I am embarrassed at the very outset. For I recollect that I
am an abolitionist; and I recollect that in the public esteem he who is an
abolitionist can not be a patriot. How then can I get a hearing from you? For
surely you are not willing to hear any other than a patriot on National
affairs. I must propitiate you if I can. I will try the power of a confession
to that end. My confession is — that if a man can not be a patriot whilst yet
an abolitionist, he should cease to be an abolitionist — that he should
renounce his abolition if it at all hinders him from going for his country. I
add that I go no longer for the Anti-Slavery Society, nor for the Temperance
Society, no nor for my Church, if they go not for my country.
But what is it to go for one's country? Is it to go for her
right or wrong? It is not. The true man goes for nothing in himself that is
wrong. The true patriot goes for nothing in his country that is wrong. It is to
go for all her boundaries, and to yield up no part of them to her enemy. It is
to be unsectional — and to know no North and no South, no East and no West. It
is to go for the unbroken and eternal union of all her sections. It is to love
her with that Jewish love of country, which takes pleasure in her very stones
and favors even the dust thereof. How very far then is he from going for his
country who would surrender a part of her to appease the men who have rebelled
against her And let me here say that he does not go for her who, for the sake of
securing the abolition of slavery, would consent to dismember her. Another way
for going for one's country is to cling to her chosen form of government — in a
word, to her Constitution. I do not mean that it is to prate for her
Constitution and to affect a deep regard for it, whilst sympathizing with its
open enemies — ay, and to affect this regard for the very purpose of thereby
more effectively serving those enemies. It is, as in our case who have so
excellent a Constitution, sincerely to value and deeply to love its great
principles of justice, liberty and equality — those very principles which
caused the Southern despots to make war upon it and fling it away — those very
principles which caused the Northern sympathizers with these despots to hate it
in their hearts whilst yet their false lips profess to love it. To go for one's
country is also to make great account of her cherished names and of all that is
precious in her institutions, traditions, and memories. But of all the ways of
going for one's country that of going against her enemies is at once the most
effective and the most evidential of sincerity and earnestness.
Let us glance at some of our duties in this crisis.
In the first place, we are to stand by the Government. Not
to stand by it is not to stand by the country. Were the Government unfaithful I
would not say so. But it is faithful. It is intent on saving the country. And
it is not the weak Government which it is accused of being. In both Houses of
Congress the cause of the country has many able advocates. There are strong men
in the Cabinet. The President is himself a strong man. His Pro-Slavery
education is almost the only thing in him to be lamented. That education is
still in his way. It was emphatically so in the early stages of the war. It
entangled him with the Border Slave States, when he should have been free with
the Free States. Nevertheless, I take pleasure in both his ability and honesty;
and this I do notwithstanding I did not vote for him and that I never voted for
his party. Some of the richest and sublimest comments on the Declaration of
Independence which I have ever read are from his pen. His letter to the
officers of the Albany Democratic Convention, is a monument of his vigorous
common-sense, of his clear and convincing logic, of his reasonableness and
moderation, of his candor and frankness. On the whole, Washington always
excepted, we have had no President who is to be more esteemed and beloved than
Abraham Lincoln.
I said that not to stand by the Government is not to stand by
the country. Every man who in time of war busies himself in slandering the
Government and weakening the public confidence in it, is among the meanest and
worst enemies of the country. How base and pernicious the slander that the
Government is no longer prosecuting the war to save the country! A State
Convention in Pennsylvania — and that too, at the very time when the State was
invaded and her capital threatened — improved upon this slander by deliberately
resolving that the Government avows and proclaims that the saving
of the country is no longer its object in the war. What wonder that there
should be mobs against drafting soldiers when there are such incitements to
such mobs —when there is so much industry and so much art to persuade the
people that the drafted soldiers are to be used, not for the one legitimate
purpose, but for some sinister or party purpose! These mobs, though they fill
us with sorrow, do nevertheless not surprise us. For we see them to be the
natural and almost necessary fruit of those incessant declarations by unprincipled
politicians that the Government has turned away from the object of saving the
country, and is now calling for men and money where with to promote other and
odious objects. Upon these knavish and lying politicians rest the blame and the
blood of all these mobs.
In the second place, we are to insist on the immediate
and unconditional submission of the rebels. Nothing short of this would
suffice for their humiliation and their good. Moreover, nothing short of this would
save our Government and our country from being deeply and indelibly disgraced —
ay, totally wrecked and ruined. Therefore there must be no armistice, no terms.
