Delivered
in the State House
at Springfield,
Illinois,
July 16, 1852.
On the fourth day
of July, 1776,
the people
of a few feeble
and oppressed colonies
of Great Britain,
inhabiting a portion
of the Atlantic coast
of North America,
publicly
declared
their national independence,
and made their appeal
to the justice
of their cause
and to the God
of battles
for the maintenance of
that declaration.
That people
were few in number and
without resources,
save only their wise heads
and stout hearts.
Within the first year of
that declared independence,
and while its maintenance
was yet problematical,
while the bloody struggle
between those
resolute rebels
and their haughty would-be masters
was still waging
-- of undistinguished parents
and in an obscure district
of one
of those colonies Henry Clay
was born.
The infant nation
and the infant child
began the race
of life together.
For three quarters
of a century
they have travelled
hand in hand.
They have been companions ever.
The nation
has passed its perils,
and it is free,
prosperous,
and powerful.
The child
has reached his manhood,
his middle age,
his old age,
and is dead.
In all
that has concerned
the nation
the man ever sympathized;
and now
the nation
mourns the man.
The day
after his death one
of the public journals,
opposed to him politically,
held
the following pathetic
and beautiful
language,
which
I adopt partly
because
such high and exclusive eulogy,
originating
with a political friend,
might offend good taste,
but chiefly
because I
could not in any language
of my own
so well express my thoughts:
"Alas,
who can realize that
Henry Clay is dead!
Who can realize
that never again
that majestic form
shall rise
in the council-chambers
of his country
to beat back
the storms of anarchy
which may threaten,
or pour
the oil
of peace
upon the troubled billows
as they
rage and menace around!
Who can realize
that the workings of
that mighty mind
have ceased,
that the throbbings of
that gallant heart
are stilled,
that
the mighty sweep
of that graceful arm
will be felt no more,
and the magic of
that eloquent tongue,
which spake
as spake no other tongue
besides,
is hushed hushed for ever!
Who can realize
that freedom's champion,
the champion
of a civilized world
and of all tongues
and kindreds
of people,
has indeed fallen!
Alas,
in those dark hours of peril
and dread which
our land has experienced,
and which
she may be called
to experience
again,
to whom
now may her people look up
for that counsel
and advice which only wisdom
and experience and patriotism
can give,
and which
only the undoubting confidence
of a nation will receive?
Perchance in the whole circle
of the great and gifted
of our land
there remains but one
on whose shoulders
the mighty mantle
of the departed statesman
may fall;
one who while we
now write
is doubtless
pouring his tears
over the bier
of his brother
and friend brother,
friend,
ever,
yet in
political sentiment as far apart
as party
could make them.
Ah,
it is at times like these
that the petty distinctions
of mere party disappear.
We see only the great,
the grand,
the noble features
of the departed statesman;
and we
do not even beg permission
to bow at his feet
and mingle
our tears with those
who have ever been
his political adherents
-- we do [not] beg
this permission,
we claim
it as a right,
though we
feel
it as a privilege.
Henry Clay
belonged to his country
-- to the world;
mere party
cannot claim men like him.
His career
has been national,
his fame
has filled the earth,
his memory
will endure
to the last syllable
of recorded time.
"Henry Clay
is dead!
He breathed his last
on yesterday,
at twenty minutes
after eleven,
in his chamber at Washington.
To those
who followed his lead
in public affairs,
it more appropriately belongs
to pronounce his eulogy
and pay specific honors
to the memory
of the illustrious dead.
But all Americans
may show the grief which
his death inspires,
for his character and fame
are national property.
As on a question of liberty
he knew no North,
no South,
no East,
no West,
but only
the Union
which held them all
in its sacred circle,
so now his countrymen
will know no grief
that is not as wide-spread
as the
bounds of the confederacy.
The career of Henry Clay
was a public career.
From his youth
he has been devoted
to the public service,
at a period, too,
in the
world's history
justly regarded
as a
remarkable era
in human affairs.
He witnessed in the beginning
the throes
of the French Revolution.
He saw the rise and
fall of Napoleon.
He was called upon
to legislate for America
and direct
her policy
when all Europe
was the battlefield
of contending dynasties,
and when the struggle
for supremacy
imperilled the rights
of all neutral nations.
His voice spoke war and peace
in the contest
with Great Britain.
"When Greece rose
against the Turks
and struck for liberty,
his name
was mingled
with the battle-cry
of freedom.
When
South America
threw
off the thraldom of Spain,
his speeches
were read
at the head
of her armies
by Bolivar.
His name
has been,
and will continue
to be,
hallowed in two hemispheres,
for it
is
'One of the few,
the immortal names
That were not born
to die!'
"To the ardent patriot
and profound
statesman
he added a quality
possessed
by few
of the gifted on earth.
His eloquence
has not been surpassed.
In the effective power
to move the heart of man,
Clay
was without an equal,
and the heaven-born endowment,
in the spirit
of its origin,
has been most
conspicuously exhibited
against intestine feud.
On at least
three important occasions
he has quelled
our civil commotions
by a power
and influence
which belonged
to no other statesman
of his age and times.
And in our last
internal discord,
when this
Union trembled to its centre,
in old age
he left the shades
of private life,
and gave the death-blow
to fraternal strife,
with the vigor
of his earlier years,
in a series
of senatorial efforts which
in themselves
would bring immortality
by challenging comparison
with the efforts
of any statesman in any age.
He exorcised the demon
which possessed
the body politic,
and gave peace
to a distracted land.
Alas!
the achievement
cost him his life.
He sank day by day
to the tomb
his pale but noble brow
bound with a triple wreath,
put there
by a grateful country.
May his ashes rest in peace,
while his spirit
goes
to take
its station
among the great and good men
who preceded him."
While it
is customary and proper
upon occasions
like the present
to give a brief sketch
of the life
of the deceased,
in the case
of Mr. Clay
it is less necessary
than most others;
for his biography
has been written
and rewritten and
read and reread
for the last twenty-five years;
so that,
with the exception
of a few
of the latest incidents
of his life,
all is as well
known as it
can be.
The short sketch which
I give is,
therefore,
merely to maintain
the connection
of this discourse.
Henry Clay
was born on the twelfth day
of April, 1777,
in Hanover County,
Virginia.
Of his father,
who died
in the fourth or fifth year
of Henry's age,
little
seems to be known,
except that he
was a respectable man
and a preacher
of the Baptist persuasion.
Mr. Clay's education
to the end of life
was comparatively limited.
I say
"to the end of life,"
because
I have understood that
from time to time
he added something
to his education
during the greater part
of his whole life.
Mr. Clay's lack
of a more perfect early education,
however
it may be regretted generally,
teaches
at least one profitable lesson:
it teaches
that in this country one
can scarcely be so poor
but that,
if he will,
he can acquire
sufficient education
to get
through the world respectably.
In his twenty-third year Mr. Clay
was licensed to practise law,
and emigrated to Lexington,
Kentucky.
Here
he commenced and continued
the practice
till the year 1803,
when he
was first elected
to the Kentucky Legislature.
By successive elections
he was continued
in the Legislature
till the latter part of 1806,
when he
was elected
to fill a vacancy
of a single session
in the United States Senate.
In 1807
he was again elected
to the
Kentucky House of Representatives,
and by
that body chosen Speaker.
In 1808
he was re-elected
to the same body.
In 1809
he was again chosen
to fill a vacancy
of two years
in the United States Senate.
In 1811
he was elected
to the United States
House of Representatives,
and on the first day
of taking his seat in
that body
he was chosen its Speaker.
In 1813
he was again elected Speaker.
Early in 1814,
being the period
of our last British war,
Mr. Clay
was sent as commissioner,
with others,
to negotiate a treaty
of peace,
which treaty
was concluded
in the latter part
of the same year.
On his return
from Europe
he was again elected
to the lower branch
of Congress,
and on taking
his seat in December, 1815,
was called
to his old
post-the Speaker's chair,
a position
in which
he was retained
by successive elections,
with one brief intermission,
till the inauguration
of John Quincy Adams,
in March, 1825.
He was then appointed Secretary
of State,
and occupied that
important station
till the inauguration
of General Jackson,
in March, 1829.
After this
he returned to Kentucky,
resumed the practice of law,
and continued
it till the autumn of 1831,
when he
was
by the Legislature of Kentucky
again placed
in the United States Senate.
By a reelection
he was continued
in the Senate till
he resigned his seat
and retired,
in March, 1848.
In December,
1849,
he again took his seat
in the Senate,
which he again resigned only
a few months
before his death.
By the foregoing
it is perceived that
the period
from the beginning
of Mr. Clay's official life
in 1803
to the end of 1852
is but one year short
of half a century,
and that the sum of all
the intervals in it
will not amount
to ten years.
But mere duration
of time in office
constitutes the smallest part
of Mr. Clay's history.
Throughout that
long period
he
has constantly been
the most loved
and most implicitly followed
by friends,
and the most dreaded
by opponents,
of all living American politicians.
