THE BALTIMORE PLATFORM
The Baltimore platform consists of eleven resolutions; and we may perceive at a glance the important respect in which it differs from the one adopted at Chicago. That confines itself to criticism and censure of those who are striving to uphold the Constitution and the Union against an armed rebellion, which it does not so much as by a single word condemn. This declares the purpose of the people 'to aid the Government in quelling by force the rebellion now raging against its authority;' so that its power shall be felt throughout the whole extent of our territory, and its blessings be restored to every section of the Union.
It is impossible to overlook this essential distinction of the two platforms. The one is full of the captious complaint of partisanship, intent on power, and oblivious of the highest duty of patriotism in this hour of the country's need; the other recognizes no higher duty now than the union of all parties for the sake of the Union. The one vainly cries peace when there is no peace; the other thinks not of peace except in and through the Union, without which there cannot be peace. Above all, the one takes us back to the former times of purely party strife, and seeks to revive the political issues of the past; the other, leaving 'the dead past to bury its dead,' keeps pace with the living present, and looks forward to a future of glory in a restored and regenerated Union. For it is folly to suppose there can ever again be 'the Union as it was.' This is a superficial phrase, which it is marvellous that any reflecting person can delude himself with. 'The Constitution as it is' is the motto that condemns it; for under the Constitution we are to have 'a more perfect Union,' as our fathers designed, and so stated in the Constitution itself. We are to have a constitutional Union in which every right guaranteed by the Constitution shall be maintained; and this was not so in 'the Union as it was.'
Thus it is that the Baltimore platform, after pledging the people to maintain 'the paramount authority of the Constitution and laws of the United States,' and approving the 'determination of the Government not to compromise' this authority, but holding out the same Constitution and laws as our only and the sufficient 'terms of peace' to all who will accept them, proceeds to take notice of what none but the wilfully blind fail to perceive, the changed aspect of the slavery question. It is impossible to hold the same position to-day in regard to this vexed question as in the days before the war. As an element of the politics of this country its aspect is wholly changed, and there is no sort of consistency in upholding our opinions of four years ago in reference to it. We do well to remember that consistency is not obstinacy. It is not an absolute, but a relative thing, and takes note of all the new elements which are ever entering into public affairs. The criterion of one's political consistency in our country is unfaltering devotion to the Union. If the measures he advocates look always to its paramount authority, his record is truly and honorably inconsistent. On the other hand, he who forgets the end of his labors in the ardor of seeking to save the means, is chargeable with the grossest inconsistency. What, therefore, consists with the perpetuity and strength of the Union? is the question which the American patriot proposes to himself.
It is in reference to this question that the Baltimore Platform challenges comparison with the one adopted at Chicago. For guided by the experience of the past four years (the culmination of fifty years' experience), and noting without fear the facts which that experience has revealed as in the clear light of midday, it declares that slavery is inconsistent with the existence of the Union. Does anybody deny it? Men tell us that the Union and slavery have heretofore, for more than half a century, existed together, and why may they not continue to exist in harmonious conjunction for the next half century? We are asked, moreover, with sarcastic disdain, if our wisdom is superior to that of the fathers. Our wisdom is not, indeed, superior to that of the fathers of the republic, but it would be far beneath it, and we should be unworthy sons of such fathers, if we undertook to carry out, in 1864, the policies and measures of 1764. The progress of affairs has developed the antagonism that was only latent before, but which, nevertheless, some of the wisest of our fathers foresaw; and it is now very clear that there is a terrible antagonism (no longer latent) between slavery and the principles that underlie the Constitution. The time has come to vindicate the wisdom of the Constitution by utterly removing what seeks to disgrace and destroy it—as it were a viper in the bosom of the nation.
We must show that our Government is strong enough not only to control, but also destroy, the interest which arrays itself in arms and war against it. It is useless, surely, to deny that the Southern Confederacy means slavery. Over and over again the Southern journals have asserted, and Southern politicians have said, that free labor was a mistake, and that slavery was the true condition of labor. That these are the deliberate convictions of the Southern leaders, and these the doctrines on which the Montgomery constitution is based, no reflecting person can hesitate to believe; and the boastful declaration of the rebel vice-president, that slavery was the corner stone of the rebel confederacy, serves to confirm our conclusion beyond possibility of doubt. What these things prove is nothing more nor less than that the Union with such an element in it to feed the ambition of politicians with, as this slavery has shown itself to be, is henceforth impossible. For we see now that for the sake of slavery the slaveholding leaders are willing to destroy the Government. Who can complain if the basis of their rebellious scheme is annihilated? The answer to those who say, Touch tenderly the institutions of the South, is, Nay, but let them first cease their rebellion. Therefore, so long as the rebellion lifts its unblushing front against the Government, so long it is the duty of every lover of the Government, in the language of the third resolution of this platform, to 'uphold and maintain the acts and proclamations by which the Government, in its own defence, has aimed a death blow at this gigantic evil.'
But that makes us, Abolitionists, says the reader. Be it so. Are we not willing to be Abolitionists for the sake of saving the Constitution and the Union? And if, despising our proffers of 'the Constitution as it is,' which we have now held out to them for three years and a half, the rebels continue to defy the authority of the Government, who can complain if we proceed to adopt an amendment to the Constitution that shall leave no possibility of slaveholding treason hereafter? Surely none but themselves. Let them, then, come back and vote against it; for three fourths of all the States must concur in such an amendment before it can become part of the Constitution. Ah, the leaders of the Southern rebellion know full well how the great masses at the South would vote on such a measure! Let us be ready, then, acting not for ourselves alone, but also for our deluded brethren of the South, who are to-day the victims of a military usurpation the most monstrous the world ever saw, to put the finishing stroke to the scheme of this Confederate rebellion by adopting the proposed amendment.
The fifth resolution commits us to the approval of two measures that have aroused the most various and strenuous opposition, the Proclamation of Emancipation and the use of negro troops. In reference to the first, it is to be remembered that it is a war measure. The express language of it is: 'By virtue of the power in me vested as commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and Government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion.' Considered thus, the Proclamation is not merely defensible, but it is more; it is a proper and efficient means of weakening the rebellion which every person desiring its speedy overthrow must zealously and perforce uphold. Whether it is of any legal effect beyond the actual limits of our military lines, is a question that need not agitate us. In due time the supreme tribunal of the nation will be called to determine that, and to its decision the country will yield with all respect and loyalty. But in the mean time let the Proclamation go wherever the army goes, let it go wherever the navy secures us a foothold on the outer border of the rebel territory, and let it summon to our aid the negroes who are truer to the Union than their disloyal masters; and when they have come to us and put their lives in our keeping, let us protect and defend them with the whole power of the nation. Is there anything unconstitutional in that? Thank God, there is not. And he who is willing to give back to slavery a single person who has heard the summons and come within our lines to obtain his freedom, he who would give up a single man, woman, or child, once thus actually freed, is not worthy the name of American. He may call himself Confederate, if he will.
Let it be remembered, also, that the Proclamation has had a very important bearing upon our foreign relations. It evoked in behalf of our country that sympathy on the part of the people in Europe, whose is the only sympathy we can ever expect in our struggle to perpetuate free institutions. Possessing that sympathy, moreover, we have had an element in our favor which has kept the rulers of Europe in wholesome dread of interference. The Proclamation relieved us from the false position before attributed to us of fighting simply for national power. It placed us right in the eyes of the world, and transferred men's sympathies from a confederacy fighting for independence as a means of establishing slavery, to a nation whose institutions mean constitutional liberty, and, when fairly wrought out, must end in universal freedom.
We are to consider, furthermore, that from the issuing of the Proclamation dates the organization of negro troops—a measure that is destined to affect materially the future composition, as it is believed, of our regular army. This is 'the employment as Union soldiers of men heretofore held in slavery,' which the fifth resolution asks us to approve. Can we not approve it? The fighting qualities of the despised 'niggers' (as South Carolina chivalry terms the gallant fellows who followed Colonel Shaw to the deadly breach of Wagner, reckless of all things save the stars and stripes they fought under) have been tested on many battle fields. He whose heart does not respond in sympathy with their heroism on those fields, while defending from disgrace his country's flag, need not approve. The approval of the country will be given, nevertheless. There can be nothing better said, on this point than President Lincoln's own words, as reported lately by Judge Mills, of Wisconsin, to whom the President uttered them in conversation. They cover also the question of the Proclamation, and will fitly conclude our discussion of these two important measures:
'Sir,' said the President, 'the slightest knowledge of arithmetic will prove to any man that the rebel armies cannot be destroyed with Democratic strategy. It would sacrifice all the white men of the North to do it. There are now in the service of the United States near two hundred thousand ablebodied colored men, most of them under arms, defending and acquiring Union territory. The Democratic strategy demands that these forces be disbanded, and that the masters be conciliated by restoring them to slavery. The black men who now assist Union prisoners to escape, they are to be converted into our enemies in the vain hope of gaining the good will of their masters. We shall have to fight two nations instead of one.
'You cannot conciliate the South if you guarantee to them ultimate success; and the experience of the present war proves their success is inevitable if you fling the compulsory labor of millions of black men into their side of the scale. Will you give our enemies such military advantages as insure success, and then depend on coaxing, flattery, and concession to get them back into the Union? Abandon all the posts now garrisoned by black men, take two hundred thousand men from our side and put them in the battle field or corn field against us, and we would be compelled to abandon the war in three weeks.
'We have to hold territory in inclement and sickly places; where are the Democrats to do this? It was a free fight, and the field was open to the war Democrats to put down this rebellion by fighting against both master and slave, long before the present policy was inaugurated.
'There have been men base enough to propose to me to return to slavery the black warriors of Port Hudson and Olustee, and thus win the respect of the masters they fought. Should I do so, I should deserve to be damned in time and eternity. Come what will, I will keep my faith with friend and foe. My enemies pretend I am now carrying on this war for the sole purpose of abolition. So long as I am President, it shall be carried on for the sole purpose of restoring the Union. But no human power can subdue this rebellion without the use of the emancipation policy, and every other policy calculated to weaken the moral and physical forces of the rebellion.
'Freedom has given us two hundred thousand men raised on Southern soil. It will give us more yet. Just so much it has subtracted from the enemy; and instead of alienating the South, there are now evidences of a fraternal feeling growing up between our men and the rank and file of the rebel soldiers. Let my enemies prove to the country that the destruction of slavery is not necessary to a restoration of the Union. I will abide the issue.'
Surely these are words of exceeding good sense. They are full of a feeling of the speaker's responsibility to God and his country; and the man who cares not for his responsibility to God, may well be distrusted by his country. Is he who speaks these words of patriotism a tyrant and usurper? Are not the words convincing proof that President Lincoln is honest and faithful and capable? And if he thus meets those three requirements of Jefferson's comprehensive formula, let us not refuse the language of the platform: 'That we have full confidence in his determination to carry these and all other constitutional measures essential to the salvation of the country into full and complete effect.'
The remaining six resolutions of this platform deserve the general remark, that they declare with no uncertain sound the views of the Baltimore Convention in reference to vital questions of public policy; whereas, the Chicago Convention has not even alluded to those questions. That in this hour of the country's crisis, in this life struggle of the nation with foes both open and secret, there should be 'harmony in the national councils;' that men once clothed in the uniform of United States soldiers become entitled to 'the full protection of the laws of war,' as forming part of the nation's defenders when those who ought to be its defenders have joined in an unholy sedition to destroy its life; that 'foreign immigration,' deserves especial encouragement at a time when the demands of the army leave the places of home labor without adequate means of refilling them; that a Pacific Railroad, uniting the extreme Western portion of the Union with all the other sections, and thus bringing within nearer reach of our California and Oregon countrymen all the advantages and facilities of the Government, while at the same time binding more closely the ties that make us one people with the West equally with the South; and that the nation's faith with all its creditors must be strictly kept, be the cost what it may; all these are duties which the terrible emergency of the hour only makes more imperative and exacting of fulfilment than ever before.
The eleventh and last resolution commits the country anew to the Monroe Doctrine. In view of the great crime that is enacting in Mexico, where a foreign power has assumed to change the Government of that afflicted country at its own arbitrary will, the declaration that we have not abandoned the doctrine is appropriate and necessary. It is a warning that our eyes are not closed to the schemes on foot for the suppression of republican government on this continent. While our present necessity compels us, as of course, to act with great circumspection, yet it would be unbecoming our dignity to quietly ignore the spoliation of Mexico. It is often said that President Lincoln, in his letter accepting the Baltimore nomination, has repudiated this resolution. These are his words:
'While the resolution in regard to the supplanting of republican government upon the Western Continent is fully concurred in, there might be misunderstanding were I not to say that the position of the Government in relation to the action of France in Mexico, as assumed through the State Department, and indorsed by the convention, among the measures and acts of the Executive, will be faithfully maintained so long as the state of facts shall leave that position pertinent and applicable.'
It is not fair to say that this is a repudiation of the resolution, or of the Monroe Doctrine, until it is first shown that the Government 'through the State Department,' has already repudiated the doctrine. The time for the enforcement of that doctrine has not yet come, and this seems to be the position that has been assumed by the Government. It certainly is the position of common sense and patriotism.
The candid reader has now before him a brief exposition of the two platforms, and of the doctrines and bearing of each. It is believed that nothing has been extenuated; nor, on the other hand, has aught been here set down in malice. Let every one study the platforms and try conclusions for himself; then say whether the foregoing discussion could well have shaped itself differently. The sum of the whole matter seems to be, War and Union, or Peace and Disunion. If we have Union, it can only be now through war. We must 'seek peace with the sword.' The rebels have appealed from the civil law to the military law, from the Constitution to the sword; let us not shrink from the ordeal. No revolution to perpetuate oppression can hope for the favor of a God of justice.
There are two platforms in this Presidential campaign, representing the two parties into which the voters will be divided. But there is a third party, without platform and without vote, which has, nevertheless, interests at stake transcending even ours. Let the calmly considered words of an impartial English journal,8 which wishes well to our country, speak, in conclusion, on behalf of that third party:
'There are three parties to the American war. There are the slaves, the bondsmen of the South, whose flight was restrained by the Fugitive Bill, and whose wrongs have brought about the disruption; there are the Confederates, who, when Southern supremacy in the republic was menaced by the election of Abraham Lincoln, threw off their allegiance; and there are the Government and its supporters, who are striving to restore the integrity of the Union. These are the three parties; and as the war has gone on from year to year, the cause of the negro has brightened, and hundreds of thousands of the African race have passed out of slavery into freedom. They flock in multitudes within the Federal lines, and take their stand under the Constitution as free men. Abandoned by their former masters, or flying from their fetters, the chattels become citizens, and rejoice. No matter what their misery, they keep their faces to the North, and bear up under their privations. Every advance of the national army liberates new throngs, and they rush eagerly to the camps where their brethren are cared for. The exodus, continually going on, increases in volume.
'Such are the colored freedmen, the innocent victims of the war, the slaves whom it has marvellously enfranchised; such are the dusky clouds that flit o'er the continent of America and settle down on strange lands—the harbingers of a social revolution in the great republic of the West. More than fifty thousand are formed into camps in the Mississippi Valley, and not fewer in Middle and East Tennessee and North Alabama. It is a vast responsibility which is cast upon the Government and the people of the North, a sore and mighty burden; and proportionate are the efforts which have been made to meet the trying emergency. The Government finds rations for the negro camps, provides free carriage for the contributions of the humane, appoints surgeons and superintendents, enlists in the army the men who are suitable, and, as far as possible, gives employment to all. Clothing and other necessaries are forwarded to the camps by the ton by benevolent hands, and books for the schools by tens of thousands. All along the banks of the Mississippi, from Cairo to New Orleans, and in Arkansas and Tennessee, the aged and infirm fugitives, the women and children, are collected into colored colonies, and tended and taught with a care that is worthy of a great and Christian people. All that can work are more than willing to do so; they labor gladly; and among old and young there is an eager desire for education. Books are coveted as badges of freedom; and the negro soldier carries them with him wherever he goes, and studies them whenever he can. It is a great work which is in progress across the Atlantic. Providence, in a manner which man foresaw not, is solving a dark problem of the past, and we may well look on with awe and wonder. There were thousands of minds which apprehended the downfall of the 'peculiar institution.' There were a prophetic few, who clearly perceived that it would be purged away by no milder scourge than that of war. But there were none who dreamed that the slaveholder would be the Samson to bring down the atrocious system of human slavery by madly taking arms in its defence! Yet so it was; and the Divine penalty is before us. The wrath of man has worked out the retributive justice of God. The crime which a country would not put away from it has ended in war, and slavery is a ruin.'