Kitabı oku: «Secrets of the Late Rebellion», sayfa 16
Of course, to this last question there could be but one answer, and yet the party feebly lives! Why it lives – for what purpose it lives – would be the next question which would naturally arise with every searcher after truth. To these inquiries we will try to give an answer, not an opinion merely, but an answer founded upon accredited history, as have been all the answers heretofore given.
It is well known to every student of history that, as far back as 1817, the leading sovereigns and princes of Europe, in their solemn conclaves and secret treaties with each other, formed the determination to subvert the liberties of the United States. Much of what was said and done at that time leaked out, and was duly communicated by our ministers and consuls abroad to the general government; but so conscious was our government of its own strength in the hearts of the people, that all such threats passed them by like the idle wind. When, however, the Duke of Richmond died in Montreal in 1819 – a man whom everybody knew to be a sagacious and wise statesman, and whose many high employments had made him intimate with all the sovereigns and politics of Europe, and whose deep personal interests at stake gave to his opinions immense weight – and when he declared, a short time before his death, that "The surplus population of Europe, when not wanted for the armies and navies of their own land, would be permitted to flock here, and would be entitled to vote; and, mingling in the elections without a knowledge or a love of the laws, or even the language, of the country, will be tools for demagogues, and create a disturbing influence, which the government cannot withstand;" and when to this he added, "I have conversed with many of the princes and sovereigns of Europe, particularly with George III. and Louis XVIII., and they have unanimously expressed these opinions relative to the government of the United States, and their determination to subvert it" – when, we say, these were published and became generally known shortly after his death, they did for a little while create some excitement, and both government officials and the people had something to say about these statements; but such was the confidence felt in our own strength, that the words of the Duke were soon forgotten, and were laid away with the "mouldering past."
Only three years thereafter (in A. d. 1822) the great powers of Europe held a congress at Vienna, and among the conclusions then and there reached, and which formed a part of their treaty stipulations, the two following cannot but strike Americans with great force:
"Article I. The high contracting powers being convinced that the system of representative governments is equally as incompatible with monarchical principles, as the maxim of the sovereignty of the people with the divine right of kings, engage mutually, in the most solemn manner, to use all their efforts to put an end to the system of representative governments in Europe, and to prevent its being introduced into those countries where it is not known.
"Article II. As it cannot be doubted that the liberty of the press is the most powerful means used by the pretended supporters of the rights of nations to the detriment of those princes, the high contracting powers promise reciprocally to adopt all proper means to suppress it."
The representatives of this government in Europe got hold of these articles soon after, and duly communicated them to the State Department at Washington; and the newspapers of this country also got hold of them, and for awhile had considerable to say about them; but erelong the excitement of both government and people died out, and things went on in their usual way. How many times since then the powers of Europe have met in secret conclave and reaffirmed what they then said, and adopted secret measures whereby to carry out these resolves, is not generally known, for the reason that the excitement following their first promulgation gave them warning that whatever they said or did in that direction thereafter had better be with closed doors, and under the most sacred pledges of profound secrecy.
The congress at Vienna was held soon after they had lodged the First Napoleon safely at St. Helena, and when all the world seemed to be applauding them for the act, and hence their outspoken boldness in denouncing representative forms of government and the liberty of the press. Indeed, in view of what they had all just witnessed, and some of them severely felt, it was not at all unnatural that they should have adopted the two articles quoted; and that they should have ever since felt that there was an irrepressible conflict between the "divine right of kings" and representative forms of government – between the absolute rule of kings and the liberty of the press, and that one or the other must eventually supersede the other. Hence, with them it became a question of self preservation – the very first law of nature – and under such circumstances it was not at all wonderful that they resolved just as they did.
They had recently witnessed the final act of a French drama and tragedy combined – the French Revolution, and the career of Napoleon as a consequence thereof – which they regarded as results of a representative form of government and of the liberty of the press; but which were results rather of irresponsible personal government and license of the press. They had seen or read of the assembling of a French parliament that had refused to register the royal edicts; they had witnessed or read of the disputes between the king and parliament, and the death soon after of Louis XV.; from thence they had observed the spread of liberal opinions and the accession of Louis XVI. to the throne of France; next, they had seen or read of the calling together of the States-General, and how they, soon after assembling, had assumed the name of the "National Assembly;" they knew of the dismissal of Neckar; the destruction of the Bastile; the abolishment of the privileges of the nobles and clergy, and of the first insult offered to the king and royal family; of Robespierre's government and the dreadful disorders accompanying it; of Lafayette's resignation; of the trial and execution of Louis XVI. and of his queen, Marie Antoinette, and of the Duke of Orleans; of the Convention's abjuration of the Catholic religion and substitution of reason in its place; of the abolition of the Sabbath; of the tens of thousands beheaded, or otherwise slaughtered, in Paris; of how Napoleon Bonaparte had finally appeared upon the scene, and for a while seemed to still the troubled waters; but how he erelong not only usurped the crown, but commenced war upon almost every nation of Europe; how in a hundred battles fought by him, at Austerlitz and elsewhere, he had been successful in almost every one; how he had finally invaded Russia and thus defeated himself; how he was afterwards made to resign and sent in banishment to Elba; how he had again reappeared in France and resumed power; how all the allied powers of Europe then determined upon his destruction; how he was defeated at the battle of Waterloo; how he afterwards surrendered himself into the hands of the English; and how, on the 17th of October, 1815, he was landed at St. Helena a prisoner of war.
