Civil War
    

The History of the Times

1860s newsprint

April 9, 1861; The Telegraph, (Harrisburg Pennsylvania)

“When the impartial pen of the historian is invoked to trace the transaction of the present to their true source and responsibility, he will be compelled to discharge a duty which will leave a stain of dark and irrefaceable crime on the name of the Democratic party, its measures and its men. However we may endeavor to deal leniently with the errors of individuals, and close our eyes to the common faults and frailties of our nature – there are yet degrees of crime and extents of excuse which must not be permitted to pass unnoticed or uncondemned. They will not be permitted to do so, particularly when they seek to thrust suffering on the generation that governs or entail misery and sorrow on that which is to come after us, to inhabit and posses the land. All that we were as a government, so far as prestige and political influence are concerned, we inherited from the wisdom of those who bathed their virtues and their patriotism in their own blood, and became martyrs to their faith, with the holy resolution and purpose of creating a government which would end the martyrdom of patriotism, and establish forever the civil and religious rights of mankind. Those who formed and framed and labored for the establishment of free institutions on this hemisphere, never dreamed that the blow which would destroy their cherished object and holy purpose, would be dealt by the hands of a portion of the American people themselves. They never imagined that treason would be hatched in the capital of the republic they poured out their blood to organize. If the blow ever did come, and treason plotted to subvert the liberty of the American people, in their opinion it would come from abroad, and be hatched by those who never enjoyed and therefor could not appreciate the blessings of free institutions. But in their confidence in those who were to come after them, the statesmen and heroes of the revolution were mistaken. Instead of the blow that is to destroy us, coming from abroad, it is dealt from at home, by those most benefitted, and the treason with which it is clutching the nation by the throat, was concocted by the very men who were sworn to its preservation and protection. This is no idle assertion. The history of the past proves the origin of the treason, while the transactions of the present are daily developing the designs of those engaged in this treacherous revolution.

The cause of all our troubles is traced to the subject of slavery. In the infancy of the nation, and while we as a people were yet dependent colonies, slavery was introduced. After the revolution, and after the formation of the first Constitution, every christian man and patriot in the land admitted the evil of the institution, and consulted for a plan to ensure its gradual extinction. Such was the purpose of Jefferson and Adams, of Madison and Monroe, and on this idea of the abolishment of slavery the leading men of the past looked to the future for the grandest and holiest realization of the conception of free institutions. But as politics became a business, and the hunt for office a trade in which the worst passions and propensities of men were invoked and displayed, every prejudice which could be flattered and used for selfish purposes, was at once cultivated and fostered. The Democratic party has reorganized to counteract the purpose of effecting the gradual extinction of slavery. Its legislation has all tended towards such an achievement. During the years of its success, its efforts to prevent the protection of free labor were in keeping with its purpose to consolidate and spread the institution of slavery over all our territory, and constitute it a recognised element in the government of the country. Not satisfied with incorporating slavery in the domestic policy of the government, a foreign war was provoked, in order to satisfy its voracity and cater to its demands. And herein is the true source of all our difficulties. As long as the South maintained the balance of power, as long as they were able to control the government, to manage its departments, the machinery of legislation was undisturbed, and no section complained of the aggressions of the other. The breeding pens of Virginia were never more flourishing than when their owners were permitted to sit in high places of power – nor were South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Louisiana, fearful of the invasion of nay of their privileges or the disregard of nay right, when the national legislature refused to recognise free labor, or persisted in pouring into the lap of slavery the treasure of the whole country. By such acts and such legislation, the Democratic party were able to hold the government of the country in their own … because it made the South a unit in their favor. They succeeded in polluting the minds of the people of the North with false notions of monopoly, whenever protection to labor was broached, until the very labor which was thus sought to be fostered, suffered itself to be bound in its service and dragged into the depths of Democratic misery and destitution. For forty years all our struggles have been for slavery. The forcible and fraudulent annexation of Texas was for the same purpose. The bloody and costly war with Mexico aimed at conferring benefits on the same hellish influence – and to day we stand on the verge of a conflict even more sanguinary and far more expensive to curb the lusts and larcenies of this identical institution.

The historian will deal impartially with these facts. As long as the Democratic party was able to protect and maintain slavery, the advocates and supporters of that evil were also advocates and supporters of Democracy. As long as the Democratic party was powerful for slavery propagandism, the entire South was devoted to Democracy. But when the Democratic party became demoralized, when its leaders at the South assumed all the regal arrogance of aristocratic power, and the masses at the North suddenly changed their faith in its purity and purposes, then its southern adherents suddenly ceased in their devotion, the party itself was divided into angry factions and the cry of revolution and succession became as popular as free trade and direct taxation had before been audaciously insisted upon. No sane man will dare to declare that the revolution at the South is the result of any fear of political invasion from the North – and only those who are insane will deny that it is the effect of northern development, progress and improvement on the last relic of barbarianism that yet remains on this continent, in the shape of African slavery. It is the struggle of the Democratic party to maintain slavery. The effort of a decayed and dissolute aristocracy, under the name and in the disguise of a corrupt Democracy, to maintain its power in this government for the purpose of triumphing in its own base and selfish objects.

Let not the American people, the laboring man and mechanic, be misled, therefore, in the contest which is about to be waged. The conflict has been forced on them, and the struggle will be for their dearest rights. Under any circumstances, war seemed inevitable, and we had better have it written of us hereafter that we were willing to perish in a contest for life and liberty, than that we supinely submitted to our fate, and lost both liberty and life.”

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