In all
the great questions which
have agitated the country,
and particularly in those
fearful crises,
the Missouri question,
the nullification question,
and the late slavery question,
as connected
with the newly acquired territory,
involving
and endangering
the stability of the Union,
his has been
the leading
and most conspicuous part.
In 1824
he was first
a candidate
for the Presidency,
and was defeated;
and,
although
he was successively defeated
for the same office
in 1832 and in 1844,
there
has never been
a moment since 1824
till after 1848
when a very large portion
of the American people
did not cling to him
with an enthusiastic hope
and purpose of
still elevating him
to the Presidency.
With other men,
to be defeated was
to be forgotten;
but with him
defeat was
but a trifling incident,
neither
changing him nor
the world's estimate
of him.
Even
those of both political parties
who
have been preferred to him
for the highest office
have run
far briefer courses than he,
and left him still
shining high
in the heavens
of the political world.
Jackson,
Van Buren,
Harnson,
Polk,
and Taylor all rose after,
and set long before him.
The spell
-- the long-enduring spell --
with which
the souls of men
were bound to him
is a miracle.
Who can compass it?
It is probably true
he owed his pre-eminence
to no one quality,
but to a
fortunate combination
of several.
He was surpassingly eloquent;
but many eloquent men
fail utterly,
and they are not,
as a class,
generally successful.
His judgment
was excellent;
but many men
of good judgment
live and die unnoticed.
His will
was indomitable;
but this quality
often secures
to its owner nothing better
than a character
for useless obstinacy.
These,
then,
were
Mr. Clay's leading qualities.
No one of them
is very uncommon;
but all together
are rarely combined
in a single individual,
and this is probably
the reason
why such men as Henry Clay
are so rare
in the world.
Mr. Clay's eloquence
did not consist,
as many fine specimens
of eloquence do,
of types and figures,
of antithesis
and elegant arrangement
of words and sentences,
but rather of
that deeply earnest
and impassioned tone and manner
which can proceed only
from great sincerity,
and a thorough conviction
in the speaker
of the justice and importance
of his cause.
This
it is that
truly touches the chords
of sympathy;
and those
who heard Mr. Clay
never failed
to be moved by it,
or ever afterward forgot
the impression. A
ll his efforts
were made
for practical effect.
He never spoke merely
to be heard.
He never delivered
a Fourth of July oration,
or a eulogy
on an occasion like this.
As a politician or statesman,
no one
was so habitually careful
to avoid all sectional ground.
Whatever
he did he
did for the whole country.
In the construction
of his measures,
he ever carefully surveyed
every part
of the field,
and duly weighed
every conflicting interest.
Feeling
as he did,
and as the truth
surely is,
that the world's best hope
depended
on the continued union
of these States,
he was ever jealous
of and watchful for
whatever
might have
the slightest tendency
to separate them.
Mr. Clay's predominant sentiment,
from first
to last,
was a deep devotion
to the cause of human liberty
-- a strong sympathy with the
oppressed everywhere,
and an ardent wish
for their elevation.
With him
this was
a primary and all-controlling
passion.
Subsidiary to this
was the conduct
of his whole life.
He loved his country partly
because it
was his own country,
and mostly
because it
was a free country;
and he
burned
with a zeal
for its advancement,
prosperity,
and glory,
because
he saw
in such the advancement,
prosperity,
and glory of human liberty,
human right,
and human nature.
He desired the prosperity
of his countrymen,
partly because
they were his countrymen,
but chiefly to show
to the world
that free men
could be prosperous.
That his views
and measures
were always the wisest
needs not
to be affirmed;
nor should
it be on this occasion,
where
so many thinking differently
join
in doing honor
to his memory.
A free people
in times of peace
and quiet
when pressed by no common
danger-naturally divide
into parties.
At such times
the man
who is of neither party
is not,
cannot be,
of any consequence.
Mr. Clay
therefore was of a party.
Taking a prominent part,
as he did,
in all
the great political questions
of his country
for the last half century,
the wisdom
of his course on many
is doubted
and denied
by a large portion
of his countrymen;
and of such
it is not now
proper to speak particularly.
But there are many others,
about his course upon which
there is little
or no disagreement
amongst intelligent
and patriotic Americans.
Of these last
are the War of 1812,
the Missouri question,
nullification,
and the now
recent compromise measures.
In 1812
Mr. Clay,
though not unknown,
was still a young man.
Whether we
should go
to war with Great Britain
being the question
of the day,
a minority
opposed the declaration
of war by Congress,
while the majority,
though apparently inclined
to war,
had for years wavered,
and hesitated
to act decisively.
Meanwhile British aggressions
multiplied,
and grew more
daring
and aggravated.
By Mr. Clay
more than any other man
the struggle
was brought
to a decision in Congress.
The question,
being now
fully before Congress,
came up
in a variety
of ways in rapid succession,
on most
of which occasions Mr. Clay spoke.
Adding to all
the logic
of which the subject
was susceptible
that noble inspiration
which came to him
as it came to no other,
he aroused
and
nerved and inspired his friends,
and confounded
and bore down all opposition.
Several
of his speeches
on these occasions
were reported
and are still extant,
but the best of them all
never was.
During its delivery
the reporters
forgot their vocation,
dropped their pens,
and sat
enchanted from
near the beginning
to quite the close.
The speech
now lives only
in the memory of a few
old men,
and the enthusiasm
with which
they cherish
their recollection of it
is absolutely astonishing.
The precise language
of this speech
we shall never know;
but we
do know
we cannot help knowing
-- that with deep
pathos
it pleaded the cause
of the injured sailor,
that it invoked the genius
of the Revolution,
that
it apostrophized the names
of Otis,
of Henry,
and of Washington,
that it appealed
to the interests,
the pride,
the honor,
and the glory of the nation,
that it shamed
and taunted the timidity
of friends,
that it scorned
and scouted
and withered the temerity
of domestic foes,
that it bearded
and defied the British lion,
and,
rising
and swelling and maddening
in its course,
it sounded the onset,
till the charge,
the shock,
the steady struggle,
and the glorious victory
all passed
in vivid review
before the
entranced hearers.
Important and exciting
as was the war question
of 1812,
it never so alarmed
the sagacious statesmen of the country for the safety of the Republic as
afterward did
the Missouri question.
This
sprang from
that unfortunate source
of discord
-- negro slavery.
When our Federal Constitution
was adopted,
we owned no territory
beyond the limits or ownership
of the States,
except the territory northwest
of the River Ohio and east
of the Mississippi.
What has since been
formed
into the States of Maine,
Kentucky and Tennessee,
was,
I believe,
within the limits of
or owned by Massachusetts,
Virginia,
and North Carolina.
As
to the Northwestern Territory,
provision
had been made
even before the adoption
of the Constitution
that slavery
should never go there.
On the admission
of States into the Union,
carved from the territory
we owned
before the Constitution,
no question,
or at most
no considerable question,
arose about slavery
-- those
which were
within the limits of or owned
by the old States
following respectively
the condition
of the parent State,
and those
within the Northwest Territory
following
the previously made provision.
But in 1803
we purchased Louisiana
of the French,
and it
included with much more
what has since been
formed
into the State of Missouri.
With regard to it,
nothing
had been done
to forestall the question
of slavery.
When,
therefore,
in 1819,
Missouri,
having formed
a State constitution
without excluding slavery,
and with slavery already
actually existing
within its limits,
knocked
at the door
of the Union for admission,
almost
the entire representation
of the non-slaveholding States
objected.
A fearful
and angry struggle instantly
followed.
This alarmed thinking men
more than any previous question,
because,
unlike all the former,
it divided the country
by geographical lines.
Other
questions
had their opposing partisans
in all localities
of the country
and in almost every family,
so that no
division of the Union
could follow such
without a separation
of friends
to quite
as great an extent as
that of opponents.
Not so
with the Missouri question.
On this
a geographical line
could be traced,
which in the main
would separate opponents only.
This
was the danger.
Mr. Jefferson,
then in retirement,
wrote:
"I had for a long time
ceased to read newspapers
or to pay any attention
to public affairs,
confident
they were
in good hands and content
to be
a passenger
in our bark
to the shore from which
I am not distant.
But this momentous question,
like a firebell in the night,
awakened and filled me
with terror.
I considered
it at once
as the knell of the Union.
It is hushed,
indeed,
for the moment.
But this is a reprieve only,
not a final sentence.
A geographical line
coinciding
with a marked principle,
moral and political,
once
conceived
and held
up to the angry passions
of men,
will never be obliterated,
and every irritation
will mark it
deeper and deeper.
I can say with conscious
truth
that there is not
a man on earth
who would sacrifice
more than I
would to relieve us from this
heavy reproach
in any practicable way.
"The cession of
that kind of property
-- for it
is so misnamed --
is a bagatelle
which would not cost me
a second
thought
if in
that way
a general emancipation
and expatriation
could be effected,
and gradually and
with due sacrifices
I think it might be.
But as it is,
we have the wolf
by the ears,
and we can neither
hold him nor
safely let him go.
