The Great Conspiracy, Volume 4Logan, John Alexander
History
The Great Conspiracy, Volume 4
Logan, John Alexander
Slavery -- United States; United States -- Politics and government -- 1861-1865
"Mr. President, no such sacrifice is necessary to secure our support.
Confine yourself to your Constitutional authority; confine your
subordinates within the same limits; conduct this War solely for the
purpose of restoring the Constitution to its legitimate authority;
concede to each State and its loyal citizens their just rights, and we
are wedded to you by indissoluble ties. Do this, Mr. President, and you
touch the American heart, and invigorate it with new hope. You will, as
we solemnly believe, in due time restore Peace to your Country, lift it
from despondency to a future of glory, and preserve to your countrymen,
their posterity, and man, the inestimable treasure of a Constitutional
Government.
"Mr. President, we have stated with frankness and candor the reasons on
which we forbore to vote for the Resolution you have mentioned; but you
have again presented this proposition, and appealed to us with an
earnestness and eloquence which have not failed to impress us, to
'consider it, and at the least to commend it to the consideration of our
States and people.'
"Thus appealed to by the Chief Magistrate of our beloved Country, in the
hour of its greatest peril, we cannot wholly decline. We are willing to
trust every question relating to their interest and happiness to the
consideration and ultimate judgment of our own people.
"While differing from you as to the necessity of Emancipating the Slaves
of our States as a means of putting down the Rebellion, and while
protesting against the propriety of any extra-territorial interference
to induce the people of our States to adopt any particular line of
policy on a subject which peculiarly and exclusively belongs to them,
yet, when you and our brethren of the Loyal States sincerely believe
that the retention of Slavery by us is an obstacle to Peace and National
harmony, and are willing to contribute pecuniary aid to compensate our
States and people for the inconveniences produced by such a change of
system, we are not unwilling that our people shall consider the
propriety of putting it aside.
"But we have already said that we regard this Resolution as the
utterance of a sentiment, and we had no confidence that it would assume
the shape of a tangible practical proposition, which would yield the
fruits of the sacrifice it required. Our people are influenced by the
same want of confidence, and will not consider the proposition in its
present impalpable form. The interest they are asked to give up is, to
them, of immense importance, and they ought not to be expected even to
entertain the proposal until they are assured that when they accept it
their just expectations will not be frustrated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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