Wendell Phillips, Theodore C. Pease, Speeches, Lectures and Letters of Wendell Phillips: Volume 1

[379] when Banks was elected, and a year ago, again, the whole government was checked till the Republicans put their Speaker in the chair. Now the North elects her President, the South secedes. I suppose we shall be bargained away into compromise. I know the strength and virtue of the farming West. It is one of the bright spots that our sceptre tends there, rather than to the seaboard. Four or eight years hence, when this earthquake will repeat itself, the West may be omnipotent, and we shall see brave things. It is not the opinion of the absolute majority which rules, but that amount of public opinion which can be brought to bear on a particular point at a given time. Therefore the compact, energetic, organized Seaboard, with the press in its hand, rules, spite of the wide-spread, inert, unorganized West. While the agricultural frigate is getting its broadside ready, the commercial clipper has half finished its slave voyage.

In spite of Lincoln's wishes, therefore, I fear he will never be able to stand against Seward, Adams, half the Republican wire-pullers, and the Seaboard. But even now, if Seward and the rest had stood firm, as Lincoln, Sumner, Chase, Wade, and Lovejoy, and the Tribune have hitherto done, I believe you might have polled the North, and had a response, three to one: “Let the Union go to pieces, rather than yield one inch.” I know no sublimer hour in history. The sight of these two months is compensation for a life of toil. Never let Europe taunt us again that our blood is wholly cankered by gold. Our people stood, willing their idolized government should go to pieces for an idea. True, other nations have done so. England in 1640,--France in 1791,--our colonies in 1775. Those were proud moments. But to-day touches a nobler height. Their idea was their own freedom. Today, the idea, loyal to which our people willingly see their Union wrecked, is largely the hope of justice to a dependent,