Justice
is in one scale,
and self-preservation
in the other."
Mr. Clay
was in Congress,
and,
perceiving the danger,
at once engaged
his whole energies
to avert it.
It began,
as I have said,
in 1819;
and it
did not terminate till 1821.
Missouri
would not yield the point;
and Congress that is,
a majority in Congress
-- by repeated
votes showed
a determination not
to admit
the State
unless it should yield.
After several failures,
and great labor
on the part
of Mr. Clay to so present
the question
that a majority
could consent
to the admission,
it was by a vote rejected,
and, as all
seemed
to think,
finally.
A sullen gloom
hung over the nation.
All felt that
the rejection of Missouri
was equivalent
to a dissolution
of the Union,
because those States which
already had
what Missouri
was rejected for
refusing to relinquish
would go with Missouri.
All deprecated
and deplored this,
but none saw
how to avert it.
For the judgment of members
to be convinced
of the necessity
of yielding
was not the whole difficulty;
each
had a constituency
to meet and to answer to.
Mr. Clay,
though worn down and exhausted,
was appealed to
by members
to renew his efforts
at compromise.
He did so,
and by some
judicious modifications
of his plan,
coupled with laborious efforts
with individual members
and
his own overmastering eloquence
upon
that floor,
he finally secured
the admission
of the State.
Brightly and captivating as it
had previously shown,
it was now perceived
that his great eloquence
was a mere embellishment,
or at most
but a helping hand
to his inventive genius
and his devotion
to his country in the day
of her extreme peril.
After the settlement
of the Missouri question,
although
a portion
of the American people
have differed with Mr. Clay,
and a majority
even appear generally
to have been opposed
to him
on questions
of ordinary administration,
he seems constantly
to have been regarded
by all
as the man for the crisis.
Accordingly,
in the days of nullification,
and more recently
in the reappearance
of the slavery question
connected with our territory
newly acquired of Mexico,
the task
of devising
a mode of adjustment
seems
to have been cast
upon Mr. Clay
by common consent
-- and his performance
of the task in each case
was little else
than a literal fulfilment
of the public expectation.
Mr. Clay's efforts
in behalf
of the South Americans,
and afterward in behalf
of the Greeks,
in the times
of their respective struggles
for civil liberty,
are among the finest
on record,
upon the noblest
of all themes,
and bear
ample corroboration of what I
have said
was his ruling passion
-- a love of liberty
and right,
unselfishly,
and for their own sakes.
Having been led
to allude
to domestic slavery
so frequently already,
I am unwilling
to close
without referring more particularly
to Mr. Clay's views
and conduct in regard to it.
He ever was on principle and
in feeling opposed
to slavery.
The very earliest,
and one of the latest,
public efforts of his life,
separated
by a period
of more than fifty years,
were both made
in favor
of gradual emancipation.
He did not perceive
that on a question
of human right
the negroes
were to be excepted
from the human race.
And yet
Mr. Clay was the owner
of slaves.
Cast into life when slavery
was already widely spread
and deeply seated,
he did not perceive,
as I think no
wise man has perceived,
how it
could be at once eradicated
without producing
a greater evil
even to the cause
of human liberty itself.
His feeling and his judgment,
therefore,
ever
led him
to oppose both extremes
of opinion on the subject.
Those
who would shiver
into fragments
the Union of these States,
tear to tatters
its now venerated Constitution,
and even burn the last copy
of the Bible,
rather than slavery
should continue a single hour,
together with all
their more halting sympathizers,
have received,
and are receiving,
their just execration;
and the name
and opinions and influence
of Mr. Clay
are fully and,
as I trust,
effectually
and enduringly arrayed
against them.
But I
would also,
if I could,
array his name,
opinions,
and influence
against the opposite extreme
-- against a few
but
an increasing number of men who,
for the sake
of perpetuating slavery,
are beginning to assail and
to ridicule
the white man's charter
of freedom,
the declaration that
"all men
are created free
and equal."
So far as I have learned,
the first American
of any note
to do or attempt
this was
the late John C. Calhoun;
and if I
mistake not,
it soon after
found its way
into some of the messages
of the Governor of South Carolina.
We,
however,
look for and are not much
shocked
by political eccentricities
and heresies
in South Carolina.
But only last year
I saw
with astonishment
what purported
to be a letter
of a
very distinguished and influential
clergyman
of Virginia,
copied,
with apparent approbation,
into a St. Louis newspaper,
containing the following
to me
very unsatisfactory language:
"I am fully aware
that there is
a text in some Bibles
that is not in mine.
Professional abolitionists
have made more use
of it than
of any passage in the Bible.
It came,
however,
as I trace it,
from Saint Voltaire,
and was baptized
by Thomas Jefferson,
and since
almost universally regarded
as canonical authority
'All men
are born free and equal.'
"This
is a genuine coin
in the political currency
of our generation.
I am sorry
to say that
I have never seen two men
of whom
it is true.
But I
must admit I
never saw the Siamese Twins,
and therefore
will not dogmatically say
that no man
ever saw a proof
of this sage aphorism."
This sounds
strangely in republican America.
The like
was not heard
in the fresher days
of the republic.
Let us contrast
with it the language of
that
truly national man whose life
and death
we now commemorate
and lament:
I quote
from a speech of Mr. Clay
delivered
before
the American Colonization Society
in 1827:
"We are reproached
with doing mischief
by the agitation
of this question.
The society
goes into no household
to disturb
its domestic tranquillity.
It addresses itself to no
slaves
to weaken their obligations
of obedience.
It seeks
to affect no man's property.
It neither
has the power nor
the will
to affect the property
of any one contrary
to his consent.
The execution of its scheme
would augment instead
of diminishing
the value of property
left behind.
The society,
composed of free men,
conceals itself only
with the free.
Collateral consequences
we are not responsible for.
It is not this society
which has produced
the great moral
revolution which
the age exhibits.
What would they who thus
reproach us
have done?
If they
would repress all tendencies
toward liberty
and ultimate emancipation,
they
must do
more than put down
the benevolent efforts
of this society.
They
must go back
to the era
of our liberty and independence,
and muzzle the cannon
which thunders
its annual joyous return.
They must renew
the slave trade,
with all
its train of atrocities.
They must suppress
the workings
of British philanthropy,
seeking
to meliorate the condition
of the unfortunate West Indian
slave.
They must arrest the career
of South American deliverance
from thraldom.
They
must blow out the moral
lights around us
and extinguish
that greatest torch
of all which America presents
to a benighted world
-- pointing the way
to their rights,
their liberties,
and their happiness.
And when they
have achieved all
those purposes
their work
will be yet incomplete.
They must penetrate
the human soul,
and eradicate the light
of reason and
the love of liberty.
Then,
and not till then,
when universal darkness
and despair prevail,
can you perpetuate slavery
and repress all sympathy
and
all humane and benevolent efforts
among free men
in behalf
of the unhappy portion
of our race doomed
to bondage."
The American
Colonization Society
was organized in 1816.
Mr. Clay,
though not its projector,
was one
of its earliest members;
and he died,
as for many preceding years
he had been,
its president.
It was one
of the most cherished objects
of his direct care
and consideration,
and the association
of his name with it
has probably been
its very greatest collateral
support.
He considered
it no demerit in the society
that it
tended
to relieve the slave-holders
from the troublesome presence
of the free negroes;
but this
was far
from being
its whole merit
in his estimation.
In the same speech from which
we have quoted he says:
"There
is a moral fitness
in the idea
of returning
to Africa her children,
whose ancestors
have been torn from her
by the ruthless hand
of fraud and violence.
Transplanted in a foreign land,
they
will carry back
to their native soil
the rich fruits of religion,
civilization,
law,
and liberty.
May it
not be one
of the great designs
of the Ruler
of the universe,
whose ways
are often inscrutable
by short-sighted mortals,
thus
to transform an original crime
into a signal blessing to
that
most unfortunate portion
of the globe?"
This suggestion
of the possible ultimate
redemption
of the African race
and African continent
was made
twenty-five years ago.
Every succeeding year
has added strength
to the hope
of its realization.
May
it indeed be realized.
Pharaoh's country
was cursed with plagues,
and his hosts
were lost in the Red Sea,
for striving
to retain a captive people
who
had already served them
more than four hundred years.
May like
disasters never befall us!
If,
as the friends
of colonization hope,
the present
and coming generations
of our countrymen
shall by any means
succeed
in freeing our land
from the dangerous presence
of slavery,
and at the same time
in restoring a captive people
to their long-lost fatherland
with bright prospects
for the future,
and this too so gradually
that neither races nor individuals
shall have suffered
by the change,
it will indeed be
a glorious consummation.
And if to such
a consummation
the efforts of Mr. Clay
shall have contributed,
it will be what he
most ardently wished,
and none of
his labors
will have been more valuable
to his country
and his kind.
But Henry Clay
is dead.
His long and eventful life
is closed.
Our country
is prosperous and powerful;
but could
it have been quite all
it has been,
and is,
and is to be,
without Henry Clay?
