The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes Part 15

Do I state too strongly the mischievous, the fatal tendency of these proceedings? The resolution adopted by the peace Democracy of Ohio is addressed in terms "to the people of all the States, North and South," and in fact was sent, I am informed, to the governors of all the States.

In the South, Union men were laboring by every means in their power to prevent secession. Their most cogent argument was that the National government would defend itself by war against rebellion.

To this, the rebel reply was, "There will be no war. Secession will be peaceable. The peace party of the North will prevent coercion.

If there is fighting, it will be as Ex-President Pierce writes to Jefferson Davis, 'The fighting will not be along Mason and Dixon's line merely. It will be within our own borders, in our own streets.'"

For the evidence of the correctness of this opinion, the rebels could point confidently to such speeches and resolutions as those we are now considering. Governor Orr, of South Carolina, in a recent speech at the Charleston Board of Trade banquet, is reported to have said:

"I know there is an apprehension widespread in the North and West that, after the reconstruction of the Southern States, we shall fall into the arms of our old allies and a.s.sociates, the old Democratic party. I say to you, gentlemen, however, that I would give no such pledges. We have accounts to settle with that party, gentlemen, before I, at least, will consent to affiliate with it.

Many of you will remember that, when the war first commenced, great hopes and expectations were held out by our friends in the North and West that there would be no war, and that if it commenced, it would be North of Mason and Dixon's line, and not in the South."

Without pausing to inquire how much strength accrued to the rebellion in its earlier stages by the encouragement it received from sympathizers in the North, let us pa.s.s on to the spring and summer of 1861, after the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, and when the armies of the Union and of the rebellion were facing each other upon a line of operations extending from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. The most superficial observer could not fail to discover these facts.

In the South, where slavery was strongest, the rebellion was strongest. Where there were few slaveholders, there were few rebels. South Carolina and Mississippi, having the largest number of slaves in proportion to population, were almost unanimous for rebellion. Western Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, East Tennessee, had few slaves, and love of the Union and hatred of secession in those mountain regions was nearly universal.

The counterpart of this was found everywhere in the North. In counties and districts where the majority of the people had been accustomed to defend or excuse the practice of slave-holding and the aggressions of the slaveholders, there was much sympathy with the rebellion and strong opposition to the war. Men who abused and hated negroes did not usually hate rebels. On the other hand, anti-slavery counties and districts were quite sure to be Union to the core.

In Ohio, as in other free States, the Democratic party could not be led off in a body after the peace Democracy. Brough, Tod, Matthews, Dorsey, Steedman, and a host of Democrats of the Jackson school, n.o.bly kept the faith. Lytle, McCook, Webster, and gallant spirits like them, from every county and neighborhood of our State, sealed their devotion to the Union and to true Democracy with their life's blood.

They believed, with Dougla.s.s, in the last letter he ever wrote, that "it was not a party question, nor a question involving partisan policy; it was a question of government or no government, country or no country, and hence it became the imperative duty of every Union man, every friend of const.i.tutional liberty, to rally to the support of our common country, its government and flag, as the only means of checking the progress of revolution, and of preserving the Union of the States."

They believed the words of Dougla.s.s' last speech: "This is no time for a detail of causes. The conspiracy is now known. Armies have been raised, war is levied to accomplish it. There are only two sides to the question. Every man must be for the United States or against it. There can be no neutrals in this war--only patriots and traitors."

As the war progressed, the great political parties of the country underwent important changes, both of organization and policy. In the North, the Republican party, the great body of the American or Union party of 1860, and the war Democracy formed the Union party.

The Democracy of the South, for the most part, became rebels, and in the North those who did not unite with the Union party generally pa.s.sed under the control and leaders.h.i.+p of the peace Democracy.

At the beginning of the war, the creed of the Union party consisted of one idea--it labored for one object--the restoration of the Union. Slavery, the rights of man, the principles of the Declaration of Independence, were for the time lost sight of in the struggle for the Nation's life. As late as August, 1862, President Lincoln wrote to Mr. Greeley: "My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that."

Slowly, gradually, after repeated disasters and disappointments, the eyes of the Union leaders were opened to the fact that slavery and rebellion were convertible terms; that the Confederacy, according to its Vice-President, Alexander H. Stephens, was founded upon "exactly the opposite idea" from that of Jefferson and the fathers. "Its foundations," said he, "are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition." Mr. Lincoln and the Union party, struggling faithfully onward, finally reached the solid ground that the American government was founded on the broad principles of right, justice, and humanity, and that, for this Nation, "Union and liberty" were indeed "one and inseparable."

