 
|
| |
|
|
A Northern Man of Southern Principles: President Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire on Politics and the Sectional Conflict H. Arthur Scott Trask, PhD. League of the South Papers No. 10
That things were a bit more complicated than that, as in any large-scale
human event, should be obvious, but is, to many, not. The thoughts of Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire during his Presidency
and during the war are presented here for that purpose. Especially important
is his speech at Concord, New Hampshire on Independence Day 1863 at the
very time the battle of Gettysburg was winding down. This speech is almost
unknown and is printed here for the first time since it appeared in a
few obscure newspapers in 1863. Because of his Jeffersonian political credo, Franklin Pierce is often referred to as a “Northern man of Southern principles.” While this designation is correct as far as it goes, it would be more accurate to say that Pierce was simply a Northern man of American principles. Pierce was one of the decreasing number of Northern political leaders in the antebellum era who remained true to the colonial and revolutionary political heritage. This heritage was at its core libertarian, republican, and constitutional. It warned of the dangers of concentrated and unchecked political power and stressed the importance of limits on that power in the form of bills of rights, written constitutions, decentralized political structures, genuine self-government, private property, and freedom of trade. Contrary to what the vast majority of historians claim today, it was not the slavery issue that began to drive a wedge between the Northern and Southern states in the years following the War of 1812, it was a steadily growing difference in political cultures. More and more Northern leaders fell for the temptation of what an energetic and centralized government could do to promote economic and moral “progress.” However, many like Pierce did not go down this path. These conservative Northern leaders naturally looked for support to the South where the old constitutional and libertarian ideas were still predominant. From 1800 to 1860, the federated, constitutional republic of the United States was governed and preserved by an alliance of Northern and Southern constitutional republicans. As long as this alliance was maintained, the liberties of the country were safe. When it disintegrated in 1860, they were lost forever. Franklin Pierce was born on 23 November 1804 in the granite hills of New Hampshire. His father, Gen. Benjamin Pierce, was a farmer, militia officer, magistrate, and leader in the state Republican party. He served as an infantryman in the New Hampshire militia at the battles of Breed’s Hill and Saratoga during the War of Independence. He gradually rose through the ranks and was made an officer in 1780. After the war, he purchased a small farm in the hills of New Hampshire. In 1798, President Adams offered Pierce command of a regiment in the federal army. Believing that the real purpose of this “standing army” was “to subvert those principles” for which he had fought in the Revolution, Pierce declined the appointment. Although New England was a Federalist stronghold in the years between 1796 and 1815, Pierce remained a loyal supporter of the Republican party and its three presidents, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. Although a prominent citizen, Gen. Pierce was neither a wealthy nor an educated man. But he was determined that his two sons receive a first-rate education. His son Franklin entered Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine in 1820 at the age of sixteen. Before being formally admitted Franklin had to translate the major works of Cicero and Virgil, demonstrate that he could write grammatical Latin prose, and translate portions of the New Testament in Greek. Franklin was not a good student for the first two years due to poor study habits and inattention. Like many high-spirited young men, he had other things on his mind besides his books. In his sophomore year he became friends with a freshman from Massachusetts by the name of Nathaniel Hawthorne. They would remain close friends until death. Beginning his third year, Pierce noticed that he was last in his class in academic standing. Abashed, he decided to devote all of his energy and attention to his studies. By hard work and determination, he was able to rise to fifth in his class by the time of graduation in 1824. After graduation, Pierce began the study of law under various prominent lawyers in the state, including the future senator, Levi Woodbury. In those days, law students did not attend law school, but read law under the tutelage of a lawyer until they could satisfy a panel of judges that they were competent to practice law. There was no bar exam. In September of 1827, he was authorized to begin practicing. Franklin, who shared his father’s Jeffersonian principles, took an early interest in politics. His father was elected governor of the state in 1827. Franklin campaigned for Andrew Jackson in 1828 and was elected moderator of the town meeting in Hillsborough. The next year the town elected him to the New Hampshire legislature. In 1832, the people of his district elected him to Congress, and he was reelected in 1834. Once in Washington, Pierce showed that he remained true to the original principles of the Republican party. He opposed the recharter of the national bank, voted against internal improvement bills (which authorized federal funds for road and canal construction and river and harbor improvements in the states), and voted against the printing, reading, or consideration of abolition petitions (the gag resolution). Pierce’s reasoning behind these “negative” votes was based on his commitment to a strict construction of the federal Constitution. Since the states had not delegated to the federal government the powers to charter national banks, build roads, or interfere with slavery, then Congress could not constitutionally do these things. The abolition movement had just begun in the Northern states. Although it had few supporters, many Northerners viewed its beginnings with alarm. They saw it as a hate group motivated more by hatred of Southerners than love of the slave. Pierce described the abolitionist faction in his own state as “a few reckless fanatics” who numbered less than one in a hundred. He went on to say that among his own people of New Hampshire “there is not the slightest disposition to interfere with any rights secured by the Constitution, which binds together and which I humbly hope ever will bind together this great and glorious confederacy as one family.” Like his father, Pierce’s patriotism was comprehensive and national, not just local or regional. Although he was a proud son of upper New England, he never entertained the conceit, as would so many of his neighbors in later years, that they had a moral right to impose their ideas of government, society, and morality upon the other states in the confederacy. He was never pro-slavery, but he recognized it as a Southern institution which was protected by the federal compact. Northern denunciation and interference could be productive only of evil. In November 1836, Pierce was elected to the federal senate by the state legislature. His principles did not change after he went to Washington. In 1837, he voted for Sen. John C. Calhoun’s resolutions affirming the compact theory of the Constitution, naming abolitionism as a threat to the federal union, and supported the right of slavery in the District of Columbia. He continued to vote against internal-improvement bills. He supported President Martin Van Buren’s financial reform measures. Pierce was a hard-money man. He favored a currency composed of gold and silver coin, and he opposed paper money, whether issued by a national bank or by semi-independent state banks. As a congressman, he voted against the repeal of Jackson’s specie circular (which required public land purchases to be made in gold or silver coin). As a senator, he supported the Independent Treasury (under which public funds would be deposited in special federal depositories rather than in selected state banks). He also voted for Calhoun’s specie clause which would have required all federal duties and land sales to be paid in gold or silver coin instead of bank paper. While in the senate, Pierce formed a lasting friendship with Jefferson Davis of Mississippi. During the 1840 election campaign, Sen. Pierce campaigned extensively in his home state for the incumbent president Martin Van Buren of New York, a Democrat. And although Van Buren lost the general election to his Whig opponent William Henry Harrison, Pierce helped to carry his own state for the Van Buren. In early 1841, Pierce resigned his senate seat and returned to New Hampshire. He wanted to be closer to his growing family, and he wanted to build up his law practice. However, he remained active in state politics. He was outspoken in his criticism of Whig economic policies--higher tariffs, a new national bank, and the assumption of state debts by the federal government. In 1844, he campaigned extensively for James K. Polk of Tennessee for president. His campaigning was effective and helped to carry the state for this Southern Democrat. As a reward, President Polk appointed him federal district attorney for New Hampshire (April 1845). A year later, Polk offered him the post of Attorney General of the United States. Pierce declined, for his wife was not well and did not want to move back to Washington. That the offer was made was proof that Pierce had earned respect in his party for his principles, his intellect, and his devotion to the Constitution. In May 1846, Congress declared war on the Republic of