, the hunker conservative of antiquity, where nobody dared to differ from the priest, or to be wiser than his grandfather; where men pretended to be alive, though swaddled in the grave clothes of creed and custom as close as their mummies in linen, is hid in the tomb it inhabited; and the intellect which Athens has created for us digs to-day those ashes to find out what hunkerism knew and did. (Cheers.) Now my idea of American civilization is, that it is a second part, a repetition of that same sublime confidence in the public conscience and the public thought that made the groundwork of Grecian Democracy.

We have been carrying on this insurrection of thought for thirty years. There have been various evidences of growth in education; I will tell you of one. The first evidence that a sinner, convicted of sin, and too blind or too lazy to reform, the first evidence he gives that his nature has been touched, is, that he becomes a hypocrite; he has the grace to pretend to be something. Now, the first evidence that the American people gave of that commencing grace of hypocrisy was this: in 1831, when we commenced the Anti-Slavery agitation, the papers talked about Slavery, Bondage, American Slavery, boldly, frankly, and bluntly. In a few years it sounded hard; it had a grating effect; the toughest throat of the hardest Democrat felt it as it came out. So they spoke of the "patriarchal institution," (laughter,) then of the "domestic institution," (continued laughter,) and then of the "peculiar institution," (laughter,) and in a year or two it got beyond that. Mississippi published a report from her Senate, in which she went a stride further, and described it as "economic subordination." (Renewed laughter.) A Southern Methodist bishop was taken to task for holding slaves in reality, but his Methodist brethren were not courageous enough to say "slaves" right out in meeting, and so they advised the bishop to get rid of his "impediment," (loud laughter;) and the late Mr. Rufus Choate, in the last Democratic Canvass in my own State, undertaking and obliged to refer to the institutions of the South, and unwilling that his old New England lips, that had spoken so many glorious free truths, should foul their last days with the hated word, phrased it "a different type of industry." Now, hypocrisy—why, "it is the homage that vice renders to Virtue." When men begin to weary of capital punishment, they banish the gallows inside the jail-yard, and let nobody see it without a special card of invitation from the sheriff. And so they have banished Slavery into pet phrases and fancy flash-words. If, one hundred years hence, you should dig our Egyptian Hunkerism up from the grave into which it is rapidly sinking, we should need a commentator of the true German blood to find out what all these queer, odd, peculiar, imaginative paraphrases mean in this middle of the Nineteenth Century. This is one evidence of progress.

I believe in moral suasion. The age of bullets is over. The age of ideas is come. I think that is the rule of our age. The old Hindoo dreamed, you know, that he saw the human race led out to its varied fortune. First, he saw men bitted and curbed, and the reins went back to an iron hand. But his dream changed on and on, until at last he saw men led by reins that came from the brain, and went back into an unseen hand. It was the type of governments; the first despotism, palpable, iron; and the last our government, a government of brains, a government of ideas. I believe in it—in public opinion.

Yet, let me say, in passing, I think you can make a better use of iron than forging it into chains. If you must have the metal, put it into Sharpe's rifles. It is a great deal better used that way than in fetters; types are better than bullets, but bullets a thousand times rather than a clumsy statue of a mock great man, for hypocrites to kneel down and worship in a state-house yard. (Loud and renewed cheers, and great hissing.) I am so unused to hisses lately, that I have forgotten what I had to say. (Laughter and hisses.) I only know I meant what I did say.

My idea is, public opinion, literature, education, as governing elements.

But some men seem to think that our institutions are necessarily safe, because we have free schools and cheap books, and a public opinion that controls. But that is no evidence of safety. India and China had schools for fifteen hundred years. And books, it is said, were once as cheap in Central and Northern Asia, as they are in New York. But they have not secured liberty, nor a controlling public opinion to either nation. Spain for three centuries had municipalities and town governments, as independent and self-supporting, and as representative of thought, as New England or New York has. But that did not save Spain. De Tocqueville says that fifty years before the great revolution, public opinion was as omnipotent in France as it is to-day, but it did not make France free. You cannot save men by machinery. What India, and France, and Spain wanted, was live men, and that is what we want to-day; men who are willing to look their own destiny, and their own responsibilities, in the face. "Grant me to see, and Ajax asks no more," was the prayer the great poet put into the lips of his hero in the darkness that overspread the Grecian camp. All we want of American citizens is the opening of their own eyes, and seeing things as they are. The intelligent, thoughtful, and determined gaze of twenty millions of Christian people, there is nothing—no institution wicked and powerful enough to be capable of standing against it. In Keats's beautiful poem of "Lamia," a young man had been led captive by a phantom girl, and was the slave of her beauty, until the old teacher came in and fixed his thoughtful eye upon the figure, and it vanished.

You see the great commonwealth of Virginia fitly represented by a pyramid standing upon its apex. A Connecticut born man entered at one corner of her dominions, and fixed his cold gray eye upon the government of Virginia, and it almost vanished in his very gaze. For it seems that Virginia, for a week, asked leave "to be" of John Brown at Harper's Ferry. (Cheers and applause.) Connecticut has sent out many a schoolmaster to the other thirty States; but never before so grand a teacher as that Litchfield born schoolmaster at Harper's Ferry, writing as it were upon the Natural Bridge in the face of nations his simple copy: "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." (Loud cheers.)

I said that the lesson of the hour was insurrection. I ought not to apply that word to John Brown of Osawatomie, for there was no insurrection in his case. It is a great mistake to call him an insurgent. This principle that I have endeavored so briefly to open to you, of absolute right and wrong, states what? Just this: "Commonwealth of Virginia!" There is no such thing. Lawless, brutal force is no basis of a government, in the true sense of that word. Quæ est enim civitas? asks Cicero. Omnis ne conventus ettam ferorum el immanium? Omnis ne etiam fugitivorum ac latronum congregata unum in locum multitudo? Certe negabis. No civil society, no government, can exist except on the basis of the willing submission of all its citizens, and by the performance of the duty of rendering equal justice between man and man.

