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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/24613-8.txt b/24613-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..751ce2a --- /dev/null +++ b/24613-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14716 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Negro and the Nation, by George S. Merriam + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Negro and the Nation + A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement + +Author: George S. Merriam + +Release Date: February 14, 2008 [EBook #24613] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEGRO AND THE NATION *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + + + THE NEGRO AND THE NATION + + _A History of American Slavery + and Enfranchisement_ + + BY + + GEORGE S. MERRIAM + + HASKELL HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD. + _Publishers of Scarce Scholarly Books_ + + NEW YORK. N. Y. 10012 + + 1970 + + + + + First Published 1906 + + HASKELL HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD. + _Publishers of Scarce Scholarly Books_ + + 280 LAFAYETTE STREET + NEW YORK, N. Y. 10012 + + Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 75-95441 + + Standard Book Number 8383-0994-1 + + Printed in the United States of America + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. HOW SLAVERY GREW IN AMERICA 1 + + II. THE ACTS OF THE FATHERS 8 + + III. CONFLICT AND COMPROMISE 21 + + IV. THE WIDENING RIFT 28 + + V. CALHOUN AND GARRISON 46 + + VI. BIRNEY, CHANNING AND WEBSTER 58 + + VII. THE UNDERLYING FORCES 67 + + VIII. THE MEXICAN WAR 71 + + IX. HOW TO DEAL WITH THE TERRITORIES 79 + + X. THE COMPROMISE OF 1850 84 + + XI. A LULL AND A RETROSPECT 92 + + XII. SLAVERY AS IT WAS 97 + + XIII. THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS 112 + + XIV. "FREMONT AND FREEDOM" 122 + + XV. THREE TYPICAL SOUTHERNERS 132 + + XVI. SOME NORTHERN LEADERS 140 + + XVII. DRED SCOTT AND LECOMPTON 147 + + XVIII. JOHN BROWN 158 + + XIX. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 172 + + XX. THE ELECTION OF 1860 185 + + XXI. FACE TO FACE 197 + + XXII. HOW THEY DIFFERED 205 + + XXIII. WHY THEY FOUGHT 211 + + XXIV. ON NIAGARA'S BRINK--AND OVER 221 + + XXV. THE CIVIL WAR 237 + + XXVI. EMANCIPATION BEGUN 248 + + XXVII. EMANCIPATION ACHIEVED 258 + + XXVIII. RECONSTRUCTION: EXPERIMENTS AND IDEALS 267 + + XXIX. RECONSTRUCTION: THE FIRST PLAN 274 + + XXX. CONGRESS AND THE "BLACK CODES" 281 + + XXXI. RECONSTRUCTION: THE SECOND PLAN 294 + + XXXII. RECONSTRUCTION: THE FINAL PLAN 306 + + XXXIII. RECONSTRUCTION: THE WORKING OUT 316 + + XXXIV. THREE TROUBLED STATES 331 + + XXXV. RECONSTRUCTION: THE LAST ACT 344 + + XXXVI. REGENERATION 354 + + XXXVII. ARMSTRONG 362 + + XXXVIII. EVOLUTION 371 + + XXXIX. EBB AND FLOW 382 + + XL. LOOKING FORWARD 391 + + INDEX 413 + + + + +THE NEGRO AND THE NATION + + + + +CHAPTER I + +HOW SLAVERY GREW IN AMERICA + + +An English traveler, riding along the banks of the Potomac in mid-July, +1798, saw ahead of him on the road an old-fashioned chaise, its driver +urging forward his slow horse with the whip, until a sharp cut made the +beast swerve, and the chaise toppled over the bank, throwing out the +driver and the young lady who was with him. The traveler--it was John +Bernard, an actor and a man of culture and accomplishments, spurred +forward to the rescue. As he did so he saw another horseman put his +horse from a trot to a gallop, and together they reached the scene of +action, extricated the woman and revived her from her swoon with water +from a brook; then righted the horse and chaise, helped to restore the +half-ton of baggage to its place; learned the story of the couple--a New +Englander returning home with his Southern bride--and saw them safely +started again. Then the two rescuers, after their half-hour of +perspiring toil in a broiling sun, addressed themselves courteously to +each other; the Virginian dusted the coat of the Englishman, and as Mr. +Bernard returned the favor he noticed him well,--"a tall, erect, +well-made man, evidently advanced in years, but who appeared to have +retained all the vigor and elasticity resulting from a life of +temperance and exercise. His dress was a blue coat, buttoned to the +chin, and buckskin breeches." The two men eyed each other, half +recognizing, half perplexed, till with a smile the Virginian exclaimed, +"Mr. Bernard, I believe?" and, claiming acquaintance from having seen +him on the stage and heard of him from friends, invited him to come and +rest at his house near by, to which he pointed. That familiar front, the +now wholly familiar face and form,--"Mount Vernon! Have I the honor of +addressing General Washington?" With a charming smile Washington offered +his hand, replying, "An odd sort of introduction, Mr. Bernard; but I am +pleased to find you can play so active a part in private and without a +prompter." There followed a long and leisurely call at Mount Vernon, and +Bernard, in his volume of travels which did not see the light for nearly +a century, has given a most graphic and winning picture of Washington in +his every-day aspect and familiar conversation. To the actor's keen eye, +acquainted with the best society of his time, the near approach showed +no derogation from the greatness which the story of his deeds conveyed. +"Whether you surveyed his face, open yet well defined, dignified but not +arrogant, thoughtful but benign; his frame, towering and muscular, but +alert from its good proportions--every feature suggested a resemblance +to the spirit it encased, and showed simplicity in alliance with the +sublime. The impression, therefore, was that of a most perfect whole." + +The talk ran a various course. Washington incidentally praised the New +Englanders, "the stamina of the Union and its greatest benefactors." The +Englishman acknowledged a tribute to his own country, but Washington +with great good humor responded, "Yes, yes, Mr. Bernard, but I consider +your country the cradle of free principles, not their arm-chair." He had +proceeded a little way in a eulogy of American liberty, when a black +servant entered the room with a jug of spring water. Bernard smiled, and +Washington quickly caught his look and answered it: "This may seem a +contradiction, but I think you must perceive that it is neither a crime +nor an absurdity. When we profess, as our fundamental principle, that +liberty is the inalienable right of every man, we do not include madmen +or idiots; liberty in their hands would become a scourge. Till the mind +of the slave has been educated to perceive what are the obligations of a +state of freedom, and not confound a man's with a brute's, the gift +would insure its abuse. We might as well be asked to pull down our old +warehouses before trade has increased to demand enlarged new ones. Both +houses and slaves were bequeathed to us by Europeans, and time alone can +change them; an event which, you may believe me, no man desires more +heartily than I do. Not only do I pray for it on the score of human +dignity, but I can clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of +slavery can perpetuate the existence of our Union, by consolidating it +in a common bond of principle." + +These words of Washington, with the incident that supplies their +background, are an epitome of the view and attitude of that great man +toward slavery. Before measuring their full significance, and the +general situation in which this was an element, we may glance at the +preliminary questions; how came slaves in Virginia and America; whence +came slavery; what was it? + +Primitive man killed his enemy and ate him. Later, the sequel of battle +was the slaying of all the vanquished and the appropriation of their +goods, including women and other live stock. Then it was found more +profitable to spare the conquered warrior's life and set him to do the +victor's disagreeable work; more profitable, and incidentally more +merciful. Civilization advanced; wars became less general; but in the +established social order that grew up there was a definite place for a +great class of slaves. It was part of Nature's early law, the strong +raising themselves upon the weak. Morality and religion by degrees +established certain limited rights for the slave. But the general state +of slavery was defended by philosophers like Aristotle; was recognized +by the legislation of Judea, Greece, and Rome; was accepted as part of +the established order by Jesus and the early church. It is beyond our +limits here to measure either its service, as the foundation on which +rested ancient society; or the mischief that came from the supplanting +of a free peasantry, as in Italy. We can but glance at the influence of +Christianity, first in ameliorating its rigor, by teaching the master +that the slave was his brother in Christ, and then by working together +with economic forces for its abolition. By complex and partly obscure +causes, personal slavery--the outright ownership of man--was abolished +throughout Christendom. Less inhuman in theory, less heartless in +practice, though inhuman and harsh enough, was the serfdom which +succeeded slavery and rested on Europe for a thousand years; till by +slow evolution, by occasional bloody revolt, by steady advance in the +intelligence and power of the laborer, compelling for him a higher +status, the serf became a hired laborer and thence a citizen throughout +Europe. + +The recrudescence of slavery came when the expanding energies of +European society, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, dashed +against the weak barbarians of Africa and America. The old story was +retold,--the stronger man, half-savage still under the veneer of +civilization and Christianity, trampled the weaker man under foot. In +Europe there was little need or room for slaves--the labor supply was +sufficient, but on the new continent, in the words of Weeden (_Economic +and Social History of New England_): "The seventeenth century organized +the new western countries, and created an immense opportunity for +labor. The eighteenth coolly and deliberately set Europe at the task of +depopulating whole districts of western Africa, and of transporting the +captives, by a necessarily brutal, vicious and horrible traffic, to the +new civilization of America." The European was impartial between African +and Indian; he was equally ready to enslave either; but the Indian was +not made for captivity,--he rebelled or ran away or died; the more +docile negro was the chief victim. The stream of slavery moved mainly +according to economic conditions. Soil and climate in the Northern +States made the labor of the indolent and unthrifty slave unprofitable, +but in the warm and fertile South, developing plantations of tobacco, +rice, and indigo, the negro toiler supplied the needed element for great +profits. The church's part in the business was mainly to find excuse; +through slavery the heathen were being made Christians. But when they +had become Christians the church forgot to bid that they be made +brothers and freemen. Some real mitigation of their lot no doubt there +was, through teaching of religion and from other conditions. Professor +Du Bois says that slavery brought the African three advantages: it +taught him to labor, gave him the English language and--after a +sort--the Christian religion. But it ruined such family life as had +existed under a kind of regulated polygamy. Again we must decline to +measure the good and the evil of the system. Probably the negro was in +better condition in America than he had been in Africa, as he certainly +was in far worse condition than he was entitled to be--and was in future +to be. + +The traffic was maintained chiefly by trading companies in England,--at +first a great monopoly headed by the Duke of York, then rival companies. +The colonists made some attempts to check the traffic,--growing alarmed +at the great infusion of a servile and barbaric population. Virginia +long tried to discourage it by putting a heavy import tax on slaves, +which was constantly overruled by the English government under the +influence of the trading companies. At a later day every one tried to +put the responsibility of slavery on some one else,--the North on the +South, the South on England. But in truth the responsibility was on all. +The colonists did not hesitate to refuse to receive tea which England +taxed; equally well they could have refused to buy slaves imported by +trading companies if they had not wanted them; but they did want them. +The commercial demand overrode humanity. The social conscience was not +awake,--strange as its slumber now seems. Stranger still, as we shall +see, after it had once been thoroughly roused, it was deliberately +drugged to sleep. But this belongs to a later chapter. + +New England had little use for slaves at home, but for slave ships she +had abundant use. With a sterile soil, and with the sea at her doors +swarming with edible fish and beckoning to her sails, her hardy industry +found its best field on the ocean. The fisheries were the foundation of +her commerce. The thrifty Yankee sold the best of his catch in Europe +(here again we follow Weeden); the medium quality he ate himself; and +the worst he sent to the West Indies to be sold as food for slaves. With +the proceeds the skipper bought molasses and carried it home, where it +was turned into rum; the rum went to Africa and was exchanged for +slaves, and the slaves were carried to the West Indies, Virginia, and +the Carolinas. Rum and slaves, two chief staples of New England trade +and sources of its wealth; slave labor the foundation on which was +planted the aristocracy of Virginia and the Carolinas,--alas for our +great-grandfathers! But what may our great-grandchildren find to say of +us? + +The social conscience was not developed along this line; men were +unconscious of the essential wrong of slavery, or, uneasily conscious of +something wrong, saw not what could be done, and kept still. Here and +there a voice was raised in protest. There was fine old Samuel Sewall, +Chief Justice of Massachusetts; sincere, faithful man; dry and narrow, +because in a dry and narrow place and time; but with the capacity for +growth which distinguishes the live root from the dead. He presided over +the court that adjudged witches to death; then, when the community had +recovered from its frenzy, he took on himself deepest blame; he stood up +in his pew, a public penitent, while the minister read aloud his humble +confession, and on a stated day in each year he shut himself up in +solitude to mourn and expiate the wrong he had unwittingly done, and, +almost alone among his people, he spoke out clear and strong against +human slavery. + +A little later, in the generation before the Revolution, came the +Quaker, John Woolman,--a gentle and lovely soul, known among his people +as a kind of lay evangelist, traveling among their communities to utter +sweet persuasive words of holiness and uplifting; known in our day by +his _Journal_, a book of saintly meditations. Sensitive and shrinking, +he yet had the moral insight to see and the courage to speak against the +wrong of slavery. The Quakers, rich in the virtues of peace and +kindliness, were by no means unpractical in the ways of worldly gain, or +inaccessible to its temptations; they had held slaves like their +neighbors, though we should probably have preferred a Quaker master. But +the seed Woolman sowed fell on good ground; slavery came into disfavor +among the Quakers, and when sentiment against it began to grow they lent +strength to the leadership of the public conscience. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE ACTS OF THE FATHERS + + +The revolt of the colonists from British rule was not inspired +originally by abstract enthusiasm for the rights of man. It was rather a +demand for the chartered rights of British subjects, according to the +liberal principles set forth by Locke and Chatham and Burke and Fox; a +demand pushed on by the self-asserting strength of communities become +too vigorous to endure control from a remote seat of empire, especially +when that control was exercised in a harsh and arbitrary spirit. The +revolutionary tide was swelled from various sources: by the mob eager to +worry a red-coated sentry or to join in a raid under Indian disguise; by +men who embodied the common sense and rough energy of the plain people, +like Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine; by men of practical statesmanship, +like Franklin and Washington, who saw that the time had come when the +colonists could best manage their own affairs; and by generous +enthusiasts for humanity, like Jefferson and Patrick Henry. + +With the minds of thoughtful men thoroughly wakened on the subject of +human rights, it was impossible not to reflect on the wrongs of the +slaves, incomparably worse than those against which their masters had +taken up arms. As the political institutions of the young Federation +were remolded, so grave a matter as slavery could not be ignored. +Virginia in 1772 voted an address to the King remonstrating against the +continuance of the African slave trade. The address was ignored, and +Jefferson in the first draft of the Declaration alleged this as one of +the wrongs suffered at the hands of the British government, but his +colleagues suppressed the clause. In 1778 Virginia forbade the +importation of slaves into her ports. The next year Jefferson proposed +to the Legislature an elaborate plan for gradual emancipation, but it +failed of consideration. Maryland followed Virginia in forbidding the +importation of slaves from Africa. Virginia in 1782 passed a law by +which manumission of slaves, which before had required special +legislative permission, might be given at the will of the master. For +the next ten years manumission went on at the rate of 8000 a year. +Afterward the law was made more restrictive. Massachusetts adopted in +1780 a constitution and bill of rights, asserting, as the Declaration +had done, that all men are born free and have an equal and inalienable +right to defend their lives and liberties, to acquire property and to +seek and obtain freedom and happiness. A test case was made up to decide +the status of a slave, and the Supreme Court ruled that under this +clause slavery no longer existed in Massachusetts. Its 6000 negroes were +now entitled to the suffrage on the same terms as the whites. The same +held good of the free blacks in four other States. In all the States but +Massachusetts slavery retained a legal existence, the number ranging in +1790 from 158 in New Hampshire to nearly 4000 in Pennsylvania, over +21,000 in New York, 100,000 in each of the Carolinas, and about 300,000 +in Virginia. Ships of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the Middle States +were still busy in bringing negroes from Africa to the South, though +there were brave men like Dr. Hopkins at Newport who denounced the +traffic in its strongholds. + +Jefferson planned nobly for the exclusion of slavery from the whole as +yet unorganized domain of the nation, a measure which would have belted +the slave States with free territory, and so worked toward