To bargain with them; to give them time; to make concessions to them; to
purchase peace from them; to make any peace with them, whilst as yet they have
arms in their hands, would be to leave them with even a more incorrigible
spirit than they now have, and it would also be to leave ourselves without a
nation. That which would be left to us would be but a nominal nation — and it
would be liable to be broken up in a twelvemonth. What is more, neither the
world, nor we ourselves, could ever have any respect for it. A nation that is compelled
to yield to traitors may be respected by both other nations and itself. But
a nation which has power to overwhelm the traitors, and yet is too corrupt or
cowardly to wield it, must be, ever after, a stench both in its own and in
others' nostrils. In the light of what I have just said it is not too much to
add that whilst Americans who counsel peace on any lower terms than the
absolute submission of the rebels are traitors, those speakers and writers in
foreign lands who do likewise are hypocrites, because they well know that what
they counsel for our nation they would, were it counseled for their own, promptly
and indignantly reject.
In the third place, we must not be speculating on what is
to be done with the rebels after they shall be conquered. Such speculation
is wholly unseasonable and it but tends to divide us. Whilst as yet the rebels
are unconquered, we can not afford to be divided. The needless, foolish,
guilty, and exceedingly hurtful differences among us are what alone make our
conquest of the rebels uncertain. When we shall have conquered them, then we can
talk to our heart's content of what should be done with them and their
possessions. Besides, we know not now in what mood they will be then; and
therefore we know not now what it will be proper for them to receive at our
hands. If they shall be impenitent and defiant, we shall need to impose very
careful restrictions upon them; but if penitent and humble, then we can risk
being trustful and generous toward them. And then, too, notwithstanding their
enormous crimes against their country — against. earth and heaven — we shall
gladly look upon our sorrowful Southern brethren as our brethren still.
In the fourth place, we must insist that other nations
shall let us alone. Ours is a family quarrel, and none but the family can
be allowed to meddle with it. We can tolerate neither intervention nor
mediation. We shall repel both. Mediation, proffered in however friendly a
spirit, we shall regard as impertinence; and intervention, although bloodless
and unarmed at the beginning, we shall from the beginning construe into war.
And here let me add, that whilst we very gratefully acknowledge, the able
advocacy of our cause by many distinguished men of Europe, and no less
gratefully the true, intelligent, and generous sympathy with it of the masses
of Europe; and that whilst we would not discourage our citizens from going
abroad to plead that cause; we, nevertheless, are entirely convinced that the
work to be done for our country is to be done in it — to be done by
earnest appeals from Americans to Americans, and by hard blows from a loyal
upon a disloyal army.
Let us
now pass on to consider what should be the character of our opposition to the
rebellion. I said that the rebels must be unconditional in their submission. I
add that our opposition to the rebels must also be unconditional. The surrender
of ourselves to our high and holy cause must be absolute. We must stipulate for
nothing. We must reserve nothing in behalf of our Democratic, or Republican, or
Abolition, or Temperance, or any other party — nothing in behalf of any
individual interests. Nay, we must make no conditions in behalf of either the
Constitution or the country. We have now but one work. The putting down of the
rebellion is the supreme duty which America owes to herself, to mankind, and to
God. Is it said that recent events have given us another work to do? the work
of putting down and keeping down mobs? I answer that these mobs are nothing
more nor nothing less than Northern branches and Northern outbreaks of the
Southern rebellion, and that the rebellion ended, the mobs will also be ended.
This, by the way, being the true character of these mobs, the Federal war power
is as clearly bound to lay its restraining hand on those who get them up as on
any other parties to the rebellion. It should spare no traitorous press,
because of its great influence, and no traitorous politician because of his
high office, when it is clear that they have been at work to generate the
passions and prejudices, the treason and anarchy which have resulted in
disturbances, so frightfully marked, in some instances, by fire and blood.
These mobs, by the way, aside from their destruction of
innocent and precious life, are not to be regretted. Nay, they are to be
rejoiced in, because they reveal so certainly and so fully the animus of the
leaders of this “Northern Peace Party,” and therefore serve to put us more upon
our guard against these desperate leaders. I am not at all surprised at hearing
that many an honest man, who had sympathized with this party, is so far
enlightened by these mobs as to turn away from it forever.
The motto of every man among us should be: “Down with the
Rebellion at whatever cost!” It must go down, even though Constitution and
country go down with it. If the rebellion is to live and triumph, then let all
else, however dear, die.
Not Constitution nor country, not our farms nor our
merchandise, not our families nor our own lives, could be any longer of value
to us. Are there Republicans who, in this trial hour of integrity, are intent
on keeping their party in power? then are they false to their country. In time
of peace let there be parties to represent the different views in regard to the
proper character, and conduct of the Government. But in time of war to cling to
party is treason to the country. For then the great question is, no longer as in
time of peace, how the Government shall be shaped and administered, but the
infinitely greater one — whether we shall have a country to govern. Are there
Democrats who, at such a time, are intent on getting their party into power?
False to their country are they also. Is it their plea that they are talking
for the Constitution? I answer, that their talk should be against the rebels.
This talking for the Constitution, whilst not talking against the rebels, is
but hypocrisy. Are there Abolitionists who say that they can not help put down
the rebellion unless the Government will pledge itself to put down slavery? Let
me say, that with such one-idea men I have no sympathy. Like the sham
Republicans and sham Democrats I have referred to, they are but workers for the
rebels. To all who feel this unseasonable and treasonable solicitude for party,
let me say that the true doctrine is: “Come what will of it to the Republican,
or Democratic, or Abolition, or any other party — though they all go to
flinders and be reduced to a heap of ruins — the Rebellion, nevertheless, shall
be put down!” Moreover, notwithstanding our differences in other relations and
other respects, we are all to be brothers and close fellow-laborers in the work
of putting down the Rebellion. The laborers in this work we are not to know as
Democrats, or Republicans, or Abolitionists, or Temperance men, but only as
anti-rebellion men. During the greater part of my life I have tried to do
something against slavery and drunkenness. But in this great battle against the
Southern rebels and their Northern allies, whose success would, in its results,
be the entire overthrow of free Government, not only here and in Mexico, but
wherever it exists, I am ready to fight alongside of all who will fight
alongside of me: with, if you please, the biggest drunkard on the one side and
the biggest pro-slavery man on the other. Whilst I am against all who are for
the rebels, I am for all who are against them. Until the Rebellion is crushed
we should know but two parties: the one made up of those who, in standing by
and strengthening the Government, prove themselves to be the friends of the
country; and the other made up of those who, in assailing and weakening the
Government, prove themselves to be the enemies of the country. Are there, I
repeat, Abolitionists who, in such a time as this, stand back and refuse to
join in putting down the Rebellion save on the condition that slavery also
shall be put down? If there are, then are they also among those who embarrass
the Government, and then are they also to be numbered with the enemies of the
country. If there are such Abolitionists, I am persuaded they are few. But
whether they are few or many, let me say that it is very little to their credit
to let the crime of slavery fill the whole field of their vision and blind them
to the far greater and more comprehensive crime of the rebellion. Will they
reply, that the rebellion is but slavery — slavery in arms? Then upon their own
ground they should be helping to put it down, since the putting of it down
would be the putting down of slavery also.
I referred to Mexico. If our rebellion shall succeed, her
fate is sealed. If it should fail, then it may even be that Napoleon's is
sealed. I say not that our Government would be disposed to meddle with him. But
I do say that our people would be. Tens of thousands of our disbanded troops
would hasten to Mexico to make common cause with their outraged republican
brethren. I add, that whilst despots everywhere would exult in the triumph of
our rebellion, despots everywhere will tremble at its overthrow.
Some of my hearers may think, because I said we must make no
conditions in its behalf, that I am not suited with the Constitution. I am
entirely suited with it. I have always opposed changes in it, and probably
always shall. No Democrat even has spoken or written so much for it just as
it is as I have. Let not a word in it be altered. It is exactly what we
want of a Constitution, both in peace and war. Governor Seymour says, in his
Fourth of July speech that the Government has suspended it. If it has, it has
done very wrong. I do not see that it has in even the slightest degree. But
there are some things which the Governor and I see with very different eyes.
For instance, the Governor and the men of his school see that the blame of the
war rests chiefly upon the North. On the other hand, I see that every particle
of it rests on the South. They say that our talking and legislating against
slavery annoyed the South; and we, in turn, say that her talking and
legislating for it annoyed the North. But we deny that the annoyance did in
either case justify war. As to the talking — it must be remembered that our
Southern and Northern fathers agreed upon a Government, which tolerates talk — talk
even against good things — against things which, if that be possible, are
better than even slavery. So the South should not make war upon us because we
talk against her slavery; and we should not make war upon her because she
stigmatizes our noble farmers and noble mechanics as “the mudsills of society.”
Then, as to the legislation, it must be remembered that whilst we were willing
to have the constitutionality of ours passed upon by the Supreme Court of the
United States, she threatened to murder and actually drove from her the
honorable men whom we deputed to visit her for the purpose of getting her
consent to such a testing of her pro-slavery legislation. Truly, truly do I
pity the man who is so perverted as to divide the blame of this war between the
North and the South. The North is not only mainly but entirely innocent of it.