Such
a man the times
have demanded,
and such
in the providence of God
was given us.
But he is gone.
Let us strive
to deserve,
as far as mortals may,
the continued care
of Divine Providence,
trusting that
in future national emergencies
He will not fail
to provide us the instruments
of safety and security.
To Joshua F. Speed.
Springfield,
August 24, 1855.
Dear Speed:
You know
what a poor correspondent
I am.
Ever since I
received
your very agreeable letter
of the 22d
of May,
I have been intending
to write you
an answer to it.
You suggest
that in political action,
now,
you and I would differ.
I suppose we would;
not quite as much,
however,
as you may think.
You know I dislike slavery,
and you
fully admit the abstract wrong
of it.
So far there
is no cause of difference.
But you say
that sooner than yield
your legal right
to the slave,
especially at the bidding
of those
who
are not themselves interested,
you would see the Union
dissolved.
I am not aware
that any one
is bidding you
yield that right;
very certainly I am not.
I leave that matter
entirely to yourself.
I also acknowledge
your rights and my obligations
under the Constitution in
regard to your slaves.
I confess I hate
to see the poor creatures
hunted down and
caught and carried back
to their stripes
and unrequited toil;
but I
bite
my lips and keep quiet.
In 1841
you and I
had
together a tedious low-water trip
on a steamboat
from Louisville
to St. Louis.
You may remember,
as I well do,
that from Louisville
to the mouth of the Ohio
there were
on board ten
or a dozen slaves shackled
together with
irons.
That sight
was a continued torment
to me,
and I see something like
it every time
I touch the Ohio
or any other slave border.
It is not fair for you
to assume that I
have no interest in a thing
which has,
and continually exercises,
the power
of making me miserable.
You ought rather
to appreciate how much
the great body
of the Northern people
do crucify their feelings,
in order to
maintain their loyalty
to the Constitution
and the Union.
I do oppose
the extension of slavery
because my judgment
and feeling
so prompt me,
and I am under no obligations
to the contrary.
If for this
you and I must differ,
differ we must.
You say,
if you were President,
you would send
an army and hang
the leaders of the Missouri
outrages
upon the Kansas elections;
still,
if Kansas fairly votes herself
a slave State
she must be admitted or
the Union must be dissolved.
But how if she votes herself
a slave State unfairly,
that is,
by the very means for which
you
say you
would hang men?
Must
she still be admitted,
or the Union
dissolved?
That
will be
the phase of the question
when it first becomes
a practical one.
In your assumption
that there may be
a fair decision
of the slavery question
in Kansas,
I plainly see
you and I
would differ
about the Nebraska law.
I look upon
that enactment not as a law,
but as a violence
from the beginning.
It was conceived in violence,
is maintained in violence,
and is being executed
in violence.
I say it
was conceived in violence,
because the destruction
of the Missouri Compromise,
under the circumstances,
was nothing
less than violence.
It was passed in violence
because it
could not have passed
at all but for the votes
of many members
in violence of the known
will of their constituents.
It is maintained in violence,
because the elections
since clearly demand
its repeal;
and the demand
is openly disregarded.
You say men
ought to be hung
for the way
they are executing the law;
I say the way it
is being executed
is quite as good as any
of its antecedents.
It is being executed
in the precise way which
was intended from the first,
else why
does no Nebraska man
express astonishment
or condemnation?
Poor Reeder
is the only public man
who has been silly enough
to believe
that anything like fairness
was ever intended,
and he
has been bravely undeceived.
That Kansas
will form
a slave constitution,
and with it
will ask
to be admitted
into the Union,
I take
to be already
a settled question,
and so
settled by the very means you
so pointedly condemn.
By every principle of law
ever held
by any court North or South,
every negro taken to Kansas
is free;
yet,
in utter disregard of this
-- in the spirit
of violence merely --
that
beautiful Legislature
gravely passes a law
to hang any man
who shall venture
to inform a negro
of his legal rights.
This
is the subject
and real object
of the law.
If,
like Haman,
they should hang
upon the gallows
of their own building,
I shall not be
among the mourners
for their fate.
In my humble sphere,
I shall advocate
the restoration
of the Missouri Compromise
so long
as Kansas
remains a Territory,
and when,
by all these foul means,
it seeks
to come
into the Union
as a slave State,
I shall oppose it.
I am
very loath in any case
to withhold
my assent
to the enjoyment of property
acquired
or located in good faith;
but I do not admit that
good faith in taking
a negro
to Kansas
to be held
in slavery is a probability
with any man.
Any man
who has sense enough
to be
the controller of his own property
has too much sense
to misunderstand
the outrageous character
of the whole Nebraska business.
But I
digress.
In my opposition
to the admission
of Kansas I
shall have some company,
but we may be beaten.
If we are,
I shall not
on that account attempt
to dissolve the Union.
I think it probable,
however,
we shall be beaten.
Standing
as a unit among yourselves,
You can,
directly and indirectly,
bribe enough of our men
to carry the day,
as you could
on the open proposition
to establish a monarchy.
Get hold
of some man
in the North
whose position and ability
is such that
he can make the support
of your measure,
whatever it may be,
a Democratic party necessity,
and the thing is done.
Apropos of this,
let me
tell you an anecdote.
Douglas
introduced
the Nebraska Bill in January.
In February
afterward there was
a called session
of the Illinois Legislature.
Of the one hundred members
composing the two branches of
that body,
about seventy
were Democrats.
These latter held a caucus
in which
the Nebraska Bill
was talked of,
if not formally discussed.
It was thereby discovered
that just three,
and no more,
were in favor
of the measure.
In a day
or two Douglas's orders
came on to have resolutions
passed approving the bill;
and they
were passed
by large majorities!!!!
The truth of this
is vouched for
by a bolting Democratic member.
The masses, too,
Democratic as well as Whig,
were even nearer unanimous
against it;
but,
as soon
as
the party necessity of supporting it
became apparent,
the way the Democrats
began
to see the wisdom and justice
of it
was perfectly astonishing.
You say that if Kansas
fairly votes herself
a free State,
as a Christian
you will rejoice at it.
All decent slaveholders
talk that way,
and I
do not doubt their candor.
But they
never vote that way.
Although
in a private letter
or conversation you
will express
your preference that
Kansas shall be free,
you would vote for no man
for Congress
who would say
the same thing publicly.
No such man
could be elected
from any district
in a slave State.
You think Stringfellow
and company
ought to be hung;
and yet at
the next Presidential election
you will vote
for the exact type
and representative
of Stringfellow.
The slave-breeders and slave-traders
are a small,
odious,
and detested class among you;
and yet in politics
they dictate the course
of all of you,
and are as completely
your masters
as you
are the master
of your own negroes.
You inquire where I
now stand.
That is a disputed point.
I think
I am a Whig;
but others
say there
are no Whigs,
and that I
am an Abolitionist.
When I
was at Washington,
I voted
for the Wilmot Proviso as
good as forty times;
and I
never heard of any one
attempting
to un-Whig me for that.
I now do no
more than
oppose the extension
of slavery.
I am not a Know-Nothing;
that is certain.
How could
I be?
How can any one
who abhors the oppression
of negroes
be in favor
of degrading classes
of white people?
Our progress in degeneracy
appears to me
to be pretty rapid.
As a nation we began
by declaring that
"all men
are created equal."
We now practically read it
"all men are created equal,
except negroes."
When the Know-Nothings
get control,
it will read
"all men are created equal,
except negroes
and foreigners and Catholics."
When it comes to this,
I shall prefer emigrating
to some country
where they
make no pretense
of loving liberty
-- to Russia,
for instance,
where despotism
can be taken pure,
and without the base alloy
of hypocrisy.
Mary
will probably pass a day
or two
in Louisville
in October.
My kindest regards
to Mrs. Speed.
On the leading subject
of this letter
I have more
of her sympathy
than I have of yours;
and yet let me
say I am,
Your friend forever,
A. Lincoln.
Fellow citizens
of the United States:
in compliance
with a custom as old
as the government itself,
I appear before you
to address you briefly and
to take,
in your presence,
the oath
prescribed
by the Constitution
of the United States,
to be taken by the President
"before he
enters
on the execution
of his office."
I do not consider it
necessary,
at present,
for me
to discuss
those matters
of administration about which
there is no special anxiety,
or excitement.
Apprehension
seems to exist
among the people
of the Southern States
that by the accession
of a Republican administration
their property and their peace
and personal security
are to be endangered.
There
has never been
any reasonable cause
for such apprehension.
Indeed,
the most ample evidence
to the contrary
has all
the while existed
and been open
to their inspection.
It
is found
in nearly
all the published speeches
of him
who now addresses you.
I do but quote
from one of those speeches
when I
declare that
"I have no purpose,
directly or indirectly,
to interfere
with the institution
of slavery
where it exists.
I believe I
have no lawful right
to do so,
and I have no inclination
to do so."
Those
who nominated and elected me
did so with full
knowledge
that I had made
this
and many similar declarations,
and had never recanted them.