Whatever calls itself a government, and refuses that duty, or has not that assent, is no government. It is only a pirate ship. Virginia, the commonwealth of Virginia! She is only a chronic insurrection. I mean exactly what I say. I am weighing my words now. She is a pirate ship, and John Brown sails the sea a Lord High Admiral of the Almighty, with his commission to sink every pirate he meets on God's ocean of the nineteenth century. (Cheers and applause.) I mean literally and exactly what I say. In God's world there are no majorities, no minorities; one, on God's side, is a majority. You have often heard here, doubtless, and I need not tell you the ground of morals. The rights of that one man are as sacred as those of the miscalled commonwealth of Virginia. Virginia is only another Algiers. The barbarous horde who gag each other, imprison women for teaching children to read, prohibit the Bible, sell men on the auction-blocks, abolish marriage, condemn half their women to prostitution, and devote themselves to the breeding of human beings for sale, is only a larger and blacker Algiers. The only prayer of a true man for such is, "Gracious Heaven! unless they repent, send soon their Exmouth and Decatur." John Brown has twice as much right to hang Gov. Wise, as Gov. Wise has to hang him. (Cheers and hisses.) You see I am talking of that absolute essence of things that lives in the sight of the Eternal and the Infinite; not as men judge it in the rotten morals of the nineteenth century, among a herd of States that calls itself an empire, because it raises cotton and sells slaves. What I say is this: Harper's Ferry was the only government in that vicinity. Look at the trial. Virginia, true to herself, has shown exactly the same haste that the pirate does when he tries a man on deck, and runs him up to the yard-arm. Unconsciously she is consistent. Now, you do not think this to-day, some of you, perhaps. But I tell you what absolute History shall judge of these forms and phantoms of ours. John Brown began his life, his public life, in Kansas. The South planted that seed; it reaps the first fruit now. Twelve years ago the great men in Washington, the Websters and the Clays, planted the Mexican war; and they reaped their appropriate fruit in Gen. Taylor and Gen. Pierce pushing them from their statesmen's stools. The South planted the seeds of violence in Kansas, and taught peaceful Northern men familiarity with the bowie-knife and revolver. They planted nine hundred and ninety-nine seeds, and this is the first one that has flowered; this is the first drop of the coming shower. People do me the honor to say, in some of the western papers, that this is traceable to some teachings of mine. It is too much honor to such as me. Gladly, if it were not fulsome vanity, would I clutch this laurel of having any share in the great resolute daring of that man who flung himself against an empire in behalf of justice and liberty. They were not the bravest men who fought at Saratoga and Yorktown, in the war of 1776. O, no! it was rather those who flung themselves, at Lexington, few and feeble, against the embattled ranks of an empire, till then thought irresistible. Elderly men, in powdered wigs and red velvet, smoothed their ruffles, and cried, "Madmen!" Full-fed custom-house clerks said, "A pistol shot against Gibraltar!" But Captain Ingraham, under the stars and stripes, dictating terms to the fleet of the Cæsars, was only the echo of that Lexington gun. Harper's Ferry is the Lexington of to-day. Up to this moment, Brown's life has been one unmixed success. Prudence, skill, courage, thrift, knowledge of his time, knowledge of his opponents, undaunted daring he had all these. He was the man who could leave Kansas, and go into Missouri, and take eleven men and give them to liberty, and bring them off on the horses which he carried with him, and two which he took as tribute from their masters in order to facilitate escape. Then, when he had passed his human proteges from the vulture of the United States to the safe shelter of the English lion, this is the brave, frank, and sublime truster in God's right and absolute justice, that entered his name in the city of Cleveland, "John Brown, of Kansas," advertised there two horses for sale, and stood in front of the auctioneer's stand, notifying all bidders of — what some would think — the defect in the title. (Laughter.) But he added, with nonchalance, when he told the story, "They brought a very excellent price." (Laughter.) This is the man who, in the face of the nation, avowing his right, and laboring with what strength he had in behalf of the wronged, goes down to Harper's Ferry to follow up his work. Well, men say he failed. Every man has his Moscow. Suppose he did fail, every man meets his Waterloo at last. There are two kinds of defeat. Whether in chains or in laurels, Liberty knows nothing but victories. Soldiers call Bunker Hill a defeat; but Liberty dates from it, though Warren lay dead on the field. Men say the attempt did not succeed. No man can command success. Whether it was well planned, and deserved to succeed, we shall be able to decide when Brown is free to tell us all he knows. Suppose he did fail, in one sense, he has done a great deal still. Why, this is a decent country to live in now. (Laughter and cheers.) Actually, in this Sodom of ours, twenty-two men have been found ready to die for an idea. God be thanked for John Brown, that he has discovered or created them. (Cheers.) I should feel some pride, if I was in Europe now, in confessing that I was an American. (Applause.) We have redeemed the long infamy of sixty years of subservience. But look back a bit. Is there any thing new about this? Nothing at all. It is the natural result of Anti-slavery teaching. For one, I accept it; I expected it. I cannot say that I prayed for it; I cannot say that I hoped for it. But at the same time, no sane man has looked upon this matter for twenty years, and supposed that we could go through this great moral convulsion, the great classes of society crashing and jostling against each other like frigates in a storm, and that there would not come such scenes as these.

In 1835 it was the other way. Then it was my bull that gored your ox. Then ideas came in conflict, and men of violence, men who trusted in their own right hands, men who believed in bowie-knives—such sacked the city of Philadelphia; such made New York to be governed by a mob; Boston saw its mayor suppliant and kneeling to the chief of a broadcloth mob in broad daylight. It was all on that side. The natural result, the first result of this starting of ideas, is like people who get half awaked, and use the first weapons that lie at hand. The first show and unfolding of national life, were the mobs of 1835. People said it served us right; we had no right to the luxury of speaking our own minds; it was too expensive; these lavish, prodigal, luxurious persons walking about here, and actually saying what they think. Why, it was like speaking loud in the midst of the avalanches. To say "Liberty" in a loud tone, the Constitution of 1789 might come down—it would not do. But now things have changed. We have been talking thirty years. Twenty years we have talked every where, under all circumstances; we have been mobbed out of great cities, and pelted out of little ones; we have been abused by great men and by little papers. (Laughter and applause.) What is the result? The tables have been turned; it is your bull that has gored my ox now. And men that still believe in violence, the five points of whose faith are the fist, the bowie-knife, fire, poison, and the pistol, are ranged on the side of Liberty, and, unwilling to wait for the slow but sure steps of thought, lay on God's altar the best they have. You cannot expect to put a real Puritan Presbyterian, as John Brown is—a regular Cromwellian dug up from two centuries—in the midst of our New England civilization, that dare not say its soul is its own, nor proclaim that it is wrong to sell a man at auction, and not have him show himself as he is. Put a hound in the presence of a deer, and he springs at his throat if he is a true bloodhound. Put a Christian in the presence of a sin, and he will spring at its throat if he is a true Christian. Into an acid we may throw white matter, but unless it is chalk, it will not produce agitation. So, if in a world of sinners you were to put American Christianity, it would be calm as oil. But put one Christian, like John Brown of Osawatomie, and he makes the whole crystallize into right and wrong, and marshal themselves on one side or the other. God makes him the text, and all he asks of our comparatively cowardly lips is to preach the sermon, and say to the American people that, whether that old man succeeded in a worldly sense or not, he stood a representative of law, of government, of right, of justice, of religion, and they were a mob of murderers that gathered about him, and sought to wreak vengeance by taking his life. The banks of the Potomac, doubly dear now to History and to Man! The dust of Washington rests there; and History will see forever on that river-side the brave old man on his pallet, whose dust, when God calls him hence, the Father of his country would be proud to make room for beside his own. But if Virginia tyrants dare hang him, after this mockery of a trial, it will take two more Washingtons at least to make the name of the State any thing but abominable in time to come. (Applause and hisses.) Well, I say what I really think, (cheers, and cries of "good, good.") George Washington was a great man. Yet I say what I really think. And I know, ladies and gentlemen, that, educated as you have been by the experience of the last ten years here, you would have thought me the silliest as well as the most cowardly man in the world, if I should have come, with my twenty years behind me, and talked about any thing else to-night except that great example which one man has set us on the banks of the Potomac. You expected, of course, that I should tell you my real opinion of it.

I value this element that Brown has introduced into American politics. The South is a great power—no cowards in Virginia. (Laughter.) It was not cowardice. (Laughter.) Now, I try to speak very plain, but you will misunderstand me. There is no cowardice in Virginia. The South are not cowards. The lunatics in the Gospel were not cowards when they said, "Art thou come to torment us before the time?" (Laughter.) They were brave enough, but they saw afar off. They saw the tremendous power that was entering into that charmed circle; they knew its inevitable victory. Virginia did not tremble at an old gray-headed man at Harper's Ferry; they trembled at a John Brown in every man's own conscience. He had been there many years, and, like that terrific scene which Beckford has drawn for us in his Hall of Eblis, where the crowd runs around, each man with an incurable wound in his bosom, and agrees not to speak of it; so the South has been running up and down its political and social life, and every man keeps his right hand pressed on the secret and incurable sore, with an understood agreement, in Church and State, that it never shall be mentioned, for fear the great ghastly fabric shall come to pieces at the talismanic word. Brown uttered it; cried, "Slavery is sin! come, all true men, help pull it down," and the whole machinery trembled to its very base.

