Why I am a Republican : a history of the Republican Party, a defense of its policy, and the reasons which justify its continuance in power, with biographical sketches of the Republican candidates

Contents

ADDEESSES, PLATFOEMS, ETC.

Abraham. Lincoln's speech at Springfield, 111., June 17, 1858. Abraham Lincoln's Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861. . Proclamation of Emancipation, Sept. 22, 1862. Proclamation of Emancipation, Jan. 1, 1863. . . . . Abraham Lincoln's Oration at Gettysburg, Nov. 19, 1863. Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865

Democratic Platform, 1864

Chapter I

THE PROVISIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION IN RELATION TO SLAVERY AND THEIR FORCE IN THE POLITICS OF THE COUNTRY.

THERE were three provisions of the original Constitution of the United States, and all relating to Slavery, that were in conflict with the opinions and principles of the founders of the States of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania.

The frarners of the Constitution recognized the existence of the conflict, but they made no provision for its adjustment. As the formation of a more perfect Union was then a political necessity, there was, indeed, no possibility of an adjustment of the conflict between the system of slavery and the principles of human equality. In the presence of that necessity the advocates of Slavery achieved a decisive victory. It is not now important to trace the steps by which the victory was won, nor to know the names of members of the Convention who made motions or gave votes. It was then a higher duty to create a nation than to stigmatize or to shun an evil. But the victory was temporary, and in less than three-fourths of a century those provisions of the Constitution, which were designed to protect the system of Slavery, became the efficient if not the sole cause of its destruction.

By the Constitution the foreign slave trade was tolerated for twenty years, and thus the slave population was greatly augmented, the system was extended to new territories, and the number of persons interested, pecuniarily, in Slavery was largely increased.

By another provision of the Constitution the slave population was divided into classes of fives, and each class was counted as three free persons in the representation of the several States in the House of Representatives and in the Electoral Colleges for the choice of President and Vice-President of the United States. Thus it came to pass that by the importation of savage negroes from Africa, the South added to its political power in the government of the country,

8 PK0VISI0NS OF THE CONSTITUTION.

and thus for seventy years was the increase in the number of ignorant and non-voting slaves set off against the votes of the educated, active, self-reliant, and enterprising freemen of the North.

As if it were a purpose to keep these impolitic and unjust provisions of the Constitution before the eyes of the people of the Free States, the duty of returning fugitives from service to their masters was imposed upon the National Government. In the performance of that duty Congress denied to the alleged fugitive the right of trial by jury, and confided to subordinate officers of the courts the authority to decide irrevocably the fate of every person arraigned as a fugitive from slavery.

The amalgamation of the races was one of the fruits of slavery, and as the child followed the condition of the mother, the system came to include, finally, many persons who had only a strain of African blood in their veins. And thus the surrender of persons apparently white was developed as an incident of the system.

From 1790 to 1860 the population of the North increased immensely. Following the lines of latitude it took possession of the Mississippi Valley north of the Ohio and the Missouri.

The love of liberty and a hatred of slavery were taught in all the schools and preached in all the churches, but with equal, if not with greater zeal the doctrine of obedience to the Constitution was taught also. Thus was the public sentiment of the North so wrought that it would concede to slavery whatever was stipulated in the Constitution ; but it was ready, as well, to deny every fresh demand.

Under a system of intelligent, free labor, the tendency is to produce as much as is possible, and to consume only what is necessary. Hence wealth. Under the system of slavery the tendency is to produce as little as possible, and to consume whatever can be procured. This of the slaves, and hence poverty. The owners lived in idleness and indulged in prodigal ways. At the end the North was rich, relatively, and the South was poor. Slavery had exhausted the land, and the slave-owners had been impoverished by the habits born of the system. The slave-owners needed new lands for personal subsistence, and they needed new States for political power.

If the North had been indifferent to the system of slavery in a moral view of the subject, it would have resisted its appropriation of new territory, and upon the ground that it would not permit the constitutional system of political inequality to be extended and strengthened.

PROVISIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION. 9

If the Constitution had abolished instantly the foreign slave-trade, if the basis of representation had been limited to free persons, and if it had been provided that the question whether an alleged fugitive from service was bound legally to perform such service should be decided by a jury, the system of slavery would have continued for years, and perhaps for generations, in the States of the Gulf of Mexico and the Lower Mississippi Yalley.

Slavery would have been without political power, and therefore it never could have organized a rebellion against the Government. In a state of domestic peace there would have been no justifying dause for national interference.

In that condition of affairs, slavery would have existed in the several States until by the individual action of such States its abolition had been decreed. The effect, then, of the constitutional concessions to and guarantees for slavery was to endow the slave States with unequal political power for two generations, and then to dethrone them and leave them prostrate and under the absolute control of the free States.

The advantages which slavery and the slave-holding class derived from the guarantees of the Constitution were all temporary, and they all have disappeared. The compromises of the Constitution and the compromises under the Constitution are alike valueless. The annexation of Texas, the Mexican war, the struggles in Kansas, have all inured to the advantage of freedom.

When the three provisions concerning slavery were embodied in the Constitution, a conflict was inevitable, j Whenever, in a free government, a conflict arises upon a topic that engages the thought of the majority, the contestants will either appropriate existing parties to their service or they will create new ones. When slavery demanded new guarantees, neither of the then existing parties was prepared to resist the demand. Hence the Republican party was a necessity, and its organization has been the instrumentality by which the people have destroyed slavery, reformed the Constitution, and reconstructed the government upon the two cardinal principles of the equality of States and the equality of men.

The contest is not ended. It will continue until the sentiments and traditions bred of slavery have disappeared from the States and communities once cursed by that institution. Hence the necessity remains for the continued existence of the Republican party. That party is the only political organization that is authorized to speak

10 PKOVISIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION.

for or to defend what has been accomplished. The measures of which it may boast and on which its claim to continuing public confidence rests, have all been resisted, and often they have been denounced by the Democratic party. Execution of those measures yet remains to be done.

The great struggle through which the nation has passed was accepted and continued by the Republican party for the purpose of abolishing those features of the Constitution which recognized injustice as a force in the government. So much has been accomplished, but injustice in the administration of the government still exists. The Democratic party as an organization profited by the injustice of slavery, and therefore it resisted the overthrow of slavery. It now profits by the intolerance and persecution that prevail in the old slave States. That intolerance and persecution it now defends.

By the agency of the Republican party, and as a constitutional right, the equality of all men before the law has been secured ; but upon the Republican party rest the obligation and the duty of securing that right, as a practical and conceded right, to all the citizens of the United States.

Chapter II. The Missouki Compromise And Its Eepeal

IT would not be just to assume that the f ramers of the Constitution foresaw the evils which have flowed, from the provisions relat" ing to slavery. Indeed, it is probable that the delegates from the South and the North alike expected the gradual destruction of the system, and that at no distant day.

Cotton-raising in the United States was then an experimental and unproductive application of labor. The total export of cotton in the year 1800 was less than 90,000 bales, weighing 215 pounds each, and the domestic consumption in factories did not exceed 500 bales. At that time there were only three spinning-mills in America. In the year 1790 there was neither domestic demand nor foreign trade in cotton. In 1764 eight bags of American cotton were seized in Liverpool upon the allegation that it could not have been grown in America. When it was released the spinners neglected it, doubting whether it could be worked profitably.

