The whole civilized world will be startled and horrified by
this slaughter of probably not less than five or six hundred persons. The
excuse in the case of a part of the slaughtered is, that they were traitorous
citizens of the Confederacy: in the case of another part, that they were whites
fighting by the side of blacks: in the case of the remainder, including women
and even children, that they were blacks. That these were blacks, was cause
enough why, though numbering three or four hundred, they should be murdered — murdered
in utter contempt of all the sacred rights of prisoners of war. It is of the
crime against these, I would now speak.
Who are to be held amenable for this crime? The rebels. Yes,
but not the rebels only. The authorship of this crime, so matchless in its
worst features, is very comprehensive. The responsibility for it is wider than
our nation. England shares in the authorship and responsibility, because it was
she who planted slavery in America, and because it is slavery out of which this
crime has come. Our own nation, however, is the far guiltier one. The guilt of
this crime is upon all her people who have contributed to that public
sentiment, which releases white men from respecting the rights of black men.
Our highest Court says that this satanic sentiment prevailed in the early
existence of our nation. Certain it is, that it has prevailed in all the later
periods of that existence. Who are they who have contributed to generate it?
All who have held that blacks are unfit to sit by the side of whites in the
church, the school, the car and at the table. All who have been in favor of
making his complexion shut out a black man from the ballot-box. All who have
been for making a man's title to any of the rights of manhood turn on the color
of the skin in which his Maker has chosen to wrap him. All, in short, who have
hated or despised the black man.
Even President Lincoln, whom God now blesses and will yet
more bless for the much he has done for his black brethren, is not entirely
innnocent of the Fort Pillow and Plymouth massacres. Had his plan of
“Reconstruction” recognized the right of the black men to vote, it would
thereby have contributed to lift them up above outrage, instead of
contributing, as it now does, to invite outrage upon them. By the way, it is a
pity that he undertook “Reconstruction.” It was entirely beyond his civil
capacity to do so: and it was entirely beyond his military capacity to have a
part in setting up any other than a military or provisional government.
Moreover, this is the only kind of government which it is proper to set up in
the midst of war. The leisure and advantages of peace are necessary in the
great and difficult work of establishing a permanent government. In this
connection let me advert for a moment to the doctrine, “Once a State always a
State” — a doctrine so frequently wielded against “Reconstruction” on any
terms. Where is the authority for this doctrine? In the Constitution, it is
said. But nowhere does the Constitution say that a State may plunge into war,
secure at all hazards from some of the penalties of war. But amongst the
penalties of war is whatever change the conqueror may choose to impose upon the
conquered territory. I admit that it is very desirable to have all the revolting
States reestablished — reinstated. But that there is any law by which this
becomes inevitable is absurd. Nowhere does the Constitution say that a State is
to be exempt from the operation of the law of war. Nowhere does it undertake to
override the law of war. How clear is it, then, that by this paramount law
these revolted States will, when conquered, lie at the will of the conqueror!
And how clear is it, that it will then turn not at all upon the Constitution,
but upon this will of the conqueror, backed by this paramount law of war,
whether the old statehood of these States shall be revived, or whether they
shall be remanded to a territorial condition, and put upon their good behavior!
There is another instance in which the President has
contributed to that cruel public sentiment, which leaves the black race
unprotected. I refer to his so strangely long delay in promising protection to
the black soldier, and to the even longer and not yet ended delay in affording
it. The President is a humane as well as an honest man; and the only
explanation I can find for his delay to protect the black soldier and to put an
end, so far as in him lies, to the various, innumerable, incessant outrages
upon the freedmen is in the continuance of his childish and cowardly desire to conciliate
his native Kentucky and the Democratic party.
I argued that even President Lincoln is responsible in some
degree for that public sentiment, which invites outrage upon the black man and
leaves him a prey to the wicked. Those Members of Congress, who are opposing
the reasonable measure of letting the black man vote in the Territories, are
also guilty of favoring that public sentiment which broke out in the crime at
Fort Pillow and Plymouth. Similarly guilty are those members who would make the
pay of a black soldier less than that of a white one. And so are those members
who consent to leave a fugitive slave statute in existence. In a word, all
should tax their consciences with the sin of this public sentiment and with the
resulting crime at Fort Pillow and Plymouth, whose influence, by either word or
deed, has been to keep up in this heathen land the caste-spirit—that preeminent
characteristic of heathenism. I call this a heathen land. To the
Christ-Religion — that simple religion of equal rights and of doing as you
would be done by — there can be no greater insult than to call a nation in
which, as in this, the most cruel and murderous caste-spirit prevails, a Christian
nation.
Both on the right hand and on the left, I hear that our
nation is to be saved. But my fears that it will not, often become very strong.
That the Rebellion is to be crushed, I deeply believe. Often in the course of
Providence a wicked people, which is itself to be afterward destroyed, is
previously to be used in destroying another and generally more wicked people.
There are striking illustrations of this in the Bible. The duty of
abolitionists and anti-abolitionists, Democrats and Republicans, to work
unitedly, incessantly, and unconditionally for the overthrow of the Rebellion I
have not only never doubted, but ever urged. I hold it to be unpatriotic and
even traitorous for the Abolitionists to make any conditions in behalf of their
specialty, and to propose, as some of them do, to go against the Rebellion only
so far as going against it will be going against slavery. So too are those
Democrats unpatriotic and even traitorous who can favor the War, only under the
stipulation that it be so conducted as to harm neither the Democratic party nor
the Constitution. To put down the Rebellion is an object immeasurably higher
than to save a party or to save the Constitution, or even to save the country.
No man is right-minded, who would not have it put down, even though it be at
the expense of the last man and the last dollar.
If anything makes me doubt that the Rebellion will be
crushed it is the omission of Congress to abolish slavery, now when it is so
clearly seen that the abolition of slavery is an indispensable means to the
abolition of the Rebellion. The proposed Amendment to the Constitution I take
no interest in. One reason why I do not, is, that it is not a proposition to
abolish slavery now. Another is, that war is not the time to be
tinkering at constitutions. I see it denied that Congress has the power, even
as a war measure, to abolish slavery. Amazing delusion! There is in every
nation an absolute power for carrying on war. The nation that disclaims it may
as well give up being a nation. In our own, this power is vested in Congress.
Congress is to declare war: and Congress is “to make all laws necessary and
proper (itself of course the sole judge of the necessity and propriety) for
carrying into execution” the declaration. Is it the institution of
apprenticeship, which it finds to be in the way of the successful prosecution
of the war — then is it to sweep it out of the way. Is it the abomination of
slavery? — then is it to strike at that.
There is, however, one thing more which sometimes, though
not often, raises a doubt in me whether the Rebellion will be crushed. It is
the premature agitation of the Presidential question. When the Rebellion broke
out, I assumed that it would be put down in a few months — for I assumed that
this greatest crime against nationality and humanity would arouse and unite the
whole North. How greatly was I mistaken Very soon the Democratic party was seen
to prefer itself to the country. The Republican party stood by the country. But
at the present time there is no little danger that the country may be sacrificed
in a strife between the members of the Republican party. For, taking advantage
of this strife, the Democratic party may succeed in getting the reins of
Government into the hands of one of its pro-slavery peacemakers. But I may be
asked — will not the rebels be conquered and the country saved before the next
Election? I still hope so — and until the last few months I believed so.
But is there not some reason to fear that the North will be wrought up to a
greater interest in this year's Presidential than in this year's military
campaign In other words, is there not some reason to fear that, for the coming
six months, politics instead of patriotism will be in the ascendant?
I still say, as through the past winter I have frequently
said, written, and printed — that the Presidential question should not have
been talked of, no, nor so much as thought of, until midsummer. The first of
September is quite early enough to make the nomination; and in the mean time,
undistracted by this so distracting subject, we should be working as one man
for the one object of ending the Rebellion — and of ending it before reaching
the perils of a presidential election. And such working would best educate us
to make the best choice of a candidate. Moreover, it is the condition the
country will be in three or four months hence, rather than the condition it is
now in, that should be allowed to indicate the choice. Great and rapidly
successive are the changes in the circumstances of a country in time of war. To
nominate a President in time of peace, six months earlier than is necessary,
all would admit to be great folly. But greater folly would it be to nominate
him in time of war even a single month earlier than is necessary. The Baltimore
Convention is understood to be a movement for renominating President Lincoln,
and the Cleveland Convention one for nominating General Fremont. Would that
both Conventions were dropped Would indeed that the whole subject were dropped
until July or August! — and would too that it were dropped with the
understanding, that it should then be taken up, not by the politicians, but by
the people!
The people would present a loyal and an able candidate: and
whether it were Lincoln or Fremont, Chase or Butler, Dickinson or Dix, the
country would be safe.
I recall at this moment the large and respectable meeting
for consultation held in Albany last January. What a pity that the meeting took
fright at the temperate and timely resolutions reported to it! What a pity that
the meeting saw in them danger to the country, or perhaps, more properly speaking,
to a party! One of these resolutions and its advocates urged the importance of
postponing until the latest possible day the whole subject of a Presidential
nomination: and, had it been adopted and published, it would not unlikely have
exerted sufficient influence to bring about such postponement. Time has proved
the wisdom of the other resolutions also. I wish I could, without seeming
egotism, say that slavery, and slavery alone, having brought this war upon us,
they, who have given but little thought to slavery, should be too modest to
toss aside indignantly and sneeringly the suggestions of those who have made it
their life-long study. Were these resolutions now published, almost every man
who opposed them, would wonder that he had so little foresight as to oppose
them.
And there is still another thing which should perhaps be
allowed to suggest a doubt whether the rebellion will be crushed. It is, that
we are so reluctant to pay the cost of crushing it. Our brave soldiers and
sailors give their lives to this end. But we who stay at home shrink from the
money tax which is, and which should be far more largely put upon us. Our
nation is imperiled by the incessant outflow of a big stream of gold. Wise and
patriotic as he is, our Secretary of the Treasury will nevertheless labor in vain
to diminish this stream unless importations shall be taxed far more heavily.
