A Southern Speech

From the October 17, 1866 edition of The New York Times.

On Sept. 22, Gen. Wade Hampton delivered an address at Walhalla, Pickens District, S.C. The fol­lowing is the part of the speech which relates to na­tional affairs:

You may perhaps, fellow-citizens, think that any discussion of general politics is inappropriate on an occasion of this sort, but as I may not again have an opportunity to place myself right upon the record, or to correct the misrepresentations of both my antecedent and present position, disseminated by the Radical Press, may I claim your indul­gence for a brief discussion of these topics? It is full time that some voice from the South should be raised to declare, that though conquered she is not humiliated; though she submits she is not degraded; that she has not lost her self-respect; that she laid down her arms on honorable terms; that she has observed these terms with the most perfect faith, and that she has a right to demand a like observance of them on the part of the North. Would to God that some voice more potent than mine would utter these truths! Would to God that the tongues of those great states­men of Carolina, who, in times past, warned, coun­seled, directed our people, were not hushed in death, or those which more recently stirred the Southern heart to Its profoundest depths, were not now as silent as death itself.

But perhaps in the midst of this silence so pro­found, even my voice, feeble as it is, may not be without that weight which always attaches to the utterance of truth, and in this hope I venture to dis­cuss our condition and our policy. What, then, is our condition? For four years the South was the vic­tim of a cruel and unnecessary war—a war marked on the part of her opponents by a barbarity never surpassed, if equated, in the annals of civilized warfare. The sword failed to conquer her, for on nearly every bat­tlefield she was victorious, and her enemies were breed to resort to weapons more congenial to their nature—fire and famine. The torch was applied with an unsparing hand. The mansion of the rich; the cottage of the poor; peaceful villages; thriving cities; even the temples of the Most High God, fell before this ruthless destroyer, leaving to mark the spots where once they stood, but ashes and blackened ruins.

All the industrial resources of the South were wan­tonly destroyed or stolen, and gaunt famine followed in the footsteps of the invaders. The men who had borne without a murmur every privation, who had faced death in a thousand shapes without flinching, were not proof against the cries which come to them from homeless and starving wives and children. They laid down their arms, which they had crowned with eternal lustre, and they accepted the terms offered to them by the North. What were these terms? Throughout the whole war the North declared in the most solemn and authoritative manner that she fought solely to reestablish the Union; to bring back to one fold all the Slates, and to give to all equal rights and equal liberty. This was the constant declaration of Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Seward not only announced the same principle, but he declared that whatever might be the result of the war not only would all the rights of the Southern States be preserved, but that all their institutions would be intact. The Congress of the United States in a resolution passed, I think unanimously, and never repealed, announced the object and the sole object of the war to be the restoration of the Union under the supremacy of the Constitution. The very powers under which we laid down our arms promised the protection of the Government and gave the assurance that we should not be interfered with, so long as we obeyed the laws of the States wherein we resided. These declarations were made not only to the South, but to foreign nations; and the South was assured that she had but to acknowledge the supremacy of the National Government to be received into the Union, as equal members of the great family of States, with all her rights and all her privileges un­impaired.

These were the terms upon which the South capitulated. On her part she was to cease war—to renew her allegiance to the National Government, and to express her loyalty to the Constitution of the United States. On the part of the North there was to be amnesty for the past—a recognition of the Southern States as equal members of’ the Union, and a solemn’ pledge that all their rights should be held sacred. This was the construction placed by the South upon the covenant entered into, and it is the only fair and honest construction it will admit of. How have the parties to this covenant fulfilled their obligations? I have said that the South has performed her’s with the most perfect faith. Let me prove the assertion. She was to cease war. When our commanding officers signed the Conventions which put a stop to the war, every soldier of the Confederacy, from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, laid down his arms and returned to his home, or to the spot where his home had been.

The next condition of the terms required from the South the renewal of her allegiance to the General Government. In every Southern State, the people by their conventions, their Legislatures and individ­ually, conformed promptly to this condition. Loy­alty to the Constitution of the United States was exacted, as the only other article of the terms re­quired of the South. I assert that she has fulfilled this part of the compact, as well as the others, to the letter, and that in the true acceptation of the word, she is loyal. What is “loyalty?” It is nothing more or less than faithfulness—obedience to the laws of that Government under which you live. Have any people on earth manifested a higher faith or been more obedient to the laws of the land than we have been since our allegiance to the Government has been renewed? Many of these laws we regard as illegal and unconstitutional, but to not one of them has the shadow of resistance been made. We have yielded our implicit if not a cheerful obedience to all, trusting that fine would rectify the evils under which we labor. What higher proof of loyalty could be given than this?

