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without any pretense, break up their government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth.
It forces us to ask, ‘ Is there in all republics this inherent and fatal weakness?
Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?’
So viewing the issue, no choice was left but to call out the war-power of the Government, and so to resist force employed for its destruction by force for its preservation.”
The President then reviewed the conduct of the Virginia conspirators and secessionists after the attack on Fort Sumter, and condemned the policy of “armed neutrality” proposed in some of the Border Slave-labor States, as a policy that recognized “no fidelity to the Constitution, no obligation to maintain the Union.”
1 He then noticed the call for troops to put down the insurrection, and the wonderful response; the action of the executive government in the matter of the writ of habeas corpus; the attitude of foreign nations toward the Government, and the necessity for vindicating its power; and then said, “It is now recommended, that you give the legal means for making this contest a short and decisive one; that you place at the control of the Government, for the work, at least four hundred thousand men and four hundred millions of dollars.2 . . . A right result, at this time, will be worth more to the world than ten times the men and ten times the money.
The evidence reaching us from the country leaves no doubt that the material for the work is abundant, and that it needs only the hand of legislation to give it legal sanction, and the hand of the Executive to give it practical shape and efficiency.
In other words, the people will save their Government, if the Government itself will do its part only indifferently well.”
The President spoke of the methods used by the conspirators to stir up the people to revolt, already noticed,3 and then argued, at considerable length, against the existence of State Sovereignty and the right of a State to secede ;4 and he questioned whether, at that time, there was a majority of the legally qualified voters of any State, excepting South Carolina, who were in favor of disunion.
“This is essentially a people's contest,” he said; and he was happy in the belief that the “plain people” comprehended it as such.
He then noticed the remarkable fact, that while large numbers of the officers of the Army and Navy had proved themselves unfaithful, “not one common soldier or common sailor is known to have ”
1 Although the President made no allusion to Slavery, as the inciting cause of the rebellion, he stated the significant fact, that “None of the States, commonly called Slave States, except Delaware, gave a regiment, through regular State organizations,” for the support of the Government. “A few regiments,” he said, “have been organized within some others of those States, by Individual enterprise, and received into the Government service.”
2 Four hundred thousand men constituted only about one-tenth of those of proper age for military service “within the regions where,” the President said, “apparently all are willing to engage;” and, he added, the sum of four hundred millions of dollars “is less than a twenty-third part of the money value owned by the men who seem ready to devote the whole.”
3 See page 40.
4 “The States have their status in the Union,” he said, “and they have no other legal status. If they break from this, they can only do so against law and by revolution. The Union, and not themselves separately, procured their independence and their liberty. By conquest or purchase, the Union gave each of them whatever of independence or liberty it has. The Union is older than any of the States, and, in fact, it created them as States. Originally, some dependent colonies made the Union, and, in turn, the Union threw off their old dependence for them, and made them States, such as they are. Not one of them ever bad a State Constitution independent of the Union. Of course, it is not forgotten that all the new States framed their constitutions before they entered the Union; nevertheless, dependent upon and preparatory to coming into the Union.”
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