Speeches and Letters of Gerrit Smith on the Rebellion (Classic Reprint) - Tapa blanda

Excerpt from Speeches and Letters of Gerrit Smith on the Rebellion

Oh! Had'we but been uncorrupted by slavery, how quickly would we have put down the Rebellion, if indeed there could in that case, have been a Rebellion to put down We should then have wasted no time, and produced no division amongst ourselves, by talking about the Union, the Constitution, or even the Country. Our one purpose then would have been to put down the rebels - and to put them down irrespectively of the hearing it might have on whatever interests. Naked plunderers and murder ers were these entirely unwronged rebels: and they Should have been put down with as total a disregard of consequences, as would characterize the Single purpose of a stern father in putting down his revolted child. Who doubts that with such a disregard they had been put down instantly Suppose that scoundrels in Utica your adopted and my native home - had, with arms in their hands, and using them too, seized her funds, her fire-engines, and her other corporate property, and that yen-had, at the time, been her Mayor; would you have sent to the Common Council a Message of the tone and character of that you have just sent to the Legis lature Would you have sought in it to divide her citizens upon a multiplicity of issues respecting the future condition of her Fire Department, her funds and other interests? Oh no! Oh no You could have made no Democratic and no other gain by such an insane policy. You would, beyond a doubt, have sought to unite them in the one purpose and one endeavor to subdue and punish the miscreants ay, to subdue and punish them, come what might of Fire Department, Funds, or even Utica herself. I am wrong-they would already have been thus united. Such union would have been the necessary result of the outrage. Only bad counsels and partisan influences could have disunited them. The people of the North were united when they heard of the bombard~ ing of Sumter. But alas our good and patriotic President tem porized! The spirit, which should have been taken at the flood, was allowed time to subside. Hundreds of thousands of lives, and directly and indirectly thousands of millions of dollars have already been the penalty of this mistake': and only too reasonable is the fear that the loss of the nation will be needed to éomplete the penalty. How surely and how quickly would he at that time but for the timidity and hesitancy, which grew out of his pro Slavery education, have saved our wealth and toil from this Oppres sive taxation, our tens of thousands of bereaved families from their sorrows, and our country from the appalling prospect of her ruin! The Rebellion should have been shot dead at once. Whoever denies it proves therein that he is insensible of its infernal charac ter, and knows not how to deal with such a crime. Or rather, whoever denies it makes room thereby for the suspicion that he sympathizes with the Rebellion and is a participant in the crime.

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Excerpt from Speeches and Letters of Gerrit Smith on the Rebellion

Dear Sir: I have read your Message. Although I belong to no party, I belong to a country. Although there are no party interests for me to promote and adjust myself to, I feel the preciousness of the interests of my country, and am deeply and abidingly concerned for their safety. Seldom more than when reading the Message have I felt the great peril of those interests. For I remember that the utterer of its dangerous doctrines is emphatically, if not indeed preeminently, the mouthpiece of a party comprising nearly half the voters of the Free States. I remember too what great weight with his party have the words of a gentleman of commanding talents, high culture, multiplied influential public relations, bland and winning manners, admired social and domestic life. How could I fail to fear that the Democratic Party, if not already fully identified with these dangerous doctrines, will by force of such commendations of them soon become so?

1st. I find denunciation in the Message, but no denunciation of the rebels. The Cotton States and the New-England States do in your esteem share about equally in the guilt of the Rebellion. New-England, because she suffered her Garrison to write against Slavery, and her Phillips to talk against it, is in your eyes as criminal as the bloody men who flew at the throat of their unoffending country. New-England who, to help put them down, promptly armed hundreds of thousands of her cherished sons and promptly poured out scores of millions of her wealth, has no less of your censure and no more of your favor than have those bloody men. And yet you propose to put down the Rebellion! But how can this be done if nearly half of us are like yourself? How could we have the heart to do it even at little cost - much less at the required cost - if the rebels are no worse than the people of New-England? And how, if we had the heart, would it be practicable, should you succeed, as is your too manifest intent, in arraying the Western and Central States against New-England instead of Rebeldom?

2d. I see you still regret that the Satanic compromise proposed two years ago was not adopted.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.