I value this movement for another reason. Did you ever see a blacksmith shoe a restless horse? If you have, you have seen him take a small cord and tie the upper lip. Ask him what he does it for, he will tell you to give the beast something to think of. (Laughter.) Now, the South has extensive schemes. She grasps with one hand a Mexico, and with the other she dictates terms to the Church, she imposes conditions on the State, she buys up Webster with a little or a promise, and Everett with nothing. (Great laughter and applause.) John Brown has given her something else to think of. He has turned her attention inwardly. He has taught her that there has been created a new element in this Northern mind; that it is not merely the thinker, that it is not merely the editor, that it is not merely the moral reformer, but the idea has pervaded all classes of society. Call them madmen if you will. Hard to tell who's mad. The world says one man is mad. John Brown said the same of the Governor. You remember the madman in Edinburgh. A friend asked him what he was there for. "Well," cried he, "they said at home that I was mad; and I said I was not; but they had the majority." (Laughter.) Just so it is in regard to John Brown. The nation says he is mad. I appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober; I appeal from the American people, drunk with cotton, and the New York Observer, (loud and long laughter,) to the American people fifty  years hence, when the light of civilization has had more time to penetrate, when self-interest has been rebuked by the world rising and giving its verdict on these great questions, when it is not a small band of Abolitionists, but the civilization of the nineteenth century, in all its varied forms, interests, and elements, that undertakes to enter the arena, and discuss this last great reform. When that day comes, what will be thought of these first martyrs, who teach us how to live and how to die?

Has the slave a right to resist his master? I will not argue that question to a people hoarse with shouting ever since July 4, 1776, that all men are created equal, that the right to liberty is inalienable, and that "resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." But may he resist to blood— with rifles? What need of proving that to a people who load down Bunker Hill with granite, and crowd their public squares with images of Washington; ay, worship the sword go blindly that, leaving their oldest statesmen idle, they go down to the bloodiest battle field in Mexico to drag out a President? But may one help the slave resist, as Brown did? Ask Byron on his death-bed in the marshes of Missolonghi. Ask the Hudson as its waters kiss your shore, what answer they bring from the grave of Kosciusko. I hide the Connecticut Puritan behind Lafayette, bleeding at Brandywine, in behalf of a nation his rightful king forbade him to visit.

But John Brown violated the law. Yes. On yonder desk lie the inspired words of men who died violent deaths for breaking the laws of Rome. Why do you listen to them so reverently? Huss and Wickliffe violated laws, why honor them? George Washington, had he been caught before 1783, would have died on the gibbet, for breaking the laws of his sovereign. Yet I have heard that man praised within six months. Yes, you say, but these men broke bad laws. Just so. It is honorable, then, to break bad laws, and such law breaking History loves and God blesses! Who says, then, that slave laws are not ten thousand times worse than any those men resisted? Whatever argument excuses them, makes John Brown a saint.

Suppose John Brown had not staid at Harper's Ferry. Suppose on that momentous Monday night, when the excited imaginations of two thousand Charlestown people had enlarged him and his little band into four hundred white men and two hundred blacks, he had vanished, and when the gallant troops arrived there, two thousand strong, they had found nobody! The mountains would have been peopled with enemies; the Alleghanies would have heaved with insurrection! You never would have convinced Virginia that all Pennsylvania was not armed and on the hills. Suppose Massachusetts, free Massachusetts, had not given the world the telegraph to flash news like sunlight over half the globe. Then Tuesday would have rolled away, while slow-spreading through dazed Virginia crawled the news of this event. Meanwhile, a hundred men having rallied to Brown's side, he might have marched across the quaking State to Richmond and pardoned Governor Wise. Nat Turner's success, in 1831, shows this would have been possible. Free thought, mother of invention, not Virginia, baffled Brown. But free thought, in the long run, strangles tyrants. Virginia has not slept sound since Nat Turner led an insurrection in 1831, and she bids fair never to have a nap now. (Laughter.) For this is not an insurrection; this is the penetration of a different element. Mark you, it is not the oppressed race rising. Recollect history. There never was a race held in actual chains that vindicated its own liberty but one. There never was a serf nor a slave whose own sword cut off his own chain but one. Blue-eyed, light-haired Anglo-Saxon, it was not our race. We were serfs for three centuries, and we waited till commerce, and Christianity, and a different law, had melted our fetters. We were crowded down into a villanage which crushed out our manhood so thoroughly that we had not vigor enough left to redeem ourselves. Neither France nor Spain, neither the Northern nor the Southern races of Europe have that bright spot on their escutcheon, that they put an end to their own slavery. Blue-eyed, haughty, contemptuous Anglo-Saxons, it was the black the only race in the record of history that ever, after a century of oppression, retained the vigor to write the charter of its emancipation with its own hand in the blood of the dominant race. Despised, calumniated, slandered San Domingo is the only instance in history where a race, with indestructible love of liberty, after bearing a hundred years of oppression, rose up under their own leader, and with their own hands wrested chains from their own limbs. Wait, garrulous, ignorant, boasting Saxon, till you have done half as much, before you talk of the cowardice of the black race!

The slaves of our country have not risen, but, as in most other cases, redemption will come from the interference of a wiser, higher, more advanced civilization on its exterior. It is the almost universal record of history, and ours is a repetition of the same drama. We have awakened at last the enthusiasm of both classes—those that act from impulse, and those that act from calculation. It is a libel on the Yankee to think that it includes the whole race, when you say that if you put a dollar on the other side of hell, the Yankee will spring for it at any risk, (laughter;) for there is an element even in the Yankee blood that obeys ideas; there is an impulsive, enthusiastic aspiration, something left to us from the old Puritan stock; that which made England what she was two centuries ago; that which is fated to give the closest grapple with the Slave Power to-day. This is an invasion by outside power. Civilization in 1600 crept along our shores, now planting her foot, and then retreating; now gaining a foothold, and then receding before barbarism, till at last came Jamestown and Plymouth, and then thirty States.

Harper's Ferry is perhaps one of Raleigh's or Gosnold's colonies, vanishing and to be swept away; by and by will come the immortal one hundred, and Plymouth Rock, with "manifest destiny" written by God's hand on their banner, and the right of unlimited "ANNEXATION" granted by Heaven itself.

It is the lesson of the age. The first cropping out of it is in such a man as John Brown. Grant that he did not measure his means; that he was not thrifty as to his method; he did not calculate closely enough, and he was defeated. What is defeat? Nothing but education—nothing but the first step to something better. All that is wanted is, that our public opinion shall not creep around like a servile coward, corrupt, disordered, insane public opinion, and proclaim that Governor Wise, because he says he is a Governor, is a Governor; that Virginia is a State, because she says she is so.

Thank God, I am not a citizen. You will remember, all of you, citizens of the United States, that there was not a Virginia gun fired at John Brown. Hundreds of well-armed Maryland and Virginia troops rushed to Harper's Ferry and—went away! You shot him! Sixteen marines, to whom you pay eight dollars a month—your own representatives. When the disturbed State could not stand on her own legs for trembling, you went there and strengthened the feeble knees, and held up the palsied hand. Sixteen men, with the Vulture of the Union above them—(sensation)— your representatives! It was the covenant with death and agreement with hell, which you call the Union of thirty States, that took the old man by the throat with a pirate hand; and it will be the disgrace of our civilization if a gallows is ever erected in Virginia that bears his body. "The most resolute man I ever saw," says Governor Wise, "the most daring, the coolest. I would trust his truth about any question. The sincerest!" Sincerity, courage, resolute daring, beating in a heart that feared God, and dared all to help his brother to liberty—Virginia has nothing, nothing for those qualities but a scaffold! (Applause.) In her broad dominion she can only afford him six feet for a grave! God help the Commonwealth that bids such welcome to the noblest qualities that can grace poor human nature! Yet that is the acknowledgment of Governor Wise himself! I will not dignify such a horde with the name of a Despotism; since Despotism is sometimes magnanimous. Witness Russia, covering Schamyl with generous protection. Compare that with mad Virginia, hurrying forward this ghastly trial.

