But events were moving fast and furiously. The times needed no new Mirabeau. The people were slowly welding a revolution, which must sweep statesmen from their feet and bear upon its fierce current the strong and weak alike. It has been asserted, and with truth, that disunion was precipitated by the people, not by the politicians—by the North as well as by the South.
The raid of John Brown of Kansas into Virginia was not an event which would have stirred the people in ordinary times. It was the wild foray of a fanatic, who tried to stir up a slave insurrection. He was captured, tried, convicted, and hanged. There were demoralized followers and duped negroes with him, when he was overcome by Colonel Robert E. Lee, with a detachment of marines, at Harper's Ferry. This affair created a feverish excitement. The South did not know how far this movement extended, nor by what authority it had been started. The criminal was execrated at the South and intemperately defended at the North. The man, who under normal conditions of society would have been sent to the insane asylum, was sentenced speedily to the gallows and mourned as a martyr by many at the North. Bells were tolled in his honor. Following this remarkable episode, several free States passed strong laws against the detention of fugitive slaves, and the Northern press and pulpit teemed with new lessons and fresh morals. John Brown's body, in the language of the sentimental dirge, "lay moldering in his grave"; but the spirit of the Kansas boomer actually pervaded the land.
What the Dred Scott decision had wrought at the North, the Ossawatomie raid awoke at the South. The main features of Buchanan's administration to hasten the "irrepressible conflict" were the well-weighed words of the Chief Justice and the wild invasion of a border ruffian. Strange paradox, but such were the influences at work in those disordered times. Men lost their moorings, and political parties abandoned settled policies. Events crowded with remorseless impact upon certain civil strife.
Under this new condition of things Mr. Toombs made his great "door-sill" speech in the United States Senate, on the 24th of January, 1860. It was upon the resolution offered by Senator Douglas calling for a measure of protection of each State and Territory against invasion by the authorities and inhabitants of every other State and Territory. Senator Toombs declared that the resolution opened up a new page in the history of our country. It was a step in the right direction. He feared that the disease lay too deep for the remedy. Heretofore the people of the United States could grapple and surmount all difficulties, foreign and domestic. A spirit of nationality, a common interest, a common danger, carried the country through revolutions. Now all this has changed. The feeling of loyalty and common destiny is rapidly passing away. Hostility to the compact of the Union, to the tie which binds us together, finds utterance in the tongues of millions of our countrymen, animates their bosoms, and leads to the habitual disregard of the plainest duties and obligations. Large bodies of men now feel and know that party success involves danger; that the result may bring us face to face with revolution.
"The fundamental principles of our Union are assailed, invaded, and threatened with destruction; our ancient rights and liberties are in danger; the peace and tranquillity of our homes have been invaded by lawless violence, and their further invasion is imminent; the instinct of self-preservation arms society to their defense."
Mr. Toombs contended that this was no new principle introduced into our Constitution. ["]It was inserted in the ordinance of 1787. The New England Confederation adopted it in 1643. The Supreme Judicial tribunal of Prussia affirmed it as the public law of Europe as late as 1855. It was acknowledged to be a sound principle of public law in the days of Pericles, and its violation by one of the States of Greece was the chief cause of the Peloponnesian War, which devastated Greece for twenty-one years. The Megareans had given refuge to the revolted slaves of Athens."
"I say," he continued, "the bargain is broken—broken by the States whose policy I have reviewed; broken by the Republican party, which did the work in their legislatures and elsewhere. Their hands are soiled with the blood of the compact. They cannot be permitted to minister at its altar. Their representatives on this floor mock at constitutional obligations; jeer at oaths. They have lost their shame with their virtue.... In the name of the people, I repeat, I demand the bond. In the name of every true and honest man at the North as well as the South, I demand the resumption of your plighted faith. Upon these terms I have ever been willing to let the Union stand, but upon no other.
"Who is responsible for the murder, treason, and arson of John Brown? I have never known of his acts being approved or palliated by any other person than a Republican. Thousands of them have done it and are now doing it. In charging this dark catalogue of crime against this organization, I would not be unjust. I have no doubt that thousands of persons belonging to that organization throughout the North, loathe and despise John Brown's raid; but it is equally true that there are other thousands in the same organization who do approve it. They tell us that they condemn his acts, but admire his heroism. I think the Republican party must be pressed for a hero. The 'Newgate Calendar' can furnish them with a dozen such saints. To 'die game' and not to 'peach' are sometimes useful, if not heroic, virtues in an accomplice. The thousands of blind Republicans who do openly approve the treason, murder, and arson of John Brown, get no condemnation from their party for such acts. They are its main defenders and propagandists all over the North, and, therefore, the party is in moral complicity with the criminal himself. No society can long exist in peace under these injuries, because we are in virtual civil war; hence, I denounce their authors, the Republican party, as enemies of the Constitution and enemies of my country.
"It is vain, in face of these injuries, to talk of peace, fraternity, and common country. There is no peace; there is no fraternity; there is no common country; all of us know it.
"Sir, I have but little more to add—nothing for myself. I feel that I have no need to pledge my poor services to this great cause, to my country. My State has spoken for herself. Nine years ago a convention of her people met and declared that her connection with this government depended upon the faithful execution of the Fugitive-slave law. I was a member of that convention, and I stood then and stand now pledged to its action. I have faithfully labored to arrest these calamities; I will yet labor until this last contingency happens, faithfully, honestly, and to the best of my ability. When that time comes, freemen of Georgia, redeem your pledges! I am ready to redeem mine. Your honor is involved, your faith is plighted. I know you feel a stain as a wound. Your peace, your social system, your friends are involved. Never permit this Federal Government to pass into the traitors' hands of the black Republican party. It has already declared war against you and your institutions. It every day commits acts of war against you; it has already compelled you to arm for your defense. Listen to no vain babbling; to no treacherous jargon about 'overt acts'; they have already been committed. Defend yourselves! The enemy is at your door; wait not to meet him at your hearthstone; meet him at the door-sill, and drive him from the Temple of Liberty, or pull down its pillars and involve him in a common ruin."
