People's Liberation Army

“ An Army may be Murtherers and Unlawful.
“If an Army be raised to cast out Kingly Oppression, and if the Heads of that Army promise a Commonwealth’s Freedom to the oppressed people, in case they will assist in person and purse, and if the people do assist and prevail over the Tyrant, those Officers are bound by the Law of Justice (who is God) to make good their engagements. ”

“ Hence, slow and scanty levies of men, in the most critical emergencies of our affairs; short enlistments at an unparalleled expense; continual fluctuations in the troops, ruinous to their discipline, and subjecting the public safety frequently to the perilous crisis of a disbanded army. Hence, also, those oppressive expedients for raising men, which were upon several occasions practised, and which nothing but the enthusiasm of liberty would have induced the people to endure. ”

“ Flattering promises of liberty, and the threats of death, were not sufficient to destroy their loyalty to their country; they have waited with firmness the day on which their companions in arms should rescue them from their misery, and revenge the insults which, humanity has received in their persons. This glory was reserved to the liberating army, whose efforts have snatched from the hands of tyranny these respectable victims. Let this be published for the satisfaction of these individuals, and that of the army, to whose arms they owe their liberty. ”

“ It contains a List of very important Matters lying before the General Assembly. I am much pleased to find that there is an End to the Contest between the two Houses concerning the Establishment of the Militia—and that you are in hopes of making an effectual Law for that Purpose. It is certainly of the last Consequence to a free Country that the Militia, which is its natural Strength, should be kept upon the most advantageous Footing. A standing Army, however necessary it may be at some times, is always dangerous to the Liberties of the People. ”

“ The freemen of the north saw the threatened danger to our institutions, to our country and our homes. You, Soldiers and Patriots, at this crisis in our country’s history, worthy sons of patriot sires, left your farms, your work-shops, your counters and your homes, and organized the Regiment comprising the immortal Thirty-third Volunteers of the Empire State, and went forth to meet the foe that would strike down the liberties of millions of happy freemen, and who would destroy the wisest and best government ever devised by the wisdom of man. ”

“ The enemy of the liberty and independence of America alone is the object of the vengeance of the arms of the PATRIA. I promise you in the most positive manner, that your property and persons shall be inviolable, and that you shall be treated as respectable citizens, if you co-operate in the great cause," &c. &c.
By the 12th the army was again disembarked, amidst evident manifestations of dissatisfaction on the part of the officers, who were naturally jealous of the achievements of the squadron, from being themselves restrained from enterprise of any kind. ”

“ Few official reports of regimental and brigade officers have been published, while the reports of division and corps commanders are only general in their statements. The true history of battles cannot be given till the history of regiments is written.
My stand-point as an observer is that of one whose instincts from early childhood have been on the side of Freedom. I have ever believed that Civil Liberty is the birthright of all men, and from the firing upon Sumter to the close of the contest had full faith that the people, under God, would subdue the Rebellion, and give freedom to the slave. ”

“ This remedy that law gives as follows: That the people must defend their liberties and “the rise of the individual,” against this industrial despotism of money kings, railroad barons, political bosses, etc., better than they defended themselves against the foreign tyrants in 1775, or the slaveocrats of 1861,—to-wit, by organizing an army for their peaceful protection and safety—A free Army of Industry—before an army for war shall be needed, and as its preventive. ”

“ Let the white troops on duty in this department be mustered out; they are greatly dissatisfied with remaining in the service after the close of the war; let black troops be mustered in their stead. In urging this matter, I suggest that the government has the first right to the services of the freedmen, and he needs the discipline of the army to develop his manhood and self-reliance. ”

“ On the 30th the Commune abolished the conscription and the standing army, and declared the National Guard, to which all citizens capable of bearing arms were to belong, to be the only force with the right to bear arms ”

“ With this understanding and provision, wherever our armies march, they carry liberty with them. For be it remembered that our army is almost entirely a volunteer one, and that the most zealous and ardent volunteers are those who have been for years fighting with tongue and pen the Abolition battle. So marked is the character of our soldiers in this respect, that they are now familiarly designated in the official military despatches of the Confederate States as "The Abolitionists." Conceive the results, when an army, so empowered by national law, marches through a slave-territory. ”

“ Secondly, A Fighting Army, called Soldiers in the Field, when the necessity of preservation, by reason of a foreign invasion, or inbred Oppression, doth move the people to arise in an Army to cut and tear to pieces either degenerate Officers, or rude people, who seek their own interests, and not Common Freedom, and through treachery do endeavour to destroy the Laws of Common Freedom, and to enslave both the Land and the People of the Commonwealth to their particular wills and lusts.... ”

“ The best equipped, the largest and most disciplined army cannot protect everything. Only small groups of soldiers can be everywhere, isolated amongst the large masses of the people, the numberless proletarians. The army would be split up and dispersed, and immobilised in all directions; and would therefore be incapable of suppressing the revolt of the proletariat conducted in this form. ”

“ The men and women who espoused the anti-slavery cause at the outset were actuated by high principles, though doubtless some found in the opportunity for notoriety meat for their souls. But when the cause of human freedom became linked with the preservation of the Union and was financed by the government, not only the patriotic and those of high principle enlisted in the public service, but an army of camp followers, cormorants of all kinds and the unscrupulous took advantage of a public calamity to feather their own nests. ”

“ Liberty is given to every effective slave to enter the service during the war; and upon his passing muster, he is absolutely made free, and entitled to all the wages, bounties and encouragements given by Congress to any soldier enlisting into their service. ”