And, more than this,
they placed
in the platform
for my acceptance,
and as a law
to themselves and to me,
the clear
and emphatic resolution which
I now read:
"Resolved:
that the maintenance inviolate
of the rights
of the States,
and especially
the right
of each State
to order and control
its own
domestic institutions
according to
its own judgment exclusively,
is essential
to that balance
of power
on which the perfection
and endurance
of our political fabric
depend,
and we
denounce the lawless invasion
by armed force
of the soil
of any State or Territory,
no matter under what pretext,
as among the gravest
of crimes."
I now reiterate these sentiments;
and,
in doing so,
I only press
upon the public attention
the most conclusive evidence
of which the case
is susceptible,
that the property,
peace,
and security of no section
are to be in any wise
endangered
by the now incoming administration.
I add, too,
that all the protection which,
consistently with the Constitution
and the laws,
can be given,
will be cheerfully given
to all the States
when lawfully demanded,
for
whatever cause
-- as
cheerfully to one section
as to another.
There
is much controversy
about the delivering up
of fugitives
from service or labor.
The clause
I now read
is as plainly written
in the Constitution
as any other
of its provisions:
"No person
held to service or labor
in one State,
under the laws thereof,
escaping into another,
shall
in consequence
of any law or regulation
therein be discharged
from such service
or labor,
but shall be delivered up
on claim of the party
to whom such service
or labor
may be due."
It is scarcely questioned
that this provision
was intended by those
who made
it for the reclaiming of
what we call fugitive slaves;
and the intention
of the lawgiver
is the law.
All members of Congress
swear their support
to the whole Constitution
-- to this provision
as much as to any other.
To the proposition,
then,
that slaves whose cases
come within the terms
of this clause
"shall be delivered up",
their oaths
are unanimous.
Now,
if they would make
the effort in good temper,
could they not with
nearly equal
unanimity frame
and pass a law by means
of which to keep good
that unanimous oath?
There
is some difference
of opinion whether this clause
should be enforced
by national
or by State authority;
but surely
that difference is not
a very material one.
If the slave
is to be surrendered,
it can be of
but little consequence
to him
or to others
by which authority
it is done.
And should
any one
in any case
be content
that
his oath
shall go
unkept
on a merely
unsubstantial controversy
as
to HOW
it shall be kept?
Again,
in any law
upon this subject,
ought not all the safeguards
of liberty
known
in civilized
and humane jurisprudence
to be introduced,
so that a free man be not,
in any case,
surrendered as a slave?
And might
it not be well
at the same time
to provide
by law
for the enforcement of
that clause
in the Constitution
which guarantees that
"the citizen of each State
shall be entitled
to all privileges
and immunities
of citizens
in the several States?"
I take
the official oath today
with no mental reservations,
and with no purpose
to construe the Constitution
or laws
by any hypercritical rules.
And while I
do not choose now
to specify particular acts
of Congress as proper
to be enforced,
I do suggest that
it will be much safer
for all,
both in official
and private stations,
to conform to and abide
by all
those acts which stand
unrepealed,
than
to violate any of them,
trusting
to find impunity
in having them held
to be unConstitutional.
It is seventy-two years
since the first inauguration
of a President
under our national Constitution.
During
that period
fifteen different and greatly
distinguished citizens have,
in succession,
administered
the executive branch
of the government.
They have conducted it
through many perils,
and generally with great success.
Yet,
with all this scope
of precedent,
I now enter
upon the same task
for the brief Constitutional term
of four years
under great
and peculiar difficulty.
A disruption
of the Federal Union,
heretofore only menaced,
is now formidably attempted.
I hold that,
in contemplation
of universal law
and of the Constitution,
the Union of these States
is perpetual.
Perpetuity
is implied,
if not expressed,
in the fundamental law
of all national governments.
It is safe to assert
that no government proper
ever had a provision
in its organic law
for its own termination.
Continue
to execute all
the express provisions
of our National Constitution,
and the Union
will endure forever
-- it being impossible
to destroy
it except by some action
not provided for
in the instrument itself.
Again,
if the United States
be not a government proper,
but an association
of States
in the nature
of contract merely,
can it,
as a contract,
be peaceably unmade
by less than all
the parties
who made it?
One party to a contract
may violate it
-- break it,
so to speak;
but does
it not require all
to lawfully rescind it?
Descending
from these general principles,
we find
the proposition
that in legal contemplation
the Union
is perpetual
confirmed
by the history
of the Union itself.
The Union
is much older
than the Constitution.
It was formed,
in fact,
by the Articles of Association
in 1774.
It was matured
and continued
by the Declaration of Independence
in 1776.
It was further matured,
and the faith
of all
the then thirteen
States expressly plighted
and engaged that
it should be perpetual,
by the Articles of Confederation
in 1778.
And, finally,
in 1787 one of the
declared objects for ordaining
and establishing
the Constitution
was
"TO FORM
A MORE PERFECT UNION."
But if the destruction
of the Union
by one
or by a part
only of the States
be lawfully possible,
the Union
is LESS perfect
than before the Constitution,
having lost
the vital element
of perpetuity.
It follows from these views
that no State
upon its own
mere motion
can lawfully get
out of the Union;
that
Resolves
and Ordinances to that effect
are legally void;
and that acts of violence,
within any State or States,
against the authority
of the United States,
are insurrectionary
or revolutionary,
according to circumstances.
I
therefore consider that,
in view
of the Constitution
and the laws,
the Union
is unbroken;
and to the extent
of my ability
I shall take care,
as the Constitution itself
expressly enjoins upon me,
that the laws of the Union
be faithfully executed
in all the States.
Doing this
I deem
to be only a simple duty
on my part;
and I
shall perform it so far
as practicable,
unless my rightful masters,
the American people,
shall withhold
the requisite means,
or
in some authoritative manner
direct the contrary.
I trust this
will not be regarded
as a menace,
but only
as the declared purpose
of the Union
that it
WILL Constitutionally
defend and maintain itself.
In doing
this there needs
to be no bloodshed
or violence;
and there shall be none,
unless it
be forced
upon the national authority.
The power confided to me
will be used
to hold,
occupy,
and possess the property
and places
belonging to the government,
and to collect the duties
and imposts;
but beyond
what may be necessary
for these objects,
there
will be no invasion,
no using
of force
against or among
the people anywhere.
Where hostility
to the United States,
in any interior locality,
shall be so great
and universal
as
to prevent
competent resident citizens
from holding
the Federal offices,
there
will be no attempt
to force obnoxious strangers
among the people
for that object.
While the strict legal right
may exist
in the government
to enforce the exercise
of these offices,
the attempt
to do
so would be so irritating,
and so nearly
impracticable withal,
that
I deem it better
to forego
for the time the uses
of such offices.
The mails,
unless repelled,
will continue
to be furnished
in all parts
of the Union.
So far as possible,
the people
everywhere shall have
that sense
of perfect security which
is most favorable
to calm thought
and reflection.
The course
here indicated
will be followed
unless current events
and experience
shall show
a modification
or change to be proper,
and in every case
and exigency
my best
discretion
will be exercised according to
circumstances
actually existing,
and with a view
and a hope
of a peaceful solution
of the national troubles
and the restoration
of fraternal sympathies
and affections.
That
there are persons
in one section
or another
who seek
to destroy the Union
at all events,
and are glad of any pretext
to do it,
I will neither
affirm nor deny;
but if there be such,
I need address no word
to them.
To those,
however,
who really love the Union
may
I not speak?
Before entering upon so grave
a matter
as the destruction
of our national fabric,
with all its benefits,
its memories,
and its hopes,
would
it not be wise to
ascertain precisely
why we
do it?
Will you
hazard so desperate a step
while there is
any possibility
that any portion
of the ills you fly from
have no real existence?
Will you,
while
the certain ills you fly to
are greater than all
the real ones
you fly from
-- will
you risk the commission
of so fearful a mistake?
All profess
to be content in the Union
if all Constitutional rights
can be maintained.
Is it true,
then,
that any right,
plainly
written in the Constitution,
has been denied?
I think not.
Happily the human mind
is so constituted
that no party
can reach to the audacity
of doing this.
Think,
if you can,
of a single instance
in which a plainly written provision
of the Constitution
has ever been denied.
If by the mere force
of numbers
a majority
should deprive
a minority of any
clearly written
Constitutional right,
it might,
in a moral point of view,
justify revolution
-- certainly
would if such
a right
were a vital one.
But such
is not our case.
All the vital rights
of minorities
and of individuals
are so plainly assured
to them
by affirmations and negations,
guaranties and prohibitions,
in the Constitution,
that controversies
never arise concerning them.
But no organic law
can ever be framed
with a
provision
specifically applicable
to every question
which may occur
in practical administration.
No foresight can anticipate,
nor any document
of reasonable length
contain,
express provisions
for all possible questions.
Shall fugitives from labor
be surrendered
by national
or State authority?
The Constitution
does not expressly say.
