The Church and the Rebellion

Opposing the Administration-change demanded, 555; Loyalty practically tested,

556; Loyalty above partisanship-Violence, 557; God reigus-Our trust, 559;

The Patriot's Reward, 559; The Traitor's Doom, 561.

THE CHURCH AND THE REBELLION.

CHAPTER I.

CHARACTER OF THE REBELLION.

THE rebellion against the Government of the United States, now in the fourth year of its progress, is among the most extraordinary phenomena in the annals of mankind. It is so remarkable in its objects, so determined in its spirit, and has brought into action, upon one side and the other, material and moral forces of such gigantic magnitude, that the world stands appalled at the spectacle it presents.

In any proper consideration of the subject, the logical order brings us first to look at the character of the rebellion. It has certain palpable features which might profitably admit of an extended examination. Our plan will allow us to give them only a passing notice.

AGAINST POPULAR GOVERNMENT.

1. The primal characteristic it exhibits is that of a violent demonstration against the life-principle of Popular Government.

The ultimate sovereignty and true source of all political power, under God, are in the people, for whose benefit civil society has been ordained. In God's providence, mankind are distributed into nations, in which political power is to be exercised through the modes which the people of each

may devise. To establish government, and to alter its form or character, so as to meet the varying wants of society, are among the inherent rights of every people. These are very generally conceded as fundamental principles in political science. They are denied by those who contend for the divine right of kings, and who hold that the many were created for the few; but the ablest writers acknowledge these rights as belonging primarily to the people, and of which they cannot be justly divested.

In regard to changing the government which exists over a people, either in its form or in matters of substance, the modes are various. In a monarchy, a people may wish to go no farther than to demand and receive concessions from the sovereign, leaving the form and structure of the government intact. Under a despotism, tyranny may become so oppressive as to be unendurable, with no hope of relief from the ruling power. Then, revolution may become a duty. This remedy is deemed justifiable in extreme cases, and a right which a people can never surrender. The propriety of resorting to it must, for the most part, be determined by the circumstances of each case.

In a popular government, however, republican or democratical, whose form and structure have sprung from the free consent of the whole people, and where the rulers, from the highest to the lowest, are chosen and frequently changed by their common suffrages, the right of violent revolution would seem to be well-nigh or quite excluded. All abuses of power are subject to that peaceful remedy which the people always have in their hands. Any branch of the government, executive, legislative, or judicial, which usurps authority, may be speedily reached and the corrective applied, as, for example, in the United States,-by impeachment, or by the ballot. If the remedy belong directly to the people, the determination is with the major

SOUTHERN DOMINATION IN THE GOVERNMENT.

ity, in the manner prescribed by law; and, when made, the decision must be final if the people are the ultimate source of power. A denial of these simple principles renders popular government impossible.*

Now, it is the invasion of that life-principle which underlies the whole structure of popular government, that constitutes the primal item in the catalogue of crimes which make up the terrible guilt of this rebellion. It is an appeal from the ballot-box to the sword; a determination to defeat by war the results of a popular election, fairly conducted in all respects according to the Constitution and laws, as those who have revolted admit; an election in which they, equally with the rest of the nation, freely embarked, and by the results of which they were therefore solemnly bound. This is the charge which stands recorded against them in the face of the whole world.

SOUTHERN DOMINATION IN THE GOVERNMENT.

2. Another item in the character of the rebellion is, that it is waged against a Government whose administration the rebels, through the party with which they had generally acted, had almost uniformly controlled, from the origin of the Government to the time of their revolt, and every branch of which was still in their possession.

This is one of those facts in our history, so well known and so public that it will scarcely be questioned. But an authority so valuable as that of Vice-President Stephens, of the "Confederate" Government, may here be given.

* Says M. DE TOCQUEVILLE, in his Democracy in America: “All authority originates in the will of the majority." "In the United States, the majority governs in the name of the people, as is the case in all the countries in which the people is supreme." "The very essence of democratic government consists in the absolute Sovereignty of the majority." "The moral power of the majority is founded upon yet another principle, which is, that the interests of the many are to be preferred to those of the few."

In a speech at Washington, Georgia, June 8, 1861, he says:

It has been our pride that out of the seventy-two years of the existence of the Government under the Constitution, it has been for sixty under the control of Southern statesmen. This has secured whatever of prosperity and greatness, growth and development, has marked the country's career during its past history. The Northern masses generally agreed with Southern statesmen in their policy, and sustained them. These were the democracy of that section. Mr. Jefferson said they were allies. Washington's administration lasted eight years. It was Southern, and in the line of Southern policy. Then came the elder Adams. He was from Massachusetts. Opposite ideas shaped his policy. At the end of four years, the people indignantly turned him and his counsellors out of power. Then came Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, each eight years-all Southern men. Here we had thirty-two years of Southern administration to four Northern. Then came the younger Adams from the North. He was the great embodiment of those ideas which now control Lincoln's administration. At the end of four years he was turned out of power, and Jackson, a Southern man, came in for eight years. Then came Van Buren, a Northern man, for four years. Then Harrison, Tyler, and Polk, which added eight years more of Southern control. Next, Taylor and Fillmore. Fillmore was a Northern man, it is true, but his administration was sustained by the South, and so was Pierce's. These may be called Southern administrations; and so was Buchanan's-thus making sixty out of the seventy-two years of the Government's existence under the Constitution. All the important measures which have marked the history of the Government, which have made it what it is, or was before the dismemberment, and made it the admiration of the world, were the fruits of the policy of Southern statesmen.

This statement of Mr. Stephens requires one modification. The policy of Mr. Van Buren's administration was as intensely Southern as that of any one he claims. It was not till several years after his retirement from public life that he gave expression to those views which rendered him odious to his quondam Southern friends. The balance may then be adjusted so as to give to the South, upon the principle Mr. Stephens lays down, sixty-four years of con

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The Church and the Rebellion: A Consideration of the Rebellion Against the ...