Her Governor Declared For Secession, And At
First Also Her Legislature Was Inclined To Follow The Governor.
But
no overt act of secession by the State was committed, and at last it
was decided that Kentucky should be declared to be loyal.
It was in
fact divided. Those on the southern border joined the
secessionists; whereas the greater portion of the State, containing
Frankfort, the capital, and the would-be secessionist governor, who
lived there, joined the North. Men in fact became Unionists or
secessionists not by their own conviction, but through the necessity
of their positions; and Kentucky, through the necessity of her
position, became one of the scenes of civil war.
I must confess that the difficulty of the position of the whole
country seems to me to have been under-estimated in England. In
common life it is not easy to arrange the circumstances of a divorce
between man and wife, all whose belongings and associations have for
many years been in common. Their children, their money, their
house, their friends, their secrets have been joint property, and
have formed bonds of union. But yet such quarrels may arise, such
mutual antipathy, such acerbity and even ill usage, that all who
know them admit that a separation is needed. So it is here in the
States. Free soil and slave soil could, while both were young and
unused to power, go on together - not without many jars and unhappy
bickerings, but they did go on together. But now they must part;
and how shall the parting be made? With which side shall go this
child, and who shall remain in possession of that pleasant
homestead? Putting secession aside, there were in the United States
two distinct political doctrines, of which the extremes were opposed
to each other as pole is opposed to pole. We have no such variance
of creed, no such radical difference as to the essential rules of
life between parties in our country. We have no such cause for
personal rancor in our Parliament as has existed for some years past
in both Houses of Congress. These two extreme parties were the
slaveowners of the South and the abolitionists of the North and
West. Fifty years ago the former regarded the institution of
slavery as a necessity of their position - generally as an evil
necessity, and generally also as a custom to be removed in the
course of years. Gradually they have learned to look upon slavery
as good in itself, and to believe that it has been the source of
their wealth and the strength of their position. They have declared
it to be a blessing inalienable, that should remain among them
forever as an inheritance not to be touched and not to be spoken of
with hard words. Fifty years ago the abolitionists of the North
differed only in opinion from the slave owners of the South in
hoping for a speedier end to this stain upon the nation, and in
thinking that some action should be taken toward the final
emancipation of the bondsmen. But they also have progressed; and,
as the Southern masters have called the institution blessed, they
have called it accursed. Their numbers have increased, and with
their numbers their power and their violence. In this way two
parties have been formed who could not look on each other without
hatred. An intermediate doctrine has been held by men who were
nearer in their sympathies to the slaveowners than to the
abolitionists, but who were not disposed to justify slavery as a
thing apart. These men have been aware that slavery has existed in
accordance with the Constitution of their country, and have been
willing to attach the stain which accompanies the institution to the
individual State which entertains it, and not to the national
government by which the question has been constitutionally ignored.
The men who have participated in the government have naturally been
inclined toward the middle doctrine; but as the two extremes have
retreated farther from each other, the power of this middle class of
politicians has decreased. Mr. Lincoln, though he does not now
declare himself an abolitionist, was elected by the abolitionists;
and when, as a consequence of that election, secession was
threatened, no step which he could have taken would have satisfied
the South which had opposed him, and been at the same time true to
the North which had chosen him. But it was possible that his
government might save Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri.
As Radicals in England become simple Whigs when they are admitted
into public offices, so did Mr. Lincoln with his government become
anti-abolitionist when he entered on his functions. Had he combated
secession with emancipation of the slaves, no slave State would or
could have held by the Union. Abolition for a lecturer may be a
telling subject. It is easy to bring down rounds of applause by
tales of the wrongs of bondage. But to men in office abolition was
too stern a reality. It signified servile insurrection, absolute
ruin to all Southern slaveowners, and the absolute enmity of every
slave State.
But that task of steering between the two has been very difficult.
I fear that the task of so steering with success is almost
impossible. In England it is thought that Mr. Lincoln might have
maintained the Union by compromising matters with the South - or, if
not so, that he might have maintained peace by yielding to the
South. But no such power was in his hands. While we were blaming
him for opposition to all Southern terms, his own friends in the
North were saying that all principle and truth was abandoned for the
sake of such States as Kentucky and Missouri. "Virginia is gone;
Maryland cannot go. And slavery is endured, and the new virtue of
Washington is made to tamper with the evil one, in order that a show
of loyalty may be preserved in one or two States which, after all,
are not truly loyal!" That is the accusation made against the
government by the abolitionists; and that made by us, on the other
side, is the reverse.
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