But, fellow-citizens, was the South ever disloyal to the Constitution of the United States? I deny that the ever was, and challenge her most bitter enemy to adduce one single instance in which she has been. From the adoption of that Constitution, up to the time when she framed one of her own governance, no one can lay to her charge a single violation of any clause of that instrument. Did she ever propose to change it? Did she ever evade any of its provisions? Did she ever denounce it as a “league with hell and a covenant with the devil ? Nay more, when she framed a Constitution for herself did she not adopt the old and honored one almost word for word? Had the North been but half as loyal as the South has ever been, no war would have desolated our country, and the Union would be, what its founders intended —one of the equal and sovereign States, bound to­gether by the strong ties of paternal affection, instead of what it now is, a consolidated despotism of the stronger States, ruling with a rod of iron, the weaker ones. The South is, and ever has been loyal in the proper sense of the word.

I am aware that the North has given a new meaning to this word when applied to the South. For the South to be loyal in the eyes of the North, she must admit herself to be inferior in all points; she must declare that she has sinned, and, like a repentant child, she must humbly sue for forgiveness. She must pronounce State Rights and State Sovereignty fallacies, and she must forget the teachings of PATRICK HENRY, of JEFFERSON and of MADISON. You, men of Pickens, must forget the illustrious son you gave to our State, and you must brand CALHOUN as a traitor. The names of McDUFFIE, CHEVES, HAYNE, HAMILTON, HARPER, must no longer be held in reverence in their own State, as those of great statesmen and pure patriots, but the men who bore them, like their immortal compatriot, are to be called traitors, and their doctrines seditious. You will not be loyal until you import, along with everything else, your politics, your morality and your religion from the North.

I know not, fellow-citizens, how it may be with others but for myself, I prefer still to cling to the political faith taught by her great Apostles of Liberty. I repudiate as heretical and damnable that morality which inculcates a “higher law” than the Bible teaches. And as to religion, I confess that after the way they call heresy, so worship I the “ God of my fathers.” We obey the laws of the land; we pay the taxes levied on us; we support the Constitution; and we acknowledge the supremacy of the National Government. The North has no right to demand or to expect of us more than this. She has no right to ask that we should give up the divine right—which even slaves enjoy—of freedom of opinion; that we should deny the principles we hold sacred; that we should abase ourselves in the dust to propitiate her goodwill or that we should kiss the rod that smites us.

“Shall freeborn men, in humble awe
Submit to servile shame,
Who from consent and custom draw
The same right to be ruled by law,
Which Kings pretend to reign.”

Shall we, who were freeborn men, be so base as to declare that our country has met the fate it deserved? Shall we submit to the shame which would cling to us forever, if we admit that we have been guilty of treason? Shall we cover ourselves with eternal infamy by branding as traitors the men who died for us and to whose memory you are now paying honor? Never! Never! Never! Let any fate, however hard, be our lot, rather than that such dishonor should be ours! When the gallant warrior-king of old, saw in the defeat of his brave army, the ruin of all his hopes, proud, though conquered, he could still exclaim, “all is lost save honor.” Let us, amid the failure of our hopes, the wreck of our fortunes, strive to save, like him, what is far more precious than all else, our honor.

I have given you the record of the South. I have shown how well she has kept her faith untarnished, how closely she has observed her obligations. Let me turn now to the record of the North. Bear in mind, that in giving this, I shall simply state facts, leaving you to draw your own inferences. I propose to say what the North has done. I do not intend to discuss the mortality, the honesty, or the justice of her actions. When the tyrant disputed the assertions of the philosopher, and endeavored to draw him into an argument, the reply of the latter was: “I do not choose to argue with the commander of thirty legions.” Without being a philosopher, I can recognize the force of this answer, and I waive argument, as totally inappropriate in a discussion of this sort. Facts, which are said to be stubborn things will be amply sufficient for my purpose at present.

For four years the North waged war upon us, only, as she solemnly declared, to bring us back into the Union. More than a year ago the South expressed her willingness to return, and yet she is now as effectually out of the Union as if she had never formed a part of it. The North professed to fight for the Constitution. As soon as she had the power to do so, she changed that Constitution, and she violated its sacred provisions. The North protested that she did not fight for conquest, or for plunder. The Southern States are at this moment practically conquered provinces, and more of their moveable property is now in the hands of Northern soldiers, who stole it, than in those of its rightful possessors. The parole which Southern soldiers received promised, as I have already said, that they should not be interfered with, so long as they obeyed the laws of their own States. And yet on their return to their States they were not allowed to exercise any right pertaining to free citizens, until they had, under oath, endorsed all the Acts of Congress and declared the abolition of slavery fixed, irrevocable and constitutional.