universal +freedom. The sentiment of the time gave success to half his plan. His +proposal in the ordinance of 1784 missed success in the Continental +Congress by the vote of a single State. The principle was embodied in +the ordinance of 1787 (when Jefferson was abroad as Minister to France), +but with its operations limited to the Northwestern territory, the +country south of the Ohio being left under the influence of the slave +States from which it had been settled. + +The young nation crystalized into form in the constitutional convention +of 1787, and the ratification of its act by the people. It was indeed, +as John Fiske's admirable book names it, "the critical period of +American history." To human eyes it was the parting of the ways between +disintegration toward anarchy, and the birth of a nation with fairer +opportunities and higher ideals than any that had gone before. The work +of those forty men in half a year has hardly a parallel. Individually +they were the pick and flower of their communities. The circumstances +compelled them to keep in such touch with the people of those +communities that their action would be ratified. They included men of +the broadest theoretical statesmanship, like Madison and Hamilton; men +of great practical sense and magnanimity, like Washington and Franklin; +and they also included and needed to include the representatives of +various local and national interests. They had been schooled by the +training of many momentous years, and the emergency brought out the +strongest traits of the men and of the people behind them. + +A prime necessity was willingness to make mutual concessions, together +with good judgment as to where those concessions must stop. Large States +against small States, seaport against farm, North against South and East +against West, slave society against free society--each must be willing +to give as well as to take, or the common cause was lost. The theorists, +too, must make their sacrifices; the believers in centralization, the +believers in diffusion of power; Madisonians, Hamiltonians, +Jeffersonians--all must concede something, or there could be no nation. +And between principles of moral right and wrong,--here, too, can there +be compromise? Easy to give a sweeping No; but when honest men's ideas +of right and wrong fundamentally differ, when personal ideals and social +utilities are in seeming contradiction, the answer may be no easy one. + +The great difficulty at the outset, as to the relative power in Congress +of the large and small States, was settled at last by the happy +compromise of making the Senate representative of the States in +equality, and the House representative of the whole people alike. But +then came the question, Should the representation be based on numbers or +on wealth? The decision to count men and not dollars was a momentous +one; it told for democracy even more than the framers knew. But now +again, Shall this count of men include slaves? Slaves, who have no voice +in the government, and are as much the property of their owners as +horses and oxen? Yes, the slaves should be counted as men, in the +distribution of political power,--so said South Carolina and Georgia. In +that demand there disclosed itself what proved to be the most determined +and aggressive interest in the convention,--the slavery interest in the +two most southern States. Virginia, inspired and led by Washington, +Madison, and Mason, was unfriendly to the strengthening of the slave +power, and the border and central as well as the eastern States were +inclined the same way. But South Carolina and Georgia, united and +determined, had this powerful leverage; from the first dispute, their +representatives habitually declared that unless their demands were +granted their States would not join the Union. Now it had been agreed +that the Constitution should only become operative on the assent by +popular vote of nine of the thirteen States, and it was plain that at +the best there would be great difficulty in getting that number. With +two lost in advance the case looked almost hopeless. South Carolina and +Georgia saw their advantage, and pushed it with equal resolution and +dexterity. The question of representation was settled by a singular +compromise: To the free population was to be added in the count +three-fifths of the slave population. The slave was, for political +purposes, three-fifths a man and two-fifths a chattel. Illogical to +grotesqueness, this arrangement--in effect a concession to the most +objectionable species of property of a political advantage denied to all +other property--yet seemed to the wisest leaders of the convention not +too heavy a price for the establishment of the Union. The provision that +fugitive slaves should be returned had already been made, apparently +with little opposition. + +But the price was by no means all paid. When the powers of Congress came +to be defined, the extreme South demanded that it be not allowed to +forbid the importation of African slaves. With the example of Virginia +and Maryland in view, it was clear that the tide was running so strongly +against the traffic that Congress was sure to prohibit it unless +restrained from doing so. Against such restraint there was strong +protest from Virginia and the middle States. "The traffic is infernal," +said Mason of Virginia. "To permit it is against every principle of +honor and safety," said Dickinson of Delaware. But the two Pinckneys and +their colleague said, "Leave us the traffic, or South Carolina and +Georgia will not join your Union." The leading members from the +northern and New England States actually favored the provision, to +conciliate the extreme South. The matter went to a committee of one from +each State. There it was discussed along with another question: It had +been proposed to restrict Congress from legislating on navigation and +kindred subjects except by a two-thirds vote of each House. This went +sorely against the commercial North, which was eager to wield the whole +power of the government in favor of its shipping interests. Of this +power the South was afraid, and how well grounded was the importance +each section attached to it was made plain when a generation later the +North used its dearly-bought privilege to fashion such tariff laws as +drove South Carolina to the verge of revolt. Now in the committee a +bargain was struck: The slave trade should be extended till 1800, and in +compensation Congress should be allowed to legislate on navigation as on +other subjects. The report coming into the convention, South Carolina +was still unsatisfied. "Eight more years for the African trade, until +1808," said Pinckney, and Gorham of Massachusetts supported him. Vainly +did Madison protest, and Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey +vote against the whole scheme. The alliance of New England commerce and +Carolina slavery triumphed, and the African slave trade was sanctioned +for twenty years. + +For the compromise on representation it might be pleaded, that by it no +license was given to wrong; there was only a concession of +disproportionate power to one section, fairly outweighed in the scale of +the public good by the establishment of a great political order. But the +action on the slave trade was the deliberate sanction for twenty years +of man-stealing of the most flagitious sort. It was aimed at the +strengthening and perpetuation of an institution which even its +champions at that time only defended as a necessary evil. And this +action was taken, not after all other means to secure the Union had been +exhausted, but as the price which New England was willing to pay for an +advantage to her commercial interests. + +At a later day, there were those who made it a reproach to the +convention, and a condemnation of their whole work, that they imposed no +prohibition on slavery as it existed in the States. But if such +prohibition was to be attempted, the convention might as well never have +met. The whole theory of the occasion was that the States, as individual +communities, were to be left substantially as they were; self-governing, +except as they intrusted certain definite functions to the general +government. When only a single State, and that almost without cost, had +abolished slavery within itself, it was out of the question that all of +the States should through their common agents decree an act of social +virtue wholly beyond what they had individually achieved. Any human +State exists only by tolerating in its individual citizens a wide +freedom of action, even in matters of ethical quality; and a federated +nation must allow its local communities largely to fix their own +standard of social conduct. At the point which the American people had +reached, the next imperative step of evolution was that they unite +themselves in a social organism, such as must allow free play to many +divergencies. For the convention to take direct action for the abolition +of slavery was beyond the possibilities of the case. It was in making +provision for the extension of the evil that it was untrue to its ideal, +sacrificed its possibilities, and opened the door for the long +domination of a mischievous element. + +But the main work of the convention was well and wisely done. Not less +fine was the self-control and sagacity with which the people and their +leaders debated and finally adopted the new order. Advocates of a +stronger government, like Hamilton, and champions of a more popular +system, like Samuel Adams and Jefferson, sank their preferences and +successfully urged their constituents to accept this as the best +available settlement. Slavery played very little part in the popular +discussions, and only a few keen observers like Madison read the +portents in that quarter. The young nation was swept at once into +difficulties and struggles in other directions. + +A word, before we follow the history, as to the sentiments of the great +leaders in this period. Broadly, they all viewed slavery as a wrong and +evil; they looked hopefully for its early extinction; they recognized +great difficulties in adapting the negro to conditions of freedom; and +they were in general too much absorbed in other and pressing problems to +direct much practical effort toward emancipation. Washington's view is +nowhere better given than in the casual talk so graphically reported by +Bernard. He desired universal liberty, but believed it would only come +when the negroes were fit for it; at present they were as unqualified to +live without a master's control as children or idiots. Washington's way +was to look at facts and to deal with a situation as he found it, and +not to try to order the world by general and abstract ideals. He was +intensely practical, responsive to each present call of duty, and in his +conception of duty taking wider and wider views as he was trained by +years and experience. The incident which brought him and Bernard +together was characteristic; if any chaise was upset in his +neighborhood, trust Washington to have a hand in righting it! The +natural reply to his talk about the negroes might have been: "Since you +desire their freedom, but think them not fit for it, why not make a +business--you and the country--of making them fit?" And the answer +fairly might have been: "The country and I have as yet had too much else +to do." Besides his public services, he was a planter on the largest +scale; thousands of acres and hundreds of slaves had come to him by +inheritance and by marriage. He was most thorough and successful in his +private affairs; through all his cares in the Revolution, scarcely ever +visiting his home, he kept in close touch with his steward and regulated +the plantation's management by constant correspondence. He had the +reputation of a just but strict master. His slaves were well fed and +clothed; they were supported in infancy and old age; they were trained +in work according to their capacity, and taught something of morals and +religion; in point of physical comfort and security, and of industrial +and moral development, they were by no means at the bottom of the scale +of humanity. The slave-holder's position, however unjust by an absolute +standard, and with great possibilities of abuse, was, in the case of the +rightly-disposed man--and such were common--a position which had its +grave duties and often onerous burdens to be conscientiously borne. + +Hardly was the war ended when the country's needs summoned Washington +again to long and arduous service. Retired from the Presidency, his +successor called him, not in vain, to head the army which the threatened +French war would call into action. Who can blame him that he did not +undertake in addition a complete reorganization of the labor system of +his own farms and of Virginia? Inconsistent perhaps it was,--a very +human inconsistency,--that his slaves, who, he told Bernard, were unfit +for freedom, were given their freedom by his will, though not until his +wife's death. That we may take as an imperfect essay of conscience to +deal with a situation so complicated that no ideal solution was +apparent. But we may fairly read as his unspoken legacy to his +countrymen of the next generation: "My associates and I have won +national independence, social order, and equal rights for our own race; +deal you as courageously and strongly with the problems which remain." + +Jefferson was an enthusiast for moral ideals, and a warm believer in the +merit and trustworthiness of average humanity. He ennobled the struggle +of the colonies against England by writing on the flag the universal and +undying ideas that the authority of governments rests solely on their +justice and public utility, and that every man has an inalienable right +to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And Jefferson did not +flinch, as did many of his associates, from giving that right a full and +general application to blacks as well as whites. Nor was he a mere +doctrinaire. As he revolted from the abstract injustice of slavery, so +its concrete abuses as he saw them, filled him with horror. He wrote: "I +tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just." He described +what he had seen. "The whole commerce between master and slave is a +perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions,--the most +unremitting despotism on the one part and degrading submission on the +other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it, for man is an +imitative animal.... The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the +lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller +slaves, gives a loose rein to the worst of passions; and thus nursed, +educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it +with odious peculiarities." + +But Jefferson shared a common belief of his time, that it was futile to +hope to "retain and incorporate the blacks into the State." He wrote: +"Deep-rooted prejudices of the whites, ten thousand recollections of +blacks of injuries sustained, new provocations, the real distinction +Nature has made, and many other circumstances, will divide us into +parties and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in +the extermination of one or the other race." So he looked for a remedy +to emancipation followed by deportation. But he hesitated to affirm any +essential inferiority in the negro race. He wrote: "The opinion that +they are inferior in the faculties of reason and imagination must be +hazarded with great diffidence." Later he wrote that "they were gaining +daily in the opinions of nations, and hopeful advances are making toward +their re-establishment on an equal footing with other colors of the +human family." + +Jefferson was more than a theorist; he was skillful to persuade men, and +to organize and lead a party. His general tendency was "along the line +of least resistance,"--the summoning of men to free themselves from +oppressive restraint; and he was highly successful until he called on +them for severe self-sacrifice, when his supporters were apt suddenly to +fail him. Virginia gladly followed his lead in abolishing primogeniture +and entail, and overthrowing the Established Church. She even consented, +in 1778, to abolish the African slave-trade, being then in little need +of more slaves than she possessed. In 1779 he planned a far more radical +and costly project--a general emancipation. All slaves born after the +passage of the act were to be free; they were to dwell with their +parents till a certain age, then to be educated at the public expense in +"tillage, arts, or sciences," until the males were twenty-one years old +and the females eighteen; then they were to be colonized in some +suitable region, furnished with arms, implements, seeds and cattle; +declared a free and independent people, under American protection until +strong enough to stand alone; and meanwhile their place as laborers was +to be filled by whites sent for by vessels to other parts of the world. +It is hardly strange that the Legislature did not even take the measure +into consideration, and it does not appear that Jefferson ever returned +to it. Practical legislation was not his forte. But his influence told +nobly, as has been related, in barring slavery from the Northwestern +territory, and, had just a little more support been found in 1784, would +have saved the Southwest also to freedom, with almost certain promise of +result in early freeing of the whole country. Just two or three votes in +the Continental Congress,--on such small hinges does the destiny of +nations seem to turn. + +The inertia which holds men even exceptionally high-minded from breaking +strong ties of custom and convenience is shown by a letter of Patrick +Henry to a Quaker in 1773, in which he declared slavery "as repugnant to +humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible and destructive of +liberty. Every thinking, honest man rejects it as speculation, but how +few in practice from conscientious motives! Would any one believe that I +am a master of slaves of my own purchase? I am drawn along by the +general inconvenience of living without them." + +There is no need to dwell further on the anti-slavery sentiments of the +group of great leaders who were the glory of the nation. It is to be +noted that Franklin took a characteristically active part in aiding to +establish an anti-slavery society in Philadelphia in 1782. Shrewd as he +was high-minded and benevolent, Franklin was always a special master in +organizing men in societies for effective and progressive action. His +tact won France to the American alliance, and decisively turned the +scale in the Revolutionary war; and his conciliatory yet resolute spirit +was a main factor in the constitutional convention. This Pennsylvania +anti-slavery society led the way to the early adoption by the State of +gradual emancipation. Franklin, an optimist by temperament and by his +large faith in mankind, looked confidently for the early end of slavery; +as fast as men ripened into honesty and sense, he thought, they would +recognize the folly and wrong of it. + +Looking from the leaders to the mass of the community, in this early +period, we see these broad facts. Slavery was regarded by all as an +evil, and by most as a wrong. Even its champions in the convention +claimed no more for it than that it was a necessary evil; one of the +Pinckneys expressed the hope of its extinction at an early day, and the +other Pinckney dissented only in thinking this too sanguine. Further, +there was a distinct wave of anti-slavery sentiment, sympathetic with +the lofty temper of the Revolution and the genesis of a free nation. +That wave was strong enough to wipe out slavery where its economic hold +was slight; it was plainly destined to sweep at least through all the +Northern and Middle States, and hope was high that it might go farther. +But this moral enthusiasm broke helpless against the institution +wherever a strong property interest was involved with it. Manumission in +the South went no further than a few individuals. Virginia and Maryland, +needing no more slaves, ceased importing them; but South Carolina and +Georgia bargained successfully for a twenty years' supply. +Massachusetts, having almost inadvertently freed her few slaves, was +willing that the stream of misery should still flow on from Africa to +the South. In a word, so far as the negroes were concerned, the supposed +material interest of the whites remained the dominating factor +throughout the country. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +CONFLICT AND COMPROMISE + + +For thirty years after the Constitution was established, slavery falls +into the background of the national history. Other and absorbing +interests were to the front. First, the strife of Federalist and +Democrat: Should the central government be strengthened, or should the +common people be more fully trusted? Twelve years of conservative +ascendency under Washington and Adams; then a complete and lasting +triumph for the popular party led by Jefferson. Mixed with and +succeeding this came an exasperating and perplexing struggle for +commercial rights, invaded equally by England and France in their +gigantic grapple; an ineffectual defense by Jefferson, who in executive +office proved an unskillful pilot; a half-hearted war under Madison, a +closet statesman out of place in the Presidential chair; a temporary +alienation of New England, exasperated by the loss of her commerce and +suspicious of the Jeffersonian influence; a participation in the general +peace which followed 1815, and a revival of industry. Under this surface +tide of events went on a steady, quiet advance of the democratic +movement. With Jefferson's administration disappeared the Federal party +and the old distrust of the common people. State after State gave up the +property qualification--almost universal in the first period--and +adopted manhood suffrage. Slavery disappeared from the North; in New +Hampshire it was abolished by judicial decision, as in Massachusetts; +Connecticut, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania passed gradual emancipation +laws, and a little later New York and New Jersey did the same. In +Kentucky, settled by hardy pioneers from Virginia, there had been a +vigorous campaign to establish a free State; the Baptist preachers, +strong leaders in morals and religion, had championed the cause of +freedom; the victory seemed decisively won, by three to one it was said, +in the election of May, 1798; but a torrent of excitement over the alien +and sedition laws submerged other issues, and the convention sanctioned +slavery as it existed. The African slave trade was made piracy by act of +Congress in 1808, though the extreme penalty was not inflicted for sixty +years, and a considerable traffic still went on. In furtherance of +emancipation, a colonization society was started in Pennsylvania, and in +a few years it had transported 20,000 freed negroes to Africa, and +established the feeble colony of Liberia. Meanwhile the first French +republic had freed half a million slaves in the West Indies; and Chili, +Buenos Ayres, Columbia, and Mexico, as they gained their independence +from Spain, had abolished slavery. The European reaction against the +French republic and empire had largely spent itself; the English +tradition of constitutional freedom had survived and promised to spread; +the Spanish colonies in America had won their independence. + +The stiller and deeper current of industrial progress had moved on apace +in the United States. A new New England was being swiftly built in the +Northwest. The Southwest, too, was growing fast. The acquisition of the +Louisiana territory,--through an exigency of Napoleon's politics, and +the wise inconsistency of Jefferson--had opened another vast domain. At +the North, commerce, set free again, spread rapidly, and a new era of +manufactures was opening. The South--more diffusely settled, with less +social activity, with a debased labor class--caught less of the spirit +of advance. But on one line it gained. Following the English inventions +in spinning and weaving, and the utilization of the stationary +steam-engine, a Connecticut man, Eli Whitney, had invented a cotton-gin, +for separating the seed from the fibre, and the cotton plant came to the +front of the scene. The crop rose in value in twenty years from +$6,000,000 to $20,000,000. The value of slaves was trebled, and the +border States began to do a thriving trade in exporting them to the +cotton States--it was said a little later the yearly export reached +50,000. + +As new States were organized and admitted, those from the Northwest came +in without slavery, which had been kept out by the ordinance of 1787, +and those from the Southwest, where slaves had been carried by the +emigrants from the seaboard, were allowed without question to retain the +institution. Of the old thirteen, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, +Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York New Jersey, Pennsylvania (spite of a +few slaves lingering in the last three) were counted as free +States--seven in all; Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, the two Carolinas, +Georgia, were claimed as slave States--six. Speedily were added Vermont +to the one column, and Kentucky and Tennessee to the other, making the +numbers equal. The following acquisitions were free and slave States +alternately: Ohio and Louisiana, Indiana and Mississippi, Illinois and +Alabama, a total, so far, of eleven free and eleven slave. Of the new +Southwestern domain, Arkansas had been organized as a territory, early +in 1819, and a motion that slavery be excluded had been defeated in the +House by the casting vote of the speaker, Henry Clay. + +But in all these thirty years the subject of slavery had little +prominence in public discussion. Now it suddenly came to the front. A +bill was brought into Congress to permit Missouri to organize as a +State. It was part of the Louisiana purchase, of which the Southern +portion had inherited and retained slavery; but Missouri was +geographically an extension of the region of the Ohio States, in which +free labor had made an established and congenial home. It was moved in +Congress that slavery should be excluded from the new State, and on this +instantly sprang up a fiery debate. On one side it was urged that +slavery was a wrong and an evil, and that Congress had full power to +exclude it from a State as a condition of admittance to the Union. On +the other side slavery was defended not only as an industrial advantage, +but as morally right and a benefit to both blacks and whites. It was +strenuously declared that the people of each incoming State had a right +to determine their own institutions; and it was also urged that to keep +the balance of power between the two sections, it was necessary that +slave States should be admitted equally with free. It was disclosed with +startling suddenness that two systems of labor and society stood face to +face, with different ideals, different interests, and in a mutual +opposition to which no limits could be foreseen. It was plain that with +the increase of profit from slavery all idea of its abolition had been +quietly dropping from the minds of the great mass of the Southern +community. It was equally plain that the sentiment against slavery in +the North had increased greatly in distinctness and intensity. There was +apparent, too, a divergence of material interests, and a keen rivalry of +political interests. The South had been losing ground in comparison. +From an equality in population, the North had gained a majority of +600,000 in a total of 10,000,000. The approaching census of 1820 would +give the North a preponderance of thirty in the House. In wealth, too, +the North had been obviously drawing ahead. Only in the Senate did the +South retain an equality of power, and, to maintain at least this, by +the accession of new slave States, was an avowed object of Southern +politicians. + +The debate was so hot, the underlying causes of opposition were so +obvious, and the avowed determination of the contestants was so +resolute, that the unity and continuance of the nation was unmistakably +threatened. State Legislatures passed resolutions for one side or the +other, according to their geographical location; only the Delaware +Legislature was superior to the sectional consideration, and voted +unanimously in favor of holding Missouri for freedom. The alarm as to +the continuance of the Union was general and great. No one felt it more +keenly than Jefferson, startled in his scholarly and peaceful retirement +at Monticello, as he said, as by "a fire-bell in the night." He wrote: +"In the gloomiest movements of the Revolutionary war, I never had an +apprehension equal to that I feel from this source." It was a grave omen +that Jefferson's sympathies were with his section rather than with +freedom; he joined in the opposition to the exclusion of slavery from +Missouri. He had no love for slavery, but he was jealous for the right +of each State to choose its own way, for good or evil; a political +theory outweighed in him the sentiment of humanity. + +A compromise was proposed. Let Missouri have slavery if she will, but +for the Northwest let it be "thus far and no farther"; let it be fixed +that there shall be no more slave States north of the line which marks +Missouri's southern boundary, the line of 36 degrees 30 minutes north +latitude. Present advantage to the South, future security to the North; +and meantime let Maine be admitted, which keeps the balance equal. This +was the solution accepted by both sides after a discussion lasting +through the Congressional session of 1819-20 until March. But the +smothered flame broke out again. Missouri in 1820 adopted a +constitution, and asked for admission according to promise; and one +clause in her constitution forbade the entrance of free blacks into the +State. This was too much for the North, already half disgusted with the +concession it had made, and when Congress met for the session of 1820-21 +the whole question was reopened, and the dispute was hotter and more +obstinate than ever. The issue was wholly uncertain, and disunion seemed +to hover near and dark, when Henry Clay, who in the first debate had +taken no very important part, but had supported the Southern claim, now +threw his whole power, which was great, in favor of conciliation and +agreement on the original basis. Clay was a politician, and ambitious +for the Presidency, but he was a patriot and a lover of humanity. As to +slavery he was a waverer, disliking it at heart and sometimes speaking +manfully against it, but at other times respectful toward it as an +established and mighty fact, and even lending himself to its eulogy. In +the first debate he had advocated the Southern side, had extolled +slavery, and declared the black slaves of the South to be better off +than the white slaves of the North. Now he gave all his persuasive and +commanding eloquence, all the influence of his genial nature and winning +arts, to rally the lovers of the Union to the mutual concessions by +which alone it could be preserved. He justified the objection to the +exclusion of free negroes, he divested himself of sectional +partisanship, and pleaded with equal skill and fervor for the +compromise. He did not forget that he was a Presidential aspirant, but +he was a true lover of his country, and seldom have the traits of +politician and patriot worked together more effectively. Though the mass +of the Northern members, strengthened doubtless by the influence of +their constituents at home during the recess, were now opposed to the +whole compromise, and a few Southern extremists were against it, yet +the majority of both House and Senate were won to its support, and on +the last day of February, 1821, Missouri was admitted as a slave State, +on condition that she expunge her exclusion of free blacks, which she +promptly did. Maine had already been admitted. The excitement ended +almost as suddenly as it had begun. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE WIDENING RIFT + + +For the next twelve years, slavery was in the background of the national +stage. But during this period, various influences were converging to a +common result, until in 1832-3 the issue was defined with new clearness +and thenceforth grew as the central feature in the public life of +America. + +From the time of the Missouri debate, the slavery interest was +consolidated and alert, even while other subjects seemed to fill the +public mind. To the North, slavery was habitually a remote matter, but +it was perpetually brought home to the business and bosoms of the South. +The whole industrial system, a social aristocracy, and political +ambition, blended their forces. An instance of the subtle power of the +institution was given in a little-marked incident of Adams's generally +creditable administration. By three men as high-minded as President +Adams, Secretary Clay, and Minister Gallatin, overtures were made to +England for a treaty by which the surrender of deserters from her army +and navy should be her compensation for surrendering our fugitive +slaves! The British government would not listen to the proposal. + +The national politics of this period, 1820-32, centred in a group of +strong and picturesque personalities,--Clay, Adams, Calhoun, Jackson, +and Webster. John Quincy Adams was a sort of exaggeration of the typical +New Englander,--upright, austere, highly educated, devoted to the public +service, ambitious, yet not to the sacrifice of conscience, but cold, +angular, repellant. Says Carl Schurz in his _Henry Clay_--a book which +gives an admirable resumé of a half-century of politics: "He possessed +in the highest degree that uprightness which leans backward. He had a +horror of demagogy, and lest he should render himself guilty of anything +akin to it, he would but rarely condescend to those innocent amenities +by which the good-will of others may be conciliated. His virtue was +freezing cold of touch, and forbidding in its look." When the +Presidential election went into the House in 1824, the influence of +Clay--himself a defeated candidate--was decisively thrown for Adams +against Jackson, and Clay served as President Adams's Secretary of +State. The two men supplemented each other well; Clay less austerely +virtuous, but far more lovable; his personal ideals less exacting, but +his sympathies wider. The co-operation between them was honorable to +both and serviceable to the country; but partisan bitterness stigmatized +it as a corrupt alliance; the air was full of suspicion and jealousy +toward the cultivated and prosperous class that had hitherto supplied +the chiefs of the government, and the rising democratic sentiment found +a most congenial hero in Andrew Jackson. + +He was a rough backwoodsman; a fighter by nature and a passable soldier; +a staunch friend and a patriot at heart; ignorant, wholly unversed in +statesmanship, arbitrary in temper, and inclined to judge all subjects +from a personal standpoint. He easily defeated Adams for the Presidency +in 1828. His election marked the ascendancy, long to continue, of a more +ignoble element in the nation's political life. His administration began +the employment of the spoils system; and it "handled intricate financial +problems as a monkey might handle the works of a watch." Jackson had +small regard for the rights of those who got in the way of himself, his +party, or his country; he had trampled recklessly on the Indian; and his +triumph fell as a heavy discouragement on the quiet but widespread +movement to elevate the negro. He treated all questions in a personal +way; and the first great battle of his administration was to compel +social recognition in Washington for the wife of one of his cabinet +members whose reputation scandal had breathed upon, unjustly as Jackson +believed. In the revolt against her recognition a leader was the +Vice-President, John C. Calhoun, himself a man of blameless morals and +an advocate of the highest social standards. He thereby lost at once the +favor of Jackson, which was transferred to Martin Van Buren, a wily New +York politician, quite ready to call on any lady or support any policy +that his chief might approve. The breach between Jackson and Calhoun was +widened by the disclosure of an old political secret, probably by +Crawford of Georgia, a disappointed Presidential aspirant. Jackson's +administration naturally fell more and more into the hands of mediocre +men. + +Calhoun had already had a long term of distinguished public service; he +had been one of the group of young men who came to the front in urging +on the war of 1812; he had served with success in the cabinet and twice +been chosen to the Vice-Presidency. He was of high personal character; a +keen logician and debater; a leader who impressed himself by the +strength of his character and depth of his convictions. Adams wrote of +him in 1821: "He is above all sectional and factious prejudices, more +than any other statesman of this Union with whom I have ever acted." He +was ambitious of the Presidency, an ambition which saw itself defeated +when Van Buren became the heir-apparent of the Jackson dynasty. A true +lover of his country, his predominant devotion came to be given to his +own section, and that temper fell in with events to make him the +foremost champion of the South. + +The prominence of the personal element in public affairs was connected +with the absence of any clear and deep division upon large questions of +policy. There emerged a group of ideas constituting what was called the +"American system," of which Clay was the foremost advocate, and which +became the basis of the Whig party, as it was organized in the early +'30's. Its general principle was the free use of the Federal +government's resources for the industrial and commercial betterment of +the people; and its prominent applications were a national bank, a +system of national highroads and waterways, and a liberal use of the +protective principle in tariff laws. "Protection to American industry" +was the great cry by which Clay now rallied his followers. The special +direction of this protection was in favor of American manufacturers. By +very high taxes levied on imported goods, the price of those was +necessarily