The leaders of the peace Democracy were for a time overwhelmed by the popular uprising which followed the attack on Fort Sumter, and were not able during the year 1861 or the early part of 1862 to mark out definitely the course to be pursued. But, like the Union party, they gradually approached the position they were ultimately to occupy.

Their success in the autumn elections of 1862 encouraged them to enter upon the pathway in which they have plodded along consistently if not prosperously ever since. Opposition to the war measures of Mr. Lincoln's administration, and in particular to every measure tending to the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt and elevation of the African race, became their settled policy. By this policy they were placed in harmony with their former a.s.sociates, the rebels of the South. The rebels were fighting to destroy the Union. The peace party were opposing the only measures which could save it. The rebels were fighting for slavery. The peace party were laboring in their way to keep alive and inflame the prejudice against race and color, on which slavery was based.

The abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, the repeal of the fugitive slave law, Mr. Lincoln's proclamation of emanc.i.p.ation, in a word, every step of the Union party toward enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the colored people, the peace Democracy opposed. Every war measure, every means adopted to strengthen the cause of the Union and weaken the rebellion, met with the the same opposition. Whatever Mr.

Lincoln or Congress did to get money, to get men, or to obtain the moral support of the country and the world--tax laws, tariff laws, greenbacks, government bonds, army bills, drafts, blockades, proclamations--met the indiscriminate and bitter a.s.saults of these men. The enlistment of colored soldiers, a measure by which between one and two hundred thousand able-bodied men were transferred from the service of the rebels in corn-fields to the Union service in battle-fields--how Mr. Lincoln and the Union party were vilified for that wise and necessary measure! But worse, infinitely worse, than mere opposition to war measures, were their efforts to impair the confidence of the people, to diminish the moral power of the government, to give hope and earnestness to the enemies of the Union, by showing that the administration was to blame for the war, that it was unnecessary, unjust, and that it had been perverted from its original object, and that it could not but fail.

I need not go beyond the record of leaders of the Ohio Democracy of to-day for proof what I am saying. Mr. Pendleton, usually so gentlemanly and prudent in speech, lost his balance after the victories of the peace Democracy in 1862. At the Democratic jubilee in Butler county over the elections, Mr. Pendleton is reported as saying:

"I came up to see if there were any b.u.t.ternuts in Butler county. I came to see if there were any Copperheads in Butler county, as my friends of the Cincinnati _Gazette_ and _Commercial_ are fond of terming the Democracy of the country. I came up to tell you that there are a good many of that stripe of animals in old Hamilton. I have traveled about the country lately, and I a.s.sure you there is a large crop of b.u.t.ternuts everywhere: not only that, but the quality and character of the nut is quite as good as the quant.i.ty."

Of course, Mr. Pendleton was applauded by his audience; and he returned to his place in the House of Representatives at Was.h.i.+ngton prepared to give expression to his views with the same plainness and boldness which marked the utterances of his colleague, Mr.

Vallandigham.

On the 31st of January, 1863, he made an elaborate speech against the enlistment of negroes into the service of the United States, in which he said:

"I should be false to you, my fellow-representatives, if I did not tell you that there is an impression, growing with great rapidity, upon the minds of the people of the Northwest that they have been deliberately deceived into this war--that their patriotism and their love of country have been engaged to call them into the army, under the pretense that the war was to be for the Union and the Const.i.tution, when, in fact, it was to be an armed crusade for the abolition of slavery. I tell you, sir, that unless this impression is speedily arrested it will become universal; it will ripen into conviction, and then it will be beyond your power to get from their broad plains another man, or from their almost exhausted coffers another dollar."

In the same speech he says:

"I said two years ago, on this floor, that armies, money, war can not restore this Union; justice, reason, peace, may. I believed it then; I have believed it at every moment since; I believe it now.

No event of the past two years has for a moment shaken my faith.

Peace is the first step to Union. Peace is Union. Peace unbroken would have preserved it; peace restored will, I hope, in some time reconstruct it. The only bonds which can hold these States in confederation, the only ties which can make us one people, are the soft and silken cords of affection and interest. These are woven in peace, not war; in conciliation, not coercion; in deeds of kindness and acts of friendly sympathy, not in deeds of violence and blood.

The people of the Northwest were carried away by the excitement of April and May. They believed war would restore the Union. They trusted to the a.s.surances of the president and his cabinet, and of Congress, that it should be carried on for that purpose alone. They trusted that it would be carried on under the Const.i.tution. They were patriotic and confiding. They sent their sons, and brothers, and husbands to the army, and poured out their treasures at the feet of the administration. They feel that the war has been perverted from this end; that the Const.i.tution has been disregarded; that abolition and arbitrary power, not Union and const.i.tutional liberty, are the governing ideas of the administration. They are in no temper to be trifled with. They think they have been deceived. There is danger of revolution. They are longing for peace."

