Tilden's Short Civil War Speech Aimed At Southern Democrats - He Supported Lincoln to Preserve the Union and U.S. Constitution

I wanted to start this series of BLOGS off with a short one paragraph speech Samuel was asked to write at the start of the Civil War. The exchange is between him and John VanBuren - President Martin VanBuren's son's remarks will come as a surprise to many as it did to me when I read it. To clarify, at the start of the Civil War a large majority of Northern Democrats did not support slave freedoms as much as they profess to today and they despised President Lincoln.

This, the first of many letters to come were exchanged during the Civil War reveals Tilden's opinion which many were not sure if he was right or he was wrong. Many trusted Tilden's judgment because he was sensible, smart and always gave great advice. Tilden stood his ground and he supported Lincoln's decision to fight to preserve the U.S. Constitution and the Union. He challenged both the Northern and Southern Democrats about their loyalties to America as you will read in his own words below. After much research about this man - I could only imagine what a tough decision it had to be for him to have taken this stance to save the our young growing nation and the freedoms the Founding Fathers gave us.

October 1862

MEMORANDUM LEFT BY MR. TILDEN

Mr. John Van Buren, who had become an earnest supporter of the war, just before he made a speech at a great Democratic meeting in the city of New York, in October, 1862, called upon Mr. Tilden.

" We must be for the war," said Mr. Van Buren.

" Certainly," replied Mr. Tilden.

Mr. Tilden was requested to reduce to writing what he suggested should be said. The next morning, on his way down-town, he left with Mr. Seymour a sketch of a peroration for the speech to be made that evening.

It was in the following words:

" And now, if my voice could reach the Southern people, through the journals of our metropolis, I would say to them that in no event can the triumph of the conservative sentiment of New York in the election mean consent to disunion, either now or hereafter. Its true import is restoration, North and South, of that Constitution which had secured every right, and under whose shelter all had been happy and prosperous until you madly fled from its protection. It was your act which began this calamitous civil war. It was your act which disabled us, as we are now disabled, of shaping the policy or limiting the objects of that war. Loyally as we maintained your rights, will we maintain the right of the government. We will not strike down its arm as long as yours is lifted against it. That noblest and greatest work of our wise ancestors is not destined to perish. We intend to rear once more upon the old and firm foundations its shattered columns, and to carry them higher towards the eternal skies. If the old flag waves in the nerveless grasp of a fanatic but feeble faction to whom you and not we abandoned it, we, whose courage you have tried when we stood unmoved between fanaticism and folly from the North and South alike, will once more bear it onward and aloft until it is again planted upon the towers of the Constitution, invincible by domestic as by foreign enemies. Within the Union we will give you the Constitution you profess to revere, renewed with fresh guarantees of equal rights and equal safety. We will give you everything that local self-government demands; everything that a common ancestry of glory —everything that national fraternity or Christian fellowship requires; but to dissolve the federal bond between these States, to dismember our country, whoever else consents, we will not. No; never, never, never 1"