A Youth's History of the Great Civil War
Van Evrie, Horton & Co., ©1866
Revised edition, ©2006 www.ronie-mooney-encs.us
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CHAPTER IV. THE CAUSES OF THE WAR, CONTINUED
The admission of Missouri into the Union and the restriction of "slavery" to a line south of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, quieted the agitation of the question, so far as political parties were concerned. Other issues arose, however, such as the bank, tariff, and similar questions upon which political parties divided. But as those issues were such as could be equally understood in all sections of the Union, they did not furnish material for disunion. True, South Carolina, feeling aggrieved with the tariff act of 1828, threatened to nullify the law, but the timely modification of the act prevented all trouble. It has been often represented that General Jackson secured the obedience of South Carolina by threats of force, but the truth is, it was effected by a compromise. A great cry has been made over this act of nullification on the part of South Carolina, and I do not intend here to do more than allude to it and say that when nearly every Northern State not only nullified, but carried into effect their nullification of a plain law of Congress, it does not become those thus guilty to upbraid South Carolina. The act in relation to the return of "fugitives from service," was openly and distinctly nullified by nearly every Northern State.
The great contests on the bank, tariff, and other questions, were mainly fought out between the years 1820 and 1840. During that time such patriots and statesmen as Jackson, Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Woodbury, Silas Wright, Hayne, and others, met in debate and contended for the mastery. However much these men differed, they all loved their country, and could not bear the thought of seeing it disrupted. But during the whole of this time a wonderful change was going on in the popular mind on the question of the negro race. It seemed that no sooner had the Missouri question been disposed of, and the agitation banished from the halls of Congress, than fanatics sprang up all over proclaiming "the enormity of slavery as a sin and crime against God." In 1821 Benjamin Lundy commenced the publication of the "genius of Universal Emancipation," believed to be the first out and out abolition paper in this country. In 1823 the first abolition society was organized in England. This period in history, that is, from 1820 to 1835, was characterized by a general uprising of societies of all kinds. Large sums of money were raised to spread the new doctrine that "slavery was a crime," and that "slaveholders" were "thieves" and murderers." At first,, as may be naturally supposed, these slanders upon Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and other great and good men, who had founded our Government and whose glorious memories were still fresh in the hearts of ;the people, provoked difficulties. Riots broke out all over the North. The natural instincts of the people, unperverted as they had been as yet by abolition teachings, revolted at the doctrine of negro equality. They mobbed the prominent movers in it all over the country. The house of Arthur Tappan, in New York city;, was mobbed in July, 1834.About the same time the church of the Rev. Dr. Cox was attacked, A large hall was burned down in Philadelphia. All these disorders were directly owing to the revolting doctrines of the abolitionists, which were utterly disgusting to the public opinion of that day. Still these men kept on, printing books, tracts, pamphlets, magazines, newspapers, etc., etc., and spreading them gratuitously all over the country. They had now gotten hold of that "social Question" which the British spy, Henry, had suggested as the one thing necessary in order to produce disunion.
The question, too, was one admirably adapted to their purposes. The negroes were mainly in the; Southern States. The Northern people could not be expected to understand a race of which they knew but little. They must rely upon the reports of newspapers, often printed by unprincipled men or ambitious politicians, whose whole interest consisted in misrepresenting facts. But above and beyond all, there was another cause which contributed more than all others to aid the abolitionists. The subject of the races of men had never been investigated. Mr. Jefferson had referred to this matter and said it was "a reproach to us that though for a century and a half we had had under our eyes the races of black and of red men, yet they had never been viewed as subjects of natural history." And he went further, and said, "I advance it as a suspicion only that the blacks, whether originally a different race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of mind and body." Later investigations have proved beyond a doubt that the negro and the Caucasian, or white man, are distinct raced or species of men. Whether they were originally made so or not, the Creator of all only knows, but there is no doubt that they are so now, and if different, of course we cannot expect the same things of them. No one expects a goat to be a sheep. No one expects a mastiff to be a hound. If blacks and whites are not distinct races or species, then it would be proper and beneficial to amalgamate with negroes, and to make them our equals in every respect. The abolitionists, however, assume that there is but one human race, and as that has been generally assented to, it gave them a fine field for their delusion. How natural for everybody to feel that if the negro is a man like ourselves that he ought to have the same or equal rights? And above all, if "slavery," "bondage," etc., has repressed his energies, kept him down, and make him what he is, how much more of a duty it is to lift him up and do him justice. But all the pathetic stories of the abolitionists proceeded from a false basis. The negro was not a man like the white man. He had never been so elevated at any tie in the history of his race as the four millions in the Southern States. Our form of society had civilized and Christianized the only negroes that had ever been civilized or Christianized. This is simple historical fact, which no one dare deny. But still, as no one met the abolitionists in this way, they had the field to themselves. It is not until late years, not until the whole people had been more or less deceived and corrupted, that the question of distinct races was explained, and the justice of legal and social distinctions between them not only avowed, but placed upon clear grounds.
