chapter decoration In the ways of Providence, there is always fitness in the smallest as in the greatest things. It is on the Fourth of July, in midsummer, that we hold the anniversary festivals of American Independence. And it is a beautiful ordering of the Providence that rules the seasons and the nations, that the time of these anniversaries is so well suited to the occasion. For it is fitting, that in the midst of glorious summer days, when the earth lies richest in the sunlight; when the fields are golden with the harvests; when the air is fragrant with the scent of flowers and the new hay; when, in a word, the beauty and the bounty of nature, unite to fill the heart with gladness and with gratitude, we should meet in kindred joy and thankfulness to celebrate our nation’s natal day. For sunshine is the symbol of prosperity, and summer the symbol of peace; and the wondrous bounty of the season fitly typifies the fruits of that civil and religious liberty, to establish which our fathers pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honour. Not that all these anniversaries have been, or will be days of jubilee. Not that the chill and sombreness of winter have not settled, will not settle, upon some. For many stormy years were passed, before the hope that dawned on that July morning in ’76 became a full and crowned reality. And then, you remember the day of the grand jubilee proper, the fiftieth anniversary of our Independence, when both Jefferson—the author, and Adams—the most eloquent supporter, of the declaration, died. And then, you remember to-day one year ago, when the American Congress met in a beleaguered city, within the sound of rebel cannon, with rebel ensigns flaunting almost in the face We have all learned to revere the memory of the men who framed and adopted the Declaration of Independence. All men and all nations have learned to regard with admiration the energy, the courage, the fortitude, the exhaustless patience with which our fathers fought the battles of freedom and inaugurated on this continent the “great experiment” of popular government. No one now dares to question the wisdom of their policy, the lofty purity of their lives and purposes, or the sublime quality of that heroic faith in the final triumph of their cause, which never failed them in the darkest hours of their long and bitter struggle to be free. There were tories then all around them, as there are tories now in the war we are waging, but there is no one now to vouchsafe a word of praise on behalf of the tories of the Revolution. They have sunk to that oblivion, or have earned that unenviable immortality, which belongs to the lot of all who fail their country in its hour of trial, and have neither voice nor sympathy but for its enemies. Only those who aided the Colonies in their struggle with Britain and remembered now with gratitude. And having been, for eighty years and more, a great and prosperous and happy It is one of the uses of history to teach us what are the noblest uses of life; what deeds live longest in the memories of men; what motives give greatest strength and nobility to character; what fruition follows godlike sacrifices for truth and duty; what ideas and principles, embodied in life, lift men above the common level and crown them with immortal honours. It is one of the uses of a day like this to turn us back to higher sources of inspiration, that we may be the more manfully fitted for the duties of our time, that we may learn the cost of liberty, and the worth of patriotism, and the sacredness of principle, and the holiness of duty. It is one of the uses of a day like this to teach us that our selfish aims and interests and motives, our lives of luxury and frivolity, of leisure-loving and wealth-seeking, all sink to a level of lowest significance, when contrasted with great heroic virtues such as bore our fathers through the storm and struggle of the Revolution. And when these lessons have been learned by a people, and when in the Providence of God the darkest hours of their history have come; when they are compelled themselves to strike for liberty or see it perish; when they have risen to that height of patriotism that they exclaim with old John Adams in ’76, that all that they have, and all that they are, and all that they hope for in this life, they are ready to stake upon the altar of their country; when, filled with such inspiration, they go forth from homes of happiness and peace to fields of carnage and of death, then, above all, does it belong to the uses of a day like this to teach the mourning women of the land, and the children that are fatherless, that these dying and dead soldiers are one with the heroes of the Revolution; that our country’s history will embalm their names with equal honour and a common And this shall be my theme to-day; to consider whither the nation our fathers left us is drifting; to consider what we are fighting for; and to enquire whether the heroes of the struggle of to-day do not deserve equal honor with their illustrious sires. Nor have I any doubt of the fitness of this theme for the time and the occasion. For our fathers fought to create a nation. We fight to have that