AGAINST THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL 75 A SPEECH AGAINST THE KANSAS- CHARLES SUMNER Taken from a speech delivered in the United States Senate, in May, 1854. From the depths of my soul, as a loyal citizen and as a Senator, I plead, remonstrate, protest against the passage of this bill. I struggle against it as against death. But as in death itself corruption puts on incorruption, and this mortal body puts on immortality, so from the sting of this hour I find assurance of that triumph by which freedom will be restored to her immortal birthright in the Republic. The bill you are about to pass is at once the worst and the best on which Congress ever acted. Yes, sir, worst and best at the same time. It is the worst bill inasmuch as it is a present victory of slavery. In a Christian land and in an age of civilization, a time-honored statute of freedom is struck down, opening the way to all the countless woes and wrongs of human bondage. Among the crimes of history another is soon to be recorded, which no tears can blot out, and which in better days will be read with universal shame. The Tea Tax and the Stamp Act, which aroused the patriot rage of our fathers, were virtues by the side of this transgression; nor would it be easy to imagine at this day any measure which more openly and wantonly defies every sentiment of justice, humanity, and Christianity. Am I not right, then, in calling it the worst bill on which Congress ever acted? It There is another side to which I gladly turn. is the best bill on which Congress ever acted, for it annuls all past compromises with slavery, and makes any future compromise impossible. Thus it puts Freedom and Slavery face to face, and bids them grapple. Who can doubt the result? It opens wide the door of the future, when at last there will really be a North, and the slave-power will be broken; when this wretched despotism will cease to dominate over our Government; when the national Government will be divorced in every way from slavery, and, according to the true intention of our fathers, freedom will be established everywhere. Thus, standing at the very grave of freedom in Kansas and Nebraska, I lift myself to the vision of that happy resurrection by which freedom will be assured, not only in these territories, but everywhere under the national Government. More clearly than ever before, I now penetrate that great future when slavery must disappear. Proudly I discern the flag of my country, as it ripples in every breeze, at last in reality, as in name, the flag of freedom-undoubted, pure, and irresistible. Am I not right, then, in calling this bill the best on which Congress ever acted? Sorrowfully I bend before the wrong you commit. Joyfully I welcome the promises of the future. SPEECH AGAINST SECESSION 77 SPEECH AGAINST SECESSION ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS Delivered in the Georgia Convention, November 14, 1860. When we and our posterity shall see our lovely South desolated by all the demons of war which this act of yours will inevitably invite, when our green fields of waving harvests shall be trodden down by the murderous soldiery, our temples of justice in ashes, all the horrors of war upon us, who but this convention will be held responsible for it? And who but him who shall give his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure shall be held to strict account for this sui cidal act by the present generation, and probably by posterity? Pause, I entreat you; consider for a moment what reasons you can give to your fellow-sufferers in the calamity that it will bring upon us. What reasons can you give to the nations of the earth to justify it? They will be the calm and deliberate judges in this case; and to what cause or overt act can you point on which to rest the plea of justification? What right has the North assailed? What interest of the South has been invaded? What justice has been denied? and what claim founded upon justice and right has been withheld? Can you to-day name one governmental act of wrong deliberately and purposely done by the Government at Washington of which the South has a right to complain? I challenge the answer. Leaving out of view for the present the countless millions of dollars you must expend in a war with the North, there will be thousands and tens of thousands of your sons and brothers slain in battle and offered up as sacrifices upon the altar of ambition;-and for what, I ask again? Is it for the overthrow of the American Government, established by our common ancestry, cemented and built up by their sweat and blood, and founded upon the broad principles of right, justice, and humanity? I declare here as I have often done before, and ast has been repeated by the greatest and wisest statesmen of this or any other land, that it is the best and truest government, the most equal in its rights, the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its control, the most inspiring in its measures to elevate the race of man, that the sun in heaven ever shone upon. Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a government as this under which we have lived for more than three-quarters of a century, in which we have gained our standing as a nation and our domestic safety, while the elements of peril are around us, with peace, tranquility, and rights unassailed and accompanied with boundless prosperity,—is the height of madness, folly, and wickedness, to which I can lend neither my sanction nor my vote. THE CIVIL WAR INEVITABLE 79 9 THE CIVIL WAR INEVITABLE HENRY WARD BEECHER Taken from a sermon preached immediately after the firing upon Fort Sumter, which occurred April 12, 1861. There are many reasons which make a good and thorough battle necessary. The Southern men are infatuated. They will not have peace. They are in arms. They have fired upon the American flag! That glorious banner has been borne through every climate, all over the globe, and for fifty years not a land or people has been found to scorn it or dishonor it. At home, among the people of our own land, among Southern citizens, for the first time has this glorious national flag been abased and trampled to the ground! It is for our sons reverently to lift it, and to bear it full high again, to victory and national supremacy. Our arms, in this peculiar exigency, can lay the foundation of future union in mutual respect. The South firmly believes that cowardice is the universal attribute of Northern men. Until they are most thoroughly convinced to the contrary, they will never cease arrogancy and aggression. But if it now please God to crown our arms with victory, we shall have gone far toward impressing Southern men with salutary respect. Good soldiers, brave men, hard fighting, will do more toward quiet than all the compromises and empty, wagging tongues in the world. Our reluctance to break peace, our unwillingness to shed blood, our patience, have all been misinterpreted. |