May Congress
prohibit slavery
in the Territories?
The Constitution
does not expressly say.
MUST Congress
protect slavery
in the Territories?
The Constitution
does not expressly say.
From questions
of this class spring
all
our constitutional controversies,
and we
divide
upon them
into majorities and minorities.
If the minority
will not acquiesce,
the majority must,
or the government must cease.
There
is no other alternative;
for continuing the government
is acquiescence
on one side or the other.
If a minority in such
case will secede
rather than acquiesce,
they make a precedent which
in turn
will divide
and ruin them;
for a minority of their own
will secede from them
whenever a majority refuses
to be controlled
by such minority.
For instance,
why may not any portion
of a new confederacy a year
or two
hence arbitrarily secede
again,
precisely
as portions of the present
Union now claim
to secede from it?
All who
cherish disunion sentiments
are now being educated
to the exact temper
of doing this.
Is there such perfect identity
of interests among the States
to compose a new Union,
as to produce harmony only,
and prevent renewed secession?
Plainly,
the central idea of secession
is the essence of anarchy.
A majority
held in restraint
by constitutional checks
and limitations,
and always changing easily
with deliberate changes
of popular opinions
and sentiments,
is the only true sovereign
of a free people.
Whoever
rejects it does,
of necessity,
fly to anarchy
or to despotism.
Unanimity
is impossible;
the rule of a minority,
as a permanent arrangement,
is wholly inadmissible;
so that,
rejecting
the majority principle,
anarchy
or despotism in some form
is all
that is left.
I do not forget the position,
assumed by some,
that Constitutional questions
are to be decided
by the Supreme Court;
nor do I deny that
such decisions
must be binding,
in any case,
upon the parties
to a suit,
as to the object
of that suit,
while they
are also entitled
to very high respect
and consideration
in all parallel cases
by all other departments
of the government.
And while it
is obviously possible
that
such decision
may be
erroneous in any given case,
still the evil effect
following it,
being limited to
that particular case,
with the chance that
it may be overruled
and never become
a precedent for other cases,
can better
be borne than
could the evils
of a different practice.
At the same time,
the candid citizen
must confess
that if the policy
of the government,
upon vital questions
affecting the whole people,
is to be irrevocably fixed
by decisions
of the Supreme Court,
the instant
they are made,
in ordinary litigation
between parties
in personal actions,
the people
will have ceased
to be their own rulers,
having to that extent
practically resigned
their government
into the hands of
that eminent tribunal.
Nor is there
in this view any assault
upon the court
or the judges.
It
is a duty from which
they
may not shrink
to decide cases properly
brought before them,
and it is no fault
of theirs
if others
seek to turn their decisions
to political purposes.
One section of our country
believes slavery
is RIGHT,
and ought to be extended,
while the other
believes it
is WRONG,
and ought not
to be extended.
This
is
the only substantial dispute.
The fugitive-slave clause
of the Constitution,
and the law
for the suppression
of the foreign slave-trade,
are each as well enforced,
perhaps,
as any law
can ever be in a community
where the moral sense
of the people
imperfectly supports
the law itself.
The great body of the people
abide
by the dry legal obligation
in both cases,
and a few break
over in each.
This,
I think,
cannot be perfectly cured;
and it would be worse
in both cases
AFTER the separation
of the sections than BEFORE.
The foreign slave-trade,
now imperfectly suppressed,
would be ultimately revived,
without restriction,
in one section,
while fugitive slaves,
now only
partially surrendered,
would not be surrendered
at all
by the other.
Physically
speaking,
we cannot separate.
We cannot remove
our respective sections
from each other,
nor build an impassable wall
between them.
A husband and wife
may be divorced,
and go
out of the presence
and beyond the reach
of each other;
but the different parts
of our country
cannot do this.
They
cannot
but remain face to face,
and intercourse,
either amicable or hostile,
must continue between them.
Is it possible,
then,
to make that intercourse
more advantageous
or more satisfactory
after separation
than before?
Can
aliens make treaties easier
than friends
can make laws?
Can
treaties
be more faithfully enforced
between aliens than laws
can among friends?
Suppose you go to war,
you cannot fight always;
and when,
after much loss
on both sides,
an no gain on either,
you cease fighting,
the identical old questions
as to terms of intercourse
are again upon you.
This country,
with its institutions,
belongs to the people
who inhabit it.
Whenever they
shall grow weary
of the existing government,
they
can exercise
their CONSTITUTIONAL right
of amending it,
or their REVOLUTIONARY right
to dismember or overthrow it.
I cannot be ignorant
of the fact
that
many worthy and patriotic citizens
are desirous
of having
the national Constitution
amended.
While I make no recommendation
of amendments,
I fully recognize
the rightful authority
of the people
over the whole subject,
to be exercised
in either of the modes
prescribed
in the instrument itself;
and I should,
under existing circumstances,
favor rather than
oppose a fair opportunity
being afforded
the people
to act upon it.
I will venture
to add that to me
the convention mode
seems preferable,
in that it allows amendments
to originate
with the people themselves,
instead of only permitting them
to take or reject
propositions originated
by others not especially chosen
for the purpose,
and which
might not be precisely
such as
they would wish to either
accept or refuse.
I understand
a proposed amendment
to the Constitution
-- which amendment,
however,
I have not seen --
has passed Congress,
to the effect
that the Federal Government
shall never interfere
with the domestic institutions
of the States,
including that of persons
held to service.
To avoid misconstruction
of what I
have said,
I depart from my purpose
not to speak
of particular amendments so far
as
to say that,
holding such a provision
to now be implied
Constitutional law,
I have no objection
to its being made
express and irrevocable.
The chief magistrate
derives all
his authority from the people,
and they
have conferred none upon him
to fix terms
for the separation
of the states.
The people
themselves can do this
also if they
choose;
but the executive,
as such,
has nothing
to do with it.
His duty
is
to administer the present government,
as it came to his hands,
and to transmit it,
unimpaired by him,
to his successor.
Why should there not be
a patient
confidence
in the ultimate justice
of the people?
Is there any
better or equal hope
in the world?
In our present
differences
is either party
without faith of
being in the right?
If
the Almighty Ruler of Nations,
with his eternal truth
and justice,
be on your side
of the North,
or on yours
of the South,
that truth and that justice
will surely prevail,
by the judgment
of this great tribunal,
the American people.
By the frame
of the government
under which we live,
this same people
have wisely given
their public servants
but little power
for mischief;
and have,
with equal wisdom,
provided for the return of
that little
to their own hands
at very short intervals.
While the people
retain their virtue
and vigilance,
no administration,
by any extreme
of wickedness or folly,
can very seriously injure
the government
in the short space
of four years.
My countrymen,
one and all,
think calmly and WELL
upon this whole subject.
Nothing valuable
can be lost by taking time.
If there be an object
to HURRY any of you
in hot haste
to a step which
you would never take
DELIBERATELY,
that object
will be frustrated
by taking time;
but no good object
can be frustrated by it.
Such of you
as are now dissatisfied,
still
have the old Constitution
unimpaired,
and,
on the sensitive point,
the laws
of your own framing under it;
while the new administration
will have no immediate power,
if it would,
to change either.
If it
were admitted that you who
are dissatisfied
hold the right side
in the dispute,
there
still is no
single good reason
for precipitate action.
Intelligence,
patriotism,
Christianity,
and a firm reliance
on him
who has never yet forsaken
this favored land,
are still competent
to adjust
in the best
way all our present difficulty.
In YOUR hands,
my dissatisfied
fellow-countrymen,
and not in MINE,
is the momentous issue
of civil war.
The government
will not assail YOU.
You can have no conflict
without being yourselves
the aggressors.
YOU have no oath
registered in heaven
to destroy the government,
while _I_
shall have
the most solemn one to
"preserve,
protect,
and defend it."
I am loathe to close.
We are not enemies,
but friends.
We must not be enemies.
Though passion
may have strained,
it must not break our bonds
of affection.
The mystic chords of memory,
stretching
from every battlefield
and patriot grave
to every living heart
and hearthstone
all over this broad land,
will yet swell the chorus
of the Union
when again touched,
as surely
they will be,
by the better angels
of our nature.
Whereas
it has become necessary
to call
into service not only volunteers,
but also portions
of the militia
of the States by draft,
in order to
suppress
the insurrection
existing in the United States,
and disloyal persons
are not adequately restrained
by the ordinary processes
of law
from hindering this measure,
and from giving aid
and comfort in various ways
to the insurrection:
Now,
therefore,
be it ordered
First.
That
during the existing insurrection,
and as
a necessary measure
for suppressing
the same,
all rebels and insurgents,
their aiders and abettors
within the United States,
and all
persons discouraging volunteer enlistments,
resisting militia drafts,
or guilty
of any disloyal practice
affording aid
and comfort
to rebels
against the authority
of the United States,
shall be
subject to martial law,
and liable
to trial and punishment
by courts-martial
or military commissions.
Second.