Need I pause to inquire who would receive encouragement, or whose spirits would be depressed, on reading these remarkable sentences?

Imagine them read by the rebel camp-fires, or at the fire-sides of the rebel people. What hope, what exultation we should behold in the faces of those who heard them! On the other hand, at Union camp-fires, or by the loyal fire-sides of the North, what sorrow, what mortification, what depression such statements would surely carry wherever they were heard and believed!

The course of the peace Democracy of Ohio during the memorable contest of 1863, between Brough and Vallandigham, is too well known to require attention now. Judge Thurman was one of the committee who constructed the platform of the convention which nominated Mr.

Vallandigham, and was the ablest member of the State Central Committee which had charge of the canva.s.s in his behalf during his exile.

The key-note to that canva.s.s was given by Mr. Vallandigham himself in a letter written from Canada, July 15, 1863. That letter contained the following:

"If this civil war is to terminate only by the subjugation or submission of the South to force and arms, the infant of to-day will not live to see the end of it. No, in another way only can it be brought to a close. Traveling a thousand miles and more, through nearly half of the Confederate States, and sojourning for a time at widely different points, I met not one man, woman, or child, who was not resolved to perish rather than yield to the pressure of arms, even in the most desperate extremity. And whatever may and must be the varying fortune of the war, in all which I recognize the hand of Providence pointing visibly to the ultimate issue of this great trial of the States and people of America, they are better prepared now every way to make good their inexorable purpose than at any period since the beginning of the struggle. These may be unwelcome truths; but they are addressed only to candid and honest men."

The a.s.sumption of the certain success of the rebellion, and that the war for the Union would a.s.suredly fail, was the strong point of these gentlemen in favor of the election of Vallandigham and the defeat of Brough. Fortunately, the patriotic people saw the situation from another standpoint, and under the influence of different feelings and different sympathies.

In the elections of 1863, the peace Democracy of Ohio and other States sustained defeats which have no parallel in our political history. But, notwithstanding their reverses, the year 1864, the year of the presidential election, found the Ohio leaders possibly sadder, but certainly not wiser nor more patriotic than before.

At the National Convention at Chicago, in August, Mr. Pendleton was nominated for vice-president, Judge Thurman was a delegate of the State of Ohio at large, and Mr. Vallandigham as a district delegate, and as a member of the committee on platform, was the author of the following resolution adopted by the convention:

"_Resolved_, That this convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that, after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under pretense of military necessity, or war power higher than the const.i.tution, the const.i.tution has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private rights have been alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of all the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States."

This resolution does not seem to require explanation or comment.

But as General McClellan's letter accepting the nomination for president did not square well with this part of the party platform, Mr. Vallandigham, in a speech at Sidney, Ohio, September 24, 1864, explained it at some length. In that speech, he said:

"I am speaking now of the fact that this convention p.r.o.nounced this war a failure, and giving you the reasons why it is a failure....

What has been gained by this campaign? More lives have been lost, more hard fighting has been done, more courage has been exhibited by the Federal as well as the Southern soldiers than in any former campaign, and what has been accomplished? General Grant is nearer to Richmond, occupying a territory of perhaps eleven miles, which was not in the possession of the United States when the campaign began, from City Point to the suburbs of Petersburg. To secure that he gave up all the country from Mana.s.sas down to Richmond and a large part of the valley.... How about the Southern campaign?

General Sherman, through the courage of the best disciplined, best organized, and most powerful army that has been seen since the campaigns of the first Napoleon, has taken Atlanta--a town somewhat larger than Sidney. It has cost him sixty thousand men and four or five months of the most terrible campaign ever waged on this continent or any other, or any other part of the globe. He occupies from two to five miles on each side of a railroad of one hundred and thirty-eight miles in length. He has penetrated that far into Georgia. What has been surrendered to obtain that? All of Texas, nearly all of Louisiana, nearly all of Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and a part of Tennessee, which were in possession of the Federals on the first of May. Kentucky has been opened to continual incursions of the Confederate armies. All this has been surrendered in order to gain this barren strip of country on the line of the railroad. The war, then, has been properly p.r.o.nounced a failure in a military point of view. The convention meant that it has failed to restore the Union, and there is not a Republican in the land who does not know it."

In the Sidney speech, Mr. Vallandigham says, also:

"What will you have now? Four years more of war? What guaranties of success have you? Do you want two million more of men to go forth to this war as the Crusaders went to the sepulcher at Jerusalem?

