CHAPTER XXI.

Object of this Volume.-Except for Causes arising in the North, any Attempt at Secession in the South would have been impossible.-Two Important Questions remaining after the War.-The Speediest Restoration best for the Whole Country.-The Radical Policy. -The Emancipation Question.-An Illustration of Radical Policy from Spanish History four hundred Years ago.-The End of the Republican Movement corresponds with its Beginning.-What would have been the Condition of the Country, if Emancipation had taken place when the Constitution was adopted.-The same Motive which led the Radical Managers to "precipitate" the War induces them to oppose Restoration.The Question must soon be-" Whether we will have a reëstablished Constitution and a true Union, or a Government of Laws and not of Men"

Ir has been the object of this volume to trace the direct and indirect causes which led to the war. Less pains has been taken to exhibit in special detail the well-known sentiments, or the political demonstrations of determined secessionists at the South, either before or after those causes had accumulated and had become the basis of their action. Except for those causes it is plain that the promoters of seces sion would have had no ground of action, and could have made no such appeal to the people of the South, as to enlist them in a transaction so momentous as open rebellion against the Government of the country; or could have persuaded them that their interests and rights demanded of them the perils and sacrifices necessarily involved in such an attempt. Except for their belief in the existence and operation of those causes, and of the danger to their rights and interests which they conceived were thus threatened, any effort for secession must necessarily have been an object simply of derision in the Southern States, and any active movement in that direction would have been summarily put down by the South without calling to its aid a single man from the North.

THE PRESENT SITUATION.

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Upon these grounds, therefore, it was, and from such motives, that the country, against the decided and general wishes of the people, was finally betrayed into a war for the Union, by conspirators against the Union.

But now that the war itself is at an end, two very important questions yet remain for the solution of the American people.

What is to be the permanent loss or gain to the country by reason of the war?

What obstacles, if any, are in the way of its permanent restoration to the state before the war?

The superior power of the United States having been completely vindicated by the final result of the great struggle, the submission of the South is necessarily equivalent to an abandonment of all further purpose of resistance. This posture of affairs among a kindred people of "sister States," surely ought to be sufficient-for why should there be "a tribe lacking in Israel"? And since that submission, whether voluntary or involuntary, must be complete to all practical purposes, then the speediest possible restoration of the South ern States to equal rights under the Constitution is for the highest interest of the whole country, if the Union is to be, and to remain a republic of equal rights, in conformity with its own organic law. In that event, the loss will be but that of the life and property which the accomplishment of that end required; while the gain will be the more stable and lasting settlement of the Union upon a constitutional basis. In any other event, the whole country suffers under the operation of an irregular, unequal, and disorganized system of government, which, for the common safety, ought not to be permitted to continue for a moment longer than the most unavoidable necessity requires. For, so long as the condition of the States remains unequal, the stronger section occupies, at least, the attitude of a despot-the weaker that of a vassal. It would be a strange commentary upon the war, if in liberating negroes from slavery, its effect should be to reduce white men to bondage! So far as such a "policy" is insisted upon

by the radicals, it must be seen whether they were actuated by a sincere attachment to the principles of civil liberty, or only by hostility to a portion of their fellow-citizens. By pursuing such a policy the sections are practically divided, and consequently the whole country is lowered in dignity and weakened in power. It is really keeping up disunion, under the specious pretext of protecting the Union, and is utterly at war with all truly republican principles. In order to maintain such a system against one section, the other must also be subjected to practical restraints, to which it has not been accustomed. In a word, only the name and the form of the old system would remain; a central and practically irresponsible power would be established, and the country neither would be nor would deserve to be free.'

The "policy" urged by the radical leaders finds striking illustration in that practised towards the Moors in Spain, by Cardinal Ximenes, the famous minister of Ferdinand and Isabella, in the year 1492. The following account of the affair, after the fall of Granada, which brought to a close an insurrection in active operation for a period of nearly ten years, is from the third volume of Prescott's "Philip II.," pp. 7, 8, 9:

"By the terms of the treaty of capitulation, the people of Granada were allowed to remain in possession of their religion, and to exercise its rites; and it was expressly stipulated that no inducements or menaces should be held out to effect their conversion to Christianity. * * * That extraordinary man, Cardinal Ximenes, Archbishop of Toledo, was eager to try his own hand in the labor of conversion. Having received the royal assent, he set about the affair with characteristic ardor, and with as little scruple as to the means to be employed, as the most zealous propagandist could have desired. When reasoning and expostulation failed, he did not hesitate to resort to bribes, and, if need were, to force. * * * Exasperated by the unscrupulous measures of the prelate, and the gross violation they involved of the treaty, they (the Moors) broke out into an insurrection, which soon extended along the mountain ranges in the neighborhood of Granada.

