Gov. Seymour's Speech: Why the Republican Party Cannot Save the Union (1862)

Source: The Polynesian. Honolulu: December 6, 1862
[Transcriber's note: This is an excerpt of a speech by Gov. Horatio Seymour, D-New York. Here is a biography. It was published here in Honolulu. The original speech was delivered in September, 1862. Go to this link for a New York Times review of his speech). 

On the other hand, the very character of the Republican organizations, makes it incapable of conducting the affairs of the Government. For a series of years, it has practiced a system of coalitions, with men differing in principle, until it can have no distinctive policy. In such chaotic masses, the violent have most control. They have been educating their followers for years, through the press, not to obey laws which did not accord with their views. How can they demand submission from whole communities, while they contend that individuals may oppose laws opposed to their consciences? They are higher law men. They insist that the contest, in which we are engaged, is an irrepressible one and that therefore the South could not avoid it, unless they were willing at the outset to surrender all that abolitionists demanded. To declare that this contest is irrepressible, declares that our Fathers formed a government which could not stand. Are such men the proper guardians of this government? Have not their speeches and acts given strength to the rebellion, and have they not also enabled its leaders to prove to their deluded followers, that the contest was an Irrepressible one? 

But their leaders have not only asserted that  this contest was irrepressible unless the South would give up what extreme Republicans demanded, (their local institutions,) but those in power have done much to justify this rebellion in the eyes of the world. The guilt of rebellion is determined by the character of the government against which it is arrayed. The right of revolution, in the language of President Lincoln, is a sacred right when exerted against a bad government. 

We charge that this rebellion is most wicked because it is against the best government that ever existed. It is the excellence of our government that makes resistance a crime. Rebellion is not necessarily wrong. It may be an act of the highest virtue — it may be one of the deepest depravity. The rebellion of our Fathers is our proudest boast — the rebellion of our brothers is the humiliation of our nation is our national disgrace. To resist a bad government is patriotism — to resist a good one is the greatest guilt. The first is patriotism-the last is treason. Legal tribunals can only regard  resistance of laws as a crime but in the forum of public sentiment the character of the Government will decide if the act is treason or patriotism. 

Our Government and its administration are different things; but in the eyes of the civilized world, abuses, weakness or folly in the conduct of affairs go far to justify resistance.  I have read to you the testimony of Messrs. Greeley, Weed, Bryant, Raymond and Marble, charging fraud, corruption, outrage and incompetency upon those in power. Those who stand up to testify to the incompetency of these representatives of a discordant party to conduct the affairs of our government are politically opposed to us. Bear in mind that the embarrassments of President Lincoln grow out of the conflicting views of his political friends, and their habits and principles of insubordination. His hands would be strengthened by a Democratic victory, and if his private prayers are answered we will relieve him from the pressure of philantropists who thirst for blood, and who call for the extermination of the men, women and children of the South. The brutal and bloody language of partisan editors and political preachers have lost us the sympathy of the civilized world in a contest where all mankind should be upon one side. 

Turning to the legislative departments of our government, what do we see? In the history of the decline and fall of nations, there are no more striking displays of madness and folly. The assemblage of Congress throws gloom over the nation; its continuance in session is more disastrous than defeat upon the battle field. It excites alike alarm and disgust. 

The public are disappointed in the results of the war. This is owing to the differing objects of the people on the one hand, and of the fanatical agitators in and out of Congress on the other. In the army, the Union men of the North and South battle side by side, under one flag, to put down rebellion and uphold the Union and Constitution. In Congress a fanatical majority make war on the Union men of the South and strengthen the hands of secessionists by words and acts which enable them to keep alive the flames of civil war. What is done on the battle held by the blood and treasure of the people is undone by Senators. Half of the time is spent in factious measures designed to destroy all confidence in the government at the South, and the rest in annoying our army, in meddling with its operations, embarrassing our generals and in publishing undigested and unfounded scandal. One party is seeking to bring about peace, the other to keep alive hatred and bitterness by interferences. They prove the wisdom of Solomon, when he said: -"It is an honor to a man to cease from strife, but every fool will be meddling." 

This war cannot be brought to a successful conclusion, or our country restored to an honorable peace under the Republican leaders, for another reason. Our disasters are mainly due to the fact that they have not dared to tell the truth to the community. A system of misrepresentation had been practiced so long and so successfully that when the war burst upon us they feared to let the people know its full proportions, and they persisted in assuring their friends it was but a passing excitement. They still asserted that the South was iunable to 
maintain and carry on a war. They denounced as a traitor every man who tried to tell the truth and to warn our people of the magnitude of the contest. 