All this they knew, and all this they set down as the natural results of a representative form of government and the liberty of the press, and hence it was that the first two articles of the treaty, from which we have heretofore quoted, were specially aimed against them; and a solemn pledge made, each to the other, that they must be destroyed. Of course, no mention was made in that treaty of the United States; for to have done so would have been virtually a declaration of war; but as it was then generally believed among the sovereigns and princes of Europe that the French Revolution of 1789 was a natural outgrowth from the American Revolution of 1776, and that Lafayette was at the bottom of it all – having imbibed the ideas from George Washington, John Adams, John Hancock, and other revolutionists of America, – the inference is plain and unmistakable that those two articles were aimed at the United States, and that the word "Europe" – where it reads they "engage mutually, in the most solemn manner, to use all their efforts to put an end to the system of representative governments in Europe" – was only meant as a blinder.
But, it may next be asked, allowing all this to be so, have they been doing anything since that time whereby to carry out any such intention?
To this inquiry, we answer yes, and will now proceed to show, briefly but unmistakably, how they have been carrying out such intentions; and this, too, comes legitimately under the head of "Secrets of the Late Rebellion, now Revealed for the First Time," since no one, to our knowledge, has ever heretofore shown the close relationship and unity of purpose between these same European governments and the Democratic party of the United States; and how, in the late rebellion (as in many instances before that time), they joined hands to destroy this government, and to break down the liberty of the press.
The first two political parties in the United States were known as Federal and Republican. In 1800, John Adams was the candidate of the Federalists for a second presidential term, and Thomas Jefferson the candidate of the Republicans. Jefferson was elected, and took his seat as President of the United States on the 4th of March, 1801. After a time, these two names gave way to Whig and Democratic. These continued until the name Republican took the place of Whig, in 1856-60. In its earlier days the Democratic party, as a party, was as pure and patriotic as any party that ever existed in this or any other country; but when the question of "Protection to Home Industry" (of which Henry Clay was the leading champion in his time) became a prime question in American politics; and when, because that this question involved the interests of European capitalists and manufacturers, Augustus Belmont, of New York city (a European by birth, a Jew, and the agent in this country of the Rothschilds', the great Jew banking-house of Europe, to whom almost every sovereign in Europe was indebted for loans), became the Chairman of the National Democratic Executive Committee – from that moment the Democratic party, as a party, became as completely in the interests of European sovereigns, capitalists, and manufacturers, as though every member of the party, as well as its head and front, had been born a European. We are not, of course, attempting to write a history of parties. To do so would require a volume of itself, and a large one at that. We have only made this running sketch that those not familiar with general history may readily see and understand the unmistakable historical relationship which exists, and which has existed for some forty years past, between the Democratic party, as a party, and European governments, European capitalists, and European manufacturers.
With this fact in mind, it is easy to understand why ninety out of every one hundred European emigrants who come to this country attach themselves to the Democratic party; easy to understand why the entire influence of the Roman Catholic Church (which is the church of nine-tenths of the sovereigns of Europe) should be thrown in favor of the Democratic party; easy to understand why more than ninety-five out of every one hundred Jews who come to this country from Europe attach themselves to the Democratic party; and easy to understand why, in the late rebellion, the Democratic party, as a party, cooperated with English lords, with English capitalists, and with English manufacturers (as shown in previous chapters of this volume), in trying to break down this government, and establish a slaveocracy in its stead – the leaders (not the masses) well knowing that this would soon give way to a yet more concentrated form of government in order to hold their slaves in subjection – neither a landed and family aristocracy, like that of England, or an absolute monarchy, like that of Austria, in either of which cases a representative or republican form of government and the liberty of the press would have been effectually and forever suppressed.