Between the year 1788 and the year 1800 two inventions were made, which added immensely to the profits of the cotton culture and to the value of slave labor. Eli Whitney invented the cotton-gin, and Jacob Marshall invented the cotton-press. Whitney was from Westborough, and Marshall was from Lunenburg, both in the county of Worcester and State of Massachusetts. Previous to those inventions, the seeds of cotton had been separated from the lint by hand labor or by rude mechanical devices, and the cotton destined for market had been trodden in round sacks or bags. The invention""\ of the cotton-gin, especially, stimulated the importation of slaves from Africa, added to their value in the tobacco and grain-growing sections, inaugurated the trade in slaves between the States of the Potomac and the States of the Gulf of Mexico, and finally added the / lust of gain to the love for political power, as inducements for the,*

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12 THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. AND ITS REEEAL.

extension and defense of the system of slavery. /Then came into public view a class of moralists and theologians, who maintained the doctrine that the rude and savage negroes of Africa had been transferred to a school of civilization and progress, and that slavery was not only not forbidden in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, but that it was recognized and tolerated in all. Thus was slavery imbedded in the Constitution, and protected by moral, theological, and financial defenses and defenders. Law, wealth, and theology had combined for its protection, j

In 1794 Congress passed ' penal statutes against the exportation of slaves from the United States, and prohibiting the use of American vessels for the transportation of slaves from one foreign country to another. This legislation satisfied the moral sentiment of the North, and promoted the pecuniary interests of the South.

In 1807 Congress proceeded to enforce the Constitutional inhibition against the importation of slaves. By the statute of March 2, 1807, any person found guilty of being engaged in the foreign slave-trade was liable to imprisonment for not less than five nor more than ten years, and to a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars. The penalty of forfeiture was imposed upon vessels and their equipment, when, found engaged in the slave-trade.

In this statute, by the seventh section, a very important concession was made to slavery. It was provided that all negroes and mulattoes found on any vessel arrested in the slave-trade should be delivered to the authorities of the State into whose port the inculpated vessel was brought. Under this statute the State of Louisiana enacted a law that all negroes and mulattoes delivered to the Governor of that State by virtue of the statute of 1807 should be sold as slaves. The object of the seventh section of the statute of 1807 was the protection of the Slave States against the presence of free negroes. Its effect was to add to the slave population of the country. The statute of 1807 remained in force until 1819, when the captors of any vessel engaged in the slave-trade were required to deliver to the President of the United States all persons of color found on board such vessel. Provision was made for the return of such persons to the coast of Africa.

The Free States and the Slave States did not antagonize each other upon questions touching the suppression of the foreign slave-trade. Georgia and South Carolina had insisted upon the right to continue the importation of slaves from Africa as a check to the monopoly of slave labor in the northern Slave States. The continuance of the trade for twenty years was a compromise between the Free States and the northern Slave States on one side, and the States of the extreme South on the other. Under the influence of the same motives Virginia and her associates of the border were willing to prohibit the foreign trade at the earliest day. They were also, and for the same reason, ready to provide for the return to Africa of all negroes found on board of slave-trading vessels. If Louisiana and her associates would have made them slaves, and if New York and her associates would have made them free, it was true that Virginia and her associates were not prepared to accept either alternative.

The return to Africa of all captured negroes may have been just, but manifestly it was a politic proceeding for the border Slave States. From 1789 to 1820 there was no other action by the Government of the United States which affected, or could in its results affect, the institution of slavery. Of the thirteen colonies, seven had become Free States, and six were Slave States. Of the nine new States admitted into the Union previous to the year 1820, five were Slave States, and four were Free States. Thus an absolute equilibrium of political power had been established. Eleven States were Free States, and there were eleven States that maintained slavery. The establishment of this equilibrium, and the tendency to its overthrow, were the cause or the occasion of the bitter sectional struggle which, commencing in 1820, even yet disturbs the harmony of the Republic.

The pro-slavery provisions of the Constitution gave rise to that struggle, and in its progress the antagonizing parties became sectional. The Whig party disappeared, and the Democratic party abandoned its principles.

The anti-slavery sentiment was organized in the Republican party, and so organized, it was destined to accomplish two historical results — the destruction of slavery, and the preservation of the Union.