Mexico. Although the official casus belli was an attack on American troops by the Mexican army north of the Rio Grande River, most understood that its real purpose was to gain the Mexican provinces of California and Northern Mexico for the federal union. In other words, it was a war for land. The Northern states were divided over the war. Most Whigs opposed it, while Democrats tended to support it. Opposition to the war was greatest in New England and among abolitionists, the latter of whom regarded it as a war for new slave territory. Pierce was among a sizeable minority of New Englanders who supported the war. As a Jeffersonian Democrat, Pierce favoured geographical expansion. Like most expansionists, Pierce believed that the acquisition of territory in the southwest would strengthen the whole country by extending the area of freedom (it was assumed that Mexican territory was not an area of freedom), gaining the valuable Pacific ocean ports (San Diego, San Francisco) for future trade with Asia, and providing more land for the vigorous Anglo-Saxon stock of which he was a part. Besides, his country was at war, and Pierce believed it the duty of all patriotic citizens to volunteer for service at such a time. In February 1847, Polk appointed Pierce a colonel in the regular army charged with recruiting and commanding a regiment of New England infantry. In March, he was commissioned a Brigadier General . By May, he had raised 2,500 troops, trained them, and appointed officers. Pierce’s regiment (the Ninth New England) landed at Vera Cruz, Mexico in late June, 1847. Pierce and his regiment joined Gen. Winfield Scott’s march on Mexico City and helped capture it. Pierce returned with his men to New Hampshire in December, 1847. There, he resumed his law practice. Pierce would return to Washington in five years, this time as president of the United States. Pierce was the classic “dark horse” candidate for the presidency in 1852. That is, he came out of nowhere to win the nomination. The main contenders for the Democratic nomination were Lewis Cass (Mich.), James Buchanan (Pa.), and Stephen Douglas (Ill.), but not one of them was strong enough to win a majority at the Democratic convention. Some of Pierce’s friends put forth his name as a compromise candidate. Pierce had many strengths. Southerners trusted him. He had served in the Mexican War. His war record would offset the advantage the Whigs would have if they nominated Gen. Winfield Scott, which they were expected to do. The Virginia delegation was the first to throw its support behind Pierce. On the 49th ballot, Pierce’s friend James Dobbin of North Carolina gave a persuasive speech in his favor which did the trick; state after state went for Pierce, and he had the nomination. Pierce had neither solicited nor campaigned for the nomination, but he now found himself the candidate of his party for the presidency of the republic. Pierce asked his old friend Nathaniel Hawthorne to write a biography of his life for the coming campaign. Hawthorne accepted and finished his Life of Franklin Pierce well in time for the election. Pierce won a landslide victory in the fall election. He carried 27 states for 254 electoral college votes; his opponent Winfield Scott carried only 4 for 42 votes. The popular vote was closer, but Pierce still won by the comfortable margin of 1.6 million to 1.4 million votes. Pierce appointed a strong cabinet, which included two future presidents. He appointed James Guthrie of Kentucky Secretary of the Treasury. Guthrie would turn out to be the most able treasury secretary since Albert Gallatin. He appointed the brilliant constitutional lawyer Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts Attorney General. He appointed his friend Jefferson Davis of Mississippi Secretary of War. He appointed William Marcy, the former governor of New York, Secretary of State. He named former Secretary of State James Buchanan of Pennsylvania ambassador to England. He also named his friend Hawthorne to be the American consul at Liverpool. The appointment not only proved that Pierce was loyal to his friends, but it proved to be a boon to the cause of American literature. The position provided Hawthorne with a badly needed income and gave him much time to write. Historians routinely describe Pierce’s presidency as a failure because he signed the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Their obsession with slavery has caused them to overlook Pierce’s significant accomplishments as president. His fiscal policies were as good as any president since Jefferson, perhaps better. Pierce and his department heads maintained a strict economy in public expenditures. Pierce’s administration gave no succor whatever to greedy businessmen, speculators, and bankers who were eagerly soliciting various forms of government assistance. Previous Democratic administrations had given them at least something. Not Pierce. Indeed his administration was perhaps the most economical and incorruptible in American history. Pierce’s biographer writes that “his administration in sum would know no fear nor favor. They maintained the most granite-like opposition to grants, subsidies and higher tariffs.” Pierce vetoed seven major internal improvement bills, all but three of which were sustained. Under his direction, his Treasury Secretary, Guthrie, used the annual budget surplus to steadily reduce the federal national debt. In four years, Pierce and Guthrie paid down $38 million of debt, thus reducing the total national debt by more than half (55%). In four years the debt was reduced from $69 million to $31 million. Of course, Pierce was not averse to increasing expenditures when it was necessary to protect the lives and properties of Americans. He recommended and then signed into law a bill authorizing four new regiments for the regular army. Davis and Pierce believed that the additional regiments were needed to protect the western territories from Indian depredations. Finally, on the last day of his presidency (4 March 1857) Pierce signed a bill which reduced the tariff to an average rate of 20% and considerably enlarged the list of duty-free goods. Pierce had been urging Congress to reduce the tariff since his first annual message. The Tariff of 1857 brought import duties down to their lowest level since the early 1820s. Economy, frugality, low taxes, reduced debt, and strict construction. These were the watchwords of Pierce’s fiscal administration. Pierce vetoed one bill that no president today would have the courage to veto. His reasoning was so sound that it deserves to be printed and distributed to members of the present Republican Congress. The bill would have distributed ten million acres of the public domain to the states for the purpose of aiding the indigent insane. Pierce realized that allowing this bill to become law would set a precedent that could prove fatal not only to the Constitution but to all previous restraints on federal expenditures. In his veto message, he made four objections. If Congress began to vote money to help the indigent insane, the next step would be to vote money to help the indigent not insane. Second, once the principal had been established that it was acceptable to sell off the public domain for specific purposes (however beneficial they might appear to be), there would be no end to such schemes. Third, Congress had pledged the public lands as a security for the Mexican War debt. Until that debt was discharged, Congress should not use it to finance other projects. Fourth, Congress had no constitutional authorization to pass social-welfare legislation. As an expansionist Pierce hoped to acquire two territories he deemed essential to American commerce and defense-Spanish Cuba and lower California (Baja). He was not successful. However, he did acquire the important Mesilla River Valley from Mexico for $10 million. The negotiations were conducted by his minister to Mexico, James Gadsden of South Carolina. The new territory comprised 45,000 square miles of land south of the Gila River in what is now southern Arizona. The land was part of the most desirable route for a southern transcontinental railroad from New Orleans to Los Angeles. Pierce’s decision to sign the Kansas-Nebraska act of 1854 is this act for which he is most famous, and most criticized by historians. This act created and opened for settlement two new territories (Kansas and Nebraska) without restriction for or against slavery. This meant that the people of the territory could decide through their territorial legislature whether slavery was to be permitted or forbidden. The intent of the law, which was authored by Stephen Douglas of Illinois, was to set Kansas aside for Southern settlement (and eventual admission as a slave state) and Nebraska aside for Northern settlement (and eventual admission as a free state). In other words, the law was a compromise measure, specifically designed to maintain sectional harmony and balance in the union. Thus, contrary to contemporary historical opinion, the legislation was not pro-Southern, nor was its intent to spread slavery north to Canada. Pierce signed the bill without hesitation. After all, he was president of the whole confederacy, not just the Northern or New England portion. The bill failed in its object because anti-slavery New Englanders decided to finance Northern settlement of Kansas, not Nebraska. Northern abolitionists, who had increased in numbers since the 1830s, were determined that not one more slave state should enter the union. Southerners, on the other hand, were outraged that an effort should be made to deny them their fair share of the western territories. Southerners did not want to live side by side with Yankees in Kansas, and Northerners did not want to live with blacks, whether slave or