raised to the consumer, and the American maker of clothes, +cutlery, and so on, was enabled to raise his own prices correspondingly. +Naturally, this result was most gratifying to the manufacturer and his +dependents and allies. No less naturally, it was highly objectionable to +the consumer. But to the consumer it was pointed out that by thus +fostering the "infant industries" of his country they would be +strengthened to the point where they could and would supply him with his +goods far more cheaply than would otherwise be possible. But this +pleasing promise, held out now for some seventy-five years, somehow +failed to quite satisfy the consumer; and where whole classes and +sections were consumers only, from the tariff standpoint, and saw +themselves mulcted for the benefit of classes and sections already +richer than they, they grumbled loudly, and did not always stop with +grumbling. So when in 1828 a tariff was enacted imposing very high +duties on most manufactured articles, and which delighted the hearts of +New England and Middle States manufacturers, it was so obnoxious to +others that the name was fastened to it of "the tariff of abominations," +and history has never changed that name. + +There were hopes of relief under Jackson, but in the confusion of party +issues, and with the tariff supported by the consolidated strength of +the manufacturers--a consolidation powerful enough to make Webster its +spokesman in Congress; a consolidation as definite and resolute as that +of the slave-holders, and destined to be far longer-lived,--no change in +legislation came till 1832, and then the change was immaterial; the +"tariff of abominations" was substantially re-enacted. The South had +been chafing bitterly, and now South Carolina broke into open revolt. +The whole South felt itself aggrieved by the tariff. Its industrial +system was not suited to develop manufactures; it lacked the material +for skilled labor; it lacked the artisan class who create a demand. Its +staple industry was agriculture, the growth of tobacco, rice, sugar, and +above all, cotton, and it went to the North and to Europe for its +manufactured goods. A system of taxation which doubled the price of its +imports without helping its exports, was resented as unjust, and as +hostile to the spirit if not the letter of the Constitution. + +South Carolina took the lead, and indeed stood alone, in applying a +remedy more drastic than the disease--nullification. Calhoun's logic +welded and sharpened the weapon which had behind it almost the entire +weight of the State. The precise relation of the States to the Union, +left indeterminate in the Constitution, and debated in every crisis +which had strained the bonds, was now asserted by Calhoun to involve the +right of any State to declare null and void any action of the Federal +Congress which impaired its rights. South Carolina now put the theory +into action. She held near the close of 1832 a convention, which +declared the tariff law unconstitutional and void; asserted that the +State would no longer pay duties under it, and if coercion was attempted +would secede outright. + +Congress discussed the matter; and in the most memorable and classic of +Senate debates, Hayne of South Carolina vindicated the State's position +with logic, passion, and eloquence; while Webster replied with an equal +logic, a broader and higher ideal of nationality, a vindication of New +England which thrilled all hearts, and a patriotism which gave the +keynote to the ultimate triumph of the Union. Hitherto, Massachusetts +and South Carolina had each stood stiffly at times for her own way, even +at peril of the national bond; but in that hour the individuality of +South Carolina was merged in the slave-holding States, and that of +Massachusetts in a Union, one and indivisible. + +The challenge of South Carolina was promptly answered by Jackson, just +re-elected President. He issued a proclamation, proclaiming +nullification as political heresy, and threatening to treat its +practical exercise as treason. But the situation was not destined to +settlement by the high hand. Webster favored such a settlement; he was +for no concession. As well make the issue now as ever, he said. The +President's friends introduced a bill giving him authority, if +nullification were insisted on, to close ports of entry, collect duties +by military force, and the like; "the force bill," it was called. But +the "tariff of abominations" was not the most satisfactory or promising +ground on which to assert the national sovereignty. And Jackson was +hardly a desirable man to intrust with indefinite military power. So +urged the timid or the moderate, and Clay was again the spokesman of +compromise. He brought in a tariff bill, by which all duties above 20 +per cent. were to be gradually reduced until in 10 years they reached +that figure, at which they were to remain. This bill and the force bill +were passed together, and signed the same day. Confronted by the +government with the sword in one hand and the olive branch in the other, +South Carolina retracted--it was not a capitulation--and repealed the +ordinance. Nullification as a theory passed out of sight. But the +willingness of the extreme South to push to all lengths its resistance +to a hostile policy remained, and was felt in all that followed. + +It was a distinct tradition among Calhoun's followers after his +death--and they followed him till Appomattox--that he privately gave as +a reason for making the first battle on the tariff question rather than +on slavery, that on the first the world's sympathies would be with them, +and on slavery against them. The same tradition ascribed to Calhoun the +prediction that the Northern influence would become predominant in the +Union about 1860. Whether or not Calhoun said these things, the tariff +issue certainly was brought on by the North; and the "compromise" on it +was a substantial victory gained by South Carolina for the South. The +final verdict of history may be that it was a just victory, won by +unjust means. Calhoun now stood forth the recognized leader of his +section, while it soon became apparent that of that section slavery was +the special bond, and was to be its avowed creed. + +Almost unobserved for a time amid these exciting events, the debate over +slavery had been going on, transferred mainly from the political field +to the minds and consciences of individuals. Once in State politics it +came to an issue. Illinois, a free State without question at its +admission in 1818, had a majority of its early immigrants from the +South, and a determined effort was made to introduce slavery by law. It +met a still more vigorous resistance, in which the Methodist and Baptist +clergy, mainly Southern men, took a leading part. The opposition was +led by a Southerner, Gov. Edward Coles, one of the forgotten heroes. +Inheriting in Virginia some hundreds of slaves, and hindered by the +State laws from emancipating them, he took them all to Illinois, gave +them their freedom, supplied them with land, cabins, stock, and tools, +and watched and befriended them till they became self-supporting. In +each deed of emancipation he gave his testimony: "Whereas, I do not +believe a man can have a right of property in his fellow men ... I do +therefore ... restore to the said ---- that inalienable liberty of which +they have been deprived." He led the fight against the introduction of +slavery into Illinois to a decisive victory in 1824. A few more such men +throughout the South, and history would have been different. + +A quiet advocacy of anti-slavery went on throughout the country, except +the extreme South. It was in sympathy with the general revival of +religious activity which began about 1815--a form of the new national +life, disentangled from European complications, and free for home +conquests and widening achievements. Three great evils aroused the +spirit of reform--intemperance, slavery, and war. The general assembly +of the Presbyterian church, representing the whole country, in 1818, by +a unanimous vote, condemned slavery as "a gross violation of the most +sacred and precious rights of human nature, and utterly inconsistent +with the law of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as +ourselves." In 1824-7 the Legislatures of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New +Jersey passed resolutions calling on Congress to provide for compensated +emancipation, and expressing willingness that their States should pay +their share of the burden. This last sentiment was a rare one; the +self-sacrifice it demanded from the non-slave-holding States was very +little in evidence during the long contest that followed; men would +speak and vote for freedom; when angry enough they would fight--to +defeat the master and incidentally to free the slave--but to pay, in +cold blood, and in heavy measure, for the ransom of the slaves, was a +different matter; and few were they who, like Lincoln, favored that way +out. The action of those three Legislatures marked the height of the +early anti-slavery tide, and prompted a hope which was never fulfilled. + +In the decade 1820-30, more than 100 anti-slavery societies were +established in slave States (see _James G. Birney and His Times_, an +admirable exposition of the conservative anti-slavery movement). The +Manumission Society of North Carolina in 1825 took a kind of census of +the State, and concluded that of its people 60 in 100 favored +emancipation in some form. In the same year a pamphlet published in +Charleston, S. C., on "The Critical Situation and Future Prospects of +the Slave-Holding States," bitterly declared that the whole book and +newspaper press of the North and East teemed with articles on slavery. +In Maryland, an anti-slavery party in 1826 elected two members to the +House of Delegates; but this movement disappeared on the election of +Jackson two years later. In Alabama, Birney, a man of a fine type, and +growing toward leadership, secured in 1827 the passage of a law +forbidding the importation of slaves as merchandise; but this was +repealed two years later. So the wave flowed and ebbed, but on the whole +it seemed to advance. + +Among local societies in the Northern States, one may be instanced in +New Haven, Ct., in which, in 1825, five young men associated themselves; +among them were Edward Beecher, Leonard Bacon, and Theodore D. Woolsey. +They were highly practical; their immediate aims were: First to elevate +the black population of New Haven; secondly, to influence public +sentiment in the city and State; and thirdly, to influence the +theological students in Yale college. So faithful were their labors in +their own city for its black population--described as in most wretched +condition, which seems to have been the case with most of the blacks at +the North in this period--that six years later Garrison pronounced them +more comfortable and less injured by prejudice than in any other place +in the Union. The young men of the New Haven and Andover seminaries +united in a project of a college for the blacks; strong support was +obtained; but the fierce wave of reaction following Nat Turner's revolt +swept it away. Lane seminary at Cincinnati, a Presbyterian stronghold, +became a center of enthusiastic anti-slavery effort, with the brilliant +young Theodore D. Weld as its foremost apostle; he was welcomed and +heard in the border slave States. The authorities of the college, +alarmed by the audacity of their pupils, tried to restrain the movement, +and the result was a great secession of students. + +The seceders proposed to form a theological department at Oberlin +College (established two years before) if they could have Charles G. +Finney, the famous revivalist, as their teacher. But Finney declined to +take the place until the conservative trustees consented to admit +colored youths to the College; and thus Oberlin became an anti-slavery +stronghold. + +As the anti-slavery movement developed, the call for immediate +liberation became more insistent and imperative. The colonization method +lost credit. Slavery was coming to be regarded by its opponents not +merely as a social evil to be eradicated, but as a personal sin of the +slave-holder, to be renounced as promptly as any other sin. John Wesleys +words were a keynote: "Instantly, at any price, were it the half of your +goods, deliver thyself from blood-guiltiness!" A Virginia minister, Rev. +George Bourne, published in 1816 _Slavery and the Book Irreconcilable_, +in which he said: "The system is so entirely corrupt that it admits of +no cure but by a total and immediate abolition." Two other Southern +ministers, James Duncan and John Rankin, wrote to the same effect. In +England, the abolition of slavery in the West India colonies was being +persistently urged; the impulse was a part of the philanthropic movement +that went along with the evangelical revival, and Wilberforce was its +leader. These English abolitionists were coming to "immediatism" from +1824, and their influence told in America. + +Among the most unselfish and devoted laborers for the slave was Benjamin +Lundy. He was a Quaker by birth and training; he overtaxed his strength +and permanently impaired his hearing by prematurely trying to do a man's +work on his father's farm in New Jersey, and settled at the saddler's +trade in Wheeling, Va., in 1808. With the outlawing of the African slave +trade, there was beginning the sale of slaves from Virginia to the +Southern cotton-fields, and the sight of the sorrowful exiles moved +Lundy's heart to a lifelong devotion of himself to pleading the cause of +the slave. Infirm, deaf, unimpressive in speech and bearing, trudging on +long journeys, and accepting a decent poverty, he gave all the resources +of a strong and sweet nature to the service of the friendless and +unhappy. He supported himself by his trade, while he lectured and wrote. +He established in 1821 a weekly _Genius of Universal Emancipation_, at +Mt. Pleasant, O., starting without a dollar of capital and only six +subscribers; and at first walking twenty miles every week to the +printing press, and returning with his edition on his back. Four years +later he moved his paper to Baltimore. Anti-slavery agitation was still +tolerated in the border States, though once Lundy was attacked by a +bully who almost murdered him. When the impending election of Jackson +in 1828 came as a chill to the anti-slavery cause, the waning fortunes +of his paper sent Lundy to Boston to seek aid. There he found sympathy +in a number of the clergy, though fear of arousing the hostility of the +South kept them cautious. Dr. Channing wrote to Daniel Webster, +expressing the fullest sympathy with Lundy's devotion to freedom, but +also the gravest apprehension that unless the slaveholders were +approached in a spirit of friendliness rather than denunciation, there +would result a sectional strife fraught with the greatest danger. We +should say to the South, wrote Channing, "Slavery is your calamity and +not your crime"; and the whole nation should assume the burden of +emancipation, meeting the expense by the revenue from the sale of public +lands. In this brief letter of Channing's there is more of true +statesmanship than in all the utterances of the politicians of his day. + +But Lundy (himself not given to denunciation) made one convert of a very +different temper from Channing's or his own--William Lloyd Garrison, a +young man educated in a printing-office, fearless, enthusiastic, and +energetic in the highest degree. Quickly won to the emancipation idea, +and passing soon to full belief in immediate and uncompensated +liberation, he allied himself with Lundy as the active editor of the +_Genius_, while the older man devoted himself to traveling and +lecturing. The _Genius_ at once became militant and aggressive. The +incidents which constantly fell under Garrison's eye--slave auctions and +whippings--fanned the fire within him. One day, for example, a slave +came into the office, told his story, and showed the proofs. His master +had lately died, leaving him his freedom, which was to be legally +effected in a few weeks; but in the meantime the overseer under whom he +worked, displeased at his way of loading a wagon, flogged him with a +cowhide so severely that his back showed twenty-seven terrible gashes. +Garrison appealed to the master's heirs for redress, but was repelled +with contumely. Presently he assailed an old fellow-townsman in +Newburyport, Mass., because a ship he owned had been employed to +transport a cargo of slaves from Baltimore to New Orleans. The +denunciation was unmeasured; the ship-owner brought suit, and as some +points in the article were not sustained by the evidence, Garrison was +fined $100. Unable to pay he went to jail, bearing his captivity with +courage and high cheer, till Arthur Tappan, a New York merchant and a +leader in the anti-slavery cause, paid his fine and released him. The +_Genius_ being ruined, Garrison transferred his field of labor to +Boston, where, at the beginning of 1831, he started the weekly +_Liberator_. He and his partner, Isaac Knapp, did all the work of every +kind, living principally on bread and water, and with only six hours a +week, and those at midnight, for Garrison to write his articles. The +paper's motto was: "Our country is the world, our countrymen are all +mankind." In his salutatory Garrison wrote: "I will be as harsh as truth +and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think +or speak or write with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on +fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife +from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate +her babe from the fire into which it has fallen,--but urge me not to use +moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest--I will not +equivocate--I will not excuse--I will not retract a single inch--and I +will be heard!" + +While Garrison's language was constantly such as to arouse passion to +the boiling point, he was always in theory a supporter of peace, opposed +to war under any conditions, and even to resistance of force by force. +But in 1829 there appeared a pamphlet of a different tenor; an +_Appeal_, by Walker, a Boston negro, addressed directly to the slaves. +It was a fiery recital of their wrongs and an incitement to forcible +redress. Its appearance in the South caused great excitement. The +Governors of Virginia and Georgia sent special messages to their +Legislatures about it. Garrison wrote of it, in the _Genius_: "It +breathes the most impassioned and determined spirit. We deprecate its +publication, though we cannot but wonder at the bravery and intelligence +of its author." Garrison's biographers--his sons--speak of Walker as "a +sort of John the Baptist to the new anti-slavery dispensation." It was +well for the Baptist that his head was out of Herod's reach. The Georgia +Legislature passed in a single day a bill forbidding the entry of free +negroes into the State, and making "the circulation of pamphlets of evil +tendency among our domestics" a capital offense. + +Large as these events loom in the retrospect, they were comparatively +little noticed in