The Great Conspiracy and England's Neutrality (Part Four) January, 1862

THE GREAT CONSPIRACY, and England's Neutrality. (Part Four of Four)

An Address delivered at Mount Kisco, New York, on the Fourth of July, 1861, the Eighty-Sixth Anniversary of American Independence. 

Source: Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Honolulu: January 30, 1862.

By John Jay, Esq. 

[Concluded from our last]

FOREIGN ENTANGLEMENTS INSEPARABLE FROM DISUNION

Let the American Union be dismembered, and what is to prevent foreign powers from re-entering upon our national domain from which at such great cost and labour they have been ousted?

An old officer of the French empire writing to the Courrier des Etats-Unis, has predicted that in the first place France would retake Louisiana, according to ancient treaties, that Spain would reclaim Florida, that England perhaps would seek to appropriate Oregon, and that Mexico, under foreign protection, would retake New Mexico, Texas and California; or supposing that we should consent to the establishment of the so-called Southern Confederacy, which we know to be a mere military despotism, what possible guarantee can we have for peace in. the future, when each state reserves the right to secede at pleasure and enter at will into foreign alliances inaugurating universal chaos and chronic dissolution! Even now, while the struggle is being waged, the leading men of South Carolina, already sick of their independence before it is accomplished, repudiate republican institutions and sigh for a British prince to lend the odor of royalty to the aristocracy which they boast—an aristocracy based not upon historic deeds and noble heroism, but simply upon the color of their skins, and their despotic dominion over helpless slaves :—an aristocracy whose wealth is invested in human flesh, and whose revenues are collected in the field by the lash, and on the auction-block by the hammer!

Let our Union be divided with the view of accomplishing present peace, and not only would the United States fall from her position of a first class power to that of a minor republic, with a contracted sea-board and a defenseless border: but the act of separation would inaugurate an exposure to hostilities,—first from our new and unfriendly neighbor, and then from every foreign power with which one or all of the Southern States might choose to form an alliance. Either contingency would necessarily change our national policy, require the maintenance of a standing army, and complicate endlessly our commercial relations. Now, we stand aloof from the quarrels of the rest of the world and can devote our energies to the development of our marvelous resources and the extension of civilization and freedom over the American continent; then we should be compelled to an attitude of perpetual self-defense to save us from constant entanglement in the web of European politics. Already have we had a foretaste of the sort of treatment which Europe will accord to the severed fragments of the American Republic.

To maintain the respect of the world we must maintain first the integrity of our national territory, and next the integrity of our fundamental principles. As for the argument that if the rebellion is crushed harmony can never be restored, Canada furnishes the refutation. The bloody feuds of 1838 have hardly left a trace to mar the tranquil prosperity which marks the progress of that great province. There is reason to believe that the Union men of the South await but the coming of the federal forces in sufficient strength, to show themselves again the cordial supporters of the federal government. But even if this were not so, and there was reason to fear a long period of distrust and disaffection, the fact remains that the interests of the American people imperatively demand that the integrity of the union shall be preserved, whether the slavery propagandists of the South like it or like it not.

WE MUST FIGHT

This is one of those decisive epochs that occur in the history of all great nations came to our fathers in 1776. Submission to usurped authority, or national independence, was the issue: and on the day we commemorate they chose the latter; and the force of their example on the world is yet to be determined. To day the imperious demand comes from slavery, "submit or be destroyed!" Already has a blow been struck by slavery at our Republic the force of which reverberates through the world. Two hundred millions of debts due from rebels to loyal citizens are repudiated, the business of the country is arrested, bankruptcy stares us in the face; worse than all, our flag has been insulted, our prestige impaired, and, from foreign courts, we have received treatment that our American pride can really brook. Honor, interest, self-respect and the highest duty call upon us to crush, and crush speedily, the insolent traitors whose secret and atrocious perfidy has temporarily crippled us: and while we recall the motives that combine to compel us to resistance, let us not forget the duty which this nation owes to the oppressed race who arc the innocent cause of all our troubles, and who have no friends to look to but. ourselves, to prevent the spreading of slavery over every foot of American territory, and the waving of the flag of the slave trader over the fearful horrors of the Middle Passage.

Gentlemen, as in our revolutionary struggle our fathers had to contend with the timid and the avaricious, who feared the evils of war and continually cried peace! peace! where there was no peace, so may we expect to be constantly hampered by declaimers in favor of compromise. I do not stop to consider the fitness of our lending an ear to such a cry until the insult to our flag has been atoned for and until our supremacy is acknowledged, for the great mass of the people of the country will be unanimous on this point; they will regard the bare suggestion of treating with the rebels whose hands are stained with the blood of the sons of Massachusetts, of Ellsworth and of Winthrop, of Greble and of Ward, as a personal insult, and will reply to it as did Patrick Henry—"We must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!" The sword is now the only pen with which we can write "peace" in enduring characters on the map of America.

