Chapter XXIII: Section 7: And be it further enacted, That, after the appointment of (7)

3. If, in the zeal of surrender, you reject solemn principles of public law and Constitution, then let me remind you of the Proclamation of Emancipation, where the President, by virtue of the power vested in him as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, ordered that the slaves in the Rebel States “are and henceforward shall be free,” and the Executive Government, including the military and naval authorities, are pledged to “recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.” By the terms of this instrument, it is applicable to all slaves in the Rebel States,--not merely to those within the military lines of the United States, but to all. Even if the President were not in simple honesty bound to maintain this Proclamation according to the letter, he has not the power to undo it. The President may make a freeman, but he cannot make a slave. Therefore must he reject all surrender inconsistent with this Act of Emancipation.

It is sometimes said that the Court will set aside the Proclamation. Do not believe it. The Court will do no such thing. It will recognize this act precisely as it recognizes other political and military acts, without presuming to interpose any unconstitutional _veto_,--and it will recognize this act to the full extent, as was intended, according to its letter, so that every slave in the Rebel States will be free. Even if the Court should hesitate, there can be no hesitation with the President, or with the people, bound in sacred honor to the freedom of every slave in the Rebel States. Therefore against every effort of surrender the Proclamation presents an insuperable barrier.

* * * * *

4. If you are willing to descend deep down to the fathomless infamy of renouncing the Proclamation, then in the name of peace do I protest against any such surrender. So long as Slavery exists in the Union, there can be no peace. The fires which seem to be extinguished will only be covered by treacherous ashes, out of which another conflagration will spring to wrap the country in war. This must never be.

It is because Slavery is not yet understood, that any are willing to tolerate it. See it as it is, and there can be no question. Slavery is guilty of every crime. The slave-master is burglar, for by night he enters forcibly into the house of another; he is highway robber, for he stops another on the road, and compels him to deliver or die; he is pickpocket, for he picks the pocket of his slave; he is sneak, for there is no pettiness of petty larceny he does not employ; he is horse-stealer, for he takes from his slave the horse that is his; he is adulterer, for he takes from the slave the wife that is his; he is receiver of stolen goods on the grandest scale, for the human being stolen from Africa he foolishly calls his own. When I describe the slave-master, it is simply as he describes himself in the code he sanctions. All crime is in Slavery, and so every criminal is reproduced in the slave-master. And yet it is proposed to bestow upon this whole class not only new license for their crimes, but a new lease of their power. Such surrender would be only the beginning of long-continued, unutterable troubles, breaking forth in bloodshed and sorrow without end.

* * * * *

5. Lastly, this surrender cannot be made without surrender to the Rebellion. Already I have exhibited the identity between Slavery and the Rebellion; and yet it is proposed to recognize Slavery in the Union, when such recognition will be plain recognition of the Rebellion.

The whole thing is impossible, and not to be tolerated. Alas! too much blood has been shed, and too much treasure lavished, for this war to close with any such national stultification. The Rebellion must be crushed, whether in the guise of war or under the _alias_ of Slavery. It must be trampled out, so that it can never show itself again, or prolong itself into another generation. Not to do this completely is not to do it at all. Others may act as they please, but I wash my hands of this great responsibility. History will not hold such surrender blameless.

“An orphan’s curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high”;

but the orphans of this war must heap curses heaven-high upon the man who consents to see its blood and treasure end in nought.

Such are the grounds for the repudiation of all surrender to Slavery _in the Union_. I have also shown that there can be no surrender to Slavery _out of the Union_. In either alternative surrender is impossible; but even if possible, it would be most perilous and degrading.

Thus far I have said nothing of platforms or candidates. I desired to present the issue of principle, so that the patriot could choose without embarrassment from party association. Pardon me now, if for one moment I bring platforms and candidates to the touch-stone.