nation live, to keep it one and indivisible, and vain were the struggles of the Revolution, and vain the consecration of days like this to Revolutionary memories, if they failed to bring out into highest prominence such deeds as those of the past and passing year. Our fathers fought to create a nation. And for eighty years there was no sublimer sight beneath the stars than the nation they created. During these eighty years, this people grew from three to thirty millions, from thirteen to thirty-four States. They developed energies such as the world had seldom witnessed. With marvellous rapidity they levelled forests and builded cities; they tunnelled mountains, and cultivated valleys vast as empires; they made their mountain streams turn mills and factories and bear on their bosoms to the sea, and to all the world, the fruits of this industry and the products of the land. They dug out from the bosom of the rocky hills and from dark subterranean recesses a wealth greater than the Indies, and made the wilderness above them to “bud and blossom as the rose.” They grew to be a thinking, toiling, tireless people, and turning from their material successes, they began to manifest progress and proficiency in literature, in science and in art. And all along they conducted a system of government which had no parallel in history, the success of which was distrusted by many of our early statesmen and by all the world beside. And high above all the evidences of their wealth and power, above all the beauties and beneficence of their soil and clime, rose the crowning fact that these teeming, toiling millions were the freest people upon And this Nation which our Fathers founded, and which I believe that the war now waged by our Northern armies is eminently just and righteous, or the world has never seen one. I believe that there never has been a time when the Government could have avoided the conflict without unutterable dishonour, and that it will inherit and deserve the contempt of humanity if it fail to continue the struggle with the utmost vigor, until every atom of this rebellion is crushed into annihilation. Whether this be the proper view to take of the war, or not, is a question of momentous import. For, if not, how can we find comfort for the mourners, who have sent forth the idols of their households to die in its cause; or how can we fitly rebuke those who would deepen these sorrows and dampen all patriotic ardor, by their open sympathy with our enemies in arms? Therefore, does it become us to ask and answer the question, “What are we fighting for?” What we are not fighting for is apparent enough. We are not fighting for the abolition of slavery. We are not fighting, as Lord John Russell says, for empire. We are not fighting from love of power—from vindictiveness or hate. We are fighting simply for our own. We are fighting to establish, on foundations eternal as our mountains, one grand, stupendous, geographical fact, that the country and people lying between “the St. John’s and the Rio Grande, between the Tortugas Islands and Vancouver’s Land,” compose one Nation, and are called “The United States of America.” In a public address I delivered in this city, some years Before the bombardment of Sumter, party prejudice and strife were strong as ever. Men differed in opinion, and differed with great bitterness, about all the measures of Government. The cabinet of Buchanan became disintegrated with conflicting views of his policy. This policy was praised by many—blamed by more. Equal differences of opinion met the policy of the new President. Many thought his course too timid and temporizing; many thought it too aggressive and bold, and feared (to use their execrable language) that “it would exasperate the South.” But when the bombardment came, then all men saw at a glance that a Government that could not feed its own starving garrisons—that could not command its own forts—was no government at all. They saw at once that the struggle was one of life and death. And then the Nation rose, and then the war began. The latent patriotism of the people, that had been growing and intensifying for three-quarters of a century, burst forth, at last, like a flame; and from that day to this, the only question before us—the question to be decided by cannon, and bullets, and bayonets—has been one of the existence of the American Union. And whenever men now talk about conciliation, and compromise, and peace, while five hundred thousand rebels are in arms, they are men of that doubtful patriotism, which would not shrink to see the great American Union blotted from the list of Nations. I have my own opinions about the deep underlying causes that have produced this war, and you have yours. But we will not discuss them to-day. They would revive old party issues; they would jar upon the proprieties of this occasion; they would detract from that unanimity of thought and action which should characterize all true patriots in the hour of a nation’s agony. The two facts that need to be remembered are, that the South aims to destroy the Union, we aim only to preserve it; and it is not a question of opinion, it is not a question of party, it is simply a question