A Youth's History of the Great Civil War
Van Evrie, Horton & Co., ©1866
Revised edition, ©2006 www.ronie-mooney-encs.us
The views expressed in the following document do not necessarily represent the views of www.ronie-mooney-encs.us. This document, originally published in 1866, has been provided to the public based solely on its potential value as a historical document.
CHAPTER III. THE CAUSES OF THE WAR, CONTINUED
I have said that when the political descendants of the old federalists pitched upon the negro question they were governed by no love for the negro, but solely by their old hatred of democratic principles. The very Northern States which, in 1787, voted against the immediate abolition of the "slave-trade," a few years after led off the mad crusade against the States in which so-called slavery existed by law, and under the protecting shield of the Constitution of the United States. This agitation was, virtually, a declaration of war against the Southern States. It was, indeed, the beginning of hostilities. Of hostilities, unprovoked on the part of the South, and having no foundation even in any portion of Northern opinion except in that which was the hereditary foe of a democratic form of government. This revival of the unfriendly and revolutionary spirit of old Federalism began in opposition to the admission of the State of Missouri into the Union as a "slave" State. This was in 1820. Ex-president Jefferson at once saw that the negro question was only the excuse, while the real motive was to reinstate the lost fortunes of the old democracy-despising Federalism. In a letter to General Lafayette, Mr. Jefferson said: "On the eclipse of Federalism with us, although not its extinction, its leaders got up the Missouri question under the false front of lessening the measure of slavery , but with the real view of producing a geographical division of parties which might ensure them the next president. The people of the North went blindfold into the snare."
This was a very cunning dodge on the part of the Federalists. By their avowed leaning to monarchism, and their hatred of the democratic form of government which had been adopted by the majority of the people, they had made their principles and their very name despised. It was therefore necessary for them to take a new name, and to bring out some new issues in order to get back into power. But, whether under a new name, or with professedly new objects, the real object was the same. It was to overthrow democracy, and to carry out its long-cherished desire of revolutionizing our government in fact, if not in form.
I have shown that the sagacious and far-seeing mind of Jefferson fully understood the plans of the Federalists when they hit upon the negro question as a means of party agitation. I have already quoted what he wrote to General Lafayette;, Who left his own country, France, and came to assist our forefathers in their noble struggle for independence. In another letter Mr. Jefferson wrote as follows: "The question is a mere party trick The leaders of Federalism, defeated in their schemes of obtaining power by rallying partisans to the principles of monarchism - a principle of personal, not of local division - have changed their tack, and thrown out another barrel to the whale. They are taking advantage of the virtuous feelings of the people to effect a division of parties by a geographical line; they expect that this will insure them, on local principles, the majority they could never obtain on principles of Federalism."
While the old Federalists had ceased to openly avow their design to break up our Government, they cunningly sought the same object by arraying one half of the Union against the other, on this subject of the status of the negro. So far as history informs us, this infamous trick was first suggested to the Federalists by a British spy of the name of John Henry, who was sent to this country in 1809, to lay plans to destroy the Union. Henry was commissioned to assist in this work by the British Governor of Canada, whose name was Craig.
The following is an extract from Governor Craig's letter of instructions to Henry:
QUEBEC, February, 1809.
"I request you to proceed with the earliest conveyance to Boston. * * * The known intelligence and ability of several of its leading men, must give it a considerable influence over the other States, and will probably lead them in the part they are to take. * * * It has been supposed that if the Federalists of the Eastern States should be successful, and obtain the decided influence which may enable them to direct public opinion, it is not improbable that, rather than submit, they will exert that influence to bring about a separation from the general union. * * * I enclose a credential, but you must not use in unless you are satisfied it will lead to more confidential communications."
The fact of this conspiracy between the agents of the British Government in Canada, and the leading Federalists of New England, came to the knowledge of Mr. Madison, who was President of the United, and he laid all the proofs before Congress. In his message to Congress on the subject, President Madison said:
"I lay before Congress copies of certain documents, which remain in the department of State. They prove that, at a recent period, on the part of the British Government, through its public minister here, a secret agent of that government was employed, in certain States, more especially at the seat of government in Massachusetts, in fomenting disaffection to the constituted authorities of the country; and intrigued with the disaffected, for the purpose of bringing about resistance to the laws, and eventually, in concert with a British force, of destroying the Union, and forming the eastern part thereof into a political connection with Great Britain."
The laying of these documents before Congress created a great fluttering among the Federalists. They contained the indisputable proofs of their guilty intentions to overthrow the Union, if they could not otherwise subvert the democratic form of government established by the people.
