“They are all Free States,” retorted Greeley. “As time goes on they formalize their political institutions to include free elections. They will vote more Republican, as they have been in the process of doing for some years.”
“But you cannot know how these states will vote in the future!” objected Davis. “The entire foundation of the Democratic Party is based on the principle of State Sovereignty — that the people of each state will decide for themselves how to organize their domestic institutions. That principle applies as much to the Free States as to the Slave States. The Republican Rebels are trying to destroy the Free States’ sovereignty by replacing their state governments with an unelected central government. The Rebels want to deny the people of the Free States their right to vote for the candidates of their choice by removing them from the Confederate Union and foisting a government of unelected officials upon them. Is that not the very definition of tyranny! Is that not war against the Constitution!”
Greeley sighed. “May I suggest looking at it as a practical matter? If you make peace now you will be ending a war that has proven costly in lives and property. St. Louis, Springfield, and much of Cincinnati have been destroyed. Dozens of other towns from New Jersey to Kansas have been pockmarked by irregular warfare. Trade has been disrupted. Businesses have closed. Workers are idle. Were not the armies taking in the unemployed there would be rioting by unemployed mobs. Things will become much worse if the war continues. By making peace you will acquire territories for slavery larger than you had any prospect for obtaining while you were joined with the Free States were in the old Union. You will obtain much more than even Yancey’s gang of Southern Secessionists would have asked for if they had left the Union.”
“Why would I care about what Yancey’s gang wanted? I put that bunch down by joining the ticket with Stephen Douglas. I don’t favor any man who desires to wreck the country, whatever section he represents.”
“But haven’t you wanted to be free from the Abolitionists?” Greely implored. “Haven’t you complained about their trying to undermine slavery? Now they have voluntarily separated themselves from you and gone off into another country where they will not disturb you again. Why not let them go?”
“If only it were true about them not disturbing us!” said Davis in a tone between exasperation and mocking laughter. “If we allow the Abolitionists to go off into their own country do you think they’ll stop inciting our slaves? They’ll stand on their side of the border and shout for our Negroes to rise against us! They’ll send their agents into our territory to agitate our Negroes. There will be a ‘John Brown’ raid organized every year. No, sir, peace cannot be had when one people insist on interfering with the business of others. The Abolitionists must be suppressed until such time as they learn to mind their own business.”
“The Free Staters will not go down easily,” advised Greeley. “They will fight with their teeth and their fingernails. If you do succeed in forcing them back into the Confederate Union it will be at the cost of hundreds of thousands dead. You will recover a land of devastated farms, villages, towns, and cities.”
“I don’t know that it will come to that,” answered Davis. “There are many Democrats and even some moderate Republicans who do not favor their cause any more than do your Democrats and Republicans here in New York. I don’t see how they can carry on a war with that much disaffection in their own ranks. But even should the war prove to be as costly as you say, it is a price better paid now than later. If we allow those people to establish themselves as a separate sovereignty we will be required to spend untold millions each and every year to fortify a border that stretches thousands of miles across rivers, mountains, forests, and settled lands. It would be like an iron veil drawn across this continent. Our two peoples would be as destined to perpetual war as the Egyptians and the Hebrews.”
“Then there is no foundation on which to negotiate peace,” said Greeley dejectedly. “The war must continue, perhaps for years.”
“I do appreciate the good faith you have shown in drawing up this proposal,” Davis assured him. “But there can be no basis for peace other than the Republican Rebels laying down their arms and submitting to the Constitution.”
“I suppose that concludes our conversation, then,” said Greeley. “Please think on my proposal. The Free States have already accepted it.”
Davis nodded.
“One other thing,” said Greeley. “I had asked if you would be so kind as to bring me a copy of the speech you will be delivering at Cooper’s Institute tonight. I would like to have it ready for printing in tomorrow’s edition.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” replied Davis. He reached into his vest pocked and pulled out a sheaf of papers. He handed two bound pages to Greeley.”
Greeley thanked him and escorted him to the first floor lobby where Davis’ secretary and one-person body guard waited. Greeley returned to his office and read the speech to himself:
Speech by Jefferson Davis at Cooper’s Institute in New York City
My friends, my brethren, my countrymen —- I thank you for the patient attention you have given me. It is with feelings of profound gratification that I witness this indication of that national sentiment and fraternity which made us, and which alone can keep us, one people.
At a period, but as yesterday when compared with the life of nations, these States were separate colonies. Their only relation to each other was that of a common allegiance to the government of Great Britain. So separate, indeed almost hostile, was their attitude, that when colonists of Massachusetts were captured by savages they were taken to Albany, New York and again led away as captives, without interference on the part of the inhabitants of New York to demand their release.
Until the recent Rebellion, were a citizen of any part of our country, as an act of hostility, imprisoned or slain in any quarter of the world, whether on land or sea, the people of each and every State of the Union, with one heart, and with one voice, would demand redress, and woe be to him against whom a brother's blood cried to us from the ground.
Have the purposes for which our Union was formed, lost their value? Has patriotism ceased to be a virtue, and is narrow sectionalism no longer to be counted a crime?
Shall the North not rejoice that the progress of agriculture in the South has given to her great staple the controlling influence of the commerce of the world, and put manufacturing nations under bond to keep the peace with the United States?
Shall the South not exult in the fact, that the industry and persevering intelligence of the North, has placed her mechanical skill in the front ranks of the civilized world?
Do not our whole people, interior and seaboard, North, South, East, and West, alike feel proud of the hardihood, the enterprise, the skill, and the courage of the Yankee sailor, who has borne our flag far as the ocean bears its foam, and caused the name and the character of the United States to be known and respected wherever there is wealth enough to woo commerce, and intelligence enough to honor merit?
Yankee is a word once applied to you as a term of reproach, but you have made it honorable and renowned. You have a right to be proud of your achievements as well on the land as the sea. Well may you point as you do with satisfaction, to your school houses and your work-shops, and to the fruits they have borne on the forum and in the council chamber, and in the manufactures which have increased the comforts of our own people, and have encircled the globe to find exchangeable products required at home. Those are the greatest and most beneficent triumphs-the triumph of mind over matter. These are the monuments of greatness, which resist both time and circumstance.