"Ferdinand and Isabella, alarmed at the consequences, were filled with indignation at the high-handed conduct of Ximenes. But he replied that the state of things was precisely that which was most to be desired. By placing themselves in an attitude of rebellion, the Moors had renounced all the advantages secured by the treaty, and had, moreover, incurred the penalties of death and confiscation of property! It would be an act of grace in the sovereigns to overlook their offence and grant an amnesty for the past, on condition that

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It is of the utmost importance, also, in this view, that che people should have a clear understanding of the emancipation question, and should know what is actually gained or lost in this relation. By the Constitution of the United States, every State has a right to permit slavery, if it see fit. It is not a question of State sovereignty, but of State rights, and one with which the United States has nothing whatever to do. The Act of Congress, therefore, of 1862, promising freedom to slaves who would abandon their master and come within our lines, was a merely hostile measure, without legislative force, any more than it had practical effect. Mr. Lincoln said of it, in his famous interview with the Chicago divines, who solicited from him a proclamation of emancipation, "I cannot learn that that law has caused a single slave to come over to us." The proclamation, subsequently issued, was equally illegal and ineffective. Both measures were in entire derogation of the previous official declaration of both the President and of Congress. The late President said, in his Inaugural Address:

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so; and I have no inclination to do so."

Immediately after the battle of Bull Run (July 23d, 1861), Congress resolved, by nearly a unanimous vote, that—

"The war is waged by the Government of the United States, not in the spirit of conquest or subjugation, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or institutions of the States; but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired."

every Moor should at once receive baptism or leave the country. This precious piece of casuistry, hardly surpassed by any thing in ecclesiastical annals, found favor in the eyes of the sovereigns, who, after the insurrection had been quelled, lost no time in proposing the terms suggested by their minister, as the only terms of reconciliation open to the Moors."

Compare with this the propositions recently introduced into Congress by Mr. Sumner and others (December 4th, 1865, after about four hundred years of enlightenment and progress, since the day of Cardinal Ximenes). Compare also the conduct of the radical leaders in inciting the causes of the war.

Whatever slaves, therefore, were freed in fact, during the war, were freed, not by the operation of law, or by the effect of any decree; but as an accident of the war, by the passage of a superior force through certain portions of the slave States, the march of which they joined either voluntarily, or because they had no other resource, in consequence of the devastation of the country. And the question goes much deeper than any mere fact of emancipation, by accident or otherwise; since it involves the original, present, and future state-right of every State of the Union, to hold slaves, or to establish any other organized system of labor for an exceptional class of the population which the States themselves may choose. The proclamation of the late President, and the Acts of Congress in relation to this subject, are, of course, admitted to be nugatory, by the requirement of the present administration, for the constitutional adoption of the amendment proposed for this purpose. If this amendment be voluntarily acceded to by the States, and not under duress, the embarrassment by which the proceeding would be otherwise attended is removed. For the question may well arise, of what validity is a constitutional provision, obtained by the force of dictation, on the part of either civil or military authority? Or, adopted by conventions representing but a handful of the people? Or, in States, whose position in the Union is so unsettled, that they are without representation in the Congress of the United States?

On the other hand, it should be remarked, that the fact of emancipation makes no difference to the moral or philosophical aspect of the case. The bestowal of civil freedom upon a large body of persons incapable of its rational use, certainly seems contrary to reason. To accompany such an enfranchisement with the gift of privileges and powers, which imply in a republic, the exercise of the best intellectual and moral qualities of the citizen, would appear like either inconsideration or indifference to the best good of the State. If the negroes, as a class, are so constituted by nature, and, in this country, also by habit, that the use of freedom cannot