They say it cost the officers and persons in responsible positions more effort to keep hundreds of startled soldiers from shooting the five prisoners, sixteen marines had made, than it cost those marines to take the Armory itself. Soldiers and civilians both alike—only a mob fancying itself a government! And mark you, I have said they were not a government. They not only are not a government, but they have not even the remotest idea of what a government is. (Laughter.) They do not begin to have the faintest conception of what a civilized government is. Here is a man arraigned before a jury, or about to be. The State of Virginia, as she calls herself, is about to try him. The first step in that trial is a jury; the second is a judge; and at the head stands the Chief Executive of the State, who holds the power to pardon murder; and yet that very Executive, who, according to the principles of the sublimest chapter in Algernon Sydney's immortal book, is bound by the very responsibility that rests on him, to keep his mind impartial as to the guilt of any person arraigned, hastens down to Richmond, hurries to the platform, and proclaims to the assembled Commonwealth of Virginia, "The man is a murderer, and ought to be hung." Almost every lip in the State might have said it except that single lip of its Governor; and the moment he had uttered these words, in the theory of the English law, it was not possible to impannel an impartial jury in the Commonwealth of Virginia; it was not possible to get the materials and the machinery to try him according to even the ugliest pattern of English jurisprudence. And yet the Governor does not know that he has written himself down non compos, and the Commonwealth that he governs supposes itself still a Christian polity. They have not the faintest conception of what goes to make up government. The worst Jeffries that ever, in his most drunken hour, climbed up a lamp-post in the streets of London, would not have tried a man who could not stand on his feet. There is no such record in the blackest roll of tyranny. If Jeffries could speak, he would thank God that at last his name might be taken down from the gibbet of History, since the Virginia Beach has made his worst act white, set against the blackness of this modern infamy. (Applause.) And yet the New York press daily prints the accounts of the trial. Trial! In the names of Holt and Somers, of Hale and Erskine, of Parsons, Marshall, and Jay, I protest against the name. Trial for life, in Anglo-Saxon dialect, has a proud, historic meaning. It includes indictment by impartial peers; a copy of such indictment and a list of witnesses furnished the prisoner, with ample time to scrutinize both; liberty to choose, and time to get counsel; a sound body and a sound mind to arrange one's defence; I need not add, a judge and jury impartial as the lot of humanity will admit; honored bulwarks and safeguards, each one the trophy and result of a century's struggle. Wounded, fevered, lying half unconscious on his pallet, unable to stand on his feet, the trial half finished before his first request for aid had reached his friends,—no list of witnesses or knowledge of them till the crier, calling the name of some assassin of his comrades, wakes him to consciousness; the judge a tool, and the prosecutor seeking popularity by pandering to the mob; no decent form observed, and the essence of a fair trial wholly wanting, our History and Law alike protest against degrading the honored name of Jury Trial by leading it to such an outrage as this. The Inquisition used to break every other bone in a man's body, and then lay him on a pallet, giving him neither counsel nor opportunity to consult one, and wring from his tortured mouth something like a confession, and call it a trial. But it was heaven-robed innocence compared with the trial, or what the New York press call so, that has been going on in crazed and maddened Charlestown.

I wish I could say any thing worthy of the great deed which has taken place in our day—the opening of the sixth seal, the pouring out of the last vial but one on a corrupt and giant Institution. I know that many men will deem me a fanatic for uttering this whosesale vituperation, as it will be called, upon a State, and this indorsement of a madman. I can only say that I have spoken on this Anti-slavery question before the American people thirty years; that I have seen the day when this same phase of popular feeling—rifles and force—was on the other side. You remember the first time I was ever privileged to stand on this platform by the magnanimous generosity of your clergyman, when New York was about to bully and crush out the freedom of speech at the dictation of Capt. Rynders. From that day to this, the same braving of public thought has been going on from here to Kansas, until it bloomed in the events of the last three years. It has changed the whole face of the sentiment in these Northern States. You meet with the evidence of it every where. When the first news from Harper's Ferry came to Massachusetts, if you were riding in the cars, if you were walking in the streets, if you met a Democrat, or a Whig, or a Republican, no matter what his politics, it was a singular circumstance that he did not speak of the guilt of Brown, of the atrocity of the deed, as you might have expected. The first impulsive expression, the first outbreak of every man's words was, "What a pity he did not succeed! (Laughter.) What a fool he was for not going off Monday, when he had all he wanted! How strange that he did not take his victory, and march away with it!" It indicated the unconscious leavening of a sympathy with the attempt. Days followed on; they commenced what they called their trial; you met the same classes again; no man said he ought to be hung; no man said he was guilty; no man predicated any thing of his moral position; every man voluntarily and inevitably seemed to give vent to his indignation at the farce of a trial, indicative again of that unheeded, potent, unconscious, but widespread sympathy on the side of Brown.

Do you suppose that these things mean nothing? What the tender and poetic youth dreams to-day, as Emerson says, and conjures up with inarticulate speech, is to-morrow the vociferated result of public opinion, and the day after is the charter of nations. The American people have begun to feel. The mute eloquence of the fugitive slave has gone up and down the highways and byways of the country; it will annex itself to the great American heart of the North, even in the most fossil state of its hunkerism, as a latent sympathy with its right side. This blow, like the first gun at Lexington, "heard around the world,"—this blow at Harper's Ferry reveals men. Watch those about you, and you will see more of the temper and unconscious purpose and real moral position of men than you would imagine. This is the way nations are to be judged. Be not in a hurry; action will come soon enough from this sentiment. We stereotype feeling into intellect, and then into statutes, and finally into national character. We have now the first stage of growth. Nature's live growths crowd out and rive dead matter. Ideas strangle statutes. Pulse-beats wear down granite, whether piled in jails or Capitols. The people's hearts are the only title-deeds after all. Your Barnburners said, "Patroon titles are unrighteous." Judges replied, "Such is the law." Wealth shrieked, "Vested rights!" Parties talked of Constitutions; still, the people said, "Sin." They shot a sheriff. A parrot press cried, "Anarchy!" Lawyers growled, "Murder!"—still, nobody

was hung, if I recollect aright. To-day, the heart of the Barnburner beats in the statute-book of your State. John Brown's movement against Slavery is exactly the same. Wait a while, and you'll all agree with me. What is fanaticism today is the fashionable creed to-morrow, and trite as the multiplication table a week after.

John Brown has stirred those omnipotent pulses—Lydia Maria Childs is one. She says, "That dungeon is the place for me," and writes a letter in magnanimous appeal to the better nature of Gov. Wise. She says in it, "John Brown is a hero; he has done a noble deed. I think he was all right; but he is sick; he is wounded; he wants a woman's nursing. I am an Abolitionist; I have been so thirty years. I think Slavery is a sin, and John Brown a saint; but I want to come and nurse him; and I pledge my word that if you will open his prison door, I will use the privilege, under sacred honor, only to nurse him. I enclose you a message to Brown; be sure and deliver it." And the message was, "Old man, God bless you! You have struck a noble blow; you have done a mighty work; God was with you; your heart was in the right place. I send you across five hundred miles the pulse of a woman's gratitude." And Gov. Wise has opened the door, and announced to the world that she may go in. John Brown has conquered the pirate. (Applause.) Hope! there is hope every where. It is only the universal history:

“Right forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne;

But that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown

Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.”

SOURCE: James Redpath, Editor, Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, p. 43-66

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Lucius B. Peck to Senator Daniel S. Dickinson, January 24, 1853

CHELSEA, January 24, 1853.

MY DEAR SIR—Your favor of the 15th instant reached me at this place this evening, where I have been for the past week, attending court.