“ All that we are to infer is, that when the civil power is not sufficient, the militia must be drawn out. Who are they? He says (and I cheerfully acquiesce in the rectitude of the assertion) that they are the bulwarks of our liberties. Shall we be afraid that the people, this bulwark of freedom, will turn instruments of slavery? ”

“ The bill which regulates the army, the same fine author I have mentioned says, "is in many respects hastily penned, and reduces the soldier to a state of slavery in the midst of a free nation. This is impolitick: for slaves envy the freedom of others, and take a malicious pleasure in contributing to destroy it." ”

“ You see him standing at the door where men are being received as recruits into the army of the country. He wants liberty. He wants to be able to do that which he cannot do in his poor, personal isolation here at home. He wants the badge which will give him the right to go forth and meet the enemies of his country, and he enrolls himself among these men. He makes himself subject to obligations, duties, and drill. They are a part of his enfranchisement. They are really the breaking of the fetters upon his slavery, the sending him forth into freedom. ”

“ Admitting, for mere argument, that the government would accept our services, how could we, more than the commander of the West, General Fremont, influence the policy of the administration to our liberation or emancipation from prejudice and slavery? No, my friends, your reason must answer, no!—no fighting will emancipate you from prejudice. ”

“ Permit me to call your attention to the subject of the Militia of the Commonwealth.—A well regulated militia "held in an exact subordination to the civil authority and governed by it," is the most safe defence of a Republic.—In our Declaration of Rights, which expresses the sentiments of the people, the people have a right to keep and bear arms for the common defence. ”

“ While the "Frei-Corps" with which the Government now holds all the principal towns under military rule have as moral ideals patriotism, privilege and property, and as material inducements high pay and quadruple rations. They embody not only the survivors of the officer caste, but also the young burghers and students, hitherto the Young Guard of revolution. Their formation was due partly to our delusion that a professional army is necessarily democratic because we have one, and that a short service militia is necessarily militarist because Germany used that method for its recovery a century ago ”

“ A quarter of a century has not sufficed to separate the great body of the surviving volunteers in the war for the Union from the body of American citizens, notwithstanding the organization of the Grand Army of the Republic, the encampments, the annual reunions, and the distinction of pensions, and the segregation in Soldiers' Homes. ”

“ For the first few months of the new régime, in spite of the confusion incident upon a great Revolution, when one hundred and sixty millions of the world’s most oppressed peoples suddenly achieved liberty, both the internal situation and the combative power of the army actually improved. ”

“ The church, the school-house, and the right forever to be free are now secured to you, and every prospect before you is full of hope and encouragement. The nation guarantees to you full protection and justice, and will require from you in return that respect for the laws and orderly deportment which will prove to every one your right to all the privileges of freemen. To the officers of the regiment I would say, your toils are ended, your mission is fulfilled, and we separate forever. ”

“ Socialists advocate the establishment of a National Citizen Army, for defensive purposes only. We believe that every able bodied man should be compelled to belong to this force and to undergo a course of military training, but without making him into a professional soldier, or taking him away from civil life, depriving him of the rights of citizenship or making him subject to military ‘law’ which is only another name for tyranny and despotism. ”

“ Experience has shown that the presence of even a small force of federal troops located in the disaffected States has had the effect to preserve the peace, encourage the friends of the Union, and induce the people to return to their allegiance. ”

“ The probability, therefore, is that wherever a Northern army appears, the slaves will disappear, and so much of slavery with them—at least for the time being. Invade a Free State, and the restoration of liberty, after the attack is repulsed, requires only the presence of freemen. ”

“ There have been no braver men, no stouter soldiers, in all war's red annals, than these armed clerks, farmers, college boys, and their comrades of every peaceful calling. Each community keeps the name of some young hero, nobler than Spartan mothers ever welcomed on his shield. Redder blood never stained the earth, than those full libations our new mustered ranks have poured out for union, law, and liberty. ”

“ That democratic spirit has therefore always demanded that the armed force should be composed principally of the militia, the citizen soldiery, or, in extraordinary emergencies, of volunteers called out from the ranks of the people, to serve as soldiers for certain well-defined and stated purposes, and then, those stated purposes being accomplished, to return to their civic pursuits. ”

“ To weaken the military forces and the power of the Rebellion, the 37th Congress decreed that all slaves of persons giving aid and comfort to the Rebellion, escaping from such persons, and taking refuge within280 the lines of the army; all slaves captured from such persons, or deserted by them; all slaves of such persons, being within any place occupied by rebel forces, and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United States,—shall be captives of war, and shall be for ever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves. ”

“ In this country, even the task of defending the territory—that is, the chief, the great function of the State—has been undertaken by an army of Volunteers, and this army surely might stand against any army of slaves obeying a military despot. ”

“ When professional armies make their first entry into practical politics it is almost always in the role of liberators and defenders of justice. An instance might easily occur if one or other set of politicians, in a fit of madness or presumption, were to ask, or order, the British Army to undertake certain {398} operations against a section of their fellow-countrymen, which the soldiers themselves judged to be contrary to justice and their own honour. ”

“ The gallantry and good conduct of the militia, whose services were called for, is an honorable confirmation of the efficacy of that precious resource of a free State. And we anxiously wish that the consequences of their successful enterprises, and of the other proceedings to which you have referred, may leave the United States free to pursue the most benevolent policy towards the unhappy and deluded race of people in our neighborhood. ”