their time. Virginia held in 1830 a convention for the +revision of her constitution; among its members were Madison, Monroe, +and Randolph; and emancipation was not even mentioned. Jefferson was +dead, and the spirit of Jefferson seemed dead. Then the unexpected +happened. There was a negro preacher, a slave named Nat Turner. He was a +man of slight figure, reputed among his people a sort of prophet, +addicted to visions and rhapsodies. He planned in 1831 an uprising of +the slaves. He circulated among them a document written in blood, with +cabalistic figures, and pictures of the sun and a crucifix. One night he +and a group of companions set out on their revolt. Others joined them +voluntarily or by impressment till they numbered forty. They began by +killing Turner's master and his family; then they killed a lady and her +ten children; they attacked a girls' boarding-school and killed all the +inmates. Houses stood open and unguarded, and most of the white men were +away at a camp-meeting. From Sunday night till Monday noon the band went +on its way unchecked, and killed sixty persons. Then the neighborhood +rallied and overcame them; slew several on the spot; but held the rest +for trial, which was held regularly and fairly, and thirteen were +executed. The origin of the outbreak remained mysterious. Turner said on +his trial that he had not been unkindly treated, and there was no +evidence of provocation by special abuse. There was no trace of any +instigation from the North in any form. It seemed not a stroke for +freedom by men worthy to be free; not even a desperate revolt against +intolerable wrong; but more like an outbreak of savagery, the uprising +of the brute in man, thirsty for blood. The fear at first prevailed that +there existed a widespread conspiracy, and various legislation for +protection and repression was enacted or discussed. + +But the larger mind of Virginia was moved toward a radical treatment of +the disease itself, instead of its symptoms. In the next session of the +Legislature, 1831-2, proposals for a general emancipation were brought +forward, and the whole subject was canvassed in a long and earnest +debate. For slavery on its merits hardly a word of defense was spoken. +The moral condemnation was not frequent or strong, but the economic +mischief was conceded by almost all. It was recognized that labor was +debased; manufactures and immigration were discouraged; the yeomanry +were leaving the State. One bold speaker declared that the masters were +not entitled to compensation, since property condemned by the State as a +nuisance brings no award of damages to the owner. But the general +agreement was that emancipation should be compensated and gradual, and +that the blacks must be removed from the State. One plan was that they +should be deported in a body to Africa; another, that the +increase--about 6000 a year--should be so deported; while Thomas +Jefferson Randolph urged a plan which recalled that framed by his uncle, +Thomas Jefferson, half a century before. He proposed that the owner +should maintain the slave-child till the age of eighteen or twenty-one, +his labor for the last six or eight years being regarded as compensation +for the expense of infancy; and that the slave should then be hired out +till he had earned his passage to Africa. But, whatever the method, let +decisive action be taken, and taken now! The Legislature, it is said, +was largely made up of young and inexperienced men. Would not the +courage and hopefulness of Virginia youth essay this great deliverance? +Older voices bade them to the task. Said the Richmond _Enquirer_ (edited +by the elder Ritchie), January 7, 1832: "Means, sure but gradual, +systematic but discreet, ought to be adopted for reducing the mass of +evil which is pressing upon the South, and will still more press upon +her the longer it is put off. We say, now, in the utmost sincerity of +our hearts, that our wisest men cannot give too much of their attention +to this subject, nor can they give it too soon." It was one of the +decisive hours of history: + + Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, + In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side. + +But the task was too great, or the life-long habit of the slave-owner +had been too enervating. The apparent expense, the collision of +different plans, the difficulty in revolutionizing the whole industrial +system, the hold of an aristocracy affording to its upper class a +fascinating leisure and luxury--these, and the absence of any high moral +inspiration in the movement, brought it to naught. Instead of decreeing +emancipation, the Legislature fell back on the policy of stricter +repression. It enacted that the advocacy of rebellion by writing or +printing should be a penitentiary offense, and to express the opinion +that masters had no rights to their slaves was made punishable by a fine +of $500 and one year in jail. To advise conspiracy was treason and its +punishment death. It had been enacted a year before that no white man be +allowed to assemble slaves to instruct them in reading and writing; and +to this it was now added that neither slaves nor free negroes be allowed +to preach. + +And so Virginia abdicated her old-time leadership in the cause of human +rights, and the primacy of the South passed to South Carolina and to +Calhoun, the champion of slavery. + +In the meantime the organization of the radical anti-slavery force went +on at the North. In 1832 Garrison, Oliver Johnson and ten others +constituted themselves the New England Anti-slavery Society. Almost its +first attack was directed against the Colonization Society, Garrison +being always as fierce against half-way friends as against pronounced +foes. In 1833 a little group of more moderate but resolute men organized +a local association in New York city, and under their call the American +Anti-slavery Society held its first meeting in Philadelphia, in +December. Among the New York leaders were Arthur and Lewis Tappan, +merchants of high standing and men of well-balanced and admirable +character; with them were associated Joshua Leavitt and Elizur Wright. +Among the Massachusetts recruits was Whittier. The sixty-four members +were largely made up of merchants, preachers, and theological students. +Almost all were church members; twenty-one Presbyterians or +Congregationalists, nineteen Quakers, and one Unitarian,--Samuel J. May. +There was a noticeable absence of men versed in public affairs. The +constitution was carefully drawn to safeguard the society against the +imputation of unconstitutional or anarchic tendencies. It declared that +the right to legislate for the abolition of slavery existed only in the +Legislature of each State; that the society would appeal to Congress to +prohibit the interstate slave trade, to abolish slavery in the District +of Columbia and the territories, and to admit no more slave States; and +that the society would not countenance the insurrection of slaves. +Garrison, who had been visiting the Abolitionists in England, was not +among the signers of the call to the convention, and the constitution +was hardly in the line of his views; but he wrote a declaration of +principles which after some debate was adopted. It was impassioned and +unsparing; pictured the woes of the slaves and the essential wickedness +of the system; denounced compensation and colonization; declared that +"all laws admitting the right of slavery are before God utterly null and +void" and "ought instantly to be abrogated"; and called for a universal +and unresting agitation. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CALHOUN AND GARRISON + + +Thus, with the beginning of the second third of the nineteenth century, +the issue as to American slavery was distinctly drawn, and the leading +parties to it had taken their positions. Let us try to understand the +motive and spirit of each. + +In the new phase of affairs, the chief feature was the changed attitude +of the South. In the sentiment of its leading and representative men, +there had been three stages: first, "slavery is an evil, and we will +soon get rid of it"; next, "slavery is an evil, but we do not know how +to get rid of it"; now it became "slavery is good and right, and we will +maintain it." To this ground the South came with surprising suddenness +in the years immediately following 1833. What caused the change? The +favorite Southern explanation has been that the violence of the +Abolitionists exasperated the South, checked its drift toward +emancipation, and provoked it in self-defense to justify and extend its +system. This may be effective as a criticism of the extreme +Abolitionists, but as regards the South it is rather a confession than a +defense. On a subject involving its whole prosperity, its essential +character, its relation to the world's civilization, did it reverse its +course at the bitter words of a few critics? If that were true, it would +bespeak passionate irritability, an incapacity for the healthy +give-and-take of practical life, in keeping with the worst that could be +said of the effect of slavery on the master. In truth the violence of +Garrison and his few followers was but a minor element in the case. +Slavery had become immensely profitable; it was the corner-stone of a +social fabric in which the upper class had an extremely comfortable +place; it was involved with the whole social and political life of the +section. It was too important to be dealt with half-heartedly: it must +be accepted, justified, believed in,--or it must be abandoned. John +Randolph of Roanoke had said of slavery: "We are holding a wolf by the +ears; it is perilous alike to hold on or to let go." But one or the +other must be done, and the South elected to keep on holding the wolf. + +The better to understand the developments of the following years, it +will be well to consider a group of representative men,--Calhoun, +Garrison, Birney, Channing, and Webster. + +Calhoun had many of the elements of high statesmanship--clear views, +strong convictions, forcible speech. He was ambitious, but in no ignoble +fashion; he often served his country well, as in his efficient +administration of the war department under Munroe, his protest against +the spoils system and the personal government of Jackson, and his +influence in averting war with England over the Oregon boundary in +1845-46. After the Presidency was clearly out of his reach--from +1832--he was growingly identified with and devoted to the interests of +his own section, yet always with a patriotic regard for the Union as a +whole. He had that fondness for theories and abstractions which was +characteristic of the Southern statesmen, fostered perhaps by the +isolated life of the plantation. With this went a kind of provincialism +of thought, bred from the wide difference which slavery made from the +life of the world at large. When Calhoun, in one of his Senate orations +was magnifying the advantage of slave over free labor, Wade of Ohio, who +sat listening intently, turned to a neighbor and exclaimed: "That man +lives off of all traveled roads!" He had neither the arts nor the +magnetism of the popular politician; he won no such personal following +as Clay and Jackson; but the South more and more accepted him as the +most logical and far-seeing champion of its peculiar interests. + +His personality had much in common with Jonathan Edwards. There was in +both the same inflexible logic and devotion to ideas, the same personal +purity and austerity. The place of the mystic's fire which burned in +Edwards was taken in Calhoun by a passionate devotion to the +commonwealth. In both there was a certain moral callousness which made +the one view with complacence a universe including a perpetual hell of +unspeakable torments; while the other accepted as the ideal society a +system in which the lowest class was permanently debased. Each was the +champion of a cause destined to defeat because condemned by the moral +sentiment of the world,--Edwards the advocate of Calvinism, and Calhoun +of slavery. + +Calhoun is to be regarded as a typical slave-holder of the better class. +He owned and cultivated a plantation with several hundred slaves; spent +much time upon it; made it profitable, and dispensed a generous +hospitality. Such a plantation was a little community, organized and +administered with no small labor and skill; with house servants, often +holding a friendly and intimate relation with the family; with a few +trained mechanics and a multitude of field hands. As to physical comfort +the slaves were probably as well or better provided than the bulk of +European peasantry,--this on the testimony of witnesses as unfriendly to +slavery as Fanny Kemble and Dr. Channing. Order and some degree of +morality were enforced, and religion, largely of the emotional type, +prevailed widely. So much may be said, perhaps, for the average +plantation, certainly for the better class, and a very large class. +Joseph Le Conte, the eminent scientist, a writer of the highest credit, +in his pleasing autobiography describes his boyhood on a Georgia +plantation, and characterizes his father as a man of rare excellence to +whom he owed the best of his mental inheritance. He writes of him: "The +best qualities of character were constantly exercised in the just, wise, +and kindly management of his 200 slaves. The negroes were strongly +attached to him, and proud of calling him master.... There never was a +more orderly, nor apparently a happier working class than the negroes of +Liberty county as I knew them in my boyhood." + +Against this description are to be set such statements as this made by +Frederick Law Olmsted, after many months of travel in the South: "The +field hand negro is on an average a very poor and a very bad creature, +much worse than I had supposed before I had seen him and grown familiar +with his stupidity, indolence, duplicity, and sensuality. He seems to be +but an imperfect man, incapable of taking care of himself in a civilized +manner, and his presence in large numbers must be considered a dangerous +circumstance to a civilized people." Olmsted saw no resource but gradual +emancipation with suitable training. A resident of this same Liberty +county, Rev. C. C. Jones, himself a staunch supporter of slavery, but +urgent for giving better religious instruction to the slaves, wrote in +1842; "That the negroes are in a degraded state is a fact, so far as my +knowledge extends, universally conceded.... Negro marriages are neither +recognized nor protected by law. Uncleanness--this sin may be considered +as universal.... They are proverbial thieves." But how could "religious +instruction" produce chastity in those for whom the law did not +recognize marriage, or honesty in those who themselves were stolen? + +But the bright side of the medal, which had so dark an obverse, was the +interpretation on which Calhoun and the slave-holding class took their +stand. They resolutely ignored the frequent abuses and the essential +degradation of manhood. They fashioned the theory--it was the old +familiar theory of past ages, but had fallen out of sight in the +enthusiasm of the revolutionary period--that society rightly and +properly is constituted with a servile class as its base. Calhoun +declared: "I hold that there never has yet existed a wealthy and +civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in +point of fact, live on the labor of the other." And generally, he adds, +the condition of the laborer has been worse than it now is in the South. +In advance of civilization, he declares, there always comes a conflict +between capital and labor; and this conflict the South avoids by +unflinchingly holding the laborer in his subject condition. + +Calhoun is dead, and slavery is dead, but the ideas he then avowed are +still powerfully, if more latently, asserting themselves in our social +order. + +For these theories the slave-holders now found justification from the +ministers of religion. The South held more tenaciously than any other +section to the old-fashioned type of Christianity. In earlier days, +religious teachers--as in the unanimous vote of the Presbyterian General +Assembly in 1818--had held slavery to be "utterly inconsistent with the +law of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves." But +now the Southern ministers of all denominations appealed for ample +justification to slavery as it was permitted under the Jewish law, and +as it existed in the time of Christ and the Apostles, and was unrebuked +by them. They went further back, and in the curse pronounced by Noah +upon the unfilial Ham and his posterity, they found warrant for holding +the African in perpetual bondage. So the South closed up its ranks, in +Church and State, and answered its critics with self-justification, and +with counterattack on what it declared to be their unconstitutional, +anarchic, and infidel teachings. + +The agitation against slavery took on a new phase with the appearance of +Garrison and his founding of the _Liberator_ and the New England +Anti-slavery Society in 1831. Garrison was filled and possessed with one +idea--the wrongs of the slave, and the instant, pressing, universal duty +of giving him freedom. It was in him an unselfish and heroic passion. +For it he cheerfully accepted hardship, obloquy, peril. He saw no +difficulties except in the sin of wrongdoers and their allies; the only +course he admitted was immediate emancipation by the master of his human +property, and the instant coöperation and urgency of all others to this +end. His words were charged with passion; they kindled sympathetic souls +with their own flame; they roused to a like heat those whom they +assailed; and they sent thrills of alarm, wonder, and wrath, through the +community. Wherever the _Liberator_ went, or the lecturers of the new +anti-slavery societies were heard, there could be no indifference or +forgetfulness as to slavery. Hitherto, to the immense mass of people +throughout the North, it had been a far-away and unimportant matter. Now +it was sent home to the business and bosoms of all men. + +The anti-slavery movement changed its character. Garrison entered on a +very active campaign, lecturing and establishing local societies. +Prominent among his assistants was George Thompson, one of the English +Abolitionists, who, after the emancipation of the West India slaves by +the British government at a cost of £20,000,000, came to this country +and acted as Garrison's ally, winning some converts by his eloquence, +but heightening the unpopularity of the movement through the general +hostility to foreign interference. The early societies had been largely +in the border States, and their efforts had an immediate object in the +political action of their own communities. Now, the resentment and fear +of the slave-holding interest soon drove them out of those communities. +They spread faster than ever,--in a few years it was said that they were +1300,--but were confined to the free States. What immediate and +practical aim could they pursue? It was the question of practical action +that brought Garrison's views to a sharp test, and soon divided him from +the great body of anti-slavery people. + +In Garrison's mind there was room for only one idea at a time. Slavery +was a crime, a sin, an abomination,--that to him was the first, the +last, the whole truth of the matter. He had little education, and he had +not in the least a judicial or an open mind. It was to him clear and +certain that the blacks were in every way the equal of the whites. Of +the complexity of human society; of the vital necessity of a political +bond uniting communities, and of the inevitable imperfections and +compromises which are the price of an established social order; of the +process of evolution by which humanity slowly grows from one stage into +another; of the fact that the negro was in some ways better as a slave +in America than as a savage in Africa, and that there must be other +intermediate stages in his development; of the consideration due to +honest differences of opinion and to deeply-rooted habits--of all this +Garrison was as ignorant as a six-years-old child. When facts came in +his way, he denied them; when institutions stood across his path, he +denounced them; when men differed from him, he assailed them. + +As to a practical course of action by Northern people, he was absolutely +without resource. How were they to free the slaves? Not by force--force +was to Garrison as wicked as slavery itself. By their votes? That was +only possible under the government as ordained by the Constitution; and +the Constitution allowed no action against slavery except by each State +for itself. The worse then for the Constitution! Ere many years Garrison +declared, and put as a standing heading to the _Liberator_: "The United +States Constitution Is a Covenant with Death and an Agreement with +Hell." He went further; for a time at least he held that all human +governments, as resting on force, were sinful, and to be ignored, or +passively submitted to, without taking active part. He declared the +Union, as a compact with slave-holders, was worthy only to be dissolved. +But how even dissolve it, since he counselled his followers not to vote? +And if it were dissolved, how would the slaves be any nearer freedom? +Was there any possible good outcome to non-voting and dissolution of the +Union, except that there would then be no complicity with slave-holders? +And would such escape from complicity be any help to the slave, any +service to humanity, anything more than an egotistic separation from +political society, a mere refined selfishness? + +Such questions never troubled Garrison. Instead of answering them, he +found something else to denounce. The churches he thought were derelict, +in that they did not bear testimony against slavery. True, most of the +great religious bodies of the country were soon rent asunder on the +question: Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, were divided between +North and South, because neither side could tolerate the other's +position on slavery. But nothing satisfied Mr. Garrison. To him the +churches were "cages of unclean birds and synagogues of Satan." + +But if the gun was ill-aimed, at least the recoil was prodigious. It is +unreasonable to attribute principally to the violence of the _Liberator_ +the new and determined rally of the South in defense of +slavery,--Calhoun and his followers had far wider grounds for their +action than that,--but undoubtedly that violence helped to consolidate +and intensify the Southern resistance. The Abolitionist papers were at +first sent all over the South. The Southerners saw little difference +between such papers as the _Liberator_ and such direct incitements to +insurrection as Walker's _Appeal_; and the horrors of Nat Turner's +rising were fresh in mind. They put all Abolitionist teaching under a +common ban. At the North, the anti-slavery cause became associated in +the popular mind with hostility to the government, to the churches, to +the established usages of society. It was Charles Sumner who said: "An +omnibus load of Boston Abolitionists had done more harm to the +anti-slavery cause than all its enemies." + +Garrison's own following was soon divided, and a large part drew away +from him. The most important division came on the question of political +action, when, in the Presidential election of 1840, the practical wing +entered into the political field, as the inevitable and only arena for +effective action; nominated a candidate, and laid the foundation for the +election of Lincoln twenty years later. In the American Anti-slavery +Society there came a contest; Garrison triumphed by a narrow vote, but a +secession followed. Of his immediate and permanent allies the most +important was Wendell Phillips. He threw himself heart and soul into the +cause; he gave to it an educated and brilliant mind, and a fascinating +oratory; he was as uncompromising and censorious as Garrison. + +Garrison always held a place of honor and friendship among the +Abolitionists, even those who refused to follow his leadership. In +private life his genial and winning traits were as marked as was his +fierceness on the platform. The term "Abolitionist" is somewhat +indefinite, but it may best be defined as denoting a person to whom the +supreme interest in public affairs was the extinction of slavery. It +included not only those who shared Garrison's ideas of non-voting and +peaceable disunion, but those, too, like Birney and Whittier, who +respected the Constitution and worked for their cause through a +political party. The term also applied to the few who, like John Brown, +would attack slavery by force of arms. On the other hand, the name +Abolitionist did not properly belong to those who were opposed to +slavery, but held that opposition along with other political tenets and +not as a supreme article of faith. These were best included under the +general term of "anti-slavery men," a designation accepted by many of +the Free Soil, Whig and Democratic parties, and later by the Republican +party. The classification cannot be made exact, but the word +"Abolitionists" generally designated the men and women to whom the +extinction of slavery was a primary interest, and who gave to it their +habitual and earnest attention, through the anti-slavery societies and +otherwise. In this broader sense, the Abolitionists were a notable +company. They were bound together by a disinterested and noble +sentiment, and by sacrifices to the cause. The hostility aroused by +Garrison, Phillips, Pilsbury, and a few like-minded associates, extended +to many who went to no such extremes. The anti-slavery speakers were +sometimes mobbed: once in Boston a rope was round Garrison's neck and +his life was in peril; meetings were broken up; and the respectable part +of the community sometimes encouraged or tolerated these assaults. +Actual physical injury was very rare, but a hostile social atmosphere +was the frequent price of fidelity to conscience. + +Among the most notable of the leaders was Gerritt Smith. He took active +part in politics, and was for a time in Congress. He is finely +characterized by Andrew D. White: + +"Of all tribunes of the people I have ever known he dwells in my memory +as possessing the greatest variety of gifts. He had the prestige given +by great wealth, by lavish generosity, by transparent honesty, by +earnestness of purpose, by advocacy of every good cause, by a superb +presence, and by natural eloquence of a very high order. He was very +tall and large, with a noble head, an earnest yet kindly face, and of +all human voices I have ever heard his was the most remarkable for its +richness, depth, and strength." + +Women took a prominent and honorable part; the venerable and beautiful +Lucretia Mott gave her benign presence to the gatherings; Lydia Maria +Child made heavy sacrifices in the good cause. In the common ardor, and +with a Quaker precedent, women took part as speakers. Women's rights was +closely united with anti-slavery; and hence came a fresh odium from +conservative quarters, while the admirable bearing of the leading women +won growing favor for both lines of emancipation. The makers of the new +American literature were friends of the anti-slavery cause. Emerson gave +to it his words of serene inspiration. Whittier was among its ardent +apostles, shared in its political activity, and sang lyrics of freedom. +Bryant was its strong advocate in journalism. Lowell, drawn by his noble +wife, came as a strong ally, and the Biglow Papers gave what had been +greatly lacking,--the salt of humor. + +The Abolitionists might be compared to a comet,--a body with a bright +head and a nebulous tail. Like all radicals and reformers they had a +fringe of unbalanced and crotchety folk. It must be said, too, that +absorption in a topic remote from the concerns of one's daily life is +apt to be somewhat distracting and demoralizing. Dr. Joseph Henry +Allen--an admirable and too little known writer--has in an eloquent and +beautiful passage described the Abolitionists (though he was not one of +them) as the devotees of a genuine and heroic religion. But any +adequate religion must find its main application in the duties and +services of the immediate present; and the men and women who were +possessed day and night by the wrongs of those to whom they could render +little service, were apt to be thrown out of touch with near and homely +relations, and become what are now called "cranks." + +But to appreciate the service of the Abolitionists we must remember that +up to the birth of the Republican party in 1854 almost all of the +political leaders and men of public affairs, as well as most of the +churches, colleges, and professional educators, held aloof from the +anti-slavery cause. With a few exceptions, they left the work of +educating public sentiment, and shaping some policy on the supreme +question, to be done by this little company,--of lecturers, ministers, +literary men and women. These did loyally and bravely according to their +lights; and they had their reward, outwardly in unpopularity and +sometimes persecution, but inwardly in a social atmosphere within their +own body, warm, joyful, and religious; and the sense of alliance with +the Divine Force in the universe. Said Wendell Phillips: "One man with +God is a majority." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +BIRNEY, CHANNING, AND WEBSTER + + +Of the moderate wing of the anti-slavery men, a good representative was +James G. Birney. With the fine physical presence and genial manhood of +the typical Kentuckian, he had a well-balanced mind and a thorough +loyalty to the sense of duty, which broadened as he grew. Removing to +Alabama, he became anti-slavery in his sentiments, and he was a friend +not only of the negro, but of all who were oppressed. As the legal +representative of the Cherokee nation he stood for years between the +Indians and those who would wrong them. He identified himself for a time +with the colonization cause; and, finding himself growing powerless in +Southern communities, he removed to Ohio, where there was a strong and +vigorous anti-slavery propaganda. One incident of his life in Cincinnati +illustrates the concrete form which slavery sometimes took. A Missourian +owned a slave girl who was his own daughter, a cultivated and refined +woman. He took her to the East for a visit, treated her habitually as +one of his own family, but refused her prayers for freedom. Dreading the +possibilities of her lot, she made her escape in Cincinnati; and, +concealing her identity and history, she got a situation as a servant in +Mr. Birney's family. One day when he was absent from the city she came +home in terror; she had been recognized on the street by two +professional slave-catchers; now she told her story and implored +protection. In vain,--the officers of the law dragged her from the +house; a judge gave speedy sentence that she was a slave; she was taken +sobbing to jail; and the next day she was carried down the river to New +Orleans, where she was sold on the auction block,--and never heard of +again. + +Birney took part in the work of the new anti-slavery societies, but he +did not follow Garrison's no-government theories. He favored for a while +the policy of throwing the anti-slavery strength for such congressional +nominees of the regular parties as favored their views, and several +candidates were chosen in this way. But when Clay became pronounced +against the Abolitionists, and even John Quincy Adams, after championing +the right of petition, voted against the abolition of slavery in the +District of Columbia, Birney and his sympathizers gave up hope of help +from existing parties, and organized their own party for the election of +1840. Its principles were resistance to slavery extension, and +opposition to slavery so far as was practicable under the +Constitution,--the principles later of the Republican party. Birney was +nominated for President, and this handful of voters was the seed of the +harvest twenty years later. He was again the candidate in 1844, with an +increased support, and the party now was named "The Liberty Party." + +A leader and type of the moderate anti-slavery sentiment was William +Ellery Channing. In Channing was a blending of high moral ideals, +intelligent views of human nature and society, an apostle's earnestness +wedded with "sweet reasonableness," and a personal character of rare +symmetry and beauty. He was an evolutionist and not a revolutionist. +Foremost among the group of New England ministers who broadened and +ripened out of the orthodoxy of their day, and were ostracized by their +former brethren, he was forced into the position of leader of a new +sect, but his utterances and spirit were always those of a minister of +the church universal. He was the early advocate of most of the +religious and social reforms which have since come to the front. By +preference, he always used the methods of peace and persuasion. He had +made early acquaintance with slavery in a two-years' residence in +Richmond while a young man. He was always opposed to it, but his +attention was long absorbed by the immediate needs of his own people. He +spent half a year in Santa Cruz, for his health, in 1830-1,--just when +Garrison was starting the _Liberator_,--and slavery came home to him +with new force. The plantation on which he lived was one of the best in +the West Indies. The proprietor had taken a pride in the character and +condition of his slaves. But he had fallen into bankruptcy, his estate +had been sold, and the new proprietor left it in charge of an overseer +who was a passionate and licentious man, under whom the slaves suffered +a very different treatment. Most pathetic incidents came under Dr. +Channing's notice. But from all he saw about him he concluded that the +physical sufferings of the slaves had been exaggerated by report; that, +with occasional cruelties, they were better off as to physical comfort +than most of the European peasantry. He writes to an English +correspondent, "I suspect that a gang of negroes receive fewer stripes +than a company of soldiers of the same number in your army"; that they +are under a less iron discipline and suffer incomparably less than +soldiers in a campaign. But he adds, and always insists, that their +condition degrades them intellectually and morally, lowers them toward +the brutes, and in this respect the misery of slavery cannot be +expressed too strongly. Marriage is almost unknown; family life, with +its mutual dependence and the resulting tenderness, scarcely exists; and +thus "the poor negro is excluded from Nature's primary school for the +affections and the whole character." "The like causes are fatal to +energy, foresight, self-control." + +The inspiration of Channing's creed, the soul of the new movement in +religion, was the potential nobility of human nature--a nobility to be +made real by utmost effort of the individual, and by all wisest +appliances of society. It was from this standpoint that he judged +slavery, and in this spirit that while still in Santa Cruz he began to +write his treatise upon it. + +Returning to Boston, he spoke with clearness and weight to his +congregation: "I think no power of conception can do justice to the +evils of slavery. They are chiefly moral, they act on the mind, and +through the mind bring intense suffering to the body. As far as the +human soul can be destroyed, slavery is that destroyer." Having borne +his testimony, he devoted himself to the general work of his ministry. +The violence of the men who had come to the front in Abolitionism was +not only against his taste and feeling, but against his deep +convictions; as he had written years before to Webster, he saw in these +denunciations of the slave-holder seeds of a harvest of sectional hate +and national disaster. + +A characteristic conversation with him is recorded by Rev. Samuel J. +May, himself in full alliance with the Abolitionists, but a man of great +sweetness and sanity, never diverted from his religious ministry or +losing his mental balance. Dr. Channing dwelt on the excesses of the +Abolitionists until Mr. May was aroused, and broke out: "Dr. Channing, I +am tired of these complaints! The cause of suffering humanity, the cause +of our oppressed, crushed, colored countrymen, has called as loudly upon +others as upon us, who are known as the Abolitionists. But the others +have done nothing. The wise and prudent saw the wrong, but did nothing +to remove it. The priest and Levite passed by on the other side; the +children of Abraham held their peace, until 'the very stones have cried +out' against this tremendous wickedness. The people who have taken up +the cause may lack the calmness and discretion of scholars, clergy, and +statesmen,--but the scholars, clergy, and statesmen, have done nothing. +We Abolitionists are just what we are,--babes and sucklings, obscure +men, silly women, publicans, sinners; and we shall manage the matter we +have taken in hand just as might be expected of such persons as we are. +It is unbecoming in able men, who stood by and would do nothing, to +complain of us because we manage this matter no better." + +And so the torrent of words dashed upon the silent listener, until the +speaker suddenly bethought himself and stopped in abashment,--this man +he was rebuking had been to him as a father in God, his kind friend from +childhood, and first among the great and good. Almost overwhelmed by his +own temerity, he watched the agitated face of his hearer and waited in +painful suspense for the reply. At last, in a very subdued manner and in +his kindest tones of voice, he said, "Brother May, I acknowledge the +justice of your reproof; I have been silent too long." + +May's appeal had only quickened a little the sure work of Channing's +conscience. A few months later, in December, 1835, he published his +short treatise on _Slavery_. No weightier word on the subject was ever +spoken. If mankind were moved by their higher reason the North would not +have waited twenty years to be converted to anti-slavery by _Uncle Tom's +Cabin_. And if the South had been wise in her day, she would have +listened to this noble and persuasive utterance. No passion sullied its +temper; slave and slave-holder were held in equal regard; the case was +pleaded on irresistible grounds--of facts beyond question and rooted in +the very constitution of human nature. The needed, the righteous, the +inevitable reform, was shown as part of the upward movement of humanity, +and as appealing to every consideration of practical wisdom and of +justice. The little book of 150 pages deserves to be held as a classic +in American history. + +Channing never lost the sense of proportion in his own work. He went on +giving inspiration and leadership to religious thought and to social +advance. It was neither necessary nor possible for him to be in close +sympathy or habitual alliance with the extreme Abolitionists. But he +vindicated the right of free speech when it was denied them, and he was +recognized by the best of their number as a friend of the cause. Mrs. +Lydia Maria Child,--like Mr. May, one of the finest spirits among the +Abolitionists--wrote: "He constantly grew upon my respect, until I came +to regard him as the wisest as well as the gentlest apostle of humanity. +I owe him thanks for preserving me from the one-sidedness to which +zealous reformers are so apt to run. He never sought to undervalue the +importance of anti-slavery, but he said many things to prevent me from +looking upon it as the only question interesting to humanity." + +Side by side with the anti-slavery sentiment was growing another +sentiment--distinct from it, at first often in practical hostility to +it, but at last blending with it for a common triumph. It was the +sentiment of American nationality--the love of the Union. The separate +colonies were brought together in the Revolution by a common peril and a +common struggle. Then their tendency to fall apart was counteracted by +the strong bond of the Constitution and the Federal government. Diverse +interests and mutual distrust still tended to draw them asunder. With +the continuance of the Union, the strengthening of the tie by use, the +hallowing of old associations under the glamour of memory, and the +growth of the new bonds of commerce and travel, the sense of a common +country and destiny began to take root in the hearts of men, and on +occasion disclosed itself with the strength and nobility of a heroic +passion. True, a new rift was appearing, in the doctrine of +nullification and the question of slavery, but this evoked at times a +more militant and again a more appealing aspect in the sentiment of +union. Jackson seemed to rise from the rough frontiersman to the +guardian of the nation when he gave the word, "The Federal Union--it +must be preserved!" Clay found the noblest exercise of his eloquence and +his diplomacy in evoking the national spirit and in harmonizing the +differences which threatened it. But the most stirring voice and +effective leadership was that of Daniel Webster. + +As Webster is judged in the retrospect, we see that he was not so much a +statesman, still less a moral idealist, as an advocate. His lucidity of +statement and emotional power were not matched by constructive ability. +His name is associated with no great measure of administration, no large +and definite policy. He was luminous in statement rather than sagacious +in judgment, an advocate rather than a judge. On the platform or in the +Senate he was still pre-eminently the lawyer, in that, like a lawyer, he +was the representative and exponent of established interests,--not the +projector of new social adjustments. Civil law represents a vast +accumulated experience and tradition of mankind; it has been slowly +wrought out, as a regulation and adjustment of existing interests; with +an effort toward equity, as understood by the best intelligence of each +period, but always with immense regard for precedent and previous usage. +It was in this spirit, highly conservative of what has already been +secured, and extremely cautious toward radical change, that Webster +habitually dealt with political institutions. It was characteristic of +him that in the Massachusetts constitutional convention in 1820 he +pleaded strongly for the retention of the property qualification of +voters for State senators. But when the tide moved irresistibly toward +manhood suffrage, he acquiesced. + +But conservative as he was by nature, he was in profound sympathy with a +sentiment which while rooted in the past was yet in the '20s and '30s a +young, plastic, growing idea,--the idea of American Union, indissoluble, +perpetual. No voice was so powerful as Webster's to fill the minds and +hearts of man with this lofty passion. His orations at Plymouth Rock, at +Bunker Hill, and upon the simultaneous deaths of Adams and Jefferson, +his vindication of the national idea against the localism of Hayne and +Calhoun,--were organ-voices of patriotism. They thrilled the souls of +those who listened; they went over the country and printed themselves on +the minds of men; school-boys declaimed passages from them; they became +part of the gospel of the American people. + +We may quote a single passage from the address inspired by that dramatic +circumstance, the death at once of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, on +the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence: "It cannot +be denied, but by those who would dispute against the sun, that with +America and in America a new era commences in human affairs. This era is +distinguished by free representative governments, by entire religious +liberty, by improved systems of national intercourse, by a newly +awakened and an unconquerable spirit of free inquiry, and by a diffusion +of knowledge through the community, such as has been before +altogether unknown and unheard of. America, America, our country, +fellow-countrymen, our own dear and native land, is inseparably +connected, fast bound up, in fortune and by fate, with these great +interests. If they fall, we fall with them; if they stand, it will be +because we have maintained them.... If we cherish the virtues and the +principles of our fathers, heaven will assist us to carry on the work +of human liberty and human happiness. Auspicious omens cheer us. Great +examples are before us. Our own firmament now shines brightly upon our +paths. Washington is in the upper sky. These other stars have now joined +the American constellation; they circle round their center, and the +heavens beam with new light. Beneath this illumination let us walk the +course of life, and at its close devoutly commend our beloved country, +the common parent of us all, to the Divine Benignity." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE UNDERLYING FORCES + + +Two master passions strove for leadership in the mind and heart of +America. One was love of the united nation and ardor to maintain its +union. The other was the aspiration to purify the nation, by removing +the wrong of slavery. Unionist and Abolitionist stood face to face. +After many years they were to stand shoulder to shoulder, in a common +cause. In a larger sense than he gave the words, Webster's utterance +became the final watchword: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and +inseparable." + +In the retrospect of history, our attention naturally fastens on the +conspicuous and heroic figures. But we must not forget the underlying +and often determining forces,--the interests, beliefs, and passions, of +the mass of the community. And, while listening intently to the +articulate voices, the impressive utterances, we are to remember that +the life of the community as of the individual is shaped oftenest by the +inarticulate, unavowed, half-unconscious sentiments: + + Below the surface stream, shallow and light, + Of what we say we feel,--below the stream, + As light, of what we think we feel, there flows + With noiseless current, strong, obscure and deep, + The central stream of what we feel indeed. + +The underlying human force in the slavery question was the primitive +instinct in man to keep all he has got; the instinct of the man who +lives at another's expense to keep on doing so. That underlay all the +fine theories about differences of race, all the theological deductions +from Noah's curse upon Canaan. Another great and constant factor was the +absorption of men and communities, not personally concerned in a social +wrong, in pursuits and interests of their own which shut out all outlook +beyond. In our day we hear much about the crowding rush of material +interests, but that crowd and rush was felt almost as much in the +earlier generations, when hardly less than the most strident tones of +the agitator could pierce the absorption of the street and market-place. +There was the inertia of custom; there were the commercial interests +closely interwoven of the Southern planter and the Northern +manufacturer; there was the prejudice of color and race; and all these +influences, open or latent, told powerfully for keeping slavery as it +was. + +The great default, the fatal failure, was the omission of the Southern +whites, especially their leaders by education and by popular +recognition, to take deliberate and systematic measures for the removal +of slavery. Difficult? Yes, very. Impossible? Why, almost every other +country of North and South America,--including the Spanish-Americans on +whom the English-Americans look down with such superiority,--these all +got rid of slavery without violence or revolution. Whatever the case +required,--of preparation, compensation, new industrial +arrangement,--the Southern whites had the whole business in their hands, +to deal with as they pleased. Whatever cries might be raised by a few +for instant and unconditional emancipation, there never was a day when +the vast mass of the American people, of all sections, were not avowedly +and unmistakably committed to letting the Southern States treat slavery +as their own matter, and deal with it as they pleased, provided only +they kept it at home. Excuses for non-action there were, of +course,--the perplexities of the situation, the irritation of criticism +from without,--but Nature has no use for excuses. If there is a cancer +in the system it is useless to plead the expense of the surgery or the +pain of the knife. The alternative is simple--removal or death. + +It is always impossible to distinguish closely in the causes of events +between the action of human will and the wider forces which we call +Nature or Providence. But in some eras we distinguish more clearly than +in others the effect of human personalities. For example, in the making +of the Constitution we see a difficult situation taken wisely and +resolutely in hand by a group of strong men; they made themselves a part +of Fate. But in the fluctuating history of slavery, with its final +catastrophe, we seem to be looking at elemental movements; masses of men +drifting under impulses, with no leadership adequate to the occasion. +The men who seemingly might have mastered the situation, and brought it +to a peaceful and right solution, either could not or would not do it. + +What happened was, that two opposite social systems, existing within the +same political body, came into rivalry, into hostility, and at last into +direct conflict. In the early stages, slavery had on its side the +advantage of an established place under the law, the support of its +local communities becoming more and more determined, the long-time +indifference and inertia of the free States, custom, conservatism, +timidity, race prejudice. But against all this were operating steadily +two tremendous forces. In the race for industrial advantage which is at +last the decisive test, free society was superior to slave society by as +much as the freeman is superior to the slave. The advantage of the +Northern farmer or mechanic over the negro slave was the measure of the +advantage of the North over the South. In increase of wealth; in +variety, intensity, and productiveness of social life; in immigration; +in intellectual progress, the free States outstripped the slave States +by leaps and bounds. And, again, in the conscience of humanity,--in +mankind's sense of right and wrong, which grows ever a more potent +factor in the world's affairs,--the tide was setting steadily and +swiftly against slavery. To impatient reformers who, as Horace Mann +said, were always in a hurry, while God never is,--the tide might seem +motionless or refluent, as to him who looks hastily from the ocean +shore; but as the sea follows the moon, the hearts of men were following +the new risen luminary of humanity's God-given rights. + +And so, under each special phase of the conflict, slavery had against it +that dominant force which acts on one side in the material progress of +society, and on the other side in the human conscience; that +force--"some call it Evolution, and others call it God." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE MEXICAN WAR + + +We have seen that about 1832-3 a new distinctness and prominence was +given to the slavery question by various events,--the substantial +victory of the South Carolina nullifiers, and the leadership thenceforth +of the South by Calhoun; Nat Turner's rising, and the rejection by +Virginia of the emancipation policy; the compensated liberation of the +West India slaves by the British Government; and the birth of aggressive +Abolitionism under the lead of Garrison. We have now to glance at the +main course of history for the next twenty years. Party politics had for +a time no direct relation to slavery. The new organizations of Whigs and +Democrats disputed on questions of a national bank, internal +improvements, and the tariff. The Presidency was easily won in 1836 by +Jackson's lieutenant, Van Buren; but the commercial crash of 1837 +produced a revulsion of feeling which enabled the Whigs to elect +Benjamin Harrison in 1840. His early death gave the Presidency to John +Tyler of Virginia, who soon alienated his party, and who was thoroughly +Southern in his sympathies and policy. + +The newly aroused anti-slavery enthusiasm in the North found expression +in petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. +It was not intrinsically a great matter, but it was the one point where +the national authority seemed clearly to have a chance to act--questions +of new territory being for the time in abeyance. Petitions poured in on +Congress with thousands of signatures--then with tens, then hundreds of +thousands. There was a hot struggle as to whether the petitions should +be received at all by the Senate and House. John Quincy Adams, willing +after his Presidency to serve in the humbler capacity of congressman, +was the champion of the right of petition. Calhoun had entered the +Senate in 1832 and remained there with a brief intermission until his +death in 1850. He stood independent of the two great parties, with his +own State always solidly behind him, and with growing influence over the +whole South. He was the leader in opposing the admission of the +petitions. He maintained that any discussion in Congress of such a topic +was injurious and incendiary; he voiced the new sentiment of the South +that all agitation of slavery was an invasion of its rights. "Hands +off!" was the cry. The question was settled in 1836, after long debates, +by another compromise, proposed by James Buchanan of Pennsylvania; the +petitions were given a formal reception, but instantly rejected without +debate. + +Another burning question was the circulation of anti-slavery documents +through the Southern mails. In 1835 a mob in Charleston broke open the +post-office, and made a bonfire of all such matter they could find. The +social leaders and the clergy of the city applauded. The +postmaster-general under Jackson, Amos Kendall, wrote to the local +postmaster who had connived at the act: "I cannot sanction and will not +condemn the step you have taken." Jackson asked Congress to pass a law +excluding anti-slavery literature from the mails. Even this was not +enough for Calhoun; he claimed that every State had a right to pass such +legislation for itself, with paramount authority over any act of +Congress. But the South would not support him in this claim; and indeed +he was habitually in advance of his section, which followed him +generally at an interval of a few years. Congress refused to pass any +law on the subject. But the end was reached without law; Southern +postmasters systematically refused to transmit anti-slavery +documents--even of so moderate character as the New York _Tribune_--and +this was their practice until the Civil War. "A gross infraction of law +and right!" said the North. "But," said the South, "would you allow +papers to circulate in your postoffices tending directly to breed revolt +and civil war? If the mails cannot be used in the service of gambling +and lotteries, with far more reason may we shut out incitements to +insurrection like Nat Turner's." + +On a similar plea all freedom of speech in Southern communities on the +question of slavery was practically denied. Anti-slavery men were driven +from their homes. In Kentucky, one man stood out defiantly and +successfully. Cassius M. Clay opposed slavery, advocated its compensated +abolition, and was as ready to defend himself with pistols as with +arguments. He stood his ground to the end, and in 1853 he settled Rev. +John G. Fee at Berea, who established a group of anti-slavery churches +and schools, which was broken up after John Brown's raid, but after the +war was revived as Berea College. But as a rule free speech in the South +was at an end before 1840. No man dared use language like that of +Patrick Henry and Madison; and Jefferson's _Notes on Virginia_, if newly +published, would have been excluded from the mails and its author +exiled. + +South Carolina passed a law under which negro seamen on ships entering +her ports were put in jail while their vessel remained, and if the jail +fees were not paid, they were sold into slavery. When Massachusetts +seamen suffered under this law, the State government in 1844 dispatched +an eminent citizen, Samuel Hoar, to try to secure a modification of the +enactment. Arriving in Charleston, accompanied by his daughter, Mr. Hoar +was promptly visited in his hotel by a committee of prominent men and +obliged to leave the city and State at once. + +The North had its share of violence. In Connecticut a school for negro +children, kept by two white women, was forcibly broken up. In Illinois +in 1837 an anti-slavery newspaper office was destroyed by a mob, and its +proprietor, Elijah P. Lovejoy, was murdered. + +In the Presidential election of 1840 slavery was almost forgotten. The +Whigs were bent on overthrowing the Democratic administration, to which +they attributed the hard times following 1837; and they raised a popular +hurrah for the candidate of the "plain people," William Henry Harrison +of Indiana, who had won a victory over the Indians at Tippecanoe. In a +canvass where "log-cabins" and "hard cider" gave the watchwords and +emblems, national politics played little part. But now first those +resolute anti-slavery men who were determined to bring their cause +before the people as a political issue, and fight it out in that arena, +with solid ranks be their forces ever so small,--came together and +nominated for the Presidency James G. Birney. They could give him but a +handful of votes, but it was the raising of a flag which twenty years +was to carry to victory. Birney, never an extremist, had grown to a full +recognition of all that was at stake. He wrote in 1835: "The contest is +becoming--has become--not one alone of freedom for the blacks, but of +freedom for the whites.... There will be no cessation of the strife +until slavery shall be exterminated or liberty destroyed." + +For a dozen years there had been only skirmishing. Now came on a battle +royal, or rather a campaign, from 1844 to 1850,--the annexation of +Texas, the war with Mexico, and the last great compromise. Texas, a +province of Mexico after Mexico became free from Spain, received a +steady immigration from the American Southwestern States. These +immigrants became restive under Mexican control, declared their +independence in 1835, and practically secured it after sharp fighting. +Slavery, abolished under Mexico, was re-established by the republic of +Texas. From the character of its population, it seemed to gravitate +toward the United States. The keen eyes of the Southern leaders were +early fixed upon it. Annex Texas, and a great field of expansion for +slavery was open. Its votes in the Senate and House would be added to +the Southern column, and from its immense domain future States might be +carved. As early as 1829 Lundy's and Garrison's _Genius_ had protested +against this scheme. The time was now ripe for carrying it out. Calhoun +was again the leader. He claimed to be "the author of annexation," and +with good reason. He exchanged the Senate for Tyler's cabinet as +Secretary of War in 1844, the change being engineered by Henry A. Wise, +one of the rising men in Virginia,--for the express purpose of bringing +in Texas. A treaty of annexation was negotiated with Texas, and sent to +the Senate. There were difficulties; the Texans had cooled in their zeal +for annexation; and the American Senate was not over-favorable. To give +the necessary impetus, Calhoun,--so says Van Holst, in his excellent and +not unfriendly biography,--fell below his habitual sincerity, and +misrepresented a dispatch of the English Foreign Secretary, Lord +Aberdeen, as showing a disposition on England's part to get hold of +Texas for herself. It was a Presidential year; the Democratic convention +nominated James K. Polk of Tennessee, and passed a resolution favoring +annexation. But Calhoun had now shown his motive so plainly that the +country took alarm, and the Senate rejected the treaty. The Whigs +nominated Clay. He was believed to be opposed to the annexation scheme, +but his hunger for the great prize betrayed him into an equivocal +expression, which lost him the confidence of the strong anti-slavery +men. Again they nominated Birney,--taking now the name of the Liberty +party--and gave him so many votes that the result was to lose New York +and Michigan for Clay, and Polk was elected. The administration now +claimed--though in truth the combined Whig and Liberty vote put it in a +minority--that it had received a plebiscite of popular support on its +annexation policy. Thus emboldened, its friends,--knowing that they +could not yet count on the two-thirds vote necessary for a senatorial +confirmation,--dropped the treaty altogether, and brought into Congress +a joint resolution affirming the annexation of Texas to the Union. This +won the necessary majority in both houses, and as the last act of +Tyler's administration Texas was declared a State. + +Calhoun now returned to the Senate,--his temporary substitute promptly +vacating at his word. Thus far he had triumphed. But his associates in +their elation were eager for another conquest. Texas is ours, now let us +have California and the Pacific! But to that end, Mexico, reluctant to +yield Texas, and wholly unwilling to cede more territory, must be +attacked and despoiled. At that proposal Calhoun drew back. It does not +appear that he had any scruples about Mexico. But, keener-sighted than +his followers, he knew that any further acquisitions to the West would +be stoutly and hopefully claimed by the North. His warning was in vain; +he had lighted a fire and now could not check it. The next step was to +force Mexico into a war. She claimed the river Nueces as her boundary +with Texas, while Texas claimed the Rio Grande. Instructions were +quietly given to General Taylor, in January, 1846, to throw his small +force into the disputed territory, so near the Rio Grande as to invite a +Mexican attack. The Mexican force did attack him, and President Polk +instantly declared that "war existed by the act of Mexico"--thus +allowing Congress no chance to pass on it. As is the way of nations, +fighting once begun, every consideration of justice was ignored and the +only word was "our country, right or wrong." Congressmen of both parties +voted whatever supplies were needed for the war; and the Whigs, trying +to throw the blame on the President, put no obstacles in the way of his +conquest of Mexico. Only one man in Congress spoke out for justice as +higher than party or country. Thomas Corwin of Ohio, in a powerful +speech, denounced the whole iniquitous business, and declared that were +he a Mexican facing the American invaders of his home, "I would welcome +them with hospitable hands to bloody graves!" + +The war called out another voice that went home to the heart of the +people,--the voice of James Russell Lowell in the "Biglow Papers." In +the homely Yankee vernacular he spoke for the highest conscience of New +England. The righteous wrath was winged with stinging wit and lightened +with broad humor. He spoke for that sentiment of the new and nobler +America which abhorred slavery and detested war, and saw in a war for +the extension of slavery a crime against God and man. The politician's +sophistries, the respectable conventionalities current in church and +state, found no mercy at his hands: + + Ez fer war, I call it murder,-- + There you hev it plain and flat: + I don't want to go no furder + Than my Testyment fer that: + God hez sed so plump an' fairly, + It's ez long ez it is broad, + An' you've got to git up airly + Ef you want to take in God. + + 'Tain't your eppyletts an' feathers + Make the thing a grain more right; + 'Tain't a follerin' your bell-wethers + Will excuse ye in his sight; + Ef you take a sword and draw it, + An' go stick a feller thru, + Guv'ment ain't to answer for it, + God'll send the bill to you. + + Massachusetts, God forgive her, + She's a kneelin' with the rest, + She, that ought to hav' clung forever + In her grand old eagle-nest. + + * * * * * + + Let our dear old Bay State proudly + Put the trumpet to her mouth, + Let her ring this messidge loudly + In the ears of all the South: + + "I'll return ye good fer evil + Much ez we frail mortals can, + But I won't go help the Devil + Makin' man the cus o' man; + Call me coward, call me traitor, + Jest ez suits your mean idees, + Here I stand a tyrant-hater, + An' the friend o' God and Peace." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +HOW DEAL WITH THE TERRITORIES? + + +Meanwhile, the American army,--accepting as its sole part to obey +orders, not questioning why,--though such officers as Grant and Lee had +no liking for the task set them,--and reinforced by volunteer regiments +from the Southwest,--was steadily fighting its way to the Mexican +capital; Taylor's force advancing from Texas, while Scott moved from +Vera Cruz. The Mexicans resisted bravely, but were beaten again and +again, and upon the capture of the city of Mexico they gave up the +contest. + +Spite of the _éclat_ of victories, the war had been so little popular in +the North that the congressional election of 1846 displaced the +administration majority in the House and gave the Whigs a preponderance. +But, with the excitement of the complete victory over Mexico in the next +year, came a fresh wave of the aggressive temper. It was freely +advocated that Mexico should be annexed bodily. Against this madness +Henry Clay spoke out with his old-time power. Clearly the country would +tolerate no such extreme, and the annexationists contented themselves +with mulcting Mexico, upon the payment of $6,000,000, of the vast +territory known as California. + +Then set in with full vigor the controversy over the new territory which +Calhoun had foreseen. Calhoun had been left in a sort of isolation by +his defection from the administration upon the war, but he did not break +with President Polk; for the reason, says Von Holst, that he wanted to +save his influence to oppose the tendency to a war with England. Oregon +had been held in joint occupancy by the two nations for many years; now +a line of demarcation was to be drawn, and there was a loud popular +demand for maintaining at any cost the extreme northern line of +latitude--it was "Fifty-four-forty or fight." But the sense of the +country was against coming to extremities, and Calhoun--a statesman when +slavery was not concerned--threw his influence with the moderate +sentiment which secured the acceptance of the line of 49 degrees. But he +looked with foreboding eyes on the deepening conflict of the sections +and the advantage which gravitated toward the North;--from political +causes, he declared, unwilling or unable to recognize that the +industrial superiority lay inevitably with free labor. He met the danger +with a bolder and more advanced claim. The South, he declared, had had +enough of compromise over territory; it must now fall back on its +ultimate right under the Constitution; and that right was that slaves, +being lawful property, might be taken into any territory of the United +States, and Congress had no right to forbid their introduction; neither +had Congress a right to refuse admission of any State whose people +desired to retain slavery. This was a claim for the nationalization of +slavery; and it was not until after Calhoun's death that the South came +to this position, staked its cause upon it, and when it was rejected by +the popular vote broke with the Union. + +But Calhoun's logic and passion had not yet brought his section up to +his own position, and over the division of the newly acquired territory +North and South disputed as before. While the war was still waging, +President Polk asked for an appropriation to be expended as compensation +for new territory; and David Wilmot, a Democratic member from +Pennsylvania, moved that a proviso be added, stipulating that from any +new territory acquired by purchase slavery should be excluded. This was +passed by the House, but rejected by the Senate. The Senate was long the +stronghold of the South, the States having an equal representation, +while in the House the greater increase of free State population gave +them a fresh advantage at each new census and apportionment. The "Wilmot +proviso" was for some years the watchword of the anti-extensionists. To +the typical Northerner, it seemed monstrous that slavery should be +introduced by law in territory where it had no previous existence. To +the typical Southerner it seemed no less unjust that his peculiar +institutions and usages should be excluded from the common domain, for +which his section had paid its share of money and more than its share of +blood. + +While the question of the new territory had scarcely taken definite +form, there came the Presidential election of 1848. In the Whig +convention Clay's ambition received its final disappointment; Webster +had hardly a chance; all the statesmen of the party were set aside in +favor of General Zachary Taylor of Louisiana, an upright, soldierly man, +a slaveholder, entirely unversed in civil affairs, and his claim resting +solely on successful generalship in the war. The Democrats nominated +Lewis Cass of Michigan, a mediocre politician, regarded by the South as +a trustworthy servant. The third party displayed new strength, and +exchanged the name of "Liberty" for "Free Soil." Under the stimulus of +recent events recruits of power and promise came to its standard. In +Massachusetts it gained such men as Samuel Hoar, Charles Sumner, Charles +Francis Adams, and Henry Wilson from the Whigs; and from the Democrats, +Robert Rantoul and N. P. Banks. Wilson and Charles Allen, delegates to +the Whig convention, declared,--when that body in its resolutions +absolutely ignored the question of slavery extension, and sank all +principles in a hurrah for "Old Rough and Ready,"--that they would no +longer support the party. They went home to work with their old +friends, the "Conscience Whigs," for the success of the Free Soil party, +whose convention was to meet at Buffalo. To that convention came strong +allies from Ohio. There were Joshua Giddings, for years one of the few +congressmen classed distinctly as anti-slavery, and Salmon P. Chase. New +York State offered a reinforcement strong in numbers, but in some +respects questionable. The anti-slavery Democrats in the State, +nicknamed "Barnburners"--because "they would burn the barn to get rid of +the rats"--were ready to break with their party, but their quarrel was +partly a personal one. They were welcomed, however, and from their ranks +was selected the Presidential candidate--of all men, ex-President Martin +Van Buren, known of old as "the Northern man with Southern principles," +but willing now to Northernize his principles with the Presidency in +view. Such a nomination went far to take the heart out of the genuine +anti-slavery men; and the strong name of Charles Francis Adams for +vice-president could not make good the weakness of the head of the +ticket. Should a real Free Soiler vote for Van Buren,--the probable +effect being to improve Cass's chances over Taylor, just as the Birney +vote four years earlier had beaten Clay and brought in Polk and all his +consequences--or vote for Taylor, trusting to his personal character and +the influences surrounding him for a practical advantage to the side of +freedom? The latter alternative was the choice of many, including Horace +Greeley and his associates, Thurlow Weed and William H. Seward. With +such help, and mainly on his strength as a military hero, Taylor was +elected. In the result there was considerable hope for the anti-slavery +cause. For Seward, who had been chosen to the Senate from New York, was +very influential with the new President, and Seward was one of the +coming men, clearly destined to be a leader among those who were to +succeed the great triumvirate of Clay, Calhoun, and Webster. He was +high-minded, cultivated, and united lofty ideals with practical wisdom. +A thorough constitutionalist, he believed there were legitimate ways of +advancing freedom under the Constitution; and in a speech at Cleveland +he had declared: "Slavery can be limited to its present bounds; it can +be ameliorated; it can be abolished; and you and I must do it." Ohio +sent to the Senate another of the coming men, Salmon P. Chase, +resembling Seward in his broad and philosophical views and his firm but +constitutional opposition to slavery. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE COMPROMISE OF 1850 + + +To win California as slave territory the Southern leaders had forced the +war on Mexico. The territory was won, and no political force had +developed strong enough to halt their progress. But now came a check +from the realm which could not be cajoled or brow-beaten,--the world of +natural and industrial forces. Gold was discovered in California. There +was a rush of immigrants, and a swift opening and settlement of the +country. The pioneers--hardy, enterprising and democratic--had no use +nor room for slaves. They held a convention, with the encouragement of +President Taylor; framed a Constitution in which slavery was excluded +from the future State--this by unanimous vote, including the 15 +delegates who had come from slave States; and the popular vote ratified +the proposed Constitution by 10 to 1. Then they asked for admission to +the Union. + +The Southern faction was wrathful. The extremists were for excluding the +new State unless slavery was permitted. But it was clear that slavery +could not be forced on a State against the wish of its entire people. +Then compensation was sought in concessions to be made by the North. The +remainder of the new domain, Utah and New Mexico, was not ripe for +Statehood; but let slavery, it was urged, be established as a +territorial condition. Then came up another grievance of the South. Its +fugitive slaves, escaping over the border line, were systematically +helped, either to make their way to Canada and the protection of the +British flag, or to safe homes in the Northern States. Naturally the +slaves who dared the perils of escape were either the most energetic or +the most wronged, and sympathy for them at the North was active and +resourceful. Along their most frequented routes of flight were +systematic provisions of shelter and help, known as "the underground +railroad." The Federal Constitution required their return, but this task +had been left to State laws and courts, and was performed slackly, if at +all. The total number of fugitives was not large nor the pecuniary loss +heavy, but the South was exasperated by what it considered a petty and +contemptible depredation. So there was a demand that the Federal +government should undertake and enforce the return of fugitive slaves. + +Congress opened the session of 1849-50 amid great excitement and +confusion. Once more Clay came forward to reconcile the disputants. Clay +in these last days was at his best. He was no longer swayed by +Presidential aspirations. When in 1849 the Kentucky Constitution was to +be revised, he wrote a letter strongly favoring a gradual emancipation +and colonization. This had no effect, but Clay's unshaken hold on his +State was shown by his unanimous re-election to the Senate. There he at +once entered upon his last great effort at national reconciliation. He +introduced a bill providing for a series of concessions on both sides. +California was to be admitted as a free State; and New Mexico and Utah +were to be organized as territories, leaving the question of slavery for +future settlement. Slavery was to continue in the District of Columbia, +but the slave trade was to be forbidden there. Texas was to cede to New +Mexico a disputed strip of territory, which presumably would ultimately +become free; and was to be compensated by a large grant from the Federal +territory. A law was to be passed for the return of fugitive slaves by +Federal authority. + +Over these measures the debate was long and hot. Clay pleaded that by +his scheme the advantages were fairly balanced between North and South. +He urged that the rising spirit of disunion at the South should be +disarmed by reasonable concessions. He appealed to the North for +concessions and to the South for peace. When Jefferson Davis, Senator +from Mississippi, declared that the plan conceded nothing to the South, +and demanded that the Missouri compromise line be extended to the +Pacific (bisecting California), with the express establishment of +slavery south of that line, Clay declared that no earthly power should +make him vote for the establishment of slavery anywhere where it had