The death of Mr. Upham was most unexpected to us all, though Mrs. U. had a presentiment that he would not recover. She reached Washington in company with her son-in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Langdon, the Tuesday before his death. Annette remained in Montpelier. They returned last Saturday, but I have not seen them.

*          *          *          *

Your kind and friendly letter, addressed to me at Burlington, was forwarded to me from that place, and received some days after its date. I owe you an apology for not acknowledging its reception at an earlier day; but as it did not call for an immediate answer I have permitted professional engagements to delay a reply. Your approval of my conduct, in a somewhat trying and delicate matter, has given me great pleasure, and your letter will be preserved as evidence of the good opinion of one whose approbation and friendship any man may justly be proud of.

The recent severe domestic affliction of Gen. Pierce1 has, to some extent, checked cabinet speculations; but I still believe, what I have believed, as well as hoped, ever since his election, that wise counsels will yet prevail, and that you will occupy that position which you so richly merit. I cannot believe that those who are raising Heaven and earth to defeat you will be permitted to triumph in their unjust and unwise attack.

Mrs. Peek is still in Washington, slowly improving in health. She still holds in kind remembrance yourself and family, and often speaks of you all in her letters.

Make my kind regards to your wife and daughters, and believe me,

Most cordially your friend,
LUCIUS B. PEEK.
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1 Editor’s Note: The President-elect and family were traveling by train from Boston on January 6, 1853 when their car derailed near Andover, Massachusetts and rolled down an embankment. Both Franklin and Jane Pierce survived the crash but their only surviving child, 11 year old Benjamin, was crushed to death and nearly decapitated.

SOURCE: John R. Dickinson, Editor, Speeches, Correspondence, Etc., of the Late Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Vol. 2, p. 474-5

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Senator Robert M. T. Hunter to Herschel V. Johnson, December 2, 1852

LLOYDS, ESSEX Co. [VA.], December 2nd, 1852.

MY DEAR SIR: I received your letter after it had performed its circumnavigation through various post offices of Virginia and write to thank you for it. I only wish that I could give you more than my speculations upon the interesting subjects to which your letter alludes. I know nothing with certainty as to the future course of the President elect. I guess that his feelings are all on the side of State rights, perhaps not so much so as that of state remedies. I also believe that his natural inclinations are towards economy and simplicity, but whether his grasp will be comprehensive enough for the party and the people whom he is called to lead I know not. I most earnestly wish that he may prove equal to the place. Much will depend upon his cabinet. In regard to which I will say at once that I do not look to a place in it. I have no reason to suppose that one would be offered me and if it were I would much prefer my place in the Senate. I say this in confidence because it is a subject on which I could not speak except to a friend. I should think that he would hardly commit such an impudence (to say the least of it) as to take up Cobb, in preference to such a man as yourself for example or those State rights men who really fought this battle for him. I have no right to suppose that he will consult me but should he do so I would give him my opinion pretty frankly as to the claims of the States rights men of the South. They constitute I presume a large majority of the Democratic party South and should Pierce begin by throwing them off it would be a sorry commencement of his administration. I should not be surprised if he threw his patronage to some extent amongst those Union men for the purpose of harmonizing his supporters but he would hardly venture to take up Cobb to the disparagement of the real and efficient leaders of the Democratic party South.

What he will do I know not. But surely he will consult the wishes of the Democratic party in the South of which the major element is undoubtedly composed of State Rights men. When I get to Washington I shall be able to form a better estimate of the probable course of events and will endeavor to keep you advised should you desire it. I must say however that I think there are breakers ahead

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 153-4

Henry A. Wise to Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, April 16, 1853

ONLY, NEAR ONANCOCK, VA., April 16, 1853.

MY DEAR HUNTER: I thank you for yours of the 11th. I did not expect you would be able to tell me any thing definite. I have nothing in the world to complain of in these people. I stood aloof, they called me to them and were very kind in wishing to know my wishes, fortunately I had none and they were indefinite except in strong expressions that they would wish me to serve the administration. I cautiously avoided telling them what I did want or rather that I did want nothing. The Pres[iden]t was specifick in saying he would obey any request in respect to my son. Now that is what I have most at heart. On that subject I have written to Cushing1 and Buchanan expressing the wish for him to be Secretary of Legation at St. James! As to myself, let them alone, give 'em their own way for the future. Move not another inch further than you have gone in my behalf, for which I thank you. The President told me expressly that, if I said so, Robt. G. Scott should have the Consulate to Rio. I declined the appointment on my say so, but requested leave for Scott to communicate with him himself which he gave. I wrote to Scott and gave him instructions, Bedinger I tried to assist. There is a mistery in the Buchanan affair. He has kept in the dark until the last minute. But for me I doubt if it would have been tendered him. He seems miffed and close. I care not a fig who goes to France. Don't you distrust Cushing too much or at all. You don't know all and I am not at liberty to tell you the key to his apparent bewilderment. P[ierce] told me expressly he appointed him at my instance and Cushing knows it. He is grateful and true but timid as a hare and has a nice game to play. Give him space and dont disturb his work, it will come out right, he is a worker and must be strengthened by you all you can. He has more heart than he shows, but you must get at it quietly or it will flutter out at the window. He is my friend or I am a fool. He was deceived or mistaken only about Dr. Garnetts little place. Matters have not taken direction yet. The Cass party have certainly most of the loaves thus far. I tell you there are unseen influences at work. I am watching them and the first mole I see above ground I'll catch for you. Moles cant live in our soil. That is the reason patronage weakens every administration, as it has done in my time every one except one. Jackson openly patronized his known friends and that made him troops of them.

Bayly wants his brother-in-law made our Surveyor of the post. I am to the incumbent, Dr. Bagwell, situated as you are to Col. Garnett in Norfolk. I hope he may be retained but he is a radical Whig and I can say nothing. A rascal, Saml. C. White, Tully tells me, tried to impose on you for this place. The Democrats here had rather Bagwell was retained than White or Melvin either appointed. If Bagwell is turned out I wish that poor shoe-maker, Revell, to get the place.
_______________

1 Caleb Cushing was appointed Attorney General in Pierce's Cabinet. This is probably the appointment to which Wise refers.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 156-7

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Charles Sumner to George Sumner, November 26[, 1850]

Our movement here is part of the great liberal movement of Europe; and as “law and order” are the words by which reaction has rallied in Europe, so these very words, or perhaps the “Constitution and Union,” are the cry here. The Fugitive Slave bill has aroused the North; people are shocked by its provisions. Under the discussion which it has called forth, the antislavery sentiment has taken a new start. You have seen that in Massachusetts the Whigs are prostrate; I doubt if they are not beyond any resurrection.1 They are in a minority from which they cannot recover. In the Senate the opposition will have ten or twelve majority, in the House fifty majority. It is understood that Boutwell will be chosen governor, and a Free Soil senator in the place of Daniel Webster.
_______________

1 They regained power in the State in 1852, by the interposition of President Pierce's Administration, which prevented the Democrats from co-operating further with the Free Soilers, but were again finally defeated in 1854.

SOURCES: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 230

Saturday, January 20, 2024

Richard Rowzee to Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, August 2, 1852

TAPPAHANNOCK, ESSEX Co., VA., August 2nd, 1852.