I eulogized the Constitution. Let not the eulogy be
construed into my overrating of a Constitution. I frankly say that if I thought
that our Constitution stood at all in the way of our most effective prosecution
of the war, I should rejoice to have it swept out of the way. The country is
more than the Constitution. I would not exchange one of her majestic mountains
or rivers for all the Constitutions you could pile up between earth and heaven.
God made the country. But man made the Constitution. The loss of the country
would be irreparable. But if the Constitution is lost, we will j, upon his
inspirations of the human mind for another.
I spoke
disparagingly of one-idea men. There is a sense in which I wish that all of us
were one-idea men. I would that all of us might be one-idea men until the
Rebellion is put down. To put it down — this, this is the one idea of which I
would have every man possessed to the exclusion of every rival idea. For the
sake of no other idea would I have conditions made with this paramount idea.
Were we all such one-idea men the North would triumph speedily — and so grandly
too as to win the admiration and esteem even of the South. And then would the
North and the South again become a nation — not, as before, an inharmonious and
short-lived one, but a nation at peace with itself, at peace with every other
nation, and therefore a permanent nation. God grant us this glorious and
blessed future! And he will grant it, if we are so manly and patriotic, so wise
and just, as to postpone every other claim to that of our country and every
other duty to that of putting down the Rebellion.
Let us now take up the Conscription Law. Some say that it is
unconstitutional. I can not see any thing unconstitutional in it — though
perhaps I could were I a lawyer. Some go so far as to deny that the
Constitution gives Congress the right to compel persons to defend the country.
All I can say is, that if it did not give the right, it should not have
empowered Congress to declare war and raise and support armies. For thus to
have empowered it was in that case but to mock it. It was only to seem to give
much whilst really giving nothing.
For one, I do not look into the Constitution for proof that
the National Legislature has the right to compel persons to fight the battles
of the country. It is enough for me to know that this vital right inheres in a
National Legislature — that the supreme power of a nation necessarily has it — and
that a Constitution which should deny or in the slightest degree restrict it,
would be fit only to be thrown away. For the credit of the Constitution, I am
happy that it recognizes and asserts the right. But the Constitution does not
create it. My refusal to look into the Constitution for the origination of this
right rests on the same principle as that by which I am withheld from looking
into the Bible for the origination of the parent's right to take care of his
children. It is, I admit, one of the merits of this best of books that it
recognizes the right and enjoins its exercise. But the right is older than the
Bible. It dates as far back as the time of the first parent. It is an
inherently parental as the other is an inherently national right.
It is also said that the Conscription Law favors the rich,
and oppresses the poor. The National and State militia laws do so; but the
Conscription Law spares the poor and spares not the rich. Members of Congress,
Postmasters, and a score of other classes, making in all no very small share of
the men, are, under those laws, exempted from military service; whilst under
the Conscription Law none but poor men are exempted, save only the Vice-President,
the Heads of Departments, the United States Judges, and the Governors of the
States. And now mark how numerous must be the several classes of the exempted
poor.
1st. The only son of the widow dependent on his labor.
2d. The only son of aged or infirm parents dependent on his
labor.
3d. One of the two or more sons of such parents.
4th. The only brother of orphan children not twelve years
old dependent on his labor.
5th. The father of motherless children under twelve years of
age dependent on his labor.
6th. Where there are a father and sons in the family, and
two of them are in the army and in humble positions in it, the residue not exceeding
two are exempt.
Now, was there ever a law less sparing of the rich and more
tender to the poor? And yet this law, so exceedingly honorable to the heads and
hearts of its makers, is denounced as oppressive and cruel by demagogues who,
to get themselves into power, would destroy the popular confidence in the
Government and destroy the country also.
But, it is held, that the commutation or three hundred
dollar clause is oppressive to the poor. It is, on the contrary, merciful to
the poor. But for it the price of a substitute might run up to three or four
times three hundred dollars — a price which a poor man would scarcely ever be
enabled to pay. The three hundred dollars, however, many a poor man can, with
the help of friends, be able to raise. But why not, it may be asked, have
favored the poor by making the maximum no more than fifty or a hundred dollars?
This, instead of favoring, would have but oppressed the poor. For the
Government, not being able to procure substitutes at the rate of fifty or a
hundred dollars, would have been compelled to repeat its drafts. And thus tens
of thousands of poor men who had paid their fifty or a hundred dollars in order
to keep out of the army would after all be obliged to enter it.