As the Whig party, as an organization, would neither oppose nol defend slavery, it could not command efficient support either North or South. The Democratic party passed through the successive stages of Constitutional protection to slavery, non-interference by the National Government, the supremacy of the laws of nature ovei the question of slavery extension, and finally it subordinated its love for the Union, and yielded itself absolutely to the defense of the institution of slavery. With the formation of the Confederacy the Democratic party ceased to exist in the rebel States, and in the North, although it remained passive as an organization, it furnished a shelter to bodies of men who sympathized with the South.

When it was discovered by the leading men of the country that the equilibrium between the North and the South could not be preserved, the contest for supremacy began.

The equality of States and of representation in the Senate could not be changed, except by the admission of new States into the Union; but the increase of population in the contending sections could not be controlled by statutes, and at the close of every decennial period there was a new distribution of power in the House of Representatives and in the electoral colleges.

The re-distribution of political power was required by the Constitution, and thus by the Constitution was the equilibrium between the Free and Slave States destroyed. In 1790 the representative power of the Slave States to the Free States was as 87 to 100; in 1800 it was as 85 to 100; in 1810 it was as 92 to 100; in 1820 it was as 88 to 100.

The loss from 1810 to 1820 made it manifest that the equality of the South could not be maintained in the House of Representatives. It was then that the District of Maine applied for admission into the Union as a State. By the treaty of 1803 with France the territory of Louisiana was ceded to the United States. France had acquired the territory of Spain by a treaty made in 1763. It was claimed that the territory of Louisiana included all the country west of the Mississippi, except a small region near the Gulf of Mexico. Slavery existed in the territory. The application of Maine for admission into the Union was met by an application by the inhabitants of a portion of the territory of Missouri for admission as a Slave State. Missouri had been formed out of the original territory of Louisiana. After a long and bitter contest, the act for the admission of Maine was approved March 3, 1820, and on the sixth day of the same month an act was passed, authorizing the inhabitants of Missouri to form a constitution, and providing for the admission of the territory into the Union as a State. By the eighth section of that act slavery was prohibited in the territory acquired by the treaty of 1803, north of the parallel 36° 30'. Missouri was north of that parallel, but the new State was excepted from the inhibition. It was a hope, if not a confident belief on the part of the South, that Slave States could be formed from the territory south of that line, in set-off to the States that might be formed from the territory north of that line.

Arkansas was admitted into the Union in 1836, and in 1837 the equilibrium of States was re-established by the admission of Michigan. It then became apparent that the equality of States could not be maintained through the next decade. Of slave territory only Florida remained, while in the North there was the vast waste out of which the States of Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas, and Nebraska have been organized. The greatness of the future of these States was not foreseen, but their coming was anticipated and accepted on all sides as of the inevitable. The equilibrium of representation in the House had been destroyed, and the struggle was therefore intensified for the preservation of the equality of the Slave States in the Senate. As the slave-holding class ruled the South, it was possible always for that class to decide a presidential election, and hence the whig and democratic parties were rival bidders for southern support. The presidency was sold, in the market. The South usually dictated the candidates of each party, and, unless the election of Harrison in 1840 was an exception, the South achieved a victory in every contest from 1828 to 1856 inclusive.

By the aid of organized bodies of men from the United States, and chiefly from the South, the State of Texas had declared its independence of Mexico, and organized a separate government. The governing force in Texas was composed largely of immigrants from the Slave States. Their policy was dictated by Southern statesmen, and directed to the annexation to the United States of the "Lone Star State," as Texas was then called. By the death of President Harrison, in April, 1841, John Tyler succeeded to the presidency. By birth, political training, and sectional feeling, he was allied to the slave-holding class, and his public policy was directed to the annexation of Texas as the leading and historical measure of his administration. In the canvass of 1844 Mr. Clay represented the Whig party, and Mr. Polk the Democratic party. Both of those men were in the interest of slavery. Mr. Polk made no claim to anti-slavery opinions. He was an open advocate of the annexation of Texas. Mr. Clay may have had misgivings as to the system of slavery, but he was wanting in principle, or he lacked the courage to make a declaration of his real opinions, if they were hostile to the institution. The Whig party of the North was opposed to the annexation of Texas, but during the campaign Mr. Clay made a public surrender on the question, and by that surrender he lost the State of New York and the presidency.

