CHAPTER III.

Senator Seward-The "Irrepressible Conflict"-Helper's "Impending Crisis"-The John Brown Raid-The nature of Fanaticism-The Democratic National Convention at Charleston-Its proceedings and adjournment to Baltimore-Reassembling at Baltimore and proceedings there-Its breaking up and division into the Douglas and the Breckinridge Conventions-Proceedings of each-Review of the whole and the effect on the South.

SENATOR SEWARD, of New York, was at this period the acknowledged head and leader of the Republican party. Indeed, his utterances had become its oracles. He was much more of a politician than a statesman. Without strong convictions, he understood the art of preparing in his closet, and uttering before the public, antithetical sentences well calculated both to inflame the ardor of his anti-slavery friends and to exasperate his pro-slavery opponents. If he was not the author of the "irrepressible conflict," he appropriated it to himself and converted it into a party oracle. He thus aroused passions, probably without so intending, which it was beyond his power afterwards to control. He raised a storm which, like others of whom we read in history, he wanted both the courage and the power to quell.

We quote the following extract from his famous speech at Rochester on the 25th of October, 1858: * "Free labor and slave labor, these antagonistic systems, are continually coming into close contact, and collision results. Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible

* Helper's Compendium, p. 142.

conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation or entirely a free-labor nation. Either the cotton and rice fields of South Carolina and the sugar plantations of Louisiana will ultimately be tilled by free labor, and Charleston and New Orleans become marts for legitimate merchandise alone, or else the rye fields and wheat fields of Massachusetts and New York must again be surrendered by their farmers to slave culture and to the production of slaves, and Boston and New York become once more markets for trade in the bodies and souls of men.”

However impossible that Massachusetts and New York should ever again become slaveholding States, and again engage in the African slave trade, yet such was the temper of the times that this absurd idea produced serious apprehensions in the North. It gave rise to still more serious apprehensions in the South. There they believed or affected to believe that the people of the North, in order to avoid the dreaded alternative of having slavery restored among themselves, and having their rye fields and wheat fields cultivated by slave labor, would put forth all their efforts to cut up slavery by the roots in the Southern States. These reckless fancies of Senator Seward made the deeper impression upon the public mind, both North and South, because it was then generally believed that he would be the candidate of the Republican party at the next Presidential election. In accordance with the views expressed by Senator Seward, Hinton Helper's "Impending Crisis" soon afterwards appeared, a book well calculated to alarm the southern people. This was ushered into the world by the following warm commendation from Mr. Seward himself: * "I have read the 'Impending Crisis of the South' with great attention. It seems to me a work of great merit, rich yet accurate in statistical information, and logical in analysis

On the 9th of March, 1859, a Republican committee in New York, consisting of Horace Greeley, Thurlow Weed, and others, issued a circular warmly commending the book, and proposing to publish one hundred thousand copies of a compendium of it

Fowler's Sectional Controversy, p. 205.

at a cheap rate for gratuitous circulation. In order to raise subscriptions for the purpose, they obtained the recommendation of this plan by sixty-eight Republican members of Congress, with Schuyler Colfax at their head. It is in the following terms: * "We the undersigned, members of the House of Representatives of the National Congress, do cordially indorse the opinion and approve the enterprise set forth in the foregoing circular."

The author of the book is by birth a North Carolinian, though of doubtful personal character, but his labors have since been recognized and rewarded by his appointment as Consul of the United States at Buenos Ayres.

Published under such auspices, the "Impending Crisis" became at once an authoritative exposition of the principles of the Republican party. The original, as well as a compendium, were circulated by hundreds of thousands, North, South, East, and West. No book could be better calculated for the purpose of intensifying the mutual hatred between the North and the South. This book, in the first place, proposes to abolish slavery in the slaveholding States by exciting a revolution among those called "the poor whites," against their rich slaveholding neighbors. To accomplish this purpose, every appeal which perverse ingenuity and passionate malignity could suggest, was employed to excite jealousy and hatred between these two classes. The cry of the poor against the rich, the resort of demagogues in all ages, was echoed and reëchoed. The plan urged upon the nonslaveholding citizens of the South was—†

1st. "Thorough organization and independent political action on the part of the non-slaveholding whites of the South."