The answer, then, to the two questions, Why it lives? For what purpose it lives? are, to the first, Because of the additions made to the party from year to year from foreign emigration; and to the second the answer is, For the purpose of playing into the hands of European sovereigns, European capitalists, and European manufacturers, with a view to set aside a representative form of government, and destroy the liberty of the press in this country; and these answers we give, it will be observed, not from a political, but from a historical, stand-point – facts which cannot be controverted, and deductions from those facts as natural and as undeniable as that we know arsenic to be a poison, because it invariably kills when taken in certain doses. And that the Democratic party, as a party, is as deadly a poison as arsenic we know to be true, because it has killed its thousands and tens of thousands, than which we want no other or better proof than is furnished by the preceding chapters of this volume.
CHAPTER XVIII. WHY THE SOUTH HAS NOT DENOUNCED THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY – WHAT KEEPS THE PARTY ALIVE – WHAT THE FINAL END OF THIS REPUBLIC
THREE more questions, please, and then I will not trouble you more. What you have already said seems to be true, and yet so new and so strange are these revelations to my ears – stranger than any fiction I ever read in the works of Sir Walter Scott or others – that had you not substantiated each proposition with arguments drawn from antecedent probability, from sign, and from example, I could scarcely have believed them. But three queries yet remain in my mind. Allowing all that you have said to be veritable history, how comes it that the South has not denounced the Democratic party for its perfidy in making promises which it never fulfilled? How comes it that, with such a weight of sin upon it, the party can still be kept alive? And, from all your study of history, what deductions do you draw as to the final decline and fall – if such a thing is to be – of this Republic?
Your questions are plain, frank, yet pointed, and I will endeavor to answer each in as plain and frank a manner. First, as to the truth of what we have already said, if the statements and propositions related to any other than a political subject, there would be no more doubt of their truthfulness than of any statement or proposition made by Gibbon, Macaulay, Bancroft, or any other historian. But upon the two subjects of politics and religion, men are generally so set in their opinion that blindness in the one and bigotry in the other seems to be as natural to the human mind "as for grass to be green, or skies to be blue, on bright clear days in June." Nor are such statements ever allowed to go unchallenged, however true they may be, unless the parties have been so long dead and buried that no sympathy remains. What Macaulay says of political parties and of church influences in his History of England, is just as true as any other part of his admirable work, and yet the work had scarcely made its appearance before the most violent epithets were hurled at him because of these. Had Gibbon written his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ten or even five centuries earlier, it would have received most bitter denunciation from all who yet sympathized with the wrongs which Gibbon pointed out, and even so late as the eighteenth century, when his work was first published, it did not escape censure. While Bancroft only wrote of the long, long ago, in his capital History of the United States, nobody questioned his statements or deductions; but as he approached nearer to the present, and had of necessity to say something of the acts and influence of political parties and of churches, he awoke the sleeping demons – blindness and bigotry – and from thenceforth there was more or less growl whenever a new volume appeared. I revive and mention these facts now, only to show you, my friend, that I am not at all surprised at your inquiries; nor shall I be surprised if the last six chapters of this volume, and, because of these, the whole book, are most violently and bitterly denounced by the entire Democratic press of this country, and by every religious and political journal in this country and Europe whose special province it is to uphold foreign religious and political influence. With these as introductory remarks, I will now proceed to answer your inquiries.
1. How comes it that the South has not denounced the Democratic party for its perfidy in making promises which it never fulfilled?
We have no sympathy now, and never had, with rebellion, as such; and, while it continued, helped to fight it as best we could; but we had then, and have now, a very deep sympathy with those who were blindly led to their own destruction by wicked, designing men. To no people in all of history are the words of our blessed Saviour more applicable than to the people of the South, when he said, "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!"
We have heretofore spoken of Jefferson Davis, his Cabinet, and of others with whom he advised, as high-minded, honorable gentlemen. This character they had before the war, maintained it during the war, and such as survived continued to maintain it after the war. After the war, Mr. Davis had but little to say of the events of the past. He preferred not to talk of them at all, as he often said to those who broached the subject, and never would talk of them except to his most confidential friends. He desired to live a quiet, peaceful, retired, Christian life, in the bosom of his little family (and no man ever had a truer or more faithful helpmeet than Mrs. Davis proved to be to her husband), nor would he allow himself to talk of politics at all, as before stated, except to a very few. From one of these few we have it, as from Mr. Davis's own lips, that no one felt, nor could feel, more keenly than he did, the perfidy, the meanness, the baseness which had been practised upon the South by certain leading Democratic politicians of the North; and yet he could not but recollect that others, as they had opportunity, had aided him and their cause to the full extent of their ability, and had the will to aid them a thousand times more, if they could have done so with safety to themselves, personally and pecuniarily. This last recollection took the keen edge off the first, and left a sort of dulcamara – a bitter-sweet – to rest upon his mind.