I have said that the plan of subverting our Government, or overthrowing the Union, by agitating the negro question, was probably first suggested by this British spy and conspirator, Henry. He wrote back to the authorities who had employed him in Canada, that although he found the leaders of the Federalists of New England ripe for any measure which could sever the Union, yet that he found the sentiment of Union so strong among the masses of the people that he doubted if it could be immediately dissolved. He suggested that the best way to further this scheme of disunion would be to get up some sectional domestic question on which the prejudices and passions of the people could be permanently divided. This, he was sure would, in time, accomplish disunion. The sectional question at which he hinted was "slavery." He did not miscalculate. It did its work. It accomplished disunion.
As I shall show You before we get through with these pages, the great design that the British Government had, was to break down the glorious government which Washington had fought to establish, and when they saw they could not do it by open warfare, they resorted to deceit and trickery. One proof of this may be found in the following circumstance.
Mr. Aaron Legget, an eminent New York merchant and a quaker abolitionist, declared that, while in Mexico, at the time of the abolition of "slavery" in the West Indies, he met Deputy Commissary General Wilson of the British army, and at that time an agent appointed by the British Government to make the final arrangements connected with; the abolition of "slavery" in the West Indies, who told him that the English Government, in abolishing "slavery' in that colony, were not moved by any consideration for the negro. "Mr. Wilson said that the abolition of slavery in the British colonies would naturally create an enthusiastic anti-slavery sentiment in England and America, and that in America this would, in process of time, excite a hostility between the free States and the slave States, which would end in the dissolution of the American Union, and the consequent failure of the grand experiment of democratic government; and the ruin of democracy in America would be the perpetuation of aristocracy in England."*
*The reliability of this statement is attested in a letter written by Sidney E. Morse, Esq., of this city, to whom Mr. L. related it
There has always been a party of men in the Northern States who fully sympathized with the wishes of England in this respect. Indeed the whole progress of the abolition movement shows that it has been a plot of British monarchists, aided by a set of men in this country, to destroy the Government as it was formed by Washington. Sir Robert Peel said, when the $100,000,000 was paid to "free the negroes in the West Indies, that it was the best investment ever made for the overthrow of republican institutions in America." The British aristocracy always seemed to feel and know that negro equality would overthrow our Government.
The statement of the spy, Henry, that he found the leading Federalists of New England ripe for disunion, but not the masses of the people, ought to be noted. It goes to show that the great body of the people all over the country are patriotic, and if they go wrong, are misled by wicked and ambitious leaders. When I refer to New England, I only mean a majority of the leading men, who have miseducated the people and deceived them. Various causes have conspired to give them an opportunity to practice deception, particularly in New England, Which I will more fully explain hereafter. But that section contains thousands of sound and good men, who have ever been true to the Government as it was formed. That they have generally been in a minority is all the more honor to their courage and patriotism, for it proves beyond question the sincerity of their political convictions.
The facts in the case, however, prove beyond a doubt that, at the time to which we refer, the British conspirator, John Henry, was favorably received by the leading men in the Eastern States as an agent for overthrowing the Union. The Federalists treated with him for this purpose. Mr. Jefferson saw the full extent of their designs. In a letter to Governor Langdon, he says:
"For five and thirty years we have walked together through a land of tribulation; yet those have passed away, and so, I trust, will these of the present day. The Toryism with which we struggled in 1777, differed but in name from the Federalism of 1799, with which we struggled also; and the Anglocism (i. e. English monarchism) of 1808, against which we are now struggling, is but the same thing in another form. It is longing for a king, and an English king rather than any other. This is the true source of their sorrows and wailing's."
In the war between the United States and England in 1812, The New England Federalists took sides with England against their own country, so far as they could without actually taking up arms against the United States. Even John Quincy Adams, a Massachusetts man himself, was compelled to confess that: "In the Eastern States, curses and anathemas were liberally hurled from the pulpit on the heads of all those who aided, directly or indirectly, in carrying on the war." I dwell on these matters to show you that there was always a party in New England which was an enemy to the Government of our country. At the time of which I have been speaking, Caleb Strong was Governor of Massachusetts. General Fessenden introduced the following resolution into the Legislature of that State: "And therefore be it resolved, that we recommend to his Excellency, Caleb Strong, to take the revenue of the State into his own hands, arm and equip the militia, and declare us independent of the Union."
At this time Fisher Ames, one of the most distinguished men of New England, said: "Our country is too big for Union, too sordid for patriotism, too democratic for liberty. Our disease is democracy; it is not the skin that festers, our very bones are carious, and their marrow blackens with gangrene." Rev. Dr. Dwight said : "The Declaration of Independence is a wicked thing. I thought so when it was proclaimed, and I think so still." One of the leading papers of Boston declared: "We never fought for a republic, The form of our Government was the result of necessity, not the offspring of choice." The Boston Gazette threatened President Madison with death, if he attempted to compel the Eastern States to fight against England at that time. I could make a large book with extracts from the leading men and the principal papers of New England of those days, showing that there was, through all that section, a wide-spread and a bitter hatred of our democratic form of government, and of the union.
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