The election of Mr. Polk was treated as an endorsement of the scheme, and the outgoing Congress, by a joint resolution approved March 1, 1845, provided for the annexation of Texas to the United States. The resolution contained a guarantee that States, not exceeding five in all, might be formed out of the territory, and admitted into the Union under the provisions of the federal constitution. The States formed out of the territory south of 36° 30' were to be admitted into the Union, either with or without slavery, as the people of each State asking admission might desire. In the States formed out of territory north of that line, slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment of crime, were prohibited. As in the end there was no territory north of fhe line 36° 30', slavery gained one State in the outset, with the prospect of acquiring four other States, while the North gained nothing by the inhibition. Thus was an open way made for the organization of new Slave States, to be used in set-off against the coming States of the north-west.

The admission of Texas into the Union presented a fresh opportunity to the South, but it was an opportunity fraught with the gravest peril. When Texas declared its independence it named the Rio Grande as its southern boundary. On the other hand, Mexico made claim to the territory between the Rio Grande and the Xueces River. By annexation the United States accepted the controversy, and the war which then existed between Texas and Mexico. Mr. Polk was President. General Taylor was ordered to the left bank of the Rio Grande, near Matamoras. His army was first termed an army of observation, then an army of occupation, and finally it became an army of invasion. In the month of May, 1846, the war opened which ended in the capture of the City of Mexico by General Scott, and the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, signed the second day of February, 1848, by which a vast territory, including Xew Mexico and Upper California, was ceded to the United States. Tne Missouri compromise line had been extended across Texas by the joint resolution of March 1, 1845, but now the acquisition of a vast area, both north and south of that line, gave fresh consequence to the slavery issue. Of the new acquisition California alqpe contained a population sufficient for a State, and the larger part of its area, and much the larger part of its inhabitants, were north of the line 36° 30'. The Union was then composed of fifteen Slave States and fifteen Free States. The admission of California, whether as a Slave State or a Free State, would destroy the equilibrium. By the census of 1850 the representative power of the Slave States to the Free States was as 63 to 100.

The equilibrium in the House of Representatives and the Electoral Colleges had been destroyed, and beyond recovery. The cotton-gin had not only stimulated the growth of cotton, and increased the value of slaves, it had also stimulated the manufacture of cotton goods in the north and east, enhanced the wages of labor, added to the comforts of the laboring classes, and thereby encouraged immigration to the North.

In another form slavery itself contributed to the overthrow of the slave power. Wherever slavery existed manual labor was dishonored ; and hence all the immigrants from Europe who had not the means and the ambition to become landholders chose their homes in the Free States. By the force of these combined agencies and influences the representative power of the South was broken down. By the annexation of Texas, the consequent war with Mexico, ending with the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, California was presented for admission into the Union as a free State, and at a time when the control of the House of Representatives was irretrievably lost to the South.

In this exigency Mr. Calhoun's dying speech was read in the Senate, March 4, 1850, by James M. Mason, of Virginia. He admitted the overthrow of the equilibrium between the Free and the Slave States, and he attributed it to the action of the general government. He closed with a demand for an amendment to the Constitution, by which equality of political power should be guaranteed to the South, and he coupled the demand with a threat of secession in case it should be refused. But Mr. Calhoun had then lost faith in the permanence of the institution. There is good reason to believe, but not the means to prove, that Mr. Calhoun, a few months before his death, said to a friend, " Slavery will go down, sir; it will go down in the twinkling of an eye, sir." His Essay on Government contained a statement of his plan for preserving, or rather for re-establishing the equilibrium between the Free States and the Slave States. He advocated an amendment of the Constitution, which should provide for two presidents, one from the South and one from the North. Their powers were to be equal, and consequently every executive act would require the concurrence of both presidents. The scheme was designed, manifestly, to effect a dissolution of the Union, and under 2 circumstances which would enable each party to charge the responsibility upon the other.