free. Hence, the battle was on. The controversy surrounding the issue is more complicated than historians allow. To begin with, many Northern Whigs opposed the bill not for moral reasons but for political ones. If Kansas became a Southern state, it would likely be a Democratic state. That meant two more Democratic senators. Astute historians make a careful distinction between moral and political antislavery. While the former was characteristic of the numerically insignificant abolitionists, the latter was the driving force behind the founding of the Republican party. Ever since the beginning of the republic, an alliance of Southerners and Northern Jeffersonians had inhibited, blocked, or rolled back the various schemes of Northern mercantilism (i.e. high tariffs, public works projects, national banks, railroad subsidies). Northern mercantilists saw the Kansas-Nebraska bill as a threat to their hopes of eventually outvoting the Southern laissez-faire bloc. But one cannot go before the public and say, “We must oppose the Kansas-Nebraska bill because it means two more votes for free trade.” Much better to raise a moral issue for camouflage, especially one that flatters the public with pretensions of moral superiority and justification for power-grasping. In other words, the Nebraska bill excited sectional controversy, conflict, and bitterness simply because the political opposition in the North (former Whigs and disaffected Democrats) decided to exploit the issue for political gain and frustrate the intent of the law by financing Northern settlement of Kansas. In retrospect, it is obvious that Pierce should not have signed the bill. Southerners lost the battle for Kansas, the Republican party was born during the controversy, and Pierce lost the nomination of his party for a second term. After his retirement Pierce and his wife went on a two-year vacation abroad. They spent time on the island of Madeira, and then began a extended tour of the European continent. Pierce even met up with Hawthorne in Rome. When he returned to New Hampshire in late 1859, the sectional conflict had worsened. In October, the terrorist John Brown raided the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. His plan was to incite, arm, and lead a massive slave rebellion. The raid was a fiasco, and Brown and his men captured and hung. Pierce denounced the raid as a “violation of all law, human and divine.” He expressed the hope that it would lead to a reaction in the Northern states against abolitionism and the Republican party. He was sadly mistaken. Most Republicans praised Brown as a martyr and hero, and the abolitionists were energized. The next year (1860) witnessed a fateful split in the Democratic party. Many Northern Democrats favoured Stephen Douglas for the presidency. But Southern Democrats, no longer trusting Douglas, had decided on John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. Pierce was one of a sizeable minority of Northern Democrats who preferred Breckinridge, but they were outvoted in the state nominating conventions. The Northern states went for Douglas. The Southerner states for Breckinridge. A number of prominent Democrats, including Caleb Cushing and Jefferson Davis, wrote Pierce requesting that he step forward as a compromise candidate, but Pierce vetoed these schemes. Neither side would support the other candidate. As a result, the party split in two. With the Democrats running two candidates and the Republicans gaining strength across the North, Lincoln’s election was assured. Pierce described Lincoln’s election on a purely sectional platform and vote as a “distinct and unequivocal denial of the coequal rights” of the states. He feared that the consequences might be “fearful.” And indeed they were. After South Carolina seceded on 20 December 1860, Pierce wrote a public letter to his friend John A. Campbell of Alabama, whom he had appointed to the Supreme Court, urging the Southern states to wait six months before following the Palmetto state out of the union. If after that period the Republicans remained hostile toward the rights of the Southern states and evinced a determination to use the powers of the federal government against them, then secession would have even more support and be seen as even more justified. In other words, Pierce did not question the right or justice of Southern secession, only its timing. Throughout the ensuing crisis, Pierce’s counseled patience and compromise and reprobated all talk of coercion and war. For instance, Pierce urged President Buchanan to evacuate Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, because hostilities might commence there. When Buchanan sent the Star of the West to re-provision Sumter (5 January 1861), Pierce wrote his wife: “I cannot conceive of a more idle, foolish, ill-advised, if not criminal thing . . . will not the first act of war, the useless sending of this steamer, and the first hostile gun reverberate and blaze along the whole southern line, calling men to arms?” After the firing on Ft. Sumter, Pierce wrote former president Martin Van Buren urging him to call all the ex-presidents to Philadelphia where they might issue an appeal for peace, calm, and political negotiations. Van Buren responded by suggesting that Pierce issue the call. Pierce believed that his reputation as pro-Southern would weaken the force of his appeal. Considering the state of anti-Southern feeling in the North after Sumter, the reluctance of both to step forward is understandable. When Lincoln responded by calling for 75,000 volunteers to suppress what he called the Southern “insurrection,” war became certain. Four more Southern states left the union. Pierce believed that Lincoln’s purpose in calling for troops was not to restore the union, for that could only be done through peaceful statesmanship, but to conquer the South. He would not support such a war: “To this war . . . which seems to me to contemplate subjugation I give no countenance---no support to any possible extent in any possible way---except thro’ inevitable taxation, which seems likely to bankrupt us all. Come what may the foul schemes of Northern Abolitionism, which we have resisted for so many years, are not to be consummated by arms on bloody fields, through any aid of mine.” Pierce believed that Lincoln’s war of coercion was antithetical to the principles of self-determination and self-government for which Americans had fought during the Revolution. He also foresaw that the conflict would turn into an abolition war. And of that he wanted no part, for Pierce had an instinctive aversion to armed crusades. Pierce sided with the Northern Peace Democrats in opposition to the war and to Lincoln’s constitutional usurpations. The Republicans denounced them as “Copperheads.” In his private correspondence, Pierce was vehement in his criticism of Lincoln’s war policies, especially those directed against Northern opponents of the war, such as the arrest of the Maryland legislature, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, the closing down of opposition newspapers, arbitrary arrests and imprisonments. Pierce believed that these policies meant the death of America’s great heritage of federal republicanism and constitutional liberty. Encouraged by Republican losses in the 1862 elections, he urged his fellow Democrats to base subsequent election campaigns on the “great issue of Executive usurpation against the constitution, against freedom of speech and of the press, against personal liberty.” Pierce wrote his wife that he had taken his stand against what he regarded as an unjust war of subjugation, and he was not going to change his ground. “My purpose, dearest, is immovably taken. I will never justify, sustain, or in any way or to any extent uphold this cruel, heartless, aimless unnecessary war. Madness and imbecility are in the ascendant. I shall not succumb to them, come what may. I have no opinion to retract, no line of action to change.” Pierce was incensed at the news of Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation. He regarded it as an unconstitutional edict that transformed the conflict into an antislavery crusade designed to “butcher” the white race for the sake of “inflicting” freedom on the slaves. Like many Northerners, Pierce did not believe that the slaves of the south were prepared for freedom. In addition, Pierce did not believe that government could decree or force such momentous social transformations without deleterious and unforeseen consequences. Better let time and nature do the work. Pierce always believed that slavery would eventually come to end peacefully and gradually if only Northerners would stop there officious and malicious meddling with something that did not concern them. He regarded those who believed that the heavy price being paid to end slavery---fratricidal warfare and constitutional revolution---was worth it to be simply insane. Pierce’s grief over the fate of his country was worsened by the
death of his wife in December, 1863, and the death Hawthorne in May, 1864.
Hostility toward him was so great in Massachusetts that he was denied
a place as a pallbearer in the latter’s funeral. The crowning indignity
of this whole period may have been the appearance of a hostile mob at
his home in Concord the night after Lincoln’s assassination. The
mob was searching for homes where no draped flag or other sign of mourning
was visible. Pierce’s home displayed no flag. When the mob appeared,
Pierce walked out onto his porch, stood his ground, and proceeded to denounce
the president’s murder; then someone yelled out “Where is your
flag?” Pierce’s response was courageous and eloquent: “It
is not necessary for me to show my devotion for the Stars and Stripes
by any special exhibition upon the demand of any man or body of men. .