Deeply disgraceful are these importations when it is by all that is precious in
the very life of our nation that they are forbidden. Surely it is no time now
to be indulging in foreign luxuries: and as to necessaries, our own country can
furnish them all. Luxuries, whether foreign or domestic, should all come now
with great cost to the consumer. And only a small return for protecting their
estates from the rebels would it be for the rich to pay over to Government one
fourth, and the very rich one half of their incomes. Let me add in this
connection that the State Banks should be so patriotic, as to rejoice in the
national advantage of an exclusively National currency.
I expressed my belief that the rebellion will be crushed — but
my doubt whether the nation will be saved. A guilty nation, like a guilty
individual, can be saved through repentance only. But where are the proofs that
this nation has so much as begun to repent of the great sin, which has brought
the great calamity upon her? She has, it is true, dome much to prove that she
regards slavery as a political and economical evil, and a source of great peril
to the nation: but she has done exceedingly little toward proving that she has
a penitent sense of her sin in fastening the yoke of slavery on ten to twenty
millions of this and former generations. It is only here and there — at wide
intervals both of time and space — that has been heard the penitent
exclamation, “We are verily guilty concerning our brother;” — only at these
wide intervals that has been seen any relaxation of the national hatred and scorn
for the black man. “Abolitionist,” which, when the nation shall be saved, will
be the most popular name in it, is still the most odious and contemptible name
in it. That the fugitive slave statute is still suffered to exist, is ample
proof that this nation has still a devil's heart toward the black man. How sad
that even now, when because of the sin of slaveholding, God is making blood
flow like water in this land, there should be found members of Congress, who
claim this infernal statute to be one of the rights of slaveholding! As if
slaveholding had rights! As if any thing else than punishment were due to it! —
punishment adequate to its unmingled, unutterable, and blasphemous wrongs!
I shall, however, be told that slavery will soon be
abolished by an Amendment of the Constitution. And what will such an Amendment
say? Why, nothing more than that slavery ought not to be — must not be — when
it shall no longer be constitutional. What, however, the American people need
to say, is, that be it constitutional or unconstitutional, slavery shall not
be. So they are always prepared to say regarding murder. But slavery is worse
than murder. Every right-minded man had far rather his child were murdered than
enslaved. Why, then, do they not affirm that, in no event, will they tolerate
slavery any more than murder? The one answer is — because it is the black man,
and the black man only, on whom slavery falls. Were white Americans to be
enslaved in a Barbary State, or anywhere else, our nation would respect no
pleadings of statutes or even of constitutions for their enslavement. In
defiance of whatever pleas or whatever restraints, she would release them if
she could. The most stupendous hypocrisy of which America has been guilty, is
first professing that there is law for slavery — law for that which all law
proclaims an outlaw — law for that in which there is not one element of law,
but every element of which is an outrage upon law; and second, in professing
it, not because she has a particle of belief in it — but simply because blacks
instead of whites are the victims of her slavery. America declared that John
Brown was “rightly hung.” How hypocritical was the declaration, may be inferred
from the fact that had they been white instead of black slaves whom he flung
away his life to rescue, she would have honored him as perhaps man has never
been honored. And she would have made his honors none the less, but heaped them
up all the more, if, in prosecuting his heroic and merciful work, he had tossed
aside statutes and broken through sacred constitutions. Oh! if this nation
shall ever be truly saved, it will no longer regard John Brown as worthy of the
fate of a felon; but it will build the whitest monuments to his memory, and
cherish it as the memory. of the sublimest and most Christ-like man the nation
has ever produced! Some of the judgments of John Brown — especially such as led
him to Harper's Ferry — were unsound and visionary. Nevertheless, even when
committing his mistakes, he stood, by force of the disinterestedness and
greatness of his soul, above all his countrymen.
Would Congress contribute most effectively to put down the
rebellion, and to save the nation by the great salvations of penitence and
justice — the only real salvations? Would it do this? — then let it pass,
solemnly and unanimously, a resolution that there never was and never can be,
either inside or outside of statutes or constitutions, law for slavery; and
then another resolution that whoever shall attempt to put the yoke of slavery
on however humble a neck, black or white, deserves to be put to death.
A word further in regard to the proposed Amendment. Were the
impudent and monstrous claim of its being law set up for murder, no one would
propose an amendment of the Constitution forbidding murder. The only step in
that case would be to make the penalty for the crime more sure and if possible
more severe. Such an amendment would be strenuously objected to, in that it
would stain the Constitution with the implication that murder had been
constitutional. And now, if we shall have a Constitutional Amendment, which, in
terms, forbids slavery, (it is already forbidden by the spirit, principles, and
even provisions of the Constitution,) shall we not be virtually admitting to
the world and to posterity that this nation had been guilty of tolerating, if
not indeed of positively authorizing, in its Constitution the highest crime of
earth o God save us from an admission, which shall serve both to stamp us with
infamy and to perpetuate the infamy!
PETERBoro,
April 26, 1864.
SOURCES: Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith:
A Biography, p. 260; Gerrit Smith, Speeches and Letters of Gerrit Smith (from
January 1863, to January 1864), on the Rebellion, Volume 2, p. 7-13