There is the Baltimore platform, with Abraham Lincoln as candidate. No surrender here. In one resolution it is declared that the war must be prosecuted “with the utmost possible vigor to _the complete suppression of the Rebellion_.” In another it is declared, “that, as Slavery was the cause, and now constitutes the strength of this Rebellion, and as it must be always and everywhere hostile to the principles of republican government, _justice and the national safety demand its utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the Republic_.”[411] There is salvation in these words, pronouncing the doom of Slavery in the name of justice and the national safety. The candidate has solemnly accepted them, not only when he accepted his nomination, but yet again, when, in the discharge of official duties, he said briefly, “to whom it may concern,” that there could be no terms of peace, except on the condition of “the integrity of the whole Union and the abandonment of Slavery.”[412] In this letter of the President, unquestionably the best he ever wrote, it is practically declared, in conformity with the Baltimore platform, that there can be no surrender to Slavery in the Union or out of the Union.

Turn to the Chicago platform and its candidate, and what a contrast! There is surrender in both forms. The platform surrenders to Slavery _out of the Union_, and, in proposing a “cessation of hostilities,” prepares the way for recognition of the Rebel States. The candidate, in a letter accepting the nomination, surrenders to Slavery _in the Union_. The platform plainly looks to disunion. The letter seemingly looks to union; but whether looking to union or not, it plainly surrenders to Slavery.

There is still another surrender in the Chicago platform. While professing formal devotion to the Union, it declines to insist upon “National unity,” or “a union on the basis of the Constitution of the United States.” No such terms are employed; but we are invited to seek peace “on the basis of the Federal Union of the States”: so that, according to this platform, it is not the National Union, that union of the people accepted by Washington and defended by Webster, which we are to have, but a “Federal Union of the States,” where State Sovereignty, as accepted by John C. Calhoun and defended by Jefferson Davis, will be supreme; and all this simply for the sake of Slavery.

Look at the Chicago platform or candidate as you will, and you are constantly brought back to Slavery as the animating impulse. Look at the Baltimore platform or candidate, and you are constantly brought back to Liberty as the animating impulse. And thus again Slavery and Liberty stand face to face,--the slave-ship against the Mayflower.

There is another contrast between the two platforms, which ought not to be forgotten. That of Chicago, while saying nothing against the Rebellion, uses ambiguous language, interpreted differently by different persons; while that of Baltimore is so plain and unequivocal that it leaves no room for question. This contrast is greater still, when we turn to the two candidates. Perhaps never between two candidates was it presented to the same extent. The Chicago candidate has written a subtle letter, which is interpreted according to the desires of its readers,--some finding peace, and others finding war. And this double-faced proceeding is his bid for the Presidency. I need not remind you that our candidate has never uttered a word of duplicity, and that his speeches and letters can be interpreted only in one way. And these are the two representatives of Slavery and Liberty.

* * * * *

Fellow-citizens, such is the issue of principle, such are the platforms and candidates. And now, I ask frankly, Are you for Slavery, or are you for Liberty? Or, changing the form of the question, Are you for the Rebellion, or are you for your country? For this is the question you must answer by your votes. In your answer, do not forget, I entreat you, its infinite, far-reaching, many-sided importance. This is no ordinary election. It is a battle-field of the war; and victory at the polls will assure victory everywhere. Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Farragut, all are watching for it. Their trumpets are ready to echo back our election bells.

In every aspect the contest is vast. It is vast in its relations to our own country,--vaster still in its relations to other countries. Overthrow Slavery here, and you overthrow it everywhere,--in Cuba, Brazil, and wherever a slave clanks his chain. The whole execrable pretension of “property in men,” wherever it now shows its audacious front, will be driven back into kindred night. Nor is this all. Overthrow Slavery here, and our Republic ascends to untold heights of power and grandeur. Thus far its natural influence has been diminished by Slavery. Let this shameful obscuration cease, and our example will be the day-star of the world. Liberty, everywhere, in all her struggles, will be animated anew, and the down-trodden in distant lands will hail the day of deliverance. But let Slavery prevail, and our Republic will drop from its transcendent career, while the cause of liberal institutions in all lands is darkened. There have been great battles in the past, on which Human Progress has been staked. There was Marathon, when the Persian hosts were driven back from Greece; there was Tours, when the Saracens were arrested midway in victorious career by Charles Martel; there was Lepanto, when the Turks were brought to a stand in their conquests; there was Waterloo. But our contest is grander. We are fighting for national life, assailed by belligerent Slavery; yet such is the solidarity of nations, and so are mankind knit together, that our battle now is for the liberty of the world. The voice of victory here will resound through the ages.