The people of California framed a Constitution without the authority of Congress, and resistance to its admission into the Union was put upon that ground.

That position was a pretext. The exclusion of slavery was in fact the real reason. The bill for the admission of California was approved the 9th day of September, 1850. It was silent upon the subject of slavery, but two other bills were approved the same day — one for the organization of the Territory of New Mexico and the adjustment of the boundary between Texas and New Mexico, and the other for the organization of the Territory of Utah. Although the whole of the Territory of Utah was north of the line 36° 30', and although a part of New Mexico was also north of that line, both statutes contained a provision that the States that might be formed out of said Territories should be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their Constitutions might prescribe. These three measures, and the bill for the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and the bill for the surrender of fugitives from slavery, were carried under the lead of Mr. Clay. To Texas the sum of ten million dollars was paid for a surrender to New Mexico of the territory north of 36° 30', and thus were the Free States led to abandon whatever advantage was contemplated by the extension of the Missouri compromise line across Texas, by the joint resolution of March 1, 1845.

All the territory of Louisiana was slave territory at the time of its purchase from France in 1803. Hence the application of the Missouri compromise line was a gain to the free States, inasmuch as the region of country north of the line 36° 30' was relieved of slavery and consecrated to freedom.

All the territory acquired of Mexico by the treaty of Gaudaloupe Hidalgo was free territory. Hence the provision in the statutes for the organization of New Mexico. and Utah, by which the question of slavery was remitted to the inhabitants who might occupy those Territories when they should apply for admission into the Union, was a concession to slavery. Slavery was thereby made possible in a Territory theretofore free. Except for slavery, the question of the admission of California would have been considered by itself.

As the death of President Harrison in 1841 had made the annexation of Texas possible during the term for which he had been elected, so the death of President Taylor in July, 1850, made it possible for

THE MISSOUBI COMPBOHISE AND ITS KEPEAL. 19

the slave-holders to secure the surrender of Utah and New Mexico to the chances of slavery. It was understood that General Taylor was opposed to the compromise measures of 1850. The most offensive of those measures was the Fugitive Slave bill.

When these measures of compromise and conciliation had passed into statutes, and thus were made binding upon the country, their advocates and supporters North and South announced a peace — absolute and continuing peace — upon the subject of slavery. On that declaration the Democratic party achieved an easy victory in 1852.

One generation of men had been witnesses of and participants in the series of contests upon the subject of slavery, commencing in 1820 and ending in 1850.

In every instance the demand of the South had been accompanied by a threat that in case of failure the Union should be dissolved. By this threat, and by the assertion of its power to elect a President of either party, it subjected the political organizations of the country to its will, and reduced an entire generation of statesmen to a condition of moral and political servitude. In the presence of an attempt to nullify the laws of the Union, and, under the lead of General Jackson, a successful resistance was made in 1832 to the demand of the slaveholders. Their policy, however, was not changed. Indeed, the leaders in the treasonable scheme of nullification, including Mr. Calhoun, were soon restored to public confidence and advanced to new places of trust and power. In fine, as nullification was a means by which the slave-holders attempted to assert their power in the government of the country, and as the leaders in nullification were the leaders of the Democratic party of the South, and as the Democratic party of the country was dependent upon the Southern Democracy, the National Democratic party had no alternative but to recognize the leaders in nullification as leaders also in political affairs. Hence the defeat of nullification as a movement did not work the defeat and exile from politics of the leaders and apostles of that heresy. As long as slavery was a force in politics, and as long as the Democratic party was subject to tliat force, the leaders of the South were sure of place and power in the government of the country.