. . If the period which I have served our state and country in various
situations, commencing more than thirty-five years ago, has left the question
of my devotion to the flag, the constitution and the Union in doubt, it
is too late now to resume it by any such exhibition as the inquiry suggests.”
At that, the mob became quiet and slowly dispersed. Pierce flew no flag
at his home during the war. Inaugural Address, 4 March 1853 Editorial note: In his inaugural address, which Pierce wrote himself
and delivered from memory, he spelled out clearly the principles that
would guide his administration. They would be free trade with all the
world (low duties), entangling alliances with none, modest expansion of
the territorial domain, strict construction of the Constitution, respect
for the rights of the states, reliance for defense upon the state militias
augmented by a modest navy and army, “rigid economy” in federal
expenditures, and support for the compromise measures of 1850, including
strict enforcement of the federal fugitive slave law of that year. Without
exception, Pierce’s principles were those Jefferson had held when
the Virginia planter assumed the presidency in 1801. One circumstance
that had changed was the advent of antislavery agitation in some of the
Northern states. Although Pierce was a Northerner and held no brief for
slavery, he referred to abolitionism as a “morbid enthusiasm, calculated
to dissolve the bonds of law and affection which unite us.” Pierce
never wavered in his life-long belief that right or wrong slavery was
a Southern institution, for which Southerners alone were responsible,
and which they alone were competent to reform or abolish. Besides, as
he reiterated time and time again, the Constitution left slavery as a
state, and not a federal matter. Northern meddling and denunciation could
do nothing but dissolve the Union, “that priceless inheritance transmitted
to us.” It also is worthy of note that in this speech Pierce referred
to the United States as a “confederacy” three times. The use
of this descriptive term was actually quite common in the antebellum era,
and it’s use was an accurate one. The United States of 1853 was still
“a republic of republics,” not yet the unitary republic it would
become after the Northern war of subjugation against the South. It was
precisely this decentralized political structure that Pierce and other
Democrats believed rendered enlargement of the federal domain to be not
threatening to the liberties and cohesion of the union, as the first selection
makes clear. In addition, most people of the time interpreted the phrase
“certain possessions” to refer to the acquisition of the island
of Cuba to the federal union. The following selection captures the essence
of Pierce’s federal republican and constitutional principles. “The apprehension of dangers from extended territory, multiplied states, accumulated wealth, and augmented population has proved to be unfounded. The stars upon your banner have become nearly threefold their original number; your densely populated possessions skirt the shores of the two great oceans; and yet this vast increase of people and territory has not only shown itself compatible with harmonious action of the states and federal government in their respective constitutional spheres, but has afforded an additional guarantee of the strength and integrity of both. With an experience thus suggestive and cheering, the policy of my administration will not be controlled by any timid forebodings of evil from expansion. Indeed, it is not to be disguised that our attitude as a nation and our position on the globe render the acquisition of certain possessions not within our jurisdiction eminently important for our protection, if not in the future essential for the preservation of the rights of commerce and the peace of the world. Should they be obtained, it will be through no grasping spirit, but with a view to obvious national interest and security, and in a manner entirely consistent with the strictest observance of national faith. . . . The dangers of a concentration of all power in the general government of a confederacy so vast as ours are too obvious to be disregarded. You have a right, therefore, to expect your agents in every department to regard strictly the limits imposed upon them by the Constitution of the United States. The great scheme of our constitutional liberty rests upon a proper distribution of power between the state and federal authorities, and experience has shown that the harmony and happiness of our people must depend upon a just discrimination between the separate rights and responsibilities of the states and your common rights and obligations under the general government; and here, in my opinion, are the considerations which should form the true basis of future concord in regard to the questions which have most seriously disturbed public tranquillity. If the federal government will confine itself to the exercise of powers clearly granted by the Constitution, it can hardly happen that its action upon any question should endanger the institutions of the states or interfere with their rights to manage matters strictly domestic according to the will of their own people.” First Annual Message Editorial note: Pierce’s first annual message, which he wrote himself, is perhaps the most eloquent of all his public statements and perhaps the best concise summary of his political principles. Pierce consciously placed himself in the Jeffersonian political tradition by citing as his inspiration “the epoch of 1798.” While the reference is lost on most modern readers, it would have struck a chord among those of his fellow countrymen who knew their history. In that year, the Federalist party had waged an undeclared naval war with France, raised a standing army, passed a law to suppress political dissent (the Sedition Act), and enacted an internal tax to fund what they hoped would be a full-scale war with France. Two Virginians-Thomas Jefferson and James Madison-wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions to protest what they regarded as Federalist tyranny and usurpation. Both sets of resolutions affirmed the compact theory of the federal Constitution as the correct interpretation of that document and the only one consistent with the intentions of the framers and the state ratification conventions. From then on, the use of the phrase “principles of 98’” was understood to be a reference to these two historical documents and the principles contained therein. The compact theory held that the Constitution was a mere compact among sovereign and independent states that had delegated certain specific powers (clearly enumerated) to the federal government and reserved all others for the states. Pierce referred to the Constitution as a compact three times in his message. He also referred to the United States as a confederacy three times and a confederation twice. In one meaningful and striking phrase, Pierce referred to the federal union as “a confederation of self-governing republics.” Pierce also stated his policy regarding two important issues about which he had not spoken in his inaugural address the previous spring. He announced that he would apply the “increasing surplus in the Treasury . . . to the discharge of the public debt.” He also announced that he would oppose all federal appropriations for “local [internal] improvement projects for the benefit of commerce.” Pierce explained that federal funding for such projects was not only unconstitutional but that it had proven to be both a wasteful and profligate expenditure of public funds and destructive of the spirit of “local enterprise.” He would support only those projects that would benefit the nation as a whole and were necessary for national defense. Washington City, 5 December 1853 “The interest with which the people of the Republic anticipate the assembling of Congress and the fulfillment on that occasion of the duty imposed upon a new President is one of the best evidences of their capacity to realize the hopes of the founders of a political system at once complex and symmetrical. While the different branches of the Government are to a certain extent independent of each other, the duties of all alike have direct reference to the source of power. Fortunately, under this system no man is so high and none so humble in the scale of public station as to escape from the scrutiny or to be exempt from the responsibility which all official functions imply. Upon the justice and intelligence of the masses, in a government thus organized, is the sole reliance of the confederacy and the only security for honest and earnest devotion to its interests against the usurpations and encroachments of power on the one hand and the assaults of personal ambition on the other. . . . Recurring to these principles, which constitute the organic basis of union, we perceive that vast as are the functions and the duties of the Federal Government, vested in or entrusted to its three great departments---the legislative, executive, and judicial---yet the substantive power, the popular force, and the large capacities for social and material development exist in the respective States, which, all being of themselves well-constituted republics, as they preceded so they alone are capable of maintaining and perpetuating the American Union. The Federal Government has its appropriate line of action in the specific and limited powers conferred on it by the Constitution, chiefly as to those things in which the States have a common interest in their relations to one another and to foreign governments, while the great mass of interests which belong to cultivated men---the ordinary business of life, the springs of industry, all the diversified personal and domestic affairs of society---rest securely upon the general reserved powers of the people of the several States. There is the effective democracy of the nation, and there the vital essence