And, besides this, only a choice of evils was left to him and his followers. Their own party of Secession having been destroyed, only the Democratic and Republican parties remained. To side with or go into the Republican party was out of the question. Such as did, would be charged with, or suspected of, treachery by both sides. To denounce and yet expect to get into, or cooperate with, the Democratic party, was out of the question. No one can regard as a friend one that curses him. So, you see, they were walled in, as it were, on every side, and, as a choice of evils, thought it best to go into the Democratic party – to which most of them had belonged all their lives, previous to the rebellion – to hold their peace, and to "wait for the good time coming which the voice of certain siren leaders still whispered into their ears. We say this not in a poetic, but in a historic sense; for we know it to be true that, after the close of the rebellion, prominent leaders of the Democratic party North said to prominent gentlemen of the South that so soon as they could get the general government once again into their own hands, all Southern claims upon the government, because of the war, should be adjusted, the same as Northern claims had been; all bonds issued by the Confederate government during the war should be placed upon precisely the same footing as the bonds issued by the United States government during the same period; and that slavery should be restored as it was before the war, or those who had owned slaves, or their legal representatives, should be paid full value for every slave they had lost. When it was said to them that to do all this would require several alterations in the United States Constitution as it now stands, their ready reply was, "Only put the government into our hands, and we'll find means to amend the Constitution just as readily as to make laws, for all needed purposes. Your wrongs and ours will find a way, or make one!" With such assurances, made over and over again in the most solemn manner, how could a Southern man find it in his heart to denounce the Democratic party, notwithstanding all the wrongs he had suffered from it?
Some seventeen years have now passed since the close of that war. As a matter of history it is well known that over ninety-five per cent, of those who had taken an active part in the Confederate cause went into the Democratic party, and since that time have steadily cooperated with that party. A few, a very few, could not, as they said, forgive the treachery and the wrongs of the Democratic party towards the South, and these went into the Republican party – some honestly, no doubt; others, only because they thought it would "pay best."
Another answer to your query would be, that in not denouncing, but by going into, the Democratic party a very large proportion of Southern men were only returning to their first love. In the days of Whiggery several of the Southern States gave Whig majorities; but when that party died, because of its coquetting with slavery, and the Republican party took its place, the leading principle of which new party was opposition to slavery, first, as to its extension, and then as to its continuance, nearly the whole vote of the South became Democratic. This was very plainly shown in the vote cast for Franklin Pierce and Winfield Scott (the last Whig candidate), in 1852, when the former received two hundred and fifty-four electoral votes and the latter only forty-two. Indeed, it was this fact, and the great preponderance of Democratic votes at that election, that gave to the Secessionists of the South, and their sympathizers, aiders, and abettors of the North, the encouragement which caused them to inaugurate a rebellion in 1860. It was this, together with the fact that out of the thirty-two preceding years – from the election of Jackson in 1828 to that of Lincoln in 1860 – the Democrats had held the power twenty-four years and the Whigs only eight. They had grown to look upon the Democratic power as invincible, and their European coadjutors had been made to believe that the time had finally come when the hated representative form of the United States government could be changed into a slaveocracy, then into an aristocracy, and then into a kingly form of government; while a censorship could be placed upon the press so effectual, that from thenceforth it could never do European sovereignties or the Roman Catholic Church any harm. Those who only saw the outside of the late rebellion supposed that it had its incipiency in 1860, whereas those who knew of its inside workings (as we all know now), knew that preparations had been going on for eight years previous, and that both Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan, from 1852 to 1860, had only been used as tools or instruments by which to forward these preparations. The result of the Presidential vote in 1856 only made those in the secret of the secession movement (both in this country and in Europe) the more determined to strike the blow in 1860; for they saw by that vote that, while their candidate, Buchanan, was elected by a majority of fifty-two electoral votes (Buchanan one hundred and seventy-four, Fremont et al. one hundred and twenty-two), yet the popular vote stood Buchanan 1,838,169, Fremont et al. 2,215,498, being really against their candidate, on the popular vote, to the extent of 377,329 votes. This strange result was owing to the fact that, while all the Southern States voted for their candidate, and several Northern States as well, they were all by small majorities; whereas such of the Northern States as voted for Fremont and others did so by large majorities. Had they delayed the strike another four years, it would have been forever too late.