Now even the youngest child can see that it would be wrong and cruel to ask or expect the negro to feel or act as we do, simply because the great Creator of all has given him but one talent, while he has given to us ten talents. It is our duty, as the superior race, to care for these people whom God, in his Providence, has given us. We should try to understand their natures, their capacities, and their wants, and then adapt our laws so that they will be in the happiest, the healthiest, and best condition it is possible for; them to attain. That was what the Southern people tried to do, and though no society is perfect, yet all must admit that the negroes were better off every way before the war than now. A million, it is estimated, have died in the effort to make them act like white people. Every young person can see how wicked it would be to take an ox and try to make it go as fast as a horse, and yet it is no more sinful nor cruel than to take the negroes and demand that they shall act the same as white people. As it would kill the ox to try to make him a horse, so it kills the negro to try and make him a white man.
I have explained this at some length because it is so important to understand it, and because it is really so simple when understood that any one can comprehend it. Every person can readily see how cruel it would be to deprive all children of their fathers and mothers, and yet it was no more cruel than to deprive, at a single blow, every negro in the South of the care and protection of his master and mistress. Thousands of these poor creatures have died of small pox and other loathsome diseases. Hundreds have starved to death or died of exposure, and all because of the false teachings of the abolitionists, who deceived the people, and told them that society as it existed at the South was "a sin and a Crime."
The abolitionists, however, did not stop here. They declared that the Government, as it was formed by Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, protected the Southern people in their form of society. And this was, of course, true; for it is not within the bounds of reason to suppose that those men, all of whom were "slaveholders," would have organized a government against themselves! I have already shown you how the old Federalists hated the Government; and you will now see how this same spirit was breathed forth by the abolitionists.
William Lloyd Garrison, who has been called the father of the abolition societies, inaugurated his abolition movement by publicly burning the Constitution of the United States. Many years after this infamous act, he declared in a speech: "No act of ours do we regard with more conscientious approval or higher satisfaction, than when, several years ago, on the 4th of July, in the presence of a great assembly, we committed to the flames the Constitution of the United States." Again he says:" This Union is a lie! The American Union is an imposture - a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell. I am for its overthrow! Up with the flag of disunion!"
Wendell Phillips, the ablest and honestest of all the abolition leaders, declared the object of the agitation to be the overthrow of the Constitution. He said: "The Constitution of our fathers was a mistake. Tear it to pieces and make a better one. Our aim is disunion, breaking up of the States."
Thus boldly and wickedly did these men assail the Government of our fathers. You ;have no doubt heard Mr. Calhoun of South Carolina called "the father of disunion," but the history I; have already given you shows that disunionism arose in the North. Mr. Calhoun, in a speech in the Senate of the United States, March 7th, 1850, delivered while he knew himself to be a dying man, said : "No man would feel more happy than myself to believe that this Union, formed by our ancestors, should live forever. Looking back to the long course of forty years' service here, I have the consolation to believe that I have never done one act to weaken it - that I have done full justice to all sections. And if I have ever been exposed to the imputation of a contrary motive, it is because I have been willing to defend my section from unconstitutional encroachments."
In a speech made by the same great statesman in the Senate, nearly thirty years ago, that is in 1838, he said: "Abolition is the only question of sufficient magnitude and potency to divide this Union, and divide it it will, or drench the country in blood if not arrested. There are those who see no danger to the Union in the Violation of all fundamental principles, but who are full of apprehension when danger is foretold, and who hold, not the authors of the danger, but those who forewarned it, responsible for the consequences. If my attachment for the Union were less, I might tamper with the deep disease which now afflicts the body politic, and keep silent until the patient was ready to sink under the mortal blows."
Jefferson Davis, in a speech in the United States Senate, June 27th, 1850, said" If I have a superstition, sir, which governs my mind and holds it captive, it is a superstitious reverence for the Union. If one can inherit a sentiment, I may be said to have inherited this from my revolutionary father."
It will thus be seen that at the very time that the abolitionists were preaching up a mad crusade against the Union, and educating a generation to hat the Government of our fathers, Southern men, the great leaders of the south were begging and imploring that it might be preserved.
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