The day of compromise is gone: "that sort of thing," as the secretary said, " ended with the fourth of March." We have had devices enough for saving the Union, devices suggested by the men who are now striving to destroy it.

There is one good old plan provided by the Constitution that was successfully practiced by Washington and Jackson; we are about to try that; let us try it thoroughly; it is simply the due execution of the laws by whatever degree of force the exigency may require. If our army of 300,000 men is insufficient, a million stand ready to follow them to the field.

THE DIGNITY OF OUR POSITION AND DUTIES

It would be difficult, my countrymen, to exaggerate the solemn importance of our national position. A struggle for life and death has commenced between freedom and slavery, and on the event of the struggle depends our national existence. Let us falter, let us compromise, let us yield: and the work of our fathers and the inheritance of our children, our own honor and the hopes of the oppressed nationalities of the world will be buried in a common grave! Let us be demoralized by defeat in the field, or what is infinitely worse, by submission to rebellion, and in foreign lands a man will blush and hang his head to declare himself an American citizen. A whipped hound should be the emblem of the Northern man who whimpers for a peace that can only be gained by dishonor.

But let us remember our fathers who, eighty-five years ago, this day, made universal freedom and equal right, the corner stone of this Republic; let us exhibit, as we have begun to do, their stern resolve and high devotion in behalf of constitutional freedom, and we shall secure for our children and our children's children a gigantic and glorious nationality, based upon principles of Christian civilization, such as the world has never seen before.

There is nothing impossible, nothing improbable in our speedy realization of a glorious future.

The seeds of this rebellion have long lurked in our system; for years it has been coming to a head, and simply from want of proper treatment, it has now burst with angry violence : but the pulse of the nation beats cooly and calmly, the partial local inflammation but serves to exhibit the lusty health of the body politic, and when this rebellion is extinguished, and its cause removed, we may hope that we are sale from an organized rebellion for at least a century to come.

With what speed this rebellion shall be crushed, depends solely upon yourselves. Let public feeling lag throughout the land, and the War Department will lag in Washington. Let us become careless and indifferent about the matter, and contractors will cheat our soldiers, incompetent officers will expose them to defeat, official indifference will produce general demoralization.

But let us keep ever in mind the lesson we have so dearly learned—that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Let the administration and the army feel that their every act is canvassed by an intelligent people, and when approved, greeted by a hearty appreciation : that every branch of industry awaits the ending of the war, and that from every part of the land comes the cry of "forward," and the arm of the union at Washington will obey the heart of the nation, whenever a prayer rises in its behalf, or its flag kisses the breeze of heaven.

Let us with this sleepless vigilance on our part, repose a generous confidence in our president who has won the generous applause of his democratic opponents, nor scan too impatiently the warlike policy of Scott.

Like all true-hearted and brave veterans he wishes to spare as far as possible the blood alike of loyal soldiers and deluded rebels, and to carry with the flag of our union not simply the power to make it respected but the more glorious attributes that cause it to be loved. "Not," to adopt the words of Gov. Andrew, of Massachusetts, "to inaugurate a war of sections, not to avenge former wrongs, not to perpetuate ancient griefs or memories of conflict," will that flag move onwards until it floats again in its pride and beauty over Richmond and Sumpter,and Montgomery, and New Orleans: but to indicate the majesty of the people, to retain and re-invigorate the institutions of our fathers, to rescue from the despotism of traitors the loyal citizens of the South, and place all loyal or rebel, under the protection of a union that is essential to the welfare of the whole.

The eyes of the whole world are this day fixed upon you. To Europeans themselves, European questions sink to insignificance compared with the American question now to be decided. Rise, my countrymen as did our fathers on the day we celebrate, to the majestic grandeur of this question in its two-fold aspect, as regards America, and as regards the world. Remember that with the failure of the American republic will fall the wisest system of Republican Government which the wisdom of man has yet invented, and the hopes of popular freedom cherished throughout the globe.

Let us, standing by our fathers' graves, swear anew and teach the oath to our children, that with God's help the American Republic, clasping this continent in its embrace shall stand unmoved, though all the powers of slavery, piracy, and European jealousy should combine to overthrow it; that we shall have in the future, as we have had in the past, one country, one constitution and one destiny; and that when we shall have passed from earth and the acts of to-day shall be matter of history, and the dark power now seeking our overthrow shall have been itself overthrown, our sons may gather strength from our example in every contest with despotism that time may have in store to try their virtue, and that they may rally under the stars and stripes to battle for freedom and the rights of man, with our olden war cry, "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable."