HISTORY,

CHAPTER IV.

1860-.

VICTORY.

OLIGARCHY CAST OUT.

"This thirst for an African Slave trade has been the chief motive that has influenced the Secessionists, and which has made a compromise almost impossible.

"In the Southern States social position almost entirely rests upon the possession of slaves.

Hitherto, the northern States, in conjunction with the breeding States, have been able to keep in check this longing for an influx of cheap slaves. The Whites have grown restless under this yoke, and now their determination is to open up a trade in slaves with Africa, and thus reduce the price of negroes."-Saturday Review, March 2, 1861.

I would rather have the small-pox, yellow fever, and cholera, all together in my camp than a man without principle. It is a mistake, sir, that our people make, when they think that bullies are the best fighters, or that they are the fit men to oppose these Southerners. Give me men of good principles-God-fearing_men,-men who respect themselves, and with a dozen of them I will oppose any hundred such men as these Buford ruffians."-John Brown, "of Kansas.

"With one son dead by his side, and another shot through, he felt the pulse of his dying son with one hand, and held his rifle with the other, and commanded his men with the utmost composure, encouraging them to be firm, and to sell their lives as dear as they could."-Henry D. Thoreau, on John Brown.

"Harper's Ferry is the turning point in the Slaves' History." "This infernal march-this tramp of men, possessed by him whose name is legion, over all human and divine law and life, has suddenly been made to halt.”—Gilbert Haven.

"The South were brave enough, but they saw afar off. They saw_the_tremendous power that was entering into that charmed circle; they knew its inevitable victory."- Wendell Phillips.

"The unity of government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize. It is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it, accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can, in any event, be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

"The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. Every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole.

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While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined can not fail to find, in the united mass of means and efforts, greater strength, greater resources, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighbouring countries, not tied together by the same government, which their own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty; in this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as the main prop of your liberty.

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Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the Union by which they were procured?

"To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict, between the parts, can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances, in all time, have experienced.

"The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government; but the constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government, pre-supposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government."-From WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL.

CONTENTS.

The meaning of Lincoln.-Slave Democrat Platform. Chicago Republican platform.-Lincoln's Election.-His caucus, electoral, and popular majorities. - Southern Disunion.-Secession Convention Bill, four days after Lincoln's election.Union feeling, South. - Carolinian army nucleus.—Buchanan's Message, December, 1860.-Second compromise Message.Secesh Congress. --- The eleven Secesh States.-SECESH ORDINANCES. CONSTITUTION, March 11th.-Special Slave clauses. -Slavery perpetual and to be protected.-LINCOLN'S MESSAGE, March 4th. Steady, conciliatory, inexorable.-The Union perpetual. Majorities must decide, or there is no Government. The South knew Lincoln.-Indictment against the South.Three parties, North, South, and Compromise.-The Southern "Terror." Nigger on the Brain."-Freedom by the Union. -The Union by Freedom.-The Platform of 1864.-The nation versus Oligarchy.

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"That the Black Republican party claims to abolish the interState Slave trade. That it repels all further admission of new Slave States. It opposes protection to Slavery on the high seas. It has nearly abolitionised two of the Border Slave States-Maryland and Missouri, and is making similar inroads constantly upon Virginia and Kentucky. It has extended fanaticism into our own Borders."-See Mobile Secession Declaration, Dec. 1860.

That the Slave trade must be re-opened to prevent the formation of a dangerous class without direct interest in Slavery."—See message of Governor Adams of South Carolina two years before Secession.

"That the new dogma, that the Constitution of its own force carries Slavery in any or all the Territories of the United States, is a dangerous political heresy," &c.

That the normal condition of all the Territory of the United States is that of freedom, &c. and we deny the authority of Congress, of a territorial Legislature, or of any Individuals, to give legal existence to Slavery in any Territory of the United States.

From 7th and 8th clauses of the Lincoln platform, Chicago, 1860. "Resolved,―That we, Democrats, will sustain the War * * till Victory shall crown our efforts, and peace, founded upon the Union, shall be restored. We therefore urge our fellow Democrats to sustain the Government as it exists, and to support the Candidates who express these views.' War Democrat Convention, New York, Nov. 1, 1864.

"That Slavery must be always and everywhere hostile to the principle of Republican Government. National safety demands its utter extirpation."-See Republican platform, 1864.

The LINCOLN PLATFORM was the non-extension of Slavery into the territories; the territories meant

the Future of America; the exclusion of Slavery therefrom, involved the holding of the Union for Freedom. The alternatives were the destruction of Slavery in the Union, the use of the Union to conquer fresh Slave States in the far South, or the erection out of the Union, from the Potomac to Panama, of a vast Slave Empire.

And now comes the beginning of the end. We proceed to quote the "platforms" upon which the two great parties appealed to Americans. The Division of the Democratic party into "Slave" and "Squatter" Democrats, was the occasion of the triumph of Lincoln. To understand the reason of his triumph, or the present strength and future prospects of the Free-soil party, it is necessary to understand the principles upon which the Democrats split, and also the proportionate strength of each division.

In April, 1860, the first of Two DEMOCRATIC CONVENTIONS assembled at Charleston, comprising representatives of all free States, except California and Oregon.

Sixteen Delegates voted for Squatter Sovereignty, and 17 for a complete Slave code, to be enforced by the Federal Government. After debate the Northern section proposed, as their utmost compromise, the following;—

"Inasmuch as differences of opinion exist in the Democratic party as to the nature and extent of the powers of a territorial legislature, and as to the powers and duties of Congress under