MY DEAR SIR: The Federal press and party are circulating a charge against Genl. Pierce, the nominee of the democratic party for the presidency, to the effect, that he, in a speech delivered at New Boston in December last, expressed himself in such terms as to leave no doubt of his abolition principles. Whilst the charge has been denied in the democratic papers, several democrats are doubting as to the course they shall take in the presidential election, and some I fear, will withhold their support to the democratic candidate, if they do not give in their adhesion to the federal one, all of whom may be saved to the party, if they can be convinced of the falsity of the charge. I know of no other way better to convince them than a statement of your opinion in relation to it. I therefore write to ask you' to inform me whether you believe or disbelieve the charge. I with those who are doubting the course they shall pursue, have fears, that I should not have had, but for the circulation of this charge, which if true, would be destructive to our interests, and which can not be quieted by Newspaper publications, in which I have but little confidence. I am now an old and private man, having surrendered all my public trusts and duties under the old Constitution; anything therefore that will give me some of the passing events of the day, will be an amusement and gratification to me. You will therefore, if you please, send me the patent office reports for 1850-51, and any that may be of a later date, with any document that you may think will interest and amuse an old man in retirement. I trust you are in the enjoyment of health, and that that inestimable blessing may be continued to you through a long life to be devoted to your family and country.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 145-6

Senator Robert M. T. Hunter to Richard Rowzee, August 9, 1852

WASHINGTON, [D. C.], August 9th, 1852.

MY DEAR SIR: I regret to learn from your letter that there are democrats in our county who hestitate in relation to voting for Pierce and King upon the suspicion that the former entertains "abolition principles." You ask my opinion in relation to this charge. I have no hestitation in saying that I have never given this charge the least credence. Gen[era]l Pierce's course upon this subject whilst he was in Congress was such as to have made it highly improbable that he could have uttered any such statement. The charge too has been denied by persons who heard the speech at New Boston, first by Messrs. B. F. Ager and James M. Campbell. The certain respectibility and credibility of these gentlemen have been vouched by Mr. Norris, a Senator from New Hampshire, and Messrs. Hibbard and Peaslee members of the Ho[use] of Rep[resentative]s from the same state. These are gentlemen of the very highest standing, men whose word no one can doubt who knows them. The statement of Messrs. Ager and Campbell has been sustained by more than one hundred persons who were present when the speech was delivered and who have published a document to that effect. But in addition to all this an editorial of the Union for which I presume Genl. Armstrong is responsible states that he has seen a letter from Genl. Pierce himself denouncing the charge as being "grossly false."

It seems to me that this evidence ought to satisfy any unprejudiced mind. I may add that I was a member of the Ho[use] of Rep[resentative]s whilst Gen[era]l Pierce was in the Senate and had some opportunities to observe his course. The result of these observations was a conviction that he was one of the most reliable politicians upon this subject of slavery of all whom I knew in the non-slaveholding states.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 146-7

John W. Duncan to Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, October 23, 1852

MILLEDGEVILLE, GEORGIA, October 23rd, 1852.

MY DEAR SIR: I have just had the pleasure of reading, your speech, delivered some time ago in Richmond, and I assure you, I have rarely seen a clearer and more conclusive exemplification of true democratic principles and policy, than is contained in it. If it is published in pamphlet form, I wish you would be good enough to send me one or two copies. I am very glad, that you took the opportunity of giving your opinion upon two subjects, that seem now to form a prominent portion of the democratic creed, but which, you boldly and ably repudiate as most dangerous to our best interests. I mean Johnsons measure for giving away the public lands known as the Homestead Bill and the new doctrine of "Intervention." Either of these principles would destroy the best party on earth, and are certainly antagonistic to the recognized views of the "Virginia School." By the way was John Randolph a pupil of that school or an excrescence upon it. In what light is he held by its true disciples?

I suppose you begin to think by this time, that the politics of Georgia are perfectly inexplicable. The truth of the matter is we have a few leaders here, who are determined to sacrifice everything, even Pierce's election, to their own personal feelings. I told you when I saw you in July last in Washington, that I did not doubt, we should roll up a handsome majority for Pierce in Georgia. I then believed, that the elements of the democratic party, which had for a time been separated would harmoniously unite, but I am grievously disappointed. After the Baltimore Convention Gov [ernor] Cobb's friends held a separate meeting, and nominated a new Electoral Ticket, and thus put the democracy at defiance. The Whigs refused to sustain Cobb and went off into two wings, that of Scott and Webster and he soon began to see the anomalous position which he occupied, and he withdrew the ticket of Electors, composed one half of Whigs and the other of democrats. But he had carried his friends so far he found it would be more difficult to bring them back. So he began to beg and entreat but alas! the door was shut in his face and there he now stands at this eleventh hour a miserable suppliant at the threshold of the Party with none even to pity or reverence him.

His friends in the highlands of the State have again put out another ticket for Pierce and King, the effect of which will be to distract the Party and prevent the popular vote from being cast for our Candidates. We therefore expect that the Legislature must be specially called to unite the knot which the politicians have made. So much for York and Lancaster.

I see that Botts, the notorious nocturnal companion of Tyler, has been pledging your State to Scott. Don't you think he ought to be indicted? I look upon this as a slander upon the good old dominion that never once was known to "flush" in her devotion to democracy. I look upon Pierce's election as an absolute certainty, and then I have no doubt we shall have the government conducted on sound democratic and economical principles. What do you think about it?

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 147-9

Frank G. Ruffin to Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, November 2, 1852

SHADWELL, ALBEMARLE Co., [VA.], November 2nd, 1852.

MY DEAR SIR: I know not if a man retired as I am from politics and never very active or influential in that field has a title to ask a favour even at the hands of one of his own strait sect; but as I speak not in my own behalf but for another I have ventured to approach you on the subject.

I learn, but not from himself, or by his agency, that in case Mr. Pierce shall have been elected, my friend, Gov[erno]r McDonald of Georgia has been mentioned in his own and some other contiguous states as a suitable member of the Cabinet: and it has been suggested that your influence would avail in getting him into that position. I need not mention to you how true he has been to the rights of the South and that he is not more of a disunionist than you and I, that is to say, as the lady remarked of Wilkes, "he does not squint more than every gentleman ought to." But I may say, what his retiring disposition and rare modesty may have prevented your knowing, that he is a man of marked ability, of wise moderation, of Roman firmness, of devoted patriotism, and of the loftiest public and private character. Every drop of his blood pulseth in accordance with Southern rights; and had every Southern man been as wise, as prudent, and as firm as he we should not now have to mourn the surrender of those rights?

I presume from Cobb's activity, that he is after some such post. You know him. Ought such a man, dead in his own state, except perhaps for purposes of mischief, to supplant him whom I propose, and thus rise one step higher towards that office which he has sought by betraying not only his own section, but the very principles which he proposes to maintain? Would it not be a step gained that the President of the Nashville Convention should aid the deliberations of Mr. Pierce?

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 149

Herschel V. Johnson* to Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, November 8, 1852

(Private.)

ELIZABETH CITY Co., NEAR HAMPTON, [VA.],
November 5th, 1852.

MY DEAR HUNTER: I wrote you in June a short note from Baltimore immediately after the adjournment of the Convention, to which I rec[eive]d an answer in a few days. I write now to acknowl

edge its receipt and to say that I have had several very free conversations with Wise since. He speaks of you in the kindest manner and does you ample justice, meet him with the cordiality of former days and all will be well. I know that he loves you and desires your friendship, nay thinks himself entitled to it. I pray God that nothing may ever occur to separate you.

Franklin Pierce from present indications will receive at least 270 of the electoral vote-the vote of every Southern State. We believe, an awful beating, this indeed. He is indebted to Virginia for his Crown. Well who from our State must go into the Cabinet? You say "I have nothing to ask and shall ask nothing from the incoming administration for myself." Do you intend to say that you would decline any offer? I ask the question because I frequently heard you spoken of and the wish expressed that you would accept the Treasury if offered you, indeed I have been asked if I thought you would accept. I had not thought much upon the subject, and had no wish about it. The only desire I have upon the subject is that you should exercise your own judgment and be where you can be most useful.

