The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864

Contrary to the hopes of our fathers, the slave system had prospered and grown strong—chiefly because of the impetus given to it by the growth of cotton, as was clearly shown by Webster in the speech just noted. We suppose no candid reader of our history will deny this point. But the system had no vital force within itself, and could not withstand those laws of nature and free emigration to which we have adverted. It sought protective legislation, and got it. Still, it was hampered by limitations, notwithstanding it had present control of the cotton growth. So the question of the slave trade was mooted. Thus it came to pass that within half a century after it had expired by limitation of the Constitution, that monstrous anomaly of the Christian era was sought to be revived. And so corrupt had public sentiment become that the slave trader captain of the yacht Wanderer could not be convicted by a jury of his countrymen of violating the ordinance of the nation against this traffic.8 Will any one dare affirm that the tone of public feeling in the South on this subject was not higher and purer in the time of Jefferson than in the time of Buchanan? To what a depth of moral degradation the nation might have sunk under the thus retrogressive influences of ungodly Mammon, setting God and Christianity at total defiance, may not easily be conjectured. But that law of action and reaction which balances the powers of nature with such equal justice, holds good also in the world of mind; and in the providence of God the time of reaction came at last, and the temper of the nation reverted to its pristine purity. That time came when defiant Mammon waxed so bold as to threaten the nation's life. Under the protective statutes of Congress, jealously watching over the local institutions of States, slavery had grown to be a dominating power in the country; and, bound by legislation and compromise, and the strict letter of the Constitution, the people could only protest, and bide the inevitable issue of such arrogant domination.

Now no longer is slavery dominant. Its own hand has struck down the protecting shield of a quasi-constitutional guaranty, and all men feel that its condemnation is just. Now there is 'none so poor to do it reverence.' Why is this? It is the uniform course and consequence of sin. 'Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.' But God has spoken at last in a voice that we must heed. It is the voice of war, a voice of woe; the voice of civil war, the chief of woes. Slavery is now at our mercy. And mercy to it is to be measured by our humanity to man and our fear of God. 'The word is nigh thee, even in thy own mouth.' Servitudo delenda est: deleta est. Slavery is to be destroyed: it is already destroyed. Shall we permit it a chance to be revived? The way is opened to us, as it was not to our fathers, to remove the curse from our borders. We shall be false to every inspiration of patriotism if we now fail to remove it. The time has come to complete the unity of the Constitution, and make the ideal purpose of it, as stated in the preamble, a living fact. Shall we let the opportunity slip? Now, at last, we may ordain a Constitution by which 'a more perfect Union' shall 'secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.'

3. A third reason for the proposed amendment, not less cogent though more familiar to our political discussions than the two already named, is found in article fourth, section second, of the Constitution: 'Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States.' Everybody knows that this section of the Constitution has been heretofore practically a dead letter, albeit as fully a part of the supreme law as that other provision in the same section for the rendition of 'persons held to service.' So everybody knows equally well the reason of it. It was a concession to the fierce passions of slaveholding politics. From the very nature of the case there could not be the same toleration of speech and press in a Slave State which the men from a Slave State enjoyed in a Free State. It was incendiary. So for half a century there has been this virtual nullification of one of the justest compromises of the Constitution; and citizens of the United States have, within the limits of the United States, been tarred and feathered, and burnt, and hung, and subjected to indignities without number and without name. Nobody will probably be willing to say that such a state of things is worthy to be continued. The hope of peaceable relief has for long restrained the hands of a people educated to an abhorrence of war. We have submitted to a despotism less tolerant than the autocracy of Russia, or the absolutism of France—hoping, vainly hoping, for some change; willing to forego all things rather than dissever the Union, which we have held, and hold, to be foremost, because bearing the promise of all other political blessings; pardoning much to a legacy left the South for which it was not primarily responsible, and ready to second the humane care of a feeble race, and clinging to the hope of that better time to which all the signs pointed, when, by force of freedom, there could be no more slavery. The time has come, though sooner and under other circumstances (alas! far other circumstances) than we expected. We need now no longer give guaranties to the slaveholding interest. Taking advantage of such as it had, it has not hesitated to attack its sole benefactor, and now all our obligations are at an end. The Congress of the nation may and will take care that, secession being stifled, there shall not henceforth be a nullification of the least provision of the organic law, out of mistaken tenderness for the interest of any section. We have at last learned a nobler virtue than forbearance, and henceforth either the Constitution, in all its parts, is to be supreme, or else the nation must die. One or other of these things must result. Let him who can hesitate between them write himself down a traitor; for he is one. No patriot can hesitate. No lover of his country can falter in a time like this. And if three years of war have not taught a man that this is the alternative, that man does not deserve a country.