Alas! this clamor against the unconstitutionality of the
Conscription Law! How sadly it betrays the prevailing lack of patriotism! Had
there been no unpatriotic person amongst us, there would have been not only
nothing of this clamor, but not so much as one inquiry into the
constitutionality of the law. The commonness of this inquiry indicates how
commonly the love of country must be very weak in the American bosom. Why is it
so weak 2 Some say it is because of our characteristic or Yankee greed of gain;
and some say it is because of our long-continued and soul-shriveling practice
of persecuting and outraging an unfortunate race. . . . Some ascribe it to one
thing and some to another. But whatever the cause, the effect is obvious.
Oh! how base must they have become who, when rebels are at
the throat of their nation, can hie themselves to the Constitution to see how
little it will let them off with doing against those rebels — how little with
doing for the life of that nation! Our noble Constitution should be used to
nourish our patriotism; but alas! it is perverted to kill it!
I have noticed the action of the authorities of several of
the cities of our State, in regard to the Conscription Law. In some of them
this action is very bad. The sole object of the law is to raise an additional
force for completing the destruction of the Rebellion. Now, the city of
New-York and some other cities would take advantage of its humane feature of
commutation to defeat this sole object of the law. For they would take
advantage of it. to buy off the mass of their drafted citizens. This wholesale
buying violates to the last degree the spirit of the law; deprives the country
of the benefit of the legitimate and intended effect of the law; and saves the
Rebellion from being crushed by the faithful and fair carrying out of the law.
If one city may resort to this wholesale buying, so may every other; so may
every county, and so may every State; and so may the Conscription Law be
rendered unavailing.
I admit the duty of the wealthy to avail themselves of this
commutation clause to save, here and there, from going to the war the man to
whom it would be a peculiar hardship to go. I also admit that every city,
disposed to do so, can very properly vote the three hundred dollars to every
drafted man who serves or to his substitute. I care not how much the cities
help the soldiers. The more the better. I am glad that Oswego voted ten thousand
dollars two years ago, and five thousand last spring to the families of her
soldiers. Let her vote hereafter as much as she pleases to the soldiers and
their families. I will pay cheerfully what share of the tax shall fall on my
property in the city; and more cheerfully would I take part in voluntary
contributions. I have sometimes heard the remark that neither the rich nor the
poor should be allowed to procure substitutes. The remark is both ill-natured
and foolish. Among the drafted will be both rich and poor men, who ought to be
spared from going to the war. I am not sorry that so many rich men have gone to
the war. Nevertheless, let as many rich men as will remain at home to continue
to give employment to the poor in manufactories and elsewhere, and to maintain
a business and a prosperity which can be heavily taxed to meet the expenses of
the war. Men of property should be heavily taxed to this end; and my only
objection to the Income Tax, is that it is not more than half large enough. It
should be six and ten instead of three and five per cent.
But I must close. How unreasonable, how unpatriotic, how
wicked to murmur at this draft! The South, to serve her bad cause, is, at this
moment, responding to the call for absolutely all her able-bodied white males
between the ages of eighteen and forty-five; whilst the call to serve our best
of all causes is for not more than about one seventh or one eighth between
those ages. And yet we murmur at the draft; and in a few localities there is a
rabble so far under the sway of traitorous demagogues, as to resist it with force
and arms. These demagogues, by the way, as silly as they are wicked, instead of
seeing in this resistance only another argument with the Government for
proceeding promptly, very promptly with the draft, flattered themselves that
the Government would succumb to the mobs and abandon the draft; would surrender
to anarchy instead of maintaining law.
Our people need to be loyally educated. When they are, they
will be eager to serve their imperiled and beloved country in any way, however
expensive or hazardous. I rejoice to see that in many parts of the country the
draft is met in a cheerful and patriotic spirit. May this spirit soon obtain
everywhere.
The love of country — the love of country — that is what we
lack. Would that we had somewhat of that love of country which Robert Emmet
felt for his dear Ireland; somewhat of that love of country which awakens the
sublime utterances of Kossuth for his dear Hungary; somewhat of that love of
country which stirs the great soul of Garibaldi, as he contemplates his still,
but not-ever-to-be, disunited Italy; somewhat of that love of country which
arms her young men, ay and her young maidens too, to battle for their
down-trodden and dear Poland! Let us have somewhat of such love — and then when
our bleeding country makes her call upon us, we shall not pause to inquire
whether it is couched in Constitutional words; but we shall hasten to obey it,
simply because it is our country that makes it, and our country that needs our
obedience.
SOURCES: Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith:
A Biography, p. 259 (excerpted); For the full text of the speech: Gerrit
Smith, Speeches and Letters of Gerrit
Smith (from January 1863, to January 1864), etc, Volume 1, p. 35-44