of its being and its greatness. . . . Our government exists under a written compact between sovereign States, uniting for specific objects and with specific grants to their general agent. If, then, in the progress of its administration there have been departures from the terms and intent of the compact, it is and will ever be proper to refer back to the fixed standard which our fathers left us and to make stern effort to conform our action to it. . . . It is a significant fact that from the adoption of the Constitution until the officers and soldiers of the Revolution had passed to their graves, or, through the infirmities of age and wounds, had ceased to participate actively in public affairs, there was not merely a quiet acquiescence in, but a prompt vindication of, the constitutional rights of the States. The reserved powers were scrupulously respected. No statesmen put forth the narrow vies of casuists to justify interference and agitation, but the spirit of the compact was regarded as sacred in the eye of honor and indispensable for the great experiment of civil liberty. . . . It is evident that a confederation so vast and so varied, both in numbers and in territorial extent, in habits and in interest, could only be kept in national cohesion by the strictest fidelity to the principles of the Constitution as understood by those who have adhered to the most restricted construction of the powers granted by the people and the States. Interpreted and applied according to those principles, the great compact adapts itself with healthy ease and freedom to an unlimited extension of that benign system of federative self-government of which it is our glorious and, I trust, immortal charter. Let us, then, with redoubled vigilance, be on our guard against yielding to the temptation of the exercise of doubtful powers, even under the pressure of the motives of conceded temporary advantage and apparent temporary expediency. The minimum of Federal government compatible with the maintenance of national unity and efficient action in our relations with the rest of the world should afford the rule and measure of construction of our powers under the general clauses of the Constitution. A spirit of strict deference to the sovereign rights and dignity of every State, rather than a disposition to subordinate the States into a provincial relation to the central authority should characterize all our exercise of the respective powers temporarily vested in us as a sacred trust from the generous confidence of our constituents.” Special Presidential Message on Internal Improvements Editorial Note: Pierce vetoed a rivers and harbor bill on 4 August 1854, but he included only a brief explanation of his reasons. He rendered a fuller explanation toward the end of the year in a special presidential message. Since the phrase internal improvements is nowhere found in the text of the Constitution, supporters often cited the general welfare clause as an authorization for this power. Pierce correctly explained the real meaning of this clause and pointed out that it did not constitute a general grant of unspecified powers to the federal government but rather a limitation on its specific powers. He also argued that it was wrong to pass legislation that benefited only the few at the expense of the many. Washington City, 30 December 1854 “The Federal Government is the creature of the individual States
and of the people of the States severally; that the sovereign power was
in them alone; that all the powers of the Federal Government are derivative
ones, the enumeration and limitations of which are contained in the instrument
which organized it; and by express terms ‘the powers not delegated
to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States
are reserved to the States respectively or to the people’ [the Tenth
Amendment]. So long as these improvements are carried on by appropriations from the Treasury the benefits will continue to inure to those alone who enjoy the facilities afforded, while the expenditure will be a burden upon the whole country and the discrimination a double injury to places equally requiring improvement, but not equally favored by appropriations.” Third Annual Message Editorial Note: Pierce’s third annual message, which like the others he wrote himself, was mainly devoted to the explosive Kansas issue and the increasing sectional conflict resulting from it. Pierce defended his decision to sign the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), which critics claimed violated the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Pierce argued that the Missouri Compromise line of 1820 (forbidding slavery in the Louisiana territory north and west of Missouri) had been unconstitutional to begin with and thus had no just claim of permanence or inviolability. His opinion was also the opinion of his attorney general, Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts. Moreover, as Pierce pointed out, the Northern antislavery interest had already shown contempt for the compromise principle by attempting to outlaw slavery in the new southwestern territories and by refusing to extend the Missouri line to the Pacific Ocean. Their position was that no compromise should be made and none of the Western territories should be open for Southern settlement with slavery. Pierce believed that the antislavery movement was guilty of gross hypocrisy. However, rather than spend time discussing Kansas affairs in detail, Pierce looked back in American history to see how the issues of slavery and sectional balance had been handled during the constitutional period (1780s) and with regard to geographical expansion and the admission of new states. What is most remarkable about his survey is that Pierce places the full blame for sectional animosity and conflict, both in the past and present, on the Northern states, in particular the states of New England. Pierce also urged an immediate reduction in the federal tariff. He believed that, as long as the federal debt was being steadily reduced and budgetary surpluses continued, a reduction was appropriate. He understood that surplus revenue offered far too much of a temptation to spendthrift congressmen. He urged that the public money be returned to “the hands of the people.” Washington City, 31 December 1855 “The Congress of the United States is in effect that congress of sovereignties which good men in the Old World have sought for, but could never attain, and which imparts to America an exemption from the mutable leagues for common action, from the wars, the mutual invasions, and vague aspirations after the balance of power which convulse from time to time the Governments of Europe. Our cooperative action rests in the conditions of permanent confederation prescribed by the Constitution. Our balance of power is in the separate reserved rights of the States and their equal representation in the Senate. That independent sovereignty in every one of the States, with its reserved rights of local self-government assured to each by their coequal power in the Senate, was the fundamental condition of the Constitution. Without it the Union would never have existed. . . . In a word, the original States went into this permanent league on the agreed premises of exerting their common strength for the defense of the whole and of all its parts, but of utterly excluding all capability of reciprocal aggression. Each solemnly bound itself to all the others neither to undertake nor permit any encroachment upon or intermeddling with another’s reserved rights. Where it was deemed expedient particular rights of the States were expressly guaranteed by the Constitution, but in all things besides, these rights were guarded by the limitation of the powers granted [the federal government] and by express reservation [to the states] of all powers not granted in the compact of union. Thus the great power of taxation was limited to purposes of common defense and general welfare, excluding objects appertaining to the local legislation of the several States; and those purposes of general welfare and common defense were afterwards defined by specific enumeration as being matters only of co-relation between the States themselves or between them and foreign governments, which, because of their common and general nature, could not be left to the separate control of each State. Thus and thus only, by the reciprocal guaranty of all the rights of every State against interference on the part of another, was the present form of government established by our fathers and transmitted to us, and by no other means is it possible for it to exist. If one State ceases to respect the rights of another and obtrusively intermeddles with its local interests; if a portion of the States assume to impose their institutions on the others or refuse to fulfill their obligations to them, we are no longer united, friendly States, but distracted, hostile ones, with little capacity left of common advantage, but abundant means of reciprocal injury and mischief. Practically it is immaterial whether aggressive interference between the States or deliberate refusal on the part of any one of them to comply with constitutional obligations [the duty of the states to return fugitive slaves] arise from erroneous conviction or blind prejudice, whether it be perpetrated by direction or indirection. In either case it is full of threat and of danger to the durability of the Union. . . . It has been matter of painful regret to see States [the New England states]
conspicuous for their services in founding this Republic and equally sharing
its advantages disregard their constitutional obligations to it. Although
conscious of their inability to heal admitted and palpable social evils
of their own, and which are completely within their jurisdiction, they
engage in the offensive and hopeless undertaking of reforming the domestic
institutions of other States, wholly beyond their control and authority.