Never was grander cause or sublimer conflict. Never holier sacrifice. Who is not saddened at the thought of precious lives given to Liberty’s defence? The soil of the Rebellion is soaked with patriot blood, its turf is bursting with patriot dead. Surely they have not died in vain. The flag they upheld will continue to advance. But this depends upon your votes. Therefore, for the sake of that flag, and for the sake of the brave men that bore it, now sleeping where no trumpet of battle can wake them, stand by the flag.

Tell me not of “failure.” There can be but one failure, and that is the failure to make an end of Slavery; for on this righteous consummation all else depends. Let Liberty be with us, and no power can prevail against us. Let Slavery be acknowledged, and there is no power which will not mock and insult us. Such is the teaching of history, in one of its greatest examples. Napoleon, when compelled to exchange his empire for a narrow island prison, exclaimed in bitterness of spirit, “It is not the Coalition which has dethroned me, but liberal ideas.” Not the European Coalition, marshalling its forces from the Don to the Orkneys, toppled the Man of Destiny from his lofty throne; but that Liberty which he had offended. He saw and confessed the terrible antagonist, when he cried out, “I cannot reëstablish myself; I have shocked the people; I have sinned against _liberal ideas_, and I perish.” Memorable words of instruction and warning! Ideas rule the world, and, unlike batteries and battalions, they cannot be destroyed or cut in pieces. May we so press this contest as not to shock mankind or sin against Liberty! May we so close this contest as to win God’s favor! Nature has placed the eye in the front, that man shall look _forward and upward_; and it is only by contortion that he is able to look behind. Therefore, in looking forward and upward, we follow Nature. An ancient adventurer, escaping from the realms of Death, looked behind, and he failed. We, too, shall fail, if we look behind. Forward, not backward, is the word,--firmly, courageously, faithfully. There must be no false sentiment or cowardice, no fear of “irritating” Rebels. When the Almighty Power hurled Satan and his impious peers

“headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,”

no Chicago platform proposed “a cessation of hostilities, with a view to a convention or other peaceable means”; nor was there any attempt to save the traitors from Divine vengeance. Personal injuries we may forgive; but Government cannot always forgive. There are cases where pardon is out of place. Society that has been outraged must be protected. That beautiful land now degraded by Slavery must be redeemed, while a generous statesmanship fixes forever its immutable condition. If the chiefs of the Rebellion are compelled to abdicate in favor of emigrants from the North and from Europe, swelling population, creating new values, and opening new commerce,--if “poor whites” are reïnstated in rights,--if a whole race is lifted to manhood and womanhood,--if roads are extended,--if schools are planted,--there will be nothing inconsistent with that just clemency which I rejoice to consider a public duty. Liberty is the best cultivator, the truest teacher, and the most enterprising merchant. The whole country will confess the new-born power, and those commercial cities now sympathizing so perversely with belligerent Slavery will be among the earliest to enjoy the quickening change. Beyond all question, the overthrow of this portentous crime, besides immeasurable contributions to civilization everywhere, will accomplish two things of direct material advantage: first, it will raise the fee-simple of the whole South; and, secondly, it will enlarge the commerce of the whole North.

In this faith I turn in humble gratitude to God, as I behold my country at last redeemed and fixed in history, the Columbus of Nations, once in chains, now hailed as benefactor and discoverer, who gave a New Liberty to mankind. Foreign powers watch the scene with awe; saints and patriots from their home in the skies look down with delight; and Washington, who set free his own slaves, exults that the Republic, which revered him as Father, now follows his example.

FOOTNOTES

[1] _Ante_, Vol. VI. pp. 442, 502; Vol. VII. p. 152.

[2] _Ante_, Vol. IX. pp. 39-46.

[3] Acts 37th Cong. 2d Sess., Ch. CLXXXIX. Sec. 1: Statutes at Large, Vol. XII. p. 588.

[4] Acts 1st Cong., Ch. XX. Sec. 29, 34: Ibid., Vol. I. pp. 88, 92.

[5] State _v._ Whitaker, 3 Harrington, R., 550.

[6] Ch. 52, § 12.

[7] Ch. 107, § 4.

[8] Ch. 52, § 12.

[9] Elliott _v._ Morgan, 3 Harrington, R., 317.

