The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 | Page 5

imperious band of traitors, operating upon the fears of
a weak old man, who was already implicated in the treason, drove him
to the verge of the abyss into which he was willing to plunge his
country, but from which, at the last moment, he drew back, dismayed at
the thought of sacrificing himself.
The doctrine of secession, long and laboriously taught, and the cognate
principles calculated to diminish the power of the Federal Government
and magnify that of the States, thus served to smooth the way, to lay
the track, upon which the engine of rebellion was to be started. But
there was still wanting the motive power which should impel the
machine and give it energy and momentum. Something tangible was
required--something palpable to the masses--on the basis of which
violent antagonisms and hatreds could be engendered, and fearful
dangers could be pictured to the popular imagination.
The protective system, loudly denounced as unequal and oppressive, as
well as unconstitutional, had proved wholly insufficient to arouse
rebellion in 1832. It would have proved equally so in 1861: but then the
ultra free trade tariff of 1856 was still in existence; and it continued in
force, until, to increase dissatisfaction, and invite the very system
which they pretended to oppose and deplore, the conspirators in
Congress, having power to defeat the 'Morrill Tariff,' deliberately
stepped aside, and suffered it to become a law. But this was merely a
piece of preliminary strategy intended to give them some advantage in
the great battle which was eventually to be fought on other fields. It
might throw some additional weight into their scale; it might give them
some plausible ground for hypocritical complaint; and might even, to
some extent, serve to hide the real ground of their movement; yet, of

itself, it could never be decisive of anything. It could neither justify
revolution in point of morals, nor could it blind the people of the South
to the terrible calamities which the experiment of secession was
destined to bring upon them.
Slavery alone, with the vast material prosperity apparently created by it,
with the debatable and exciting questions, moral, political, and social,
which arise out of it, and with the palpable dangers, which, in spite of
every effort to deny it, plainly brood over the system--slavery alone had
the power to produce the civil war, and to shake the continent to its
foundations. In the present crisis of the struggle, it would be a waste of
time and of thought to attempt to trace back to its origin the long
current of excitement on the slavery question, beginning in 1834, and
swelling in magnitude until the present day; or to seek to fix the
responsibility for the various events which marked its progress, from
the earliest agitation down to the great rebellion, which is evidently the
consummation and the end of it all. The only lesson important to be
learned, and that which is the sum of all these great events, plainly
taught by the history of this generation, and destined to characterize it
in all future time, is, that slavery had in itself the germs of this
profound agitation, and that, for thirty years, it stirred the moral and
political elements of this nation as no other cause had power to do. It is
of little consequence, for the purpose in view, to inquire what
antagonisms struggled with slavery in this immense contest, covering
so great an area in space, and so long a period of time. All ideas and all
interests were involved. Moral, social, political, and economical
considerations clashed and antagonized in the gigantic conflict.
Is slavery right or wrong? Has it the sanction of enlightened conscience,
or of the divine law as revealed in the Old and New Testaments? The
last words of this moral contest have scarcely yet ceased to reverberate
in our ears, even while the sound of cannon tells of other arguments
and another arbitrament, which must soon cut short all the jargon of the
logicians. But one of the most remarkable features of the whole case,
has been the indignation with which the slave interest, from beginning
to end, has resisted the discussion of these moral questions. As if such
inquiries could, by any possibility, be prevented! As if a system, good

and right in itself, defensible in the light of sound reason, could suffer
by the fullest examination which could be made in private or in public,
or by the profoundest agitation which could arise from the use of mere
moral means! The discussions, the agitations, and all the fierce passions
which attended them, were unavoidable. Human nature must be
changed and wholly revolutionized before such agitations can be
suppressed. They are the means appointed by the Creator for the
progress of humanity. The seeds