In the vain pursuit of ends by them entirely unattainable, and which they
may not legally attempt to compass, they peril the very existence of the
Constitution and all the countless benefits which it has conferred. While
the people of the Southern States confine their attention to their own
affairs, not presuming officiously to intermeddle with the social institutions
of the Northern States, too many of the inhabitants of the latter are
permanently organized in associations to inflict injury on the former
by wrongful acts, which would be cause of war as between foreign powers
and only fail to be such in our system because perpetrated under cover
of the Union. What is the voice of history? When the ordinance which provided for the government of the territory northwest of the river Ohio and for its eventual subdivision into new States was adopted in the Congress of the Confederation, . . . the concession of that vast territory now the seat of five among the largest members of the Union, was in great measure the act of the State of Virginia and of the South. When Louisiana was acquired by the United States, it was an acquisition not less to the North than to the South; for while it was important to the country at the mouth of the river Mississippi to become the emporium of the country above it, so also it was even more important to the whole Union to have that emporium; and although the new province, by reason of its imperfect settlement, was mainly regarded as on the Gulf of Mexico, yet in fact it extended to the opposite boundaries of the United States, with far greater breadth above than below, and was in territory, as in everything else, equally at least an accession to the Northern States. It is mere delusion and prejudice, therefore, to speak of Louisiana as an acquisition in the special interest of the South. . . . As to Florida, . . . it was an acquisition demanded by the commercial interests and the security of the whole Union. The ordinance for the government of the territory northwest of the river
Ohio had contained a provision which prohibited the use of servile labor
therein, subject to the condition of the extraditions of fugitives from
service due in any other part of the United States. Subsequently to the
adoption of the Constitution this provision ceased to remain as a law,
for its operation as such was absolutely superseded by the Constitution.
But the recollection of the fact excited the zeal of social propagandism
in some sections of the Confederation, and when a second State, that of
Missouri, came to be formed in the territory of Louisiana proposition
was made to extend to the latter territory the restriction originally
applied to the country situated between the rivers Ohio and Mississippi.
But another struggle on the same point ensued when our victorious armies returned from Mexico and it devolved on Congress to provide for the territories acquired by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The great relations of the subject had now become distinct and clear to the perception of the public mind, which appreciated the evils of sectional controversy upon the question of the admission of new States. . . . In the counsels of Congress there was manifested extreme antagonism of opinion and action between some Representatives, who sought by the abusive and unconstitutional employment of the legislative powers of the Government to interfere in the condition of the inchoate States and to impose their own social theories upon the latter, and other Representatives, who repelled the interposition of the General Government in this respect and maintained the self-constituting rights of the States. In truth, the thing attempted was in form alone action of the General Government, while in reality it was the endeavor, by abuse of legislative power, to force the ideas of internal policy entertained in particular States upon allied independent States. Once more the Constitution and the Union triumphed signally. The new territories were organized without restriction on the disputed point, and were thus left to judge in that particular for themselves; and the sense of constitutional faith proved vigorous enough in Congress not only to accomplish this primary object, but also the incidental and hardly less important one of so amending the provisions of the statute for the extradition of fugitives from service as to place that public duty under the safeguard of the General Government, and thus relieve it from obstacles raised up by the legislation of some of the States. . . . When, more recently, it became requisite to organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas, it was the natural and legitimate, if not the inevitable, consequence of previous events and legislation that the same great and sound principle which had already been applied to Utah and New Mexico should be applied to them---that they should stand exempt from the restrictions proposed in the act relative to the State of Missouri. These restrictions were, in the estimation of many thoughtful men, null
from the beginning, unauthorized by the Constitution, contrary to the
treaty stipulations for the cession of Louisiana, and inconsistent with
equality of these States. Speech of former President Franklin Pierce at a Democratic Mass Meeting Editorial Note: Pierce’s major speech against the war was delivered at a Democratic mass meeting in Concord, New Hampshire on the Fourth of July, 1863. The meeting was a combination Independence Day celebration and antiwar rally. According to reports, twenty five thousand “enthusiastic and cheering” Democrats from every corner of the state attended the meeting. Pierce was chosen to preside and deliver the keynote address. Other prominent speakers included the prominent Peace Democrat Daniel W. Voorhees of Indiana. The year 1863 witnessed a surge of antiwar sentiment in the Northern states. The enthusiasm for war that had characterized the spring and summer of 1861 did not survive the realization that the conflict was likely to be long and bloody. Furthermore, Lincoln’s policies of suppressing political dissent, raising taxes, issuing paper money, conscripting soldiers, and abolishing slavery were not popular. The congressional elections in the fall of 1862 resulted in significant Democratic gains. Increasing numbers of dead and wounded, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the Southern victory at Chancellorsville, and Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania together raised antiwar sentiment to a kind of critical mass by mid-1863. Major antiwar rallies were held in Indianapolis, Philadelphia, and New York City. Such was the situation when the ex-president mounted the rostrum at Capital Square in Concord (the state capital) to address his fellow citizens of the granite state. The student of American history should notice that on the same day a major battle was being fought between Southern and Northern armies on the fields of southeastern Pennsylvania. Pierce’s speech was printed in various Democratic papers across the North. This version is from the Philadelphia Age, 9 July 1863. As the text of the speech is based on the notes of a reporter, I have taken the liberty of correcting spelling and grammatical errors, eliminating unnecessary capitalization and commas, adding some paragraph breaks, broken down some long and poorly structured sentences into their component parts, and in a few cases corrected some very bad diction. The content, tone, and structure of the speech remains unchanged. It is printed here for the first time since it appeared in various Democratic newspapers in 1863. Concord, New Hampshire, 4 July 1863 “My friends and fellow-countrymen: While I have come to preside at this meeting, at your bidding, permit me to say that no command less imperative than your wish on such an occasion would have brought me here; and I trust that in view of the great aggregation of personal relations which thirty years of manhood have formed between us, you will recognize in this fact a warm reciprocation, on my part, of the respect and affection which, in all that time, I have never failed to find on yours. We meet on the anniversary of a day hallowed by the solemn memories, and sanctified as that of the birth of the American union. The Declaration of Independence laid the foundation of our political greatness in the two fundamental ideas of the absolute independence of the American people, and of the sovereignty of their respective states. Under that standard our wise and heroic forefathers fought the battles of the revolution, under that they conquered. In this spirit, they established the Union, having the conservative thought ever present to their minds, of the original sovereignty and independence of the several states, all with their diverse institutions, interests, opinions and habits, to be maintained intact and secure, by the reciprocal stipulations and mutual compromises of the Constitution. They were master-builders, who reared up the grand structure of the union, that august temple beneath whose dome three generations have enjoyed such blessings of civil liberty as were never before vouchsafed by Providence to man; that temple before whose altars you and I have not only bowed with devout and grateful hearts, but where, with patriotic vows and sacrifices, we have so frequently consecrated ourselves to the protection and maintenance of those lofty columns of the Constitution by which it was upheld [applause]. No visionary enthusiasts were they, dreaming vainly of the impossible uniformity of some wild utopia of their own imaginations. No desperate reformers were they, madly bent upon schemes which, if consummated, could only result in general confusion, anarchy, and chaos. Oh no! High-hearted, but sagacious and practical statesmen they were, who saw society as a living fact, not as a troubled vision; who knew that national power consists in the reconcilement of diversities of institutions and interests not their conflict and obliteration, and who saw that variety and adaptation of parts are the necessary elements of all there is sublime or beautiful in works of art or nature. Majestic were the solid foundations, the massive masonry, the columned loftiness of that magnificent structure of the union. Glorious was the career of prosperity, and peace, and power upon which from its very birthday the American union entered, as with that assured march of the conscious offspring of those giants of the Revolution. Such was the union, as conceived and administered by Washington and Adams, by Jefferson and Madison, and Jackson. Such, I say, was the union, before the evil times have befallen us; before, in the third generation, the all-encompassing patriotism of the fathers had died out, and given place to the passionate emotions of a narrow and aggressive sectionalism. The Eastern states covered the sea with their ships, the land with their farms and their manufactures; so did the middle Atlantic states, with the addition of their mineral wealth of coal and iron; while the Southern states, with their bright, soft climate and congenial soil, raised up those great staples of cotton, tobacco, sugar, rice, corn, which are the life of commerce and manufactures; and the vast regions of the West grew to be the granaries of Europe and America; and still further on was revealed the land of gold and silver on the remote shores of the Pacific. Such were the material elements of our national power. Each state with its difference of interests cooperated with the others to constitute one harmonious whole. And the various European races have coexisted here, though differing in blood, religion, and temper--the Protestant and the Catholic, the Puritan and the Cavalier. Yet, by their very differences of character they have constituted the mental and moral foundation of the power of the union. Glorious, sublime above all that history records of national greatness, was the spectacle which the union exhibited to the world, so long as the true spirit of the Constitution lived in the hearts of the people; and the government was a government of men, reciprocally respecting one another’s rights; and of states, each moving, planet-like, in the orbit of its proper place in the firmament of the union. Then we were the model republic of the world--honored, loved, or feared where we were not loved; respected abroad, peaceful and happy at home. No American citizen was then subject to be driven into exile for opinion’s sake or arbitrarily arrested and incarcerated in military Bastilles---even as he may now be---not for acts or words of imputed treason, but if he does but mourn in silent sorrow over the desolation of his country [applause]. No embattled hosts of Americans were then wasting their lives and resources in sanguinary civil strife. No suicidal and parricidal civil war then swept like a raging tempest of death over the stricken homesteads and wailing cities of the union. Oh, that such a change should ever have come over our country! It is as if all men in every state of the union--North and South, East and West---were suddenly smitten with homicidal madness, and “the custom of fell deeds” rendered as familiar as if it were a part of our inborn nature; as if an avenging angel had been suffered by Providence to wave a sword of flaming fire above our heads to convert so many millions of good men, living together in brotherly love, into insensate beings, savagely bent on the destruction of themselves and of each other, and leaving but a smoldering ruin of conflagration and of blood in the place of our once blessed union. I endeavor sometimes, as I have no doubt you do, to close my ears to the sounds, and shut my eyes to the sights of woe, and to ask myself whether all this can be. To enquire which is true, whether the past happiness and prosperity of my country, or its present misery and desolation. One or the other seems incredible and impossible; but alas, the stern truth cannot thus be dispelled from our minds. Can you forget, ought I especially be expected to forget, those not remote days in the history of our country, when its greatness and glory shed the reflection at least of their rays upon all our lives, and thus enabled us to read the lessons of the fathers and of their Constitution in the light of their principles and their deeds? Then the war was conducted only against the foreign enemy, and not in the spirit and purpose of persecuting noncombatant populations, nor of burning undefended towns or private dwellings, and wasting the fields of the husbandmen, or the workshops of the artisan, but of subduing armed hosts in the field. Then the Congress of the United States was the great council of the whole union, and of all its parts. Then the executive administration looked with impartial eye over the whole domain of the union, anxious to promote the interests and consult the honor and just pride of all the states, seeing no power beyond the law and devoutly obedient to the commands of the Constitution. How is all this changed? And why? Have we not been told, in this very place, not two weeks ago, by the voice of an authoritative expositor; do we not know that the cause of our calamities is the vicious intermeddling of too many of the citizens of the Northern states with the constitutional rights of the Southern states, cooperating with the discontents of the people of those states? Do we not know the disregard of the Constitution, and of the security it affords to the rights of states and of individuals, has been the cause of the calamity which our country is called to undergo? And now war! War that makes the blood run cold to read of in the history of other nations and of other times; war on the scale of a million men in arms; war as horrid as that of barbaric ages now raging in several of the states of this union as its more immediate field, and casting the lurid shadow of its death and lamentation athwart the whole expanse and into every nook and corner of our vast domain. Nor is that all. For in those states which are exempt from the actual ravages of war, in which the roar of the cannon, and the rattle of the musketry, and the groans of the dying, are heard but as a faint echo of terror from other lands, even here in the loyal states, the mailed hand of military usurpation strikes down the liberties of the people and its foot tramples a desecrated Constitution [applause]. Aye, in this land of free thought, free speech and free writing; in this republic of free suffrage, with liberty of thought and expression as the very essence of republican institutions; even here, in these free states, it is made a crime for a citizen-soldier, like gallant Edgerly of New Hampshire, to vote according to his conscience; or, like that noble martyr of free speech, Vallandigham, to discuss affairs in Ohio [applause]. Aye, even here, the temporary agents of the sovereign people, the transitory administrators of the government, tell us that in time of war the mere arbitrary will of the president takes the place of the Constitution, and the president himself announces to us that it is treasonable to speak or to write other wise than as he may prescribe; nay, that it is treasonable even to be silent, though we be struck dumb by the shock of the calamities with which evil counsels, incompetence and corruption have overwhelmed our country [applause]. In his letter of 12 June 1863, addressed to Erastus Corning and other citizens of the state of New York, the president makes use of the following extraordinary language: Indeed, arrests by process of courts, and arrests in cases of rebellion, do not proceed altogether upon the same basis. The former is directed at the small percentage of ordinary and continuous perpetration of crime, while the latter is directed at sudden and extensive uprisings against the government, which, at most, will succeed or fail in no great length of time. In the latter case, arrests are made, not so much for what has been done, as for what probably would be done [laughter and applause]. The latter is more for the preventive and less for the vindictive than the former. In such cases the purposes of men are much more easily understood than in cases or ordinary crime. The man who stands by and says nothing when the peril of his government is discussed cannot be misunderstood [laughter]. If not hindered, he is sure to help the enemy; much more if he talks ambiguously---talks for his country with ‘buts’ and ‘ifs’ and ‘ands’. It is seen by this letter, at least, that there is no longer any doubt as to where the responsibility for those unconstitutional acts of the last two years, perpetrated by subordinate officers of the Federal government, both civil and military, properly attaches; but who, I ask, has clothed the president with power to dictate to any one of us when we must or when we may speak, or be silent upon any subject, and especially in relation to the conduct of any public servant? By what right does he presume to prescribe a formula language for your lips or mine? It seems incredible, and even with this authenticated paper before us, is amazing that any such sentiment should have found utterance from the elected representative of a free Government like that of the United States. My friends, let those obey such threats who will. You and I have been nurtured here among the granite hills and under the clear skies of New Hampshire into no such servile temperament [applause]. True it is that any of you, that I myself, may be the next victim of unconstitutional, arbitrary, irresponsible power. But we, nevertheless, are freemen, and we are resolved to live, or if it must be, to die as such. Falter who may, we will never cease to hold up on high the Constitution of the union, though torn to shreds by the sacrilegious hands of its enemies [applause]. How strikingly significant, how suggestive to us, on this occasion, is the contemplation of that august spectacle of the recent Convention at Indianapolis, of seventy five thousand citizens calmly and bravely participating in the discussion of the great principles underlying their sacred rights as freemen-neither awed by cannon frowning upon their liberties, nor provoked by threats into retaliatory violence. I would say to you, fellow-citizens, emulate that exhibition of wisdom and patriotism. Be patient, but resolute. Yield nothing of your rights; but bear and forbear. Let your action show to the world that, with courage to confront despotism, you have also the discretion to avoid