The Treasury will be the great leaver to work for reform 'tis very certain, and I hope to see some Southern man of the right stamp at it.. Your present position is a commanding one and one from which you can better be heard by the nation, perhaps too it is nearer to the succession. Well if you shall come next after Pierce I shall not despair of the republic.

The last time I saw Bayly he told me that you would be the next President, that he intended to make you President. "You be d-d you can't get back to Congress yourself, and you talk to me about making Hunter President." "When and how come you so fond of Hunter. You always loved Hunter better than you love me." "If it be true can't you account for it very, very easy. Hunter votes right always-You only occasionally." Booker it is impossible you can doubt my fidelity to the South you must have confidence in me. "Confidence sir is a plant of slow groth as Mr. Pitt said." I like Bayly very much. We have been friends a long time, and Ì have tried very hard to forgive him. I withheld from him my vote the last time he was a candidate. It was painful to me to be obliged to do so. He does not understand his position, does, not know how much ground he has lost. I doubt if he can ever recover. In saying this much do not understand me as doubting his fidelity to you. I do not, no, I believe him sincere. In the event of your taking a seat in the Cabinet Bayly and Wise will both struggle hard for your place in the Senate, the former I am certain cannot succeed the latter may, perhaps will. I know of no really formidable competitor in the East. I am interrupted and must conclude before I had finished all I had to say.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 149-50

Thursday, July 21, 2022

Effigies of President Pierce and Mr. Brooks — published June 7, 1856

CONCORD, June 5.—This morning effigies of President Pierce and Preston S. Brooks were found hanging in front of the State House, eighty feet from the ground at the top of the Pierce and King liberty pole of 1852. An effigy of Col. George was also found in another part of the city bearing the words, “The Glorious and Godlike administration of Pierce.[”]

SOURCE: Richmond Daily Whig, Richmond Virginia, Saturday Morning, June 7, 1856, p. 4

Thursday, April 7, 2022

William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, July 10, 1860

ALEXANDRIA, July 101860.

. . . I feel little interest in politics and certainly am glad to see it realized that politicians can't govern the country. They may agitate, but cannot control. Let who may be elected, the same old game will be played, and he will go out of office like Pierce and Buchanan with their former honors sunk and lost. I only wonder that honorable men should seek the office.

I do not concieve that any of the parties would materially interfere with the slavery in the states, and in the territories it is a mere abstraction. There is plenty of room in the present slave states for all the negroes, but the time has come when the free states may annoy the slave states by laws of a general declaration, but that they will change the relation of master and slave I don't believe.

All the congresses on earth can't make the negro anything else than what he is; he must be subject to the white man, or he must amalgamate or be destroyed. Two such races cannot live in harmony save as master and slave. Mexico shows the result of general equality and amalgamation, and the Indians give a fair illustration of the fate of negroes if they are released from the control of the whites. Of course no one can guess what the wild unbridled passions of men may do, but I don't believe that the present excitement in politics is anything more than the signs of the passage of power from the southern politicians to northern and western politicians.

The negro is made the hobby, but I know that northern men don't care any more about the rights and humanities of the negroes than the southerners. At present negroes work under control of white men and the consequence is the annual yield of $200,000,000 of cotton, sugar, and other produce that would not be without such labor; and so long as that is the case, I don't fear a change in this respect. . .

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 241-2

Tuesday, March 22, 2022

The Ostend Manifesto,* October 18, 1854

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, October 18th, 1854.
TO THE HON. WM. L. MARCY,
        Secretary of State.

SIR: The undersigned, in compliance with the wish expressed by the President in the several confidential despatches you have addressed to us respectively to that effect, have met in conference, first at Ostend, in Belgium, on the 9th, 10th, and 11th instant, and then at Aix-la-Chapelle, in Prussia, on the days next following, up to the date hereof.

There has been a full and unreserved interchange of views and sentiments between us, which, we are most happy to inform you, has resulted in a cordial coincidence of opinion on the grave and important subjects submitted to our consideration.

We have arrived at the conclusion and are thoroughly convinced that an immediate and earnest effort ought to be made by the Government of the United States to purchase Cuba from Spain, at any price for which it can be obtained, not exceeding the sum of one hundred and twenty millions of dollars.

The proposal should, in our opinion, be made in such a manner as to be presented, through the necessary diplomatic forms, to the Supreme Constituent Cortes about to assemble. On this momentous question, in which the people both of Spain and the United States are so deeply interested, all our proceedings ought to be open, frank, and public. They should be of such a character as to challenge the approbation of the World.

We firmly believe that, in the progress of human events, the time has arrived when the vital interests of Spain are as seriously involved in the sale as those of the United States in the purchase of the Island, and that the transaction will prove equally honorable to both nations.

Under these circumstances, we cannot anticipate a failure, unless, possibly, through the malign influence of foreign Powers who possess no right whatever to interfere in the matter.

We proceed to state some of the reasons which have brought us to this conclusion; and, for the sake of clearness, we shall specify them under two distinct heads:

1. The United States ought, if practicable, to purchase Cuba with as little delay as possible.

2. The probability is great that the Government and Cortes of Spain will prove willing to sell it, because this would essentially promote the highest and best interests of the Spanish people.

Then—1. It must be clear to every reflecting mind that, from the peculiarity of its geographical position and the considerations attendant on it, Cuba is as necessary to the North American Republic as any of its present members, and that it belongs naturally to that great family of States of which the Union is the Providential Nursery.

From its locality it commands the mouth of the Mississippi and the immense and annually increasing trade which must seek this avenue to the ocean.

On the numerous navigable streams, measuring an aggregate course of some thirty thousand miles, which disembogue themselves through this magnificent river into the Gulf of Mexico, the increase of the population, within the last ten years, amounts to more than that of the entire Union at the time Louisiana was annexed to it.

The natural and main outlet of the products of this entire population, the highway of their direct intercourse with the Atlantic and the Pacific States, can never be secure, but must ever be endangered whilst Cuba is a dependency of a distant Power, in whose possession it has proved to be a source of constant annoyance and embarrassment to their interests.

Indeed, the Union can never enjoy repose, nor possess reliable security, as long as Cuba is not embraced within its boundaries.

Its immediate acquisition by our Government is of paramount importance, and we cannot doubt but that it is a consummation devoutly wished for by its inhabitants.

The intercourse which its proximity to our coasts begets and encourages between them and the citizens of the United States has, in the progress of time, so united their interests and blended their fortunes, that they now look upon each other as if they were one people and had but one destiny.

Considerations exist which render delay in the acquisition of this Island exceedingly dangerous to the United States.

The system of emigration and labor lately organized within its limits, and the tyranny and oppression which characterize its immediate rulers, threaten an insurrection, at every moment, which may result in direful consequences to the American People.

Cuba has thus become to us an unceasing danger, and a permanent cause of anxiety and alarm.

But we need not enlarge on these topics. It can scarcely be apprehended that foreign Powers, in violation of international law, would interpose their influence with Spain to prevent our acquisition of the Island. Its inhabitants are now suffering under the worst of all possible Governments,—that of absolute despotism, delegated by a distant Power to irresponsible agents who are changed at short intervals, and who are tempted to improve the brief opportunity thus afforded to accumulate fortunes by the basest means.

As long as this system shall endure, humanity may in vain demand the suppression of the African Slave trade in the Island. This is rendered impossible whilst that infamous traffic remains an irresistible temptation and a source of immense profit to needy and avaricious officials who, to attain their end, scruple not to trample the most sacred principles under foot.

The Spanish Government at home may be well disposed, but experience has proved that it cannot control these remote depositories of its power.

Besides, the commercial nations of the world cannot fail to perceive and appreciate the great advantages which would result to their people from a dissolution of the forced and unnatural connection between Spain and Cuba, and the annexation of the latter to the United States. The trade of England and France with Cuba would, in that event, assume at once an important and profitable character, and rapidly extend with the increasing population and prosperity of the Island.

