Assumes absolute power.
The President in effect said to them:
I this day assume absolute power.
I take into my hands the control of the purse and of the sword of the United States.
I suspend the writ of habeas corpus, and shall arrest and detain at my pleasure any person whom I may consider dangerous to the public safety.
I assume all these powers, and shall use them to compel the States of the South, which have seceded, to return to the Union, to maintain popular government, and to avenge wrongs.
All these things I do in obedience to a popular demand, and I now require your submission and support.
I think it is impossible to recognize in this picture of absolutism a trace of American constitutional government.
I do not think that an attempt has been made to assert such powers over men of English speech and English blood since Charles the First passed from the royal banqueting hall to death.
Certainly not since William of
Orange landed at
Torbay.
The President of the
United States assumed absolute power in compliance with a popular demand, and called for an army to do what that popular demand required.
Among the things to be done was one which the Supreme Court had declared that the
Government of the
United States had no power to do, and another was something which, under all free governments, is left to the
civil magistrate and not to the soldier—to avenge wrongs.
All who lived during those exciting times will bear witness to the truth of
Mr. Lincoln's statement that what he did was in compliance with a popular demand.
The people of the
North had been roused to fury and clamored for the blood of their political enemies.
Every measure of the Administration,
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however extreme and however illegal, was received with acclamations, and a suggestion of opposition or dissent was treated as a kind of treason.
Before proceeding to describe the effect of this proclamation upon tile people of the border States, I desire to call your attention to a circumstance well calculated to cause them to interpret it most unfavorably to their own security.
Mr. Lincoln had been elected by a minority of the voters of the
United States, but by a majority of the people of the
Northern States.
While his party expressed no purpose or desire to interfere with slavery in the States in which it was established, it was openly hostile to the institution and ready to resolve all questions concerning it, that might come within the scope of Federal power and jurisdiction, unfavorably to it.
Among his supporters were most of the Abolitionists, as they were then known, who were in favor of any measure that would lead to the destruction of slavery, and violent in their denunciations of the
Southern people and their institutions.
This part of the supporters of
Mr. Lincoln viewed, at least with complacency, such measures for the overthrow of slavery as the effort to incite servile insurrection in
Virginia, and looked upon the leader of that attempt as a martyr.
When, therefore, the border State people were called upon to obey the proclamation, they could not shut their eyes to the fact that in executing
Mr. Lincoln's designs against the cotton States, and in maintaining popular government, and in avenging wrongs in obedience to a popular demand, the army to be employed might consist of those who did not regard the governments of any of the slave States as popular governments and who looked upon the execution of
John Brown as a wrong.
I do not, by any means, intend to imply that this was the reason they resented the proclamation as they did, but it is a circumstance to be considered in judging the conduct of those who took part in the events of that day.