inconsiderate action in resisting its advances. George Washington and Samuel Adams, Mathew Thornton and Charles Carroll, George Reed and Roger Sherman, Philip Livingston and William Hooper, Benjamin Franklin and Edward Rutledge, George Walton and Richard Stockton, with their associates of all the thirteen then independent sovereign states, stood eighty seven years ago today, in that simple but most memorable room, where the Declaration was signed, like the people of the states whom they represented, with the solemn grandeur of high resolve, if apparently weak, yet with their armor on and their hearts strung for the contest of civil liberty. If we cannot be joyous and exultant on this anniversary of that day, it may do us good to remember that joy and exultation were far from the hearts of the brave men who sanctioned the Declaration of Independence, and then fought seven years to maintain it. No! They were not joyous but determined! They felt the inspiration of great object; and they sought its accomplishment with a stern, devoted, self-sacrificing spirit. They were animated by that determination which in a righteous cause of self-defense and self-vindication is invincible. They knew the condition of the provinces in point of men and munitions, and they had a clear perception of the colossal power which they were to confront. But neither one nor the other consideration, nor both combined, shook either their faith or their courage. They compensated for the want of numbers, arms, and all which under ordinary circumstances goes to constitute the sinew of war, by the gory of their patriotism and the strength of their purpose. To be sure, they fought for their rights, but their endurance and energy were quickened by an incalculable power; they fought for their homes, their hearth-stones, their wives and children behind them. I trust it may be profitable on this occasion, as the call of your meeting suggests, to revive the memories of that heroic epoch of the republic, even though they come laden with regrets, and hold up that period of our history in contrast with the present. They come to remind us of what our relations were like during the Revolution, and in later years, prior to 1861, under that great commonwealth which we were accustomed to refer to by the name of “the mother of statesmen and of states,” and of what those relations are now like. Can it be that we are never to think again of the land where the dust of Washington and Patrick Henry, Jefferson and Madison repose, with emotions of gratitude, admiration and filial regards? Is hate for all that Virginia has taught, all that Virginia has done, all that Virginia now is, to take the place of sentiments which we have cherished all our lives? Other men may be asked to do this, but it is in vain to appeal to me. So far as my heart is concerned, it is not a subject of volition. While there my be those in whose breasts such sentiments as these awaken no responsive feeling, I feel assured, as I look over this vast assemblage, that the grateful emotions which have signalized this anniversary in all our past history, are not less yours than they are mine today. Let us be thankful, at least, that we have ever enjoyed them; that nothing can take from us the pride and exultation we have felt, as we saw the old flag unfold over us, and realized its glorious accretion of stars from the original thirteen to thirty four; that we say, much, when we say, in the language of New Hampshire’s greatest son, if we can with assurance say no more: “The past at least is secure.” But if we cannot be joyous, my friends, as we have been on this anniversary in the past, let us strive with the blessings of God to be considerate, brave, and wise. If there be anything of the great inheritance under existing circumstances to save, may we not in a humble, earnest way contribute to that salvation? If we cannot do all for which our hearts yearn, may we not at least approach its consummation in that spirit of devoted loyalty to the Constitution and the union which we feel? Let the disregard of others for what the revolutionary fathers achieved, and the compact which they made---subdued as they were in all things, but a sense of right and honour, by the sufferings of a seven-years war---now stand out before us. Let the people realize what this constant ringing in their ears of the charge that “the Constitution is a covenant with death and league with hell” has brought about. And then let them see and feel what we had in eighty years of unexampled prosperity and happiness under that Constitution. Let them look back upon those eighty years of civil liberty, of the reign of constitutional law; eighty years of security in our homes, of living in our castles, humble though they may have been, with no power to invade them by night or by day, except under the well-defined and exhibited authority of law (a written, published law, enacted by themselves for the punishment of crime and for their own protection); eighty years of a great experiment which astonished the world. If the people will do this, I cannot, I will not believe that we are so smitten by judicial blindness, that the great mass of our population, North and South, will not some day resolve that we come together again under the old Constitution, with the old Flag [applause]. I will not believe that this experiment of man’s capacity for self-government , which was so successfully illustrated until all the revolutionary men had passed to their final reward, is to prove a humiliating failure. Whatever others may do we will never abandon the hope that the union is to be restored [applause]. Whatever others may do, we will cling to it, “as the mariner clings to the last plank when night and the tempest close around him.” No matter what may have been done North or South to produce it, this terrible ordeal of blood which has been visited upon us ought to be sufficient to bring us all back to consciousness of responsibilities and duties. The emotions of all good men are those of sorrow and shame and sadness now, over the condition of their country, when they retire at night, and when they open their eyes upon the dawning day, struggle against them though they may. Why should they attempt to disguise it? Solicitude which hinges upon apprehension of personal danger or personal loss, and that alone, is contemptible. Trifling men may indulge in trifling word and thought , while the foundations laid by the Fathers are crumbling beneath their feet; but the artificers who laid those foundations found no time for trifling while engaged in their grand and serious work, nor can you. They could lift up their souls in prayer, but they had no heart for levity and mirth. My friends, you have had, most of you have had, great sorrows, overwhelming personal sorrows, it may be true, but none like these, none like these, which come welling up, day by day, from the great fountain of national disaster, red with the best and bravest blood of the country, North and South; red with blood of those in both sections of the union whose fathers fought the common battle of independence. Nor have these sorrows brought with them any compensation, whether of national pride or of victorious arms. For is it not vain to appeal to you to raise a shout of joy because the men from the land of Washington [Va.], Marion and Sumter [SC], are barring their breasts to the steel of the men from the land of Warren, Stark and Stockton [Mass.], or because if this war is to continue to be waged, one or the other must go to the wall, must be consigned to humiliating subjugation? This fearful, fruitless, fatal civil war has exhibited our amazing resources and vast military power. It has shown that united, even in carrying out, in its widest interpretation, the Monroe Doctrine on this continent, we could, with such protection as the broad ocean which flows between ourselves and the European powers affords us, have stood against the world in arms. I speak of the war as fruitless; for it is clear that, prosecuted upon the basis of the president’s proclamations of 22 September and 24 September 1862, prosecuted as I must understand those proclamations, to say nothing of the kindred blood which has followed, upon the theory of emancipation, devastation, subjugation, it cannot fail to be fruitless in everything except the harvest of woe which it is ripening for what was once the peerless republic [applause]. Now, fellow citizens, after having said this much, it is right that you should ask me, what would you do in this fearful extremity? I reply, from the beginning of this struggle to the present moment, my hope has been in moral power. There it reposes still. When in the spring of 1861 I had occasion to address my fellow citizens of this city, from the balcony of the hotel before us, I then said I had not believed, and did not then believe, aggression by arms was either a suitable or possible remedy for existing evils [applause]. All that has occurred since then has but strengthened and confirmed my conviction in this regard. I repeat, then my judgment impels me to rely upon moral force, and not upon any of the coercive instruments of military power. We have seen in the experience of the last two years how futile are all our efforts to maintain the union by the force of arms; but even had war been carried on by us successfully, the ruinous result would exhibit its utter impracticability for the attainment of the desired end. Through peaceful agencies, and through such agencies alone, can we hope “to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of peace to ourselves and our posterity,” the great objects for which, and for which alone, the Constitution was formed. If you turn around and ask me, what if these agencies fail; what if the passionate anger of both sections forbids; what if the ballot box is sealed? Then, all efforts, whether of war or peace, having failed, my reply is, you will take care of yourselves. With or without arms, with or without leaders, we will, at least, in the effort to defend our rights as a free people, build up a great mausoleum of hearts to which men who yearn for liberty will in after years, with bowed heads and reverently, resort, as Christian pilgrims to the sacred shrines of the Holy Land.”
|