So soon as the secret commenced to ooze out among the masses, it caused no little commotion in the Democratic party itself, and when they came to name presidential candidates in 1860, while those in the secret boldly put forward John C. Breckenridge (who afterwards became a rebel general in their army), the more timid and doubting named Stephen A. Douglas, while those who were yet more frightened at the prospect of coming events named Bell of Tennessee. The Republicans named Abraham Lincoln. The result showed one hundred and eighty electoral votes for Lincoln and one hundred and twenty-three for all the others (again the South voting solid against the Republican nominee), while the popular vote showed 1,866,352 for Lincoln, and 2,810,501 for all the others. The South by that time became so thoroughly identified with the Democratic party, and the Democratic party with the South, that, like man and wife, their interests were thenceforth inseparable, while the groomsman and bridesmaid (fitly represented by European sovereignty and the Roman Catholic Church) stood at their sides, or close behind, tapping them on the back.
And just here let us say, lest we may be misunderstood, that when we speak of the Catholic Church it is not by way of disparagement, so far as their religion is concerned, but only and purely as one of the instruments by which European sovereigns hope to work the downfall of this nation, or rather of the representative form of its government and the liberty of its press. Against the religious faith and the religious zeal of the Catholics we have not a word to say, though ourself a Protestant. History, as well as our own eyes and ears while travelling in Europe, has proven to us that with every ounce of corruption to be found in that Church there is a full pound of virtue, and, better than this, so far as we know, cannot be said of any other church organization. We cannot forget, nor overlook the facts, that while Tetzel was peddling indulgences and Luther was thundering against them, thousands of Sisters of Charity (God bless them!) were waiting upon the sick and dying in Paris and elsewhere, and doing what they could to make life tolerable and death endurable to thousands and tens of thousands; that while scores were being tortured and burned by the Spanish inquisition, thousands of faithful Catholic missionaries, in all parts of the world, were enlightening their fellow-men, easing their burdens of life, and pointing them to a hope beyond the grave. Nor can we overlook the fact that other religious bodies have been just as bigoted and just as intolerant as the Catholics, whenever they have had the power and opportunity; that John Calvin and his followers burned Servetus, at Geneva, with just as little compunction of conscience as the Catholics burned Huss at Constance; that Luther and his coadjutors granted to Philip, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, a dispensation for polygamy, rather than lose his support, while Clement VII., Pope of Rome, refused a like dispensation to Henry VIII., King of England; that this same Henry, who was acknowledged at the time as the head of the Church of England, divorced two wives and beheaded two others; and that even here, in our own New England, when the Puritans had absolute power, they ordered delicate Quaker women tied to a cart-tail and whipped upon the bare back, and others hung, for no other reason than that they chose to worship God in a different way from themselves. A somewhat careful study of the rise and progress of all religions, and of all religious sects, convinces us that bigotry, intolerance, and persecution are alike common to all whenever they hold absolute power, and that in this respect the Catholics are no worse than others.
And yet, while saying all this, no less in justice to ourself than to them, we must not overlook the fact that Catholicism is the religion of a large majority of the sovereigns and princes of Europe; that absolutism (and consequent opposition to anything like a representative form of government, or the liberty of the press) is one of its cardinal principles of faith and practice; that, being so largely supported by European sovereigns, it would naturally be disposed to aid them in any way within its power; and that to aid them in overthrowing our representative form of government, and our boasted liberty of the press, would be no violation of their own cherished principles, but in exact accordance therewith. Hence in all our calculations as to influence and power, without having the least prejudice against the religion of the Catholics, we must invariably put them down as in favor of absolutism, and as only using, in this country, the name democracy (which means the reverse of absolutism) as a cloak to their real sentiments. Of course in this we only refer to the bishops, priests, and few educated laymen of the Catholic Church; for, as to the great mass of its adherents, they merely follow the dictum of others, without knowing or caring about the meaning of names, and would vote under any name, or for anybody, if only told to do so by their church officials.
It is a matter of public notoriety – indeed of public record – that, under the name of "Societies for the Propagation of the Faith," the sovereigns of Europe, and their more wealthy subjects, have sent, and are every year sending, large sums of money to this country. A single one of these societies at Lyons, France (as published in their own reports at the time), sent in this way $65,438 in 1839; $163,000 in 1840; $177,000 in 1842; $207,218 in 1843, while correspondingly large sums were doubtless sent from Spain, Austria, and other European countries during the same years; and from that time until the present every year. A portion of this was and is undoubtedly contributed from the purest of religious motives; but by far the larger portion, only with the view to subvert our representative form of government and the liberty of the press. 'All these are matters of history, and as such come legitimately within the province of any historian, and of any reader, who, aside from religious or political prejudices, would carefully weigh facts with a view to arrive at undoubted conclusions.
