thev ought to make significant political concessions and grantrnconstitutional safeguards; as he pointed out, it was they, not thernSouth, who were mostly to blame for the sectional conflict.rnWhen he heard of Lincoln’s decision to reinforce and resupplyrnSumter he wrote: “I cannot conceive of a more idle, foolish, illadvised,rnif not criminal thing.” He considered this decision tornbe “the first act of war,” certain to inaugurate hostilities alongrnthe whole length of the Mason-Dixon line. When Lincoln issuedrnhis proclamation for 75,000 troops in order to suppressrn”the insurrection” to the South, Pierce wrote the governor ofrnN’irginia that “to this war… which seems to me to contemplaternsubjugation I give no countenance—no support to any possiblernextent in anv possible way. . . . Come what may the foulrnschemes of Northern Abolitionism, which we have resisted forrnso man ears, arc not to be consummated b’ arms on bloodvrnfields, through any aid of mine.”rnPierce’s opinions of the war are important, for they are representati’rne of a large portion of Northern Democratic and conservativernWhig opinion. Keeping in mind that Pierce was farrnfrom alone in his opposition not only to Lincoln but to the warrnitself helps us to realize what has been forgotten in the nationalrndeification of Lincoln and his party: that their advent to powerrnwas as much a revolution in the North as it was to proe forrnthe South, and that the war was seen by man’ Northerners notrnas the fulfillment of the American dream of liberty under lawrnbut as its betrayal and repudiation. Pierce speaks for thosernNortherners who preferred negotiation and compromise tornarmed coercion as the means of restoring the Union, who regardedrnLincoln’s systematic violation of law and civil liberties asrnwholly unjustified, who believed that while the South shouldrnnot hae withdrawn from the Union it did not do so withoutrncause and provocation, who belicxed that Lincoln’s EmancipationrnProclamation was not only an unconstitutional act of executivernusurpation but a gross violation of the most solemnrnpledges made to the Southern states before the war and to thernNortliem army during the war, and who saw in a Northern victoryrnnot a glorious consummation of freedom for all but therndeath of the republic.rnPierce’s major speech on the war was given at a Democraticrnantiwar rally in Concord, New Hampshire, on July 4, 1863.rnStudents of American history will note that at this same time arnmajor battle was being fought on the fields of southeasternrnPennslvania. (3thcr speakers that day included the famed oratorrnand prominent Peace Democrat Daniel W. Voorhees of Indiana.rnEx-President Pierce was chosen to preside and to speakrnat the meeting; it marked his first public oration since thernspring of 1861. Opposition to the war in the north had beenrngrowing steadily since Lincoln had issued his PreliminaryrnEmancipation Proclamation after the modest Northern victoryrnat Antietam the previous fall. Although the Republican policiesrnof eschewing compromise and negotiation and of crushingrndissent in the Northern states had never been popular. Lincoln’srnproclamation had fundamentally changed the naturernand the purpose of the war. Most Democrats in the North sawrnthe objects of the war as no longer to preserve the Union but tornfree the slaves and to subjugate the South. n their eyes the latterrngoals necessarily negated the first, for a political union ofrnconquered states and emancipated slaves was not the unionrnof their fathers. Man’ soldiers, officers, and civilians feltrnbetrayed, for these ends were not only unworthy in themselvesrnbut were not what they had been assured repeatedly theyrnwere fighting for.rnThe first half of 1863 witnessed antiwar and anti-Lincolnrnmeetings and rallies all across the North—Indianapolis,rnPhiladelphia, New York, and Concord, just to name a few. Afterrnthe Confederate victory at Chancellorsville and Lee’s subsequentrninvasion of Pennsylvania, opposition to the war andrnhopes for an immediate armistice reached a kind of criticalrnmass. Such was the situation when the ex-President mountedrnthe rostrum at Capital Square to address his fellow citizens ofrnNew Hampshire.rnPierce begins his address by contrasting the wisdom and “allcomprehensixrnc patriotism” of the Founders of the republic withrnthe fanaticism and “narrow and aggressive sectionalism” of thernRepublicans. According to Pierce, their “heroic forefathers. . .rnestablished the Lfnion” on the basis of the “original socreigntrnand independence of the several States, all with their diverse institutions,rninterests, opinions and habits, to be maintained intactrnand secure, by the reciprocal stipulations and mutual compromisesrnof the Constitution.” Unlike the AbolitionizedrnRepublicans, “no visionary enthusiasts were the’, dreamingrnvainly of the impossible uniformity of some wild Utopia or theirrnown imaginations. No desperate reformers were they, madl’rnbent upon schemes which, if consummated, could only resultrnin general confusion, anarchy, and chaos.” On the contrar,rnthey were “sagacious and practical statesmen .. . who saw societyrnas a living fact, not as a troubled vision; who knew that nationalrnpower consists in the reconcilement of diversities of institutionsrnand interests, not their conflict and obliteration.”rnPierce denounces the war and the Republican conduct of itrnin the strongest terms. Americans, he thunders, are “wastingrntheir lives and resources in sanguinary ciil strife,” in a “suicidalrnand parricidal civil war [sweeping] like a raging tempest ofrndeath over the stricken homesteads and wailing cities of thernUnion.” He especially condemns the tactics of the Northernrnarmies, contrasting them with the more civilized warfare of thernRe olution: “Then the war was conducted onh against the foreignrnenemy, and not in the spirit and purpose of persecutingrnnoncombatant populations, nor of burning undefended townsrnor private dwellings, and wasting the fields of the husbandmen,rnor the workshops of the artisan, but of subduing armed hosts inrnthe field.” In addition, America’s leaders had been patriots:rn”Then the Congress of the United States was the great Councilrnof the whole Union and of all its parts. Then the Executive Administrationrnlooked with an impartial eve over tlie whole domainrnof the Union, anxious to promote the interests and consultrnthe honor and just pride of all the States, seeing no powerrnbeyond the law and devoutly obedient to the commands of thernConstitution.”rnPierce does not hesitate t(j blame Northern Abolitionists andrntheir Republican allies for the evil days that have fallen on therncountry: “Do we not know that the cause of our calamities isrnthe vicious intermeddling of too mam’ of the citizens of thernNorthern states with the Constitutional rights of the southernrnStates, co-operating with the discontents of the people of thosernStates? Do we not know that the disregard of the Constitution,rnand of the security it affords to the rights of States and of individuals,rnhas been the cause of the calamity which our country isrncalled to undergo?”rnPierce next condemns in the strongest terms Lincoln’s policyrnof closing down newspapers and arresting civilians critical ofrnthe administration’s war policies: “Even here in the loyal States,rnthe mailed hand of militar usurpation strikes down the liber-rnOCTOBER 1997/35rnrnrn