2. But if the United States and every commercial nation would be benefited by this transfer, the interests of Spain would also be greatly and essentially promoted.

She cannot but see that such a sum of money as we are willing to pay for the Island would effect in the development of her vast natural resources.

Two thirds of this sum, if employed in the construction of a system of Railroads, would ultimately prove a source of greater wealth to the Spanish people than that opened to their vision by Cortes. Their prosperity would date from the ratification of the Treaty of cession. France has already constructed continuous lines of Railways from Havre, Marseilles, Valenciennes, and Strasbourg, via Paris, to the Spanish frontier, and anxiously awaits the day when Spain shall find herself in a condition to extend these roads, through her Northern provinces, to Madrid, Seville, Cadiz, Malaga, and the frontiers of Portugal.

This object once accomplished, Spain would become a centre of attraction for the travelling world and secure a permanent and profitable market for her various productions. Her fields, under the stimulus given to industry by remunerating prices, would teem with cereal grain, and her vineyards would bring forth a vastly increased quantity of choice wines. Spain would speedily become, what a bountiful Providence intended she should be, one of the first Nations of Continental Europe, rich, powerful, and contented.

Whilst two thirds of the price of the Island would be ample for the completion of her most important public improvements, she might, with the remaining forty millions, satisfy the demands now pressing so heavily upon her credit, and create a sinking fund which would gradually relieve her from the overwhelming debt now paralysing her energies.

Such is her present wretched financial condition, that her best bonds are sold, upon her own Bourse, at about one third of their par value; whilst another class, on which she pays no interest, have but a nominal value and are quoted at about one sixth of the amount for which they were issued. Besides, these latter are held principally by British creditors, who may, from day to day, obtain the effective interposition of their own Government, for the purpose of coercing payment. Intimations to that effect have been already thrown out from high quarters, and unless some new, source of revenue shall enable Spain to provide for such exigencies, it is not improbable that they may be realized.

Should Spain reject the present golden opportunity for developing her resources and removing her present financial embarrassments, it may never again return.

Cuba, in its palmiest days, never yielded her Exchequer, after deducting the expenses of its Government, a clear annual income of more than a million and a half of dollars. These expenses have increased to such a degree as to leave a deficit chargeable on the Treasury of Spain to the amount of six hundred thousand dollars.

In a pecuniary point of view, therefore, the Island is an encumbrance instead of a source of profit to the Mother Country.

Under no probable circumstances can Cuba ever yield to Spain one per cent. on the large amount which the United States are willing to pay for its acquisition.

But Spain is in imminent danger of losing Cuba without remuneration.

Extreme oppression, it is now universally admitted, justifies any people in endeavoring to relieve themselves from the yoke of their oppressors. The sufferings which the corrupt, arbitrary, and unrelenting local administration necessarily entails upon the inhabitants of Cuba cannot fail to stimulate and keep alive that spirit of resistance and revolution against Spain which has of late years been so often manifested. In this condition of affairs, it is vain to expect that the sympathies of the people of the United States will not be warmly enlisted in favor of their oppressed neighbors.

We know that the President is justly inflexible in his determination to execute the neutrality laws, but should the Cubans themselves rise in revolt against the oppressions which they suffer, no human power could prevent citizens of the United States and liberal minded men of other countries from rushing to their assistance.

Besides, the present is an age of adventure, in which restless and daring spirits abound in every portion of the world.

It is not improbable, therefore, that Cuba may be wrested from Spain by a successful revolution; and in that event, she will lose both the Island and the price which we are now willing to pay for it—a price far beyond what was ever paid by one people to another for any province.

It may also be here remarked that the settlement of this vexed question, by the cession of Cuba to the United States, would forever prevent the dangerous complications between nations to which it may otherwise give birth.

It is certain that, should the Cubans themselves organize an insurrection against the Spanish Government, and should other independent nations come to the aid of Spain in the contest, no human power could, in our opinion, prevent the people and Government of the United States from taking part in such a civil war in support of their neighbors and friends.

But if Spain, deaf to the voice of her own interest, and actuated by stubborn pride and a false sense of honor, should refuse to sell Cuba to the United States, then the question will arise, what ought to be the course of the American Government under such circumstances?

Self-preservation is the first law of nature, with States as well as with individuals. All nations have, at different periods, acted upon this maxim. Although it has been made the pretext for committing flagrant injustice, as in the partition of Poland and other similar cases which history records, yet the principle itself, though often abused, has always been recognized.

The United States have never acquired a foot of territory, except by fair purchase, or, as in the case of Texas, upon the free and voluntary application of the people of that independent State, who desired to blend their destinies with our own.

Even our acquisitions from Mexico are no exception to this rule, because, although we might have claimed them by the right of conquest in a just way, yet we purchased them for what was then considered by both parties a full and ample equivalent.

Our past history forbids that we should acquire the Island of Cuba without the consent of Spain, unless justified by the great law of self-preservation. We must in any event preserve our own conscious rectitude and our own self-respect.

Whilst pursuing this course, we can afford to disregard the censures of the world to which we have been so often and so unjustly exposed.

After we shall have offered Spain a price for Cuba, far beyond its present value, and this shall have been refused, it will then be time to consider the question, does Cuba in the possession of Spain seriously endanger our internal peace and the existence of our cherished Union?

Should this question be answered in the affirmative, then, by every law human and Divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain, if we possess the power; and this, upon the very same principle that would justify an individual in tearing down the burning house of his neighbor, if there were no other means of preventing the flames from destroying his own home.

Under such circumstances, we ought neither to count the cost, nor regard the odds which Spain might enlist against us. We forbear to enter into the question, whether the present condition of the Island would justify such a measure.

We should, however, be recreant to our duty, be unworthy of our gallant forefathers, and commit base treason against our posterity, should we permit Cuba to be Africanized and become a second St. Domingo, with all its attendant horrors to the white race, and suffer the flames to extend to our neighboring shores, seriously to endanger or actually to consume the fair fabric of our Union.

We fear that the course and current of events are rapidly tending towards such a catastrophe. We, however, hope for the best, though we ought certainly to be prepared for the worst.

We also forbear to investigate the present condition of the questions at issue between the United States and Spain,

A long series of injuries to our people have been committed in Cuba by Spanish officials, and are unredressed. But recently a most flagrant outrage on the rights of American citizens, and on the flag of the United States, was perpetrated in the harbor of Havana, under circumstances which without immediate redress would have justified a resort to measures of war, in vindication of national honor. That outrage is not only unatoned, but the Spanish Government has deliberately sanctioned the acts of its subordinates and assumed the responsibility attaching to them.

Nothing could more impressively teach us the danger to which those peaceful relations it has ever been the policy of the United States to cherish with foreign nations are constantly exposed than the circumstances of that case.

Situated as Spain and the United States are, the latter have forborne to resort to extreme measures. But this course cannot, with due regard to their own dignity as an independent nation, continue; and our recommendations, now submitted, are dictated by the firm belief that the cession of Cuba to the United States, with stipulations as beneficial to Spain as those suggested, is the only effective mode of settling all past differences and of securing the two countries against future collisions.

We have already witnessed the happy results for both countries which followed a similar arrangement in regard to Florida.

Yours very respectfully,
JAMES BUCHANAN.
J. Y. MASON.
PIERRE SOULÉ.
_______________

* MSS. Department of State, 66 Despatches from England. Printed in H. Ex. Doc. 93. 33 Cong. 2 Sess. 127-132; Horton's Buchanan, 392-399. An extract is given in Curtis's Buchanan, II. 139.

SOURCE: John Bassett Moore, The Works of James Buchanan: Comprising His Speeches, State Papers and Private Correspondence, Volume 9: 1853-1855, p. 260-6