Break up our Union and you mar all our history. You write all backward the lessons of our country’s glory that we have learned from earliest childhood. You take from us the only object we had learned to regard with patriotic fervour. It is like taking from one’s home the only being that gives it life and loveliness. It is like blotting the sun from the heavens. It is taking from us, at a single stroke, what men, in all ages of the world, have fought for with the most undaunted courage, what no nation on the globe to-day, civilized or not, would ever think of yielding without first risking annihilation. No; we are satisfied with the Union that our Fathers founded. We are satisfied with the There is another reason why we will not accept the destructive alternative demanded by the South. It is because we believe that by dismembering the Union and establishing two or more separate governments upon its ruins, there can be no such thing as permanent peace. We believe that if you cut the Mississippi in two by the border And then there must be settled all the preliminaries of a dissolution—questions of boundary, questions of ownership of forts and public property—questions of division of the national debt, and of individual obligation—questions of river and harbor navigation; and then would arise, under forms vastly more difficult of adjustment all the old political questions that have alienated the sections; and then would come treaties and intrigues with foreign powers, and alliances entangling us with all the petty quarrels of Europe, and keeping us ever implacable enemies, thus rendering us impotent and without influence among nations. And this is the future to which we are invited. Now we have one cause of war; attempt to negotiate a dissolution of the Union, and we shall have fifty. And the number would be all the more, by reason of the parties with whom we should have to negotiate. For, I maintain that a set of men, who, like the leaders of this rebellion, would destroy a government like ours, upon pretexts such as theirs, could not be negotiated with, without war. And until their pride is humbled, their power broken, until they have been made to endure somewhat of the bitterness of that suffering they pour out so overwhelmingly upon others, until their arrogance and haughtiness are utterly abased in exile or on the scaffold, there can be no peace upon this continent. There is still another reason why we will not consent to the disruption of the Union. Because the probability is too great that it would end here, and in all the world, and for a thousand years the experiment of popular government. Already the South disdains the rule of the people. In a And then, the doctrine of Secession, which, thirty years ago, we had supposed was crushed forever under the gigantic tread of Webster’s logic and the strokes of Jackson’s iron will—this principle of disintegration upon which they would base their government, would sooner or later drive them into despotism. And this principle would not be without effect upon the North, for it has many advocates here already. Men are as apt in learning lessons of evil as of good. One successful rebellion would become the parent of others. The theory of our government presupposes the existence of various and diverse local interests, to be controlled by local governments. It is impossible for these interests not to be sometimes subordinated to the general welfare. Establish two confederacies, and the constant temptation would be held out to States with similar local interests, fretting under imaginary grievances, or maddened by party spirit, to strike off from the parent State on the one hand, and form alliances with similarly disaffected portions on the other. The interests of the Western and Southwestern States are quite as closely connected by the waters of the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the Missouri, as the interests of either are with the States upon the Atlantic seaboard, and would be quite as likely to be formed, ultimately, into a third and independent government as to remain united with the old. Oregon and California, washed by the waves of another ocean, and thousands of miles from the central government, would be especially difficult to hold by the North. And the worst future of any such subdivisions would be the necessity that There is one other thought I would refer to, in considering these causes, which keep the North so true to the Union. It is this: these same causes must operate powerfully in hastening the return of the South to her allegiance, when once her military power is broken. I speak, now, upon the supposition that her military power can be broken. This I There is every reason to believe that, if the question of disunion had been fairly submitted to the people of the South, before the breaking out of the war, they would have decided overwhelmingly against it. The whole region had been so long saturated and cursed with the political heresies of Calhoun, that their regard for State rights, their feeling of State pride, had diminished greatly that sentiment of nationality so characteristic of the North. But every other reason I have given to-day in favour