The beginning of this administration found us with very little debt, comparatively no taxation, and peace and happiness among the States; and now look at the scene! Four more years of war, do you tell me, when the first four, with every advantage, has failed?

Now, too, that the hearts of one-half of the people are turned away from war, and intent upon the arts of peace? What will be the consequence? Four thousand millions more of debt, five hundred millions more of taxation, more conscriptions, more calls for five hundred thousand men, more sacrifices for the next four years. All this is what Abraham Lincoln demands of you in order that the South may be compelled not to return to the Union, but to abandon slavery."

All this logic, this eloquence, this taxing the imagination to portray the horrors of war, failed to deceive the people; Lincoln was re-elected; the war went on, and a few short months witnessed the end of the armed rebellion, and the triumph of liberty and of Union.

Now came the work of reconstruction. The leaders of the Peace Democracy, who had failed in every measure, in every plan, in every opinion, and in every prediction relating to the war, were promptly on hand, and with unblus.h.i.+ng cheek were prepared to take exclusive charge of the whole business of reorganization and reconstruction.

They had a plan all prepared--a plan easily understood, easily executed, and which they averred would be satisfactory to all parties. Their plan was in perfect harmony with the conduct and history of its authors and friends during the war. They had been in very close sympathy with the men engaged in the rebellion, while their sympathy for loyal white people at the South was not strong, and they were bitterly hostile to loyal colored people both North and South. Their plan was consistent with all this.

According to it, the rebels were to be treated in the same manner as if they had remained loyal. All laws, State and National, all orders and regulations of the military, naval, and other departments of the government, creating disabilities on account of partic.i.p.ation in the rebellion, were to be repealed, revoked, or abolished. The rebellious States were to be represented in Congress by the rebels without hindrance from any test oath. All appointments in the army, in the navy, and in the civil service, were to be made from men who were rebels, on the same terms as from men who were loyal. The people and governments in the rebellious States were to be subjected to no other interference or control from the military or other departments of the general government than exists in the States which remained loyal. Loyal white men and loyal colored men were to be protected alone in those States by State laws, executed by State authorities, as if they were in the loyal States.

There were to be no amendments to the const.i.tution, not even an amendment abolis.h.i.+ng slavery. In short, the great rebellion was to be ignored or forgotten, or, in the words of one of their orators, "to be generously forgiven." The war, whose burdens, cost, and carnage they had been so fond of exaggerating, suddenly sank into what the Rev. Petroleum V. Nasby calls "the late unpleasantness,"

for which n.o.body but the abolitionists were to blame. Under this plan the States could soon re-establish slavery where it had been disturbed by the war. Jefferson Davis, Toombs, Slidell, and Mason could be re-elected to their old places in the Senate of the United States; Lee could be re-appointed in the army, and Semmes and Maury could be restored to the navy. Of course this plan of the Peace Democracy was acceptable to the rebels of the South.

But the loyal people, who under the name of the Union party fought successfully through the war of the rebellion, objected to this plan as wrong in principle, wrong in its details, and fatally wrong as an example for the future. It treats treason as no crime and loyalty as no virtue; it contains no guarantees, irreversible or otherwise, against another rebellion by the same parties and on the same grounds. It restores to political honor and power in the government of the Nation men who have spent the best part of their lives in plotting the overthrow of that government, and who for more than four years levied public war against the United States; it allows Union men in the South, who have risked all--and many of whom have lost all but life in upholding the Union cause--to be excluded from every office, State and National, and in many instances to be banished from the States they so faithfully laboured to save; it abandons the four millions of colored people to such treatment as the ruffian cla.s.s of the South, educated in the barbarism of slavery and the atrocities of the rebellion, may choose to give them; it leaves the obligations of the Nation to her creditors and to the maimed soldiers and to the widows and orphans of the war, to be fulfilled by men who hate the cause in which those obligations were incurred; it claims to be a plan which restores the Union without requiring conditions; but, in conceding to the conquered rebels the repeal of laws important to the Nation's welfare, it grants conditions which they demand, while it denies to the loyal victors conditions which they deem of priceless value.

In the meantime, President Johnson having declared that "the rebellion, in its revolutionary progress, had deprived the people of the rebel States of all civil government," proceeded by military power to set up provisional State governments in those States, and to require them to declare void all ordinances of secession, to repudiate the rebel debt, and to adopt the thirteenth amendment of the const.i.tution, proposed by the Union party, abolis.h.i.+ng slavery throughout the United States. The Peace Democracy opposed all conditions, and, instinctively unsound upon human rights, opposed the amendment abolis.h.i.+ng slavery. The elections of 1865 settled that question against them, and deprived them of New Jersey, the last free State which adhered to their fallen fortunes.