Unionism

"We are in the Union for richer or poorer, for better for worse, whether in a majority or minority, whether in power or powerless, without condition, reservation, qualification, or limitation, for ever and aye."

                             William Seward, 1851

Daniel Webster

Antebellum Unionists saw themselves as protectors of the experiment in republican government started by America's founders. The American Revolution had been fought, in large part, to overthrow the sovereignty of monarchs, those born to positions of power. Instead, they had set up a government of "we, the people" that would allow men to govern themselves under the "rule of law." This government was tripartite, consisting of executive, legislative, and judicial branches intended to balance power and prevent a "tyranny of the majority." 

There had not been a long term implementation of a republic in the modern era.  European monarchists had long scoffed at the idea that a people were capable of governing themselves and expected the United States to fail.   


Historical Background: 

"A republic (from Latin: res publica) is a sovereign state or country^[which is organized with a form of government in which power resides in elected individuals representing the citizen body and government leaders exercise power according to the rule of law. In modern times, the definition of a republic is commonly limited to a government which excludes a monarch ."  (A History of Republics).


1.  Early Modern Era - Absolute Monarchy in France, Constitutional Monarchy in Great Britain.  No truly republican governments.

2.  Enlightenment intellectuals (c. 1680 - 1790):

     John Locke, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith.

   Democratic government, balance of powers (tripartite government), freedom of speech, separation of church and state, abolition of slavery, ending political torture, humane warfare, public education. 

3.  American Revolution  (1765 - 1783).  

4.  U.S. Constitution  (1789)  The Rule of Law, not Monarchs

_____________________________________________________________________

Massachusetts senator Daniel Webster in the Tariff of Abominations debate with S.C. Senator Robert Hayne.

1851 G.P.A. Healy painting immortalizing Daniel Webster's 1830 reply to Hayne.

 (40,000 copies were distributed nationwide).

...There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain for ever.  The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for Independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State from New England to Georgia; and there they will lie for ever.   And, Sir, where American Liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit.  If discord and disunion shall wound it, if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it, if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraint, shall succeed in separating it from that Union, by which alone its existence is made sure, it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of vigor it may still retain over the friends who gather round it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin.


Daniel Webster's Text of Second Reply to Hayne   (read final paragraph)  


I have not allowed myself, Sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind.  I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder.   I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below;  nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in the affairs of this government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union may be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it should be broken up and destroyed. 

While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us and our children.  Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil.  God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise!  God grant that on my vision never may be opened to what lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood!   Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first and Union afterwards"; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light,...., as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, - Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable!


Andrew Jackson - Proclamation to the People of South Carolina,  December 10, 1832

"Seduced as you have been, my fellow countrymen by the delusion theories and misrepresentation of ambitious, deluded & designing men, I call upon you in the language of truth, and with the feelings of a Father to retrace your steps. As you value liberty and the blessings of peace blot out from the page of your history a record so fatal to their security as this ordinance will become if it be obeyed. Rally again under the banners of the union whose obligations you in common with all your countrymen have, with an appeal to heaven, sworn to support, and which must be indissoluble as long as we are capable of enjoying freedom. Recollect that the first act of resistance to the laws which have been denounced as void by those who abuse your confidence and falsify your hopes is Treason, and subjects you to all the pains and penalties that are provided for the highest offence against your country. Can (you)...consent to become Traitors? Forbid it Heaven!"

__________________________________________________________________________________

Daniel Webster - The Seventh of March speech (1850).... 

I wish to speak to-day, not as a Massachusetts man, not as a northern man, but as an American. I speak to-day for the preservation of Union.  Hear me for my cause.

I shall stand by the Union...with absolute disregard of personal consequences. What are personal consequences...in comparison with the good or evil that may befall a great country in a crisis like this?...Let the consequences be what they will.... No man can suffer too much, and no man can fall too soon, if he suffer or if he fall in defense of the liberties and constitution of his country.


Important point:  Throughout the 1850s northern school children were taught to recite quotes from Webster's famous speeches on Union.  These children would be the U.S. soldiers during the Civil War.