Amnesty for the past has been repeatedly promised to the South, yet how many of her citizens are still, in the brotherly language of the Radicals, only “unpardoned rebels,” whilst her most honored and best beloved son languishes in a felon’s cell, denied his sacred right guaranteed by the Constitution, of a “speedy trial by an impartial jury.” The Southern States were to be recognized as equal members of the Union; and even in the imposition of taxes, there is no equality, for the cotton of the South has to bear a heavy discriminating tax for the benefit of the North. All the rights of the South were to be held sacred. She has only the right to live, and to labor, perhaps to complain, though to do so may be treason.

I have placed before you the record of the South and that of the North. Let the world decide which is en­titled to honor, which to shame. I have drawn in dark colors, but alas, in too true one, the condition of our country, and now turn to the discussion of what should be our policy. In the anomalous condition in which we are placed, it is a matter of great difficulty to mark out the proper course for us to pursue; but there are certain cardinal principles of which we should never lose sight. The first of these is, that as we accepted the terms offered to us by the North in good faith, we are bound by every dictate of honor, to abide by them fully and honestly They are none the less binding on us, because the dominant and unscrupu­lous party at the North refuse to accord to us our just rights. Let us, at least, prove ourselves worthy of the rights we claim; let us set an example of good faith, and we can then appeal with double effect to the justice and magnanimity of the North.

These virtues, I would fain hope, are not totally ex­tinct among that people, and there are brave men there, who are battling for justice, for constitutional liberty, for the equality of all the States, and for the rights of the South. The only hope, not alone for the South, but for freedom itself on this continent, lies in the success of this party. We are their natu­ral allies, and I would sacrifice much—where honor and principle are not invaded, and then I would not yield one jot or tittle—to strengthen their hands in the great contest, which is soon to decide the fate of Constitutional Liberty and Republican Institutions in the United States. The President of the United States has lent the great influence which his high po­sition, his strong intellect, his firm purpose and his indomitable will give, to this new conservative party, and to his support every Southern man should rally cordially.

Of all the inconsistencies of which the North has been guilty-and their name is legion-none is greater than that by which she forced the Southern States, while rigidly excluding them from the Union, to ratify the Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery, which they could do legally only as States of that Union. But the deed has been done, and I for one, do honestly declare that I never wish to see it revoked. Nor do I believe that the people of the South would now remand the negro to slavery if they had the power to do so unquestioned. Under our paternal care, from a mere handful he grew to be a mighty host. He came to us a heathen, we made him a Christian. Idle, vicious, savage in his own country; in ours he became industrious, gentle, civilized. Let his history as a slave be compared hereafter with that which he will make for himself as a freeman, and by the result of that comparison we are willing to be judged. A great responsibility is lifted from our shoulders by this emancipation, and we willingly commit his destiny to his own hands, hoping that he may prove himself worthy of the new position in which he has been placed. As a slave he was faithful to us; as a freeman, let us treat him as a friend. Deal with him frankly, justly, kindly, and my word for it he will reciprocate your kindness, clinging to his old home, his own country and his former masters. If you wish to see him contented, industrious, useful, aid him in his effort to elevate himself in the scale of civilization, and thus fit him not only to enjoy the blessings of freedom, but to appreciate its duties.

The essential points then, in the policy we should pursue are, it appears to me, these: That we should fulfill all the obligations we have entered into to the letter, keeping our faith so clear that no shadow of dishonor can tall on us; that we should sustain Mr. Johnson cordially in his policy, giving our support to that party which rallies around him; that we should full obedience to the laws of the land, reserving to ourselves at the same time the inalienable right of freedom of speech and of opinion; and that, as to the great question which so materially affected our interests, the abolition of Slavery, we should de­clare it settled forever. Pursue this course steadily, bear with patience and dignity those evils which are pressing heavily on you. Commit yourselves to the guidance of God, and whatever may be your fate you will be able to face the future without self-reproach.

Brother Soldiers of Pickens: The grateful task your kindness imposed on me is finished. I wish that I could have discharged it in a manner more worthy of you, of the occasion, and of the men whose memory you are now honoring. But your kindness, of which I have had so many proofs, will induce you to overlook the many faults of my performance, I am sure, knowing, as you must do, how fully my heart is with you in the sacred work you have this day commenced.

It only remains for me to thank you for the courte­sies you have extended to me on this occasion; to thank you, as I do most gratefully, for the spontaneous and unsolicited compliment you paid me a year ago at the ballot box, and to wish that you may be prosperous, happy and free.

Wade Hampton, III

Wade Hampton III (1818 – 1902) was an American statesman from South Carolina. He became a senior general in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the War. Hampton served as Governor of South Carolina from 1876 to 1879, and as a U.S. Senator from 1879 to 1891.

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