[10] State _v._ Whitaker, 3 Harrington, R., 549.

[11] State _v._ Cooper, Ibid., 571.

[12] State _v._ Jeans, 4 Ibid., 570.

[13] Redden _v._ Spruance et als., Ibid., 217.

[14] Webb _v._ Pindergrass, 4 Harrington, R., 439.

[15] State _v._ Bender, 3 Ibid., 572, note.

[16] Collins _v._ Hall, Ibid., 574, note.

[17] State _v._ Fisher, 1 Harris and Johnson, R., 750.

[18] Rusk _v._ Sowerwine, 3 Ibid., 97.

[19] Sprigg _v._ Negro Mary, Ibid., 491.

[20] Ch. 176, § 20.

[21] Winn _v._ Jones, 6 Leigh, R., 74.

[22] Johnson _v._ The Commonwealth, 2 Grattan, R., 581.

[23] Code of Virginia (1849), Ch. 215, § 9.

[24] Ch. 107, § 1. See Tumey _v._ Knox, 7 T. B. Monroe, R., 91.

[25] Page _v._ Carter, 8 B. Monroe, R., 192.

[26] Ch. 111, § 50; Act 1777, Ch. 115, § 42; Act 1821, Ch. 1123. See State _v._ Ben, 1 Hawks, R., 434.

[27] State _v._ Chittem, 2 Devereux, R., 49.

[28] State _v._ Patton, 5 Iredell, Law Rep., 186.

[29] Williams _v._ Blincoe, 5 Littell, R., 171.

[30] Jones _v._ The State, Meigs, R., 121.

[31] Nicholson’s Supplement to the Statutes, 131.

[32] 7 Statutes at Large, 411.

[33] 2 De Bow, Industrial Resources, etc., of the Southern and Western States, 279.

[34] 2 De Bow, 274.

[35] 7 Statutes at Large, 401, 402.

[36] 2 De Bow, 274.

[37] White _v._ Helmes, 1 McCord, R., 435.

[38] Groning _v._ Devana, 2 Bailey, R., 192.

[39] Heyward _v._ Glover, Riley, Chan. Rep., 53.

[40] Gage _v._ M’Ilwain, 1 Strobhart, R., 135.

[41] Section 10: Cobb’s Digest, 973.

[42] Cobb’s Digest, 988.

[43] Section 2276; see, also, Section 3596.

[44] Sections 110, 111: Hutchinson, Code, 861.

[45] Hutchinson, Code, 136. Harris _v._ Newman, 3 Smedes and Marshall, R., 575, 576; Coleman _v._ Doe, 4 Ibid., 40.

[46] Thompson’s Digest, 542.

[47] Ch. 187, § 22.

[48] Meechum _v._ Judy, 4 Missouri Rep., 361.

[49] Ch. 158, § 25.

[50] Consol. and Rev. Stat., 556; Act of 1816, Ch. 146, §§ 1, 2.

[51] Art. 1584.

[52] Art. 2261; see, also, Art. 177.

[53] Hartley’s Digest, Art. 2586.

[54] Ovid, Metamorph., Lib. II. 13, 14.

[55] No allusion is made to Free States where exclusion on account of color was recognized.

[56] Hawkins _v._ The State, 7 Missouri Rep., 192.

[57] Spencer _v._ The State, 20 Alabama Rep., 27.

[58] Potts et al. _v._ House, 6 Georgia Rep., 348.

[59] De Lacy _v._ Antoine et als., 7 Leigh, R., 438; Commonwealth _v._ Oldham, 1 Dana, R., 466; Williams _v._ Blincoe, 5 Littell, R., 171; 2 De Bow, 274.

[60] Commonwealth _v._ Oldham, 1 Dana, R., 467.

[61] Clancy _v._ Overman, 1 Devereux and Battle, R., 402.

[62] Biles _v._ Holmes et als., 11 Iredell, Law Rep., 21.

[63] Yeatman et al. _v._ Hart, 6 Humphreys, R., 377. See, also, Marr _v._ Hill et al., 10 Missouri Rep., 320; M’Clintock _v._ Hunter, Dudley, So. Car. Law Rep., 327; Brown _v._ Lester, Georgia Decisions,