Now, my Republican friends, you know that the misapprehensions of the North with regard to the South has drenched the land with blood. Was this ignorance accidental? I appeal to 
you Republicans, if for years past, through the press and in publications which have been urged upon your attention by the leaders of your party, you have not been taught to despise the 
power and resources of the South? I appeal to you to say if this teaching has not been part of the machinery by which power has been gained? I appeal to you to answer if those 
who tried to teach truths now admitted have not been denounced? I appeal to you if a book, beyond all others, false, bloody and treasonable, was not sent out with the endorsement of all your managers; and is it not true that now, when men blush to own they believed its statements , that its author is honored by an official station? It is now freely confessed by you all, that you have been deceived with respect to the South, who deceived you? Who, by false teachings, instilled contempt and hate into the minds of our people? Who stained our land with blood? Who caused ruin and distress? All these things are within your own knowledge. Are their authors the leaders to rescue us from oar calamities? They shrink back appalled from the mischief they have wrought, and tell you it is an irrepressible contest. That reason is as good for Jefferson Davis as for them. They attempt to drown reflections by new excitements and new appeals to our passions. Having already, in legislation, gone far beyond the limits at which, by their resolutions, they were pledged to stop, they now ask to adopt measures which they have heretofore denounced as unjust and unconstitutional. For this reason they cannot save our country. 

As our national calamities thicken upon us, an attempt is made by their authors to avoid their responsibilities by insisting that our failures are due to the fact that their measures are not carried out, although government has already gone far beyond its pledges. The demands of these men will never cease, simply because they hope to save themselves from condemnation by having unsatisfied demands At the last session Congress not only abolished slavery in the District of Columbia, but, to quiet clamorous men, an act of confiscation and emancipation was passed, which, in the opinion of leading Republicans, was unconstitutional and unjust. By this act the rebels have no property, not even their own lives, and they own no slaves. But to the astonishment and disgust of those who believe in the policy of statutes and proclamations, the rebels still live and fight and hold their slaves. These measures seem to have reanimated them. They have a careless and reckless way of appropriating their lives and property, which by act of Congress belong to us, in support of their cause. 

But these fanatical men have learned that it is necessary to win a victory before they divide the spoil — and what do they now propose? As they cannot take the properly of rebels 
beyond their reach they will take the property of the loyal men of the Border States. The violent men of this party as you know from experience, my conservative Republican friends, in the end have their way. They now demand that the President shall issue a Proclamation of immediate and universal emancipation! Against whom is this to be directed? Not against those in rebellion for they came within the scope of the act of Congress. It can only be applied to those who have been true to our Union and our flag. They are to be punished for their loyalty. When we consider their sufferings and their cruel wrongs at the hands of the secessionists, their reliance upon our faith, is not this proposal black with ingratitude? 

The scheme for an immediate emancipation and general arming of the slaves throughout the South is a proposal for the butchery of women and children, for scenes of lust and rapine, of arson and murder unparalleled in the history of the world. The horrors of the French Revolution would become tame in comparison. Its effect would not be confined to the walls of cities, but there would be a wide-spread scene of horror over the vast expanse of great States, involving alike the loyal and seditious. Such malignity and cowardice would invoke the interference of civilized Europe. History tells of the fires kindled in the name of religion, of atrocities committed under pretexts of order or liberty; but it is now urged that scenes bloodier than the world has yet seen shall be enacted in the name of philanthropy!

A proclamation of general and armed emancipation at this time would be a cruel wrong to the African. It is now officially declared in Presidential addresses, which are fortified by congressional action, that the negro cannot live in the enjoyment of the full privileges of life among the white race. It is now admitted, after our loss of infinite blood and treasure, that the great problem we have to settle is not the slavery, but the negro question. A terrible question, not springing from the statutes or usages, but growing out of the unchangeable distinction of race. It is discovered at this late day, in republican Illinois, that it is right to drive him from its soil. It is discovered by a Republican Congress, after convulsing our country with declarations of equal rights and asserting that he was merely a victim of unjust laws, that he should be sent away from our land. The issue is now changed. The South holds that the African is fit to live here as a slave. Our Republican government denies that he is fit to live here at all.