of the value of this Union, every other reason that can be given, applies with equal force to the South as to the North. They can no more afford to do without the Union, than we can. Neither can do without it, and ever prosper. And once clear away the bitterness of passion, the pride, the rancour and the unreasonableness that belongs to a state of actual conflict, and the masses of the South will admit the fact. And when men say the Union is already dissolved, because the sections are at war, they exhibit little knowledge of human nature or of human history. Have they forgotten that almost every country on the globe has had its great rebellion—has been scourged with civil war? Do they believe that the animosities now existing between the North and South are any more bitter, or likely to prove any more lasting, than those engendered by the civil wars of England, or of France, or of Spain? I know these animosities will live long enough—too long; this generation will not survive them. Too much anguish, and passion, and venom for that. But history will reproduce itself here as elsewhere; and when we remember the past, and how soothing are the influences of trade and commerce—how mutually dependent are the products and the industries of the sections—how we are bound together by railroads, and telegraphs, and water-courses, and ties of consanguinity,—there is every reason to believe that, the rebellion conquered, the return of good feeling would be more speedy and more complete than has usually followed the scourge of civil war. Thus, fellow citizens, have I attempted to show to you I am aware that, in enlarging upon these points, I have told you nothing new. I have, perhaps, told you little from which you would dissent. Times like these make all men thinkers, and on all cardinal points all patriots think alike. We are crowding years into days. Instinctively we recognize our duties. We learn not now our lessons of highest wisdom from one another. Events, God’s teachers and inspirers, are bringing to the surface all our nobler qualities. The objects we had set before us as being worthy the struggle of a life, have all sunk to a lower level, and higher objects have arisen, demanding self-abandonment, self-sacrifice, and absorbing the whole soul in love of country, in care for its honour, in sorrow for its misfortunes, in joy for its triumphs, in devotion to its service even unto death. The prosecution of this war is not with us a matter of choice; we do not regard it as a matter about which we have any right to hesitate or consult our own wishes or interests; it comes to us in the sphere of our highest duties; it prompts us to ask, not so much what we owe ourselves, as what we owe posterity; and we know we shall deserve the just condemnation of history, and the eternal execration of our children, if we do not sacrifice every selfish aim, every social comfort, every domestic tie, every interest of property or life, rather than have this Union divided. Beside this question of union, the question of slavery, deemed so important by many, sinks out of sight. Not but that the latter has important The President of the United States is exerting all his powers, as it is his duty to do, to save the government from destruction. Greater responsibility never rested upon a ruler, and he has done his duty eminently well. He has a right to the sympathy and active aid of every citizen. In some respects he may have overstepped his constitutional powers. Men, if true and loyal, may differ from him as to his policy and prerogatives, and their opinions be entitled to respect, but they should praise vastly more than blame. But men, who condemn him yet condemn not the rebellion he is trying to crush are not entitled to respect. The President, his advisers and agents may err; they are but human, but their object is to save the Constitution and Union; the object of the South is the destruction of both, and wherever and whenever you find men who denounce the former fiercely and the latter faintly, whose eyes are so microscopic that they can discover, in the records of Congress and the departments, flaws in legislation and frauds in contracts, and yet cannot see the tremendous fraud and crime of this rebellion; whenever you find men who cry peace, peace, and who mean by peace, and can’t mean otherwise, the independence of the South, the submission of the North, the dissolution of the Union and the death of republican liberty, then you have found the deadliest foes your country has in these dark and trying hours. We shall succeed in crushing this Rebellion. True, tidings of disaster float upon the air. God pity the dying soldier, and the desolate homes throughout the land. If we have lost a great battle the war is just begun. We may lose one battle, we may lose fifty, but we will gain more than we lose, and will conquer in the end. We have two men to their one; we have ten times their wealth; we hold the sea, we have infinite resources in reserve upon land; we have a cause that will keep us ever hopeful and defiant, and Transcriber’s Notes: Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected. Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved. |