GDG- no peaceful extinction of slavery - Aug 15, 1855

[Margaret D. Blough]

Laurie,

I have long regarded slavery and the Civil War as being the ultimate example of the law of unintended consequences.  There actually were a handful of pro-slavery writers/pamphleteers who, as secession and the Civil War loomed, warned that secession would lead to war and war would be the doom of slavery. They contended that, however imperfect by the slave state's standards,  the Constitution did offer protections for slave owning and, in a Western world growing increasingly hostile to slavery, an independent nation based on slavery was launching itself into a very inhospitable international environment.  These individuals had about as much effect on secessionists as Cassandra's warnings had on Troy.

I agree that it is particularly striking that Lincoln wrote this letter to Joshua Speed.  A principle that he was willing to risk alienating his oldest and dearest friend over was one that was deeply held.

Regards,

Margaret

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: "Laurence D. Schiller" <lds307 at northwestern.edu> 

> Esteemed GDG Member Contributes: 
> 
> 
> Margaret - what a wonderful letter (I recognized the last bit from 
> Burn's Civil War) and how well it sums up precisely what Lincoln's 
> thoughts were. The Southern apologia which casts Lincoln as the 
> tyrant is so clearly overthrown here as it is amply clear that he 
> always put Constitution above personal feeling in regards to the 
> South's Peculiar Institution. We may argue that the South realized 
> that their institutions would be in peril if the territories were 
> closed to slavery and thus rebelled, and perhaps needed to to 
> preserve the health of slavery, but there is no basis to decry 
> Lincoln as the one who brought on the war to destroy slavery. Lincoln 
> is remarkably consistent in his beliefs and if the south was going to 
> provide him with an opportunity to destroy that institution which he 
> detested, he was going to do it - but never unilaterally. How ironic 
> that it was the slave owners themselves who brought on the war which 
> destroyed the institution they wished to protect. 
> 
> Best, 
> 
> Laurie Schiller 
> 
> 
> >Esteemed GDG Member Contributes: 
> > 
> > 
> >There is also his 1855 letter to his best friend, Joshua Speed, 
> >which I found on Abrahahm Lincoln Online at 
> >http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/speed.htm. 
> >I found the final three paragraphs, including the closing, 
> >particularly compelling. 
> > 
> >Regards, 
> > 
> >Margaret 
> > 
> >>>Springfield, Illinois 
> >August 24, 1855 
> >Dear Speed: 
> >You know what a poor correspondent I am. Ever since I received your 
> >very agreeable letter of the 22nd. of May I have been intending to 
> >write you in answer to it. You suggest that in political action now, 
> >you and I would differ. I suppose we would; not quite as much, 
> >however, as you may think. You know I dislike slavery; and you fully 
> >admit the abstract wrong of it. So far there is no cause of 
> >difference. But you say that sooner than yield your legal right to 
> >the slave -- especially at the bidding of those who are not 
> >themselves interested, you would see the Union dissolved. I am not 
> >aware that any one is bidding you to yield that right; very 
> >certainly I am not. I leave that matter entirely to yourself. I also 
> >acknowledge your rights and my obligations, under the constitution, 
> >in regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures 
> >hunted down, and caught, and carried back to their stripes, and 
> >unrewarded toils; but I bite my lip and keep quiet. In 1841 you and I 
> > had to 
> >gether a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to 
> >St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to 
> >the mouth of the Ohio, there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, 
> >shackled together with irons. That sight was a continued torment to 
> >me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any 
> >other slave-border. It is hardly fair for you to assume, that I have 
> >no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the 
> >power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how 
> >much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their 
> >feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and 
> >the Union. 
> >I do oppose the extension of slavery, because my judgment and 
> >feelings so prompt me; and I am under no obligation to the contrary. 
> >If for this you and I must differ, differ we must. You say if you 
> >were President, you would send an army and hang the leaders of the 
> >Missouri outrages upon the Kansas elections; still, if Kansas fairly 
> >votes herself a slave state, she must be admitted, or the Union must 
> >be dissolved. But how if she votes herself a slave State unfairly -- 
> >that is, by the very means for which you say you would hang men? 
> >Must she still be admitted, or the Union be dissolved? That will be 
> >the phase of the question when it first becomes a practical one. In 
> >your assumption that there may be a fair decision of the slavery 
> >question in Kansas, I plainly see you and I would differ about the 
> >Nebraska-law. I look upon that enactment not as a law, but as 
> >violence from the beginning. It was conceived in violence, passed in 
> >violence, is maintained in violence, and is being execu 
> > ted in 
> > violence. I say it was conceived in violence, because the 
> >destruction of the Missouri Compromise, under the circumstances, was 
> >nothing less than violence. It was passed in violence, because it 
> >could not have passed at all but for the votes of many members in 
> >violence of the known will of their constituents. It is maintained 
> >in violence because the elections since, clearly demand it's repeal, 
> >and this demand is openly disregarded. You say men ought to be hung 
> >for the way they are executing that law; and I say the way it is 
> >being executed is quite as good as any of its antecedents. It is 
> >being executed in the precise way which was intended from the first; 
> >else why does no Nebraska man express astonishment or condemnation? 
> >Poor Reeder is the only public man who has been silly enough to 
> >believe that any thing like fairness was ever intended; and he has 
> >been bravely undeceived. 
> >That Kansas will form a Slave Constitution, and, with it, will ask 
> >to be admitted into the Union, I take to be an already settled 
> >question; and so settled by the very means you so pointedly condemn. 
> >By every principle of law, ever held by any court, North or South, 
> >every negro taken to Kansas is free; yet, in utter disregard of this 
> >-- in the spirit of violence merely -- that beautiful Legislature 
> >gravely passes a law to hang men who shall venture to inform a negro 
> >of his legal rights. This is the substance, and real object of the 
> >law. If, like Haman, they should hang upon the gallows of their own 
> >building, I shall not be among the mourners for their fate. 
> >In my humble sphere, I shall advocate the restoration of the 
> >Missouri Compromise, so long as Kansas remains a territory; and 
> >when, by all these foul means, it seeks to come into the Union as a 
> >Slave-state, I shall oppose it. I am very loth, in any case, to 
> >withhold my assent to the enjoyment of property acquired, or 
> >located, in good faith; but I do not admit that good faith, in 
> >taking a negro to Kansas, to be held in slavery, is a possibility 
> >with any man. Any man who has sense enough to be the controller of 
> >his own property, has too much sense to misunderstand the outrageous 
> >character of this whole Nebraska business. But I digress. In my 
> >opposition to the admission of Kansas I shall have some company; but 
> >we may be beaten. If we are, I shall not, on that account, attempt 
> >to dissolve the Union. On the contrary, if we succeed, there will be 
> >enough of us to take care of the Union. I think it probable, 
> >however, we shall be beaten. Standing as a unit among yourselves, 
> >you can, di 
> > rectly 
> >, and indirectly, bribe enough of our men to carry the day -- as you 
> >could on an open proposition to establish monarchy. Get hold of some 
> >man in the North, whose position and ability is such, that he can 
> >make the support of your measure -- whatever it may be -- a 
> >democratic party necessity, and the thing is done. Appropos [sic] of 
> >this, let me tell you an anecdote. Douglas introduced the Nebraska 
> >bill in January. In February afterwards, there was a call session of 
> >the Illinois Legislature. Of the one hundred members composing the 
> >two branches of that body, about seventy were democrats. These 
> >latter held a caucus, in which the Nebraska bill was talked of, if 
> >not formally discussed. It was thereby discovered that just three, 
> >and no more, were in favor of the measure. In a day of two Dougla's 
> >[sic] orders came on to have resolutions passed approving the bill; 
> >and they were passed by large majorities!!! The truth of this is 
> >vouched for by a bolting democratic member. The masses t 
> > oo, de 
> >mocratic as well as whig, were even, nearer unanamous [sic] against 
> >it; but as soon as the party necessity of supporting it, became 
> >apparent, the way the democracy began to see the wisdom and justice 
> >of it, was perfectly astonishing. 
> >You say if Kansas fairly votes herself a free state, as a Christian 
> >you will rather rejoice at it. All decent slaveholders talk that 
> >way; and I do not doubt their candor. But they never vote that way. 
> >Although in a private letter, or conversation, you will express your 
> >preference that Kansas shall be free, you would vote for no man for 
> >Congress who would say the same thing publicly. No such man could be 
> >elected from any district in a slave-state. You think Stringfellow & 
> >Co. ought to be hung; and yet, at the next presidential election you 
> >will vote for the exact type and representative of Stringfellow. The 
> >slave-breeders and slave-traders, are a small, odious and detested 
> >class, among you; and yet in politics, they dictate the course of 
> >all of you, and are as completely your masters, as you are the 
> >master of your own negroes. You inquire where I now stand. That is a 
> >disputed point -- I think I am a whig; but others say there are no 
> >whigs, and that I am an abolitionist. When I 
> > was i 
> >n Washington I voted for the Wilmot Proviso as good as forty times, 
> >and I never heard of any one attempting to unwhig me for that. I now 
> >do no more than oppose the extension of slavery. 
> >I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can 
> >any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor or 
> >degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy 
> >appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring 
> >that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all 
> >men are created equal, except negroes" When the Know-Nothings get 
> >control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, 
> >and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should 
> >prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of 
> >loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be 
> >taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic]. 
> >Mary will probably pass a day to two in Louisville in October. My 
> >kindest regards to Mrs. Speed. On the leading subject of this 
> >letter, I have more of her sympathy that I have of yours. And yet 
> >let me say I am 
> >Yours friend forever 
> >A. Lincoln 
> > 
> >Source: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler. << 
> > 
> 
> -- 
> Dr. Laurence Dana Schiller Civil War First Person Impressions 
> Maitre d'Armes William Bradshaw, Co. F 2nd WI 
> Head Fencing Coach George Hammitt, Co. H 104th Ill 
> Department of History 
> Northwestern University 
> Commissioner, Midwest Fencing Conference 
> Midwest VP, US Fencing Coaches' Association 
> Vice-Chair USFA Illinois Division 
> Lds307 at northwestern.edu 
> 847-491-4654 
> FAX 847-467-1406 
> Official Sports site: http://nusports.ocsn.com/ 
> Student web site: http://groups.northwestern.edu/fencing/ 
> 
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