612 BENJAMIN F. WADE. in the Senate, would not allow Iverson to go unanswered, and his reply embodied the best exposition made during this session, of the principles of the new party. The Southern Senators, said Wade, represented but little more than one-quarter of the free people of the United States, and yet their counsels had prevailed for at least ten years, and the party which they represented had also been in the majority in the cabinet and in the Supreme Court. Was it not strange, therefore, that they should now complain that their rights were struck down by the government? If anything in the Federal legislation was wrong they were responsible for it, for the Republican party had never for one hour been invested with sufficient power to modify or control federal legislation; therefore, when Senators justified the overthrow of the government they were acting merely upon the suspicion that the Republicans might somewhat affect their rights or violate the Constitution. The Republicans, he said, held no principle which had not had the sanction of the government in every department for more than seventy years. On the question of slavery it stood where Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe had stood, and where Adams, Jackson and even Polk had stood. It was the men of the South who had changed their opinions. The only legislation of which the South could complain was furnished by some evidence of hostility to slavery in the liberty laws of some of the Northern States. But the opinions embodied in these laws were held by the civilized nations of the world. All agreed that the day of compromises was at an end. The most solemn compromise had been violated without scruple, and one that had stood for more than thirty years had but recently been swept from the statute books by the Kansas-Nebraska act. The friends and foes of slavery extension had made it the great issue at the recent elec THE ISSUE STATED. 613 tion. "The plainest and most palpable issue that was ever presented to the American people and one that they understood best;" and the majority had voted against slavery extension. Dissatisfied with this result, the South claimed the constitutional right to secede at pleasure and set up an adverse government for which, said Wade, “I can find no warrant in the Constitution." If the principle of secession was right there must be an end to all government. "As to South Carolina," said he, "I will say that she is a small State; and probably if she were sunk by an earthquake to-day we would hardly ever find it out except by the unwonted harmony that might prevail in this chamber." He If a State seceded, although the government would not make war upon her, it could not recognize her right to be out of the Union, and she would not be out until she had gained the consent of the Union itself. Whoever was President he would find it his sworn duty under the Constitution to execute the law everywhere in the Union, and that he could not be released from that obligation. must collect the revenues precisely in the same way and in the same extent as they were collected in every State. The Constitution demanded that he should do it alike in the ports of every State. If he were forced to close the ports of entry, trade would cease. If he compelled collection, the State would not have gained independence by secession. The consequence must be obedience to the laws or the State must take the initiative and declare war upon the United States. Force must be met by force; secession would end in war, and the act of levying war would be treason against the United States. That, concluded he, is where it results; we might just as well look the matter right in the face.1 Not since that day when Web 1 Globe, December 17, 1860, pp. 99, 104. 614 EFFECT OF WADE'S SPEECH. ster replied to Hayne, had such language been heard in the Senate. The effect of the speech at the North was transcendent. Wade had put the power and character of the government in plain language and in a clear light. He was the first Senator to say boldly that the Nation would defend itself; and from the day of his speech a word familiar to the fathers came into more common use. The American Union was henceforth spoken of as the Nation, instead of the Confederacy. Crittenden, the venerable Senator from Kentucky, had declared his faith in the Union and in its right and power of self-defense. Wade had gone no further, he had only used more burning words and boldly disclosed the tragedy of the situation. Secession meant treason, civil war and all its consequences. The laws of the Nation would be executed; the fearful consequences of resisting them would rest upon those who had instigated, and who might attempt, secession. If Wade's speech seems extreme, like Iverson's, we must remember that the country was at the threshold of a great revolution. Its political institutions were about to be revised. No man could see the end. But the tendency of the times was as clear to the leaders of the people as to us who come after. Two civilizations were protected by the Constitution. Both could not survive. Each had found a voice. The issue was made up. Secession, disunion, a slaveholding Confederacy had spoken. So had the Nation. Its purpose could not be mistaken. "I stand by the union of these States," concluded the Ohio Senator. "Washington and his compatriots fought for that good old flag. It shall never be hauled down, but shall be the glory of the Government to which I belong, as long as my life shall continue. To maintain it, Washington and his compatriots fought for liberty and the rights of man. And THE NATION VS. THE CONFEDERACY. 615 here I will add that my own father, although but a humble soldier, fought in the same great cause, and went through hardships and privations sevenfold worse than death, in order to bequeath it to his children. It is my inheritance. It was my protector in infancy and the pride and glory of my riper years; and, although it may be assailed by traitors on every side, by the grace of God, under its shadow I will die." Iverson's apology for confederacy and secession was made on the eleventh; Wade's defense of the Constitution and the Nation, on the seventeenth. Midway between these dates two proclamations had appeared, not for the same purpose, but yet effecting it, and showing, plainly, the futility of every hope for compromise. The President's message had strengthened the party of secession. When a rebellion is about to break out, the executive magistracy weakens its cause by sounding a single note of despair. But Buchanan's message was a dirge, a national funeral march. On the fourth of December he summoned the American people, by proclamation, to assemble, on the coming fourth of January, for humiliation, fasting and prayer; the State was in confusion; the masses without work and many without food, and the Union "threatened with alarming and immediate danger."2 Whatever the President's motives may have been, his proclamation did not help the national cause. Aggressive nationalists believed that it was a time for action. To the secessionists, the President's dismal appeal was a sign of a federal collapse. What further evidence was needed? It was probably by accident that the leaders of the secession movement issued their manifesto on the very day of 1 Congressional Globe, December 17, 1860, pp. 99, 101, 103, 104. 2 Richardson omits this proclamation. It may be found in the Washington Constitution for December 15, 1860, and is given, in part, in Nicolay and Hay's Lincoln, II, 435. 616 THE ADDRESS OF SOUTHERN MEMBERS. the President's proclamation.* It was the call to the clans. Within six days South Carolina responded; within sixty, seven States had obeyed and assembled to form a Southern Confederacy. * ADDRESS OF CERTAIN SOUTHERN MEMBERS OF CON GRESS. To Our Constituents.1 Washington, Dec. 14, 1860. The argument is exhausted. All hope of relief in the Union through the agency of committees, Congressional legislation, or constitutional amendments is extinguished, and we trust the South will not be deceived by appearances or the pretenses of new guarantees. In our judgment the Republicans are resolute in the purpose to grant nothing that will or ought to satisfy the South. We are satisfied the honor, safety, and independence of the Southern people require the organization of a Southern Confederacy-a result to be obtained only by separate State secession -that the primary object of each slaveholding State ought to be its speedy and absolute separation from a Union with hostile States. J. L. Pugh of Alabama. U. S. Senator, Georgia. U. S. Senator, Mississippi. A. G. Brown, U. S. Senator, Mississippi. Thomas Ruffins of North Caro- U. S. Senator, Louisiana. U. S. Senator, Louisiana. 1 Washington Constitution, December 15, 1860. Given in Nicolay and Hay's Lincoln, II, 436. 2 Member of the Alabama Convention of 1861. Clopton was appointed by it, a commissioner to Delaware; Curry, to Maryland. See Journal, 35. Curry was also elected a deputy to the Provisional C. S. A. Congress, Id., 161. 3 Members of the North Carolina Convention, of 1861; also of the Peace Conference. |