2d. "Ineligibility of pro-slavery slaveholders. Never another vote to any one who advocates the retention and perpetuation of human slavery."

3d. "No coöperation with pro-slavery politicians-no fellowship with them in religion-no affiliation with them in society."

4th. "No patronage to pro-slavery merchants-no guestship + Compendium, p. 76.

*Con. Globe, 1859-'60, p. 16.

in slave-waiting hotels-no fees to pro-slavery lawyers--no employment of pro-slavery physicians—no audience to pro-slavery parsons."

5th. "No more hiring of slaves by non-slaveholders."

6th. "Abrupt discontinuance of subscription to pro-slavery newspapers."

7th. "The greatest possible encouragement to free white labor."

"This, then," says Mr. Helper, "is the outline of our scheme for the abolition of slavery in the Southern States. Let it be acted upon with due promptitude, and as certain as truth is mightier than error, fifteen years will not elapse before every foot of territory, from the mouth of the Delaware to the emboguing of the Rio Grande, will glitter with the jewels of freedom. Some time during this year, next, or the year following, let there be a general convention of non-slaveholders from every slave State in the Union, to deliberate on the momentous issues now pending." Not confining himself even within these limits, Mr. Helper proceeds to still greater extremities, and exclaims: "But, sirs, slaveholders, chevaliers, and lords of the lash, we are unwilling to allow you to cheat the negroes out of all the rights and claims to which, as human beings, they are most sacredly entitled. Not alone for ourself as an individual, but for others also, particularly for five or six millions of southern non-slaveholding whites, whom your iniquitous Statism has debarred from almost all the mental and material comforts of life, do we speak, when we say, you must sooner or later emancipate your slaves, and pay each and every one of them at least sixty dollars cash in hand. By doing this you will be restoring to them their natural rights, and remunerating them at the rate of less than twenty-six cents per annum for the long and cheerless period of their servitude from the 20th of August, 1620, when, on James River, in Virginia, they became the unhappy slaves of heartless tyrants. Moreover, by doing this you will be performing but a simple act of justice to the non-slaveholding whites, upon whom the system of slavery has * Pages 89, 90.

weighed scarcely less heavily than upon the negroes themselves. You will, also, be applying a saving balm to your own outraged hearts and consciences, and your children-yourselves in factfreed from the accursed stain of slavery, will become respectable, useful, and honorable members of society."

6

He then taunts and defies the slaveholders in this manner: "And now, sirs, we have thus laid down our ultimatum. What are you going to do about it? Something dreadful of course! Perhaps you will dissolve the Union again. Do it, if you dare! Our motto, and we would have you to understand it, is, The abolition of slavery and the perpetuation of the American Union.' If, by any means, you do succeed in your treasonable attempts to take the South out of the Union to-day, we will bring her back to-morrow; if she goes away with you, she will return without you.

"Do not mistake the meaning of the last clause of the last sentence. We could elucidate it so thoroughly that no intelligent person could fail to comprehend it; but, for reasons which may hereafter appear, we forego the task.

"Henceforth there are other interests to be consulted in the South, aside from the interests of negroes and slaveholders. A profound sense of duty incites us to make the greatest possible efforts for the abolition of slavery; an equally profound sense of duty calls for a continuation of those efforts until the very last foe to freedom shall have been utterly vanquished. To the summons of the righteous monitor within, we shall endeavor to prove faithful; no opportunity for inflicting a mortal wound in the side of slavery shall be permitted to pass us unimproved.

"Thus, terror engenderers of the South, have we fully and frankly defined our position; we have no modifications to propose, no compromises to offer, nothing to retract. Frown, sirs, fret, foam, prepare your weapons, threat, strike, shoot, stab, bring on civil war, dissolve the Union, nay, annihilate the solar system if you will-do all this, more, less, better, worse, any thing-do what you will, sirs, you can neither foil nor intimidate us; our purpose is as firmly fixed as the eternal pillars of heaven; we have determined to abolish slavery, and so help us God, abolish it we will! Take this to bed with you to-night,