4. But there is a more emphatic expression of our fundamental law than any yet cited; which, if left to its proper working, as now it may be, strikes at the root of slavery. It is the fourth section of the fourth article of the Constitution. 'The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.'

The essence of republicanism is freedom. A republic that, like Sparta, permits the enslavement of any portion of its people, is surely not predicated upon the true idea of a republic; and it is worth while to consider that the ancient republics found their bane in slavery, and that the aristocratic republics of modern times, like Venice, have perished. Only those republics survive to-day which, like San Marino, have free institutions. A republic is a country where the whole people is the public, and the state the affair of the whole people. It is a public affair (as its name imports), a thing of the public; and this is not true of any other than a democracy. For the essential idea of such a government is expressed in the maxim: 'the greatest good to the greatest number;' and in that other maxim which is part of our Declaration of Independence, that 'government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.' It needs no argument to show that these maxims are violated in a country where any portion of the people are deprived of their highest good—liberty. For what is the object of government? To protect men from oppression. And our republican doctrine is that this is best accomplished in a form of government which gives to the voice of all men the controlling power. 'The voice of the people is the voice of God,' because humanity is of God. The doctrine is that the state is made for the individual, not the individual for the state; just as our Saviour declared that 'the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.' These things being so (and it is not pretended that they are novel, for they are very trite), does it not immediately appear how essentially opposed is slavery to the idea of a republic? Therefore when the Constitution guarantees to every State a republican form of government, it guarantees to all the people of every State a voice in its control. And whatever State disfranchises any portion of its people violates this provision of the Constitution.

To the objection that, at the time of adopting the Constitution, all the States were Slave States, with a single exception, and therefore within the meaning of that instrument slavery and a republican form of government are not incongruous, there are two answers. First, it is matter of history that the framers of the Constitution acted throughout with reference to the eventual abolition of slavery; as has been already adverted to in this paper. Therefore such States as have retained their slave establishments have done so in violation of the spirit of this provision of the Constitution; while such States as have since been admitted into the Union with slave establishments have been admitted by compromises, equally in violation of that provision, but acquiesced in by the whole country, as the slave establishments of the original States had been, and therefore equally binding on our good faith. We are now no longer bound by any compromises. We have kept our plighted faith strictly and fairly, though the Slave States have not. Our duty now is to reconstruct, if we can, the fabric of the Union. If, in doing this, we abolish slavery entirely, which makes impossible the full realization of this guaranteeing clause, the guaranty will spring into new life and become a power in the law of the land. Secondly, what is meant by a republican form of government within the meaning of the Constitution must be determined by reference to the Declaration of Independence, which is the basis of our Government, and declares the principles of it. That Declaration was promulgated as embodying the doctrines of a new age—an age in which the rights of man should at last be maintained as against the rights of royalty and privilege. It is, therefore, the soundest rule of interpretation to refer the ambiguities of the organic law to the declaration that preceded and introduced it and made it possible. And so interpreting, will any one say that slavery is compatible with the principles of the Declaration of Independence?

In support, moreover, of the view here taken, may be cited the opinion of many of our statesmen, as expressed on the question of admitting new States into the Union: as, for instance, when Missouri applied for admission with a slave constitution. Nor is it competent to offset this with the opinion of such statesmen as have advocated the doctrine of the Virginia Resolutions of State sovereignty; for they notoriously disregarded the paramount supremacy of the Constitution. The conscientious doubt of others as to making the exclusion of slavery a condition precedent to admission into the Union, proves not the incorrectness of this position, but strengthens it, by showing that only a controlling love of the Union caused the doubt, which originated in a policy that would not even seem to do injustice to any State.

But whatever may be true as to the opinions of the fathers and early statesmen of the republic; whatever may be true as to the precise meaning of the term 'republican form of government' in the Constitution; surely, in the light of our rebellion, there cannot longer be a doubt as to the inherent antagonism of slavery to the principles of republican government. The Southern Confederacy sprang into existence as an oligarchy of slaveholders, willing (if need be) to live under a military despotism (as is the fact to-day, and will be hereafter if the world should witness the dire misfortune of its success), rather than submit to the searching scrutiny of republican ideas, with freedom of speech and press and person. And so it is that we recur to the simple fact of the Southern Confederacy for the vindication of the proposed amendment in all its bearings, finding in that fact the full warrant and justification of it.

5. There is still another reason for the proposed amendment, that may be urged with great force, on the ground of expediency; namely, that it would settle the whole question of reconstruction in a manner and with an effect that could not be gainsaid. For, once incorporated into the fundamental law, there could not then arise questions touching the validity of acts by which slaves are declared freemen. There would be nothing left to hang a doubt upon. The Proclamation of Emancipation as a war measure is undoubtedly a proper proceeding; but as a means of effecting organic changes, and as possible to operate beyond the period of actual war, it is open to many grave objections. Freedom being thus made the law of the land, there would be no longer reason for differences, as now there are wide differences among conscientious and capable men, as to the proper mode of reinvesting the States usurped by the rebellion with their rightful powers as kindred republics of the nation. Constituent parts of a common and indivisible empire, those powers cannot be destroyed by a usurping rebellion.

But, it is objected, the proposed amendment destroys certain of those powers. Yes, it takes away all pretended right to hold slaves. For the right of slavery is nowhere recognized in the Constitution. The fact of slavery as part of the local establishments of some States could not be ignored, although, as is well known, the word 'slave' was expressly ruled out of the Constitution. Hence, the famous provisions for the rendition of 'persons held to service' (art. iv. sec. 2), and for the apportionment of representatives and direct taxes, 'by adding to the whole number of free persons … three fifths of all other persons' (art. i. sec. 2): which are the only recognition slavery finds in our Constitution.

It is true, therefore, that slavery, never a right, but always a wrong, under the Constitution, as under the law of nature and revelation, is now to be no longer recognized even as a fact. To abolish it by this amendment is to abolish it entirely throughout the Union, irrespective of apparent State rights. The repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law remits the question of restoring 'persons held to service' to the safeguards of trial by jury, but has no further force. To supplement and complete the work of reconstruction, we need to make impossible the pretence of a power anywhere within the domain of the United States to hold a person in bondage.

To the objection we have just noted, that certain State rights are thus destroyed, there are two sufficient answers. First, in no State of the Union, it is believed, does slavery exist by virtue of positive law. It is the subject of legislation only as a recognized fact in society. It exists in Virginia in violation of the Bill of Rights, which is part of the organic law of that State, and, in its essential features, of every slaveholding State. Therefore to abolish it is both to fulfil the duty of the United States in guaranteeing to every State a republican form of government, and to assert the only true doctrine of State rights, namely, that the legislation of a State shall conform to the fundamental law at once of the State itself and the nation. And thus the Bill of Rights of a slaveholding State will be no longer a mockery, but a living power. Secondly, the destruction of this pseudo right of a State to hold slaves is no cause of complaint—even supposing it were a legitimate and proper right.9 For, the Constitution once adopted, the provision for amendment, as part of it, has also been ratified and adopted; and therefore, by a familiar principle of law, the exercise of that provision may not afterward be questioned. It is not for the parties who have once solemnly ratified an agreement to complain of the carrying into effect of its terms. They must forever hold their peace.

Thus, by virtue of the proposed amendment, all the States of the Union will become Free States, and there will be no longer the anomaly of a free nation upholding slavery. It will then, moreover, have been settled by the highest authority in the land, that a republican form of government means, first of all, freedom; and so a free constitution will be the unquestionable condition precedent of the admission of any State into the Union. This doctrine will seem monstrous to the believer in State sovereignty as paramount to the sovereignty of the nation: so it will seem monstrous to the believer in secession and rebellion. But by the lover of the Union (who alone is the true patriot in our country) it will be accepted as a doctrine that adds another bond of unity to the nation, and so tends to secure its perpetual strength.

In fine, the Constitution itself is all bristling with arguments for this amendment. Besides the provisions already quoted, there is the fifth article of the amendments, declaring that 'no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,' which has now a significance unknown before. Oh, how the rebellion has interpreted for us and commented upon the provisions of the Constitution! In the dread light of its unholy fires, we see, as never before, how cursed and doubly accursed a thing is slavery—making men forget all that is holiest and sacredest, quenching all their inspirations of patriotism, and leading them to sell body and soul for mad ambition. How true, alas! is the poet's word: 'How like a mounting devil in the heart rules the unreined ambition!'

We must, therefore, put an end to slavery. In its whole essence and substance, it militates against the perpetuity of our national Union. To think of preserving both it and the Union is to shut our eyes wilfully to the facts of the last half century, and the culminating condemnation of slavery in the rebellion. A Southern journal (The Nashville Times) has lately said, with great truth and force: 'Slavery can no more violate the law of its existence and become loyal and law-abiding than a stagnant pool can freshen and grow sweet in its own corruption.' Discard all other considerations; say, if we please, that slavery has nothing to do with the origin of the war; yet we must recognize the fact of a confederacy avowedly basing itself on the system of slavery, and which is in the interest of slaveholders, and is fostered by the minions of despotism all over the world. Then, if we can, let us come to any other conclusion than the one suggested in the proposed amendment.

This confederacy in the interest of slaveholders threatens the life of the nation. There is a limit to the powers of the Constitution, and we may not pass beyond it. But shall we deny that there is a higher law back of the Constitution, back of all constitutions—namely, that 'safety of the people,' which is 'the supreme law'? If we say that there is no such thing as moral government in the world; that a beneficent God does not sit in the heavens, holding all nations as in the hollow of His hand; yet we cannot deny this law of self-preservation. This law, this higher law of human society, the law political, in the very nature of things, demands the amendment.

Above all, let us not ignore the lessons of the war. The million graves of the heroes fallen in defence of our liberties and laws, are so many million wounds in the bleeding body of the nation, whose poor, dumb mouths, if they had voice, would cry out to Heaven against the system which has moved this foul treason against those liberties and laws. Let us, then, in the white heat of this terrible crisis, adopt the amendment, and stamp on the forefront of the nation, as its motto, for all time, those magnificent words of Webster: 'Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!' For let us be well assured that the Southern Confederacy cannot triumph. In the darkest and most mournful period of the despotism of the first Napoleon, when all hearts were failing, a minister of the Church of England spoke these words of the military empire of France, and they may fitly be spoken of the military empire of the South to-day:

'It has no foundation in the moral stability of justice. It is irradiated by no beam from heaven; it is blessed by no prayer of man; it is worshipped with no gratitude by the patriot heart. It may remain for the time that is appointed it, but the awful hour is on the wing when the universe will resound with its fall; and the same sun which now measures out with reluctance the length of its impious reign, will one day pour his undecaying beams amid its ruins, and bring forth from the earth which it has overshadowed the promises of a greater spring.'10

AVERILL'S RAID

Say, lads, have ye heard of bold Averill's raid?How we scoured hill and valley, dared dungeon and blade!How we made old Virginia's heart quake through and through,Where our sharp, sworded lightning cut sudden her view!Three cheers!Red battle had trampled her plains into mire;The homestead and harvest had vanished in fire;But far where the walls of the Blue Ridge arose,Were prize for our daring and grief for our foes.Three cheers!There was grain in the garners, fresh, plump to the sight;And mill-wheels to grind it all dainty and white;There were kine in the farmyards, and steeds in the stall,All ready, when down our live torrent should fall.Three cheers!And in the quaint hamlets that nestled more far,Were contrabands pining to know the north star;And home guards so loath to leave home and its joys,But who dreamed not they staid prize for Averill's boys.Three cheers!Oh, keen did we grind our good sabres, and scanOur carbines and pistols, girths, spurs, to a man!Then up and away did we dash with a shout,With cannon and caisson, away in and out.Three cheers!Away in the forest and out on the plain;The stormy night gathered, we never drew rein;The raw morning cut us, but onward, right on,Till again the chill landscape in twilight grew wan.Three cheers!Sleet stung us like arrows, winds rocked us like seas,And close all around crashed the pinnacle-trees;Red bolts flashed so near, the glare blinded our eyes,But onward, still on, for in front shone the prize.Three cheers!We climbed the steep paths where the spectre-like firMoaned of death in the distance; we ceased not to spur!Death! what that to us, with our duty before!Then onward, still on our stern hoof-thunder bore.Three cheers!We dashed on the garners, their white turned to black;We dashed on the mills, smoky veils lined our track;We dashed on the hamlet, ha, ha! what a noise,What a stir, as upon them rushed Averill's boys!Three cheers!The contrabands came with wide grins and low bows,And old ragged slouches swung wide from their brows;But the home guards ran wildly—then blustered, when foundNot made food for powder, but Union-ward bound.Three cheers!The kine turned to broils at our camp fires—the steeds,The true F. F. V.'s, fitted well to our needs;They pranced and they neighed, as if proud of the joysOf bearing, not home guards, but Averill's boys.Three cheers!We dashed on the rail-track, we ripped and we tore;We dashed on the depots, made bold with their store;Then away, swift away, for 'twas trifling with fire;We were far in the foe's depths, and free to his ire.Three cheers!Fierce Ewell and Early and Stuart and HillLaunched forth their fleet legions to capture and kill;But we mocked all pursuit, and eluded each toil,And drummed unopposed on their dear sacred soil.Three cheers!We swam icy torrents, climbed wild, icy roadsWhere alone wolf and woodman held savage abodes;We floundered down glary steeps, ravine, and wall,Either side, where, one slip, and a plunge settled all:Three cheers!The dark, mighty woods heaved like billows, as o'erBurst harsh jarring blasts, and like breakers their roar;While clink of the hoof-iron and tinkle of bladeMade sprinkle like lute in love's soft serenade.Three cheers!Oh, footsore and weary our steeds at last grew!Oh, hungry and dreary the long moments drew!We froze to our saddles, spur hardly could ply:What of that! we were lucky, and now could but die!Three cheers!But we wore through the moments, we rode though in pain;Were sure to forget all when camp came again;—So we rode and we rode, till, hurrah! on our sightBurst our tents, as on midnight comes bursting the light!Three cheers!

OBSERVATIONS OF THE SUN