That the writ of habeas
corpus is suspended
in respect to all persons
arrested,
or who are now,
or hereafter during the rebellion
shall be,
imprisoned in any fort camp,
arsenal,
military prison or other place
of confinement
by any military authority
or by the sentence
of any court-martial
or military commission.
In witness whereof
I have hereunto set
my hand
and caused
the seal
of the United States
to be affixed.
Done at the city
of WASHINGTON,
this twenty-fourth day
of September.
A.D. eighteen hundred
and sixty-two,
and of the independence
of the United States
the eighty-seventh.
Whereas
on the 22d day
of September, A.D. 1862,
a proclamation
was issued by the President
of the United States,
containing,
among other things,
the following,
to wit:
"That on the 1st day
of January, A.D., 1863,
all persons held as slaves
within any State
or designated
part of a State
the people
whereof shall then be
in rebellion
against the United States
shall be then,
thenceforward,
and forever free;
and the executive government
of the United States,
including
the military and naval
authority thereof,
will recognize
and maintain the freedom
of such persons
and will do no act
or acts
to repress such persons,
or any of them,
in any
efforts
they may make
for their actual freedom.
"That
the executive
will on the 1st day
of January
aforesaid,
by proclamation,
designate the States
and parts of States,
if any,
in which the people thereof,
respectively,
shall then be in rebellion
against the United States;
and the fact that
any State or the people
thereof shall on that day be
in good faith
represented
in the Congress
of the United States
by members
chosen thereto at elections
wherein
a majority
of the qualified voters
of such States
shall have participated
shall,
in the absence
of strong
countervailing testimony,
be deemed
conclusive evidence
that
such State and the people
thereof are not then
in rebellion
against the United States."
Now,
therefore,
I,
Abraham Lincoln,
President of the United States,
by virtue
of the power
in me
vested as Commander-in-Chief
of the Army
and Navy of the United States
in time
of actual armed rebellion
against the authority
and government
of the United States,
and as a fit
and necessary war measure
for suppressing said rebellion,
do,
on this 1st day of January,
A. D. 1863,
and in accordance
with my purpose
so to do,
publicly
proclaimed
for the full period
of one hundred days
from the
first day above mentioned,
order and designate
as the States
and parts of States
wherein the people thereof,
respectively,
are this day
in rebellion
against the United States
the following,
to wit:
Arkansas,
Texas,
Louisiana
(except the parishes
of St. Bernard,
Plaquemines,
Jefferson,
St. John,
St. Charles,
St. James,
Ascension,
Assumption,
Terre Bonne,
Lafourche,
St. Mary,
St. Martin,
and Orleans,
including
the city of New Orleans),
Mississippi,
Alabama,
Florida,
Georgia,
South Carolina,
North Carolina,
and Virginia
(except
the forty-eight counties
designated as West Virginia,
and also
the counties of Berkeley,
Accomac,
Northampton,
Elizabeth City,
York,
Princess Anne,
and Norfolk,
including the cities
of Norfolk and Portsmouth),
and which excepted parts
are for the present
left precisely
as if this proclamation
were not issued.
And by virtue
of the power
and for the purpose aforesaid,
I do order and declare
that all persons
held as slaves
within said designated States
and parts of States are,
and henceforward shall be,
free;
and that
the Executive Government
of the United States,
including the military
and naval authorities
thereof,
will recognize
and maintain the freedom
of said persons.
And I
hereby enjoin
upon the people so
declared
to be free
to abstain from all violence,
unless
in necessary self-defense;
and I recommend to them that,
in all cases when allowed,
they labor faithfully
for reasonable wages.
And I further
declare
and make known that
such persons
of suitable condition
will be received
into the armed service
of the United States
to garrison forts,
positions,
stations,
and other places,
and to man vessels
of all sorts
in said service.
And upon this act,
sincerely
believed
to be an act of justice,
warranted
by the Constitution
upon military necessity,
I invoke
the considerate judgment
of mankind and
the gracious favor
of Almighty God.
In witness whereof
I have hereunto set
my hand
and caused
the seal
of the United States
to be affixed.
Done at the city
of Washington,
this first day of January,
A.D. 1863,
and of the independence
of the United States of America
the eighty-seventh.
Four score
and seven years ago
our fathers
brought forth
on this continent,
a new nation,
conceived in liberty,
and dedicated
to the proposition
that all men
are created equal.
Now we are engaged
in a great civil war,
testing whether that nation,
or any nation
so conceived
and so dedicated,
can long endure.
We are met
on a great battlefield
of that war.
We have come
to dedicate
a portion of that field,
as a final resting place
for those
who here gave their lives
that that nation might live.
It is altogether
fitting and proper
that we should do this.
But in a larger sense,
we cannot dedicate,
we cannot consecrate,
we cannot hallow,
this ground.
The brave men,
living and dead,
who struggled here,
have consecrated it,
far above our poor power
to add or detract.
The world will little note,
nor long remember,
what we say here,
but it can never forget
what they did here.
It is
for us the living,
rather,
to be dedicated here
to the unfinished work
which they
who fought here
have thus far
so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us
to be here dedicated
to the great task
remaining before us
-- that
from these honored dead
we take increased devotion
to that cause
for which they gave
the last full measure
of devotion --
that we here highly resolve
that these dead
shall not
have died in vain
-- that this nation,
under God,
shall have a new birth
of freedom --
and that government
of the people,
by the people,
for the people,
shall not perish
from the earth.
Fellow countrymen:
At this second
appearing
to take the oath
of the presidential office,
there
is less occasion
for an extended address than
there was at the first.
Then a statement,
somewhat in detail,
of a course
to be pursued,
seemed fitting and proper.
Now,
at the expiration
of four years,
during which
public declarations
have been constantly called forth
on every point
and phase
of the great contest
which still absorbs
the attention
and engrosses
the energies of the nation,
little
that is new
could be presented.
The progress of our arms,
upon which all else
chiefly depends,
is as well
known to the public as
to myself;
and it is,
I trust,
reasonably
satisfactory and encouraging
to all.
With high hope
for the future,
no prediction in regard to it
is ventured.
On the occasion
corresponding to this
four years ago,
all thoughts
were anxiously directed
to an impending civil war.
All dreaded it
-- all sought
to avert it.
While
the inaugural address
was being delivered
from this place,
devoted altogether to
saving the Union without war,
insurgent
agents were
in the city seeking
to destroy it without war
-- seeking
to dissolve the Union,
and divide effects,
by negotiation.
Both parties
deprecated war;
but one of them
would make war rather than
let the nation
survive;
and the other
would accept war rather than
let it perish.
And the war came.
One-eighth
of the whole population
were colored slaves,
not distributed generally
over the Union,
but localized
in the Southern part of it.
These slaves
constituted
a peculiar and powerful interest.
All knew that
this interest was,
somehow,
the cause of the war.
To strengthen,
perpetuate,
and extend this interest
was the object for which
the insurgents
would rend the Union,
even by war;
while
the government
claimed no right to do
more than
to restrict
the territorial enlargement
of it.
Neither party
expected for the war
the magnitude
or the duration
which it
has already attained.
Neither
anticipated
that the cause
of the conflict
might cease with,
or even before,
the conflict itself
should cease.
Each looked
for an easier triumph,
and a result less
fundamental and astounding.
Both
read the same Bible,
and pray to the same God;
and each
invokes
his aid against the other.
It may seem strange
that
any men
should dare
to ask
a just God's assistance
in wringing their bread
from the sweat
of other men's faces;
but let us judge not,
that
we be not judged.
The prayers of both
could not be answered
-- that of neither
has been answered fully.
The Almighty
has his own purposes.
"Woe unto the world
because of offenses!
for it
must needs be
that offenses come;
but woe to
that man by whom
the offense cometh."
If we
shall suppose
that American slavery
is one
of those offenses which,
in the providence of God,
must needs come,
but which,
having continued
through his appointed time,
he now wills
to remove,
and that
he gives
to both North
and South this terrible war,
as the woe due to those
by whom
the offense came,
shall
we discern therein
any departure
from those divine attributes which
the believers
in a living God
always ascribe to him?
Fondly do we hope,
fervently do we pray,
that this
mighty scourge of war
may speedily pass away.
Yet,
if God wills
that it continue
until all the wealth
piled by
the bondsman's
two hundred and fifty years
of unrequited toil
shall be sunk,
and until
every drop of blood
drawn with the lash
shall be paid
by another
drawn with the sword,
as was said
three thousand years ago,
so still
it must be said
"the judgments of the Lord
are true
and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none,
with charity for all,
with firmness in the right
as God gives us
to see the right,
let us strive on
to finish the work
we are in,
to bind up
the nation's wounds,
to care for him
who shall have
borne the battle
and for his widow
and his orphan,
to do all
which may achieve
and cherish
a just and lasting peace
among ourselves
and with all nations.
FELLOW-CITIZENS
-- We meet this evening not
in sorrow,
but in gladness of heart.
The evacuation
of Petersburg and Richmond,
and the surrender
of the
principal insurgent army,
give hope of a
righteous and speedy peace,
whose joyous expression
cannot be restrained.
In the midst of this,
however,
He from whom blessings flow
must not be forgotten.
A call
for a national thanksgiving
is being prepared,
and will be duly promulgated.
Nor must
those
whose harder part
gives us the cause
of rejoicing
be overlooked.
Their honors
must not be parceled out
with others.
I myself
was near the front,
and had the pleasure
of transmitting much
of the good news to you.
But no part
of the honor
for plan or execution
is mine.
To General Grant,
his skillful officers,
and brave men,
all belongs.
The gallant navy
stood ready,
but was not
in reach
to take active part.
By these recent successes,
the reinauguration
of the national authority
-- reconstruction
which has had a large share
of thought
from the first,
is pressed much more closely
upon our attention.
It is fraught
with great difficulty.
Unlike a case
of war
between independent nations,
there
is no authorized organ
for us to treat with
-- no one man has authority
to give
up the rebellion
for any other man.
We simply must begin
with and mould
from disorganized
and discordant elements.
Nor is it
a small additional embarrassment
that we,
the loyal people,
differ among ourselves as
to the mode,
manner,
and measure
of reconstruction.
As a general rule,
I abstain
from reading the reports
of attacks upon myself,
Wishing not
to be provoked by
that to which
I cannot properly offer
an answer.
In spite of this precaution,
however,
it comes to my knowledge
that
I am much
censured
for some supposed agency
in setting up and seeking
to sustain
the new State government
of Louisiana.
In this
I have done just
so much and no more than
the public knows.
In the Annual Message of December,
1863,
and the accompanying proclamation,
I presented a plan
of reconstruction,
as the phrase goes,
which
I promised,
if adopted by any State,
would be acceptable to
and sustained
by the Executive Government
of the nation.
I distinctly stated that
this was not
the only plan
that might possibly be
acceptable,
and I also
distinctly protested
that the Executive claimed no
right to say when or whether
members
should be admitted
to seats
in Congress from such States.
This plan
was in advance
submitted to the then Cabinet,
and approved by every member
of it.
One of them
suggested that
I should then and in
that connection
apply
the Emancipation Proclamation
to the theretofore excepted parts
of Virginia and Louisiana;
that
I should drop the suggestion
about apprenticeship
for freed people,
and that
I should omit the protest
against my own power in
regard
to the admission
of members of Congress.
But even
he approved
every part and parcel
of the plan
which has since been
employed
or touched
by the action of Louisiana.
The new constitution
of Louisiana,
declaring emancipation
for the whole State,
practically
applies the proclamation
to the part previously excepted.
It does not adopt
apprenticeship
for freed people,
and is silent,
as it
could not well be otherwise,
about the admission
of members to Congress.
So that,
as it applied to Louisiana,
every member of the Cabinet
fully approved the plan.
The message
went to Congress,
and I
received many commendations
of the plan,
written and verbal,
and not
a single objection to it
from any professed emancipationist
came to my knowledge
until after
the news reached Washington
that the people of Louisiana
had begun
to move
in accordance with it.
From about July, 1862,
I had corresponded
with different persons
supposed
to be interested
in seeking a reconstruction
of a State government
for Louisiana.
When the message of 1863,
with the plan
before mentioned,
reached New Orleans,
General Banks
wrote me
that he
was confident that the people,
with his military co-operation,
would reconstruct substantially
on that plan.
I wrote
to him and some of them
to try it.
They tried it,
and the result is known.
Such
has been my only agency
in getting up
the Louisiana government.
As to
sustaining it my promise
is out,
as before stated.
But,
as bad promises are better
broken than kept,
I shall treat
this as a bad promise
and break it,
whenever I
shall be convinced that
keeping
it is adverse
to the public interest;
but I
have not yet been
so convinced.
I have been shown a letter
on this subject,
supposed
to be an able one,
in which the writer expresses
regret that my mind
has not seemed
to be definitely fixed
upon the question
whether the
seceded States,
so called,
are in the Union or
out of it.
It would perhaps add
astonishment
to his regret
were he to learn
that since I
have found
professed Union men endeavoring
to answer that question,
I have purposely
forborne any public expression
upon it.
As appears to me,
that question
has not been nor
yet is a practically
material one,
and that
any discussion of it,
while it thus
remains practically immaterial,
could have
no effect
other than the mischievous one
of dividing our friends.
As yet,
whatever it may become,
that question
is bad as the basis
of a controversy,
and good
for nothing at all
-- a merely pernicious abstraction.
We all agree
that
the seceded States,
so called,
are
out of their proper practical
relation
with the Union,
and that
the sole object
of the Government,
civil and military,
in regard to those States,
is to again get them
into their proper practical
relation.
I believe
that it
is not only possible,
but in fact easier,
to do this
without deciding
or even considering
whether those States
have ever been
out of the Union,
than with it.
Finding themselves safely
at home,
it would be utterly immaterial
whether they
had been abroad.
Let us all join in doing
the acts necessary
to restore
the proper practical relations
between these States
and the Union,
and each forever after
innocently indulge
his own opinion
whether,
in doing the acts
he brought the States
from without
into the Union,
or only gave them
proper assistance,
they never having been
out of it.
The amount of constituency,
so to speak,
on which
the Louisiana government rests,
would be more satisfactory
to all
if it
contained fifty thousand,
or thirty thousand,
or even twenty thousand,
instead of twelve thousand,
as it does.
It is also unsatisfactory
to some
that
the elective franchise
is not given
to the colored man.
I would myself prefer that
it were now
conferred
on the very intelligent,
and on those who serve
our cause as soldiers.
Still,
the question
is not
whether
the Louisiana government,
as it stands,
is quite all
that is desirable.
The question is,
Will
it be wiser to take
it as it is
and help
to improve it,
or to reject
and disperse?
Can Louisiana
be brought
into proper practical relation
with the Union sooner
by sustaining
or by discarding her
new State government?
Some
twelve thousand voters
in the heretofore
Slave State of Louisiana
have sworn allegiance
to the Union,
assumed
to be
the rightful political power
of the State,
held elections,
organized a State government,
adopted
a Free State constitution,
giving the benefit
of public schools equally
to black and white,
and empowering
the Legislature
to confer
the elective franchise
upon the colored man.
This Legislature
has already voted to ratify
the Constitutional Amendment
recently passed by Congress,
abolishing slavery
throughout the nation.
These twelve thousand persons
are thus
fully committed to the Union
and to perpetuate freedom
in the State
-- committed to the very things,
and nearly all things,
the nation wants --
and they
ask the nation's recognition
and its assistance
to make good this committal.
Now,
if we
reject and spurn them,
we do our utmost
to disorganize
and disperse them.
We,
in fact,
say to the white man:
You are worthless or worse;
we will neither help you nor
be helped by you.
To the blacks
we say:
This cup
of liberty which these,
your old masters,
held to your lips,
we will dash from you,
and leave you
to the chances of gathering
the spilled
and scattered contents
in some vague
and undefined when,
where,
and how.
If this course,
discouraging
and paralyzing
both white and black,
has any tendency
to bring Louisiana
into proper practical relations
with the Union,
I have so far been unable
to perceive it.
If,
on the contrary,
we recognize
and sustain the new government
of Louisiana,
the converse of all
this is made true.
We encourage
the hearts and nerve
the arms of twelve thousand
to adhere to their work,
and argue for it,
and proselyte for it,
and fight for it,
and feed it,
and grow it,
and ripen it
to a complete success.
The colored man, too,
in seeing all
united for him,
is inspired with vigilance,
and energy,
and daring to the same end.
Grant that he
desires
the elective franchise,
will
he not attain it sooner
by saving
the already advanced steps
towards it,
than by running backward
over them?
Concede
that the new government
of Louisiana
is only to what
it should be
as the egg is
to the fowl,
we shall sooner
have the fowl
by hatching the egg
than by smashing it.
Again,
if we
reject Louisiana,
we also reject one vote
in favor
of the proposed amendment
to the National Constitution.
To meet this proposition,
it has been argued that
no more than three fourths of those States which
have not attempted secession
are necessary
to validly ratify
the amendment.
I do not commit myself
against this,
further than
to say that such
a ratification
would be questionable,
and sure
to be persistently questioned,
while a ratification
by three fourths of all
the States
would be
unquestioned
and unquestionable.
I repeat the question,
Can Louisiana
be brought
into proper practical relation
with the Union sooner
by sustaining
or by discarding her
new State government?
What
has been said of Louisiana
will apply
to other States.
And yet so great peculiarities
pertain to each State,
and such important and sudden
changes occur
in the same State,
and withal
so new and unprecedented
is the whole case,
that no exclusive
and inflexible plan
can safely be prescribed as
to details and collaterals.
Such exclusive and inflexible
plan
would surely
become a new entanglement.
Important principles
may and must be inflexible.
In the present situation
as the phrase goes,
it may be my duty
to make some new announcement
to the people
of the South.
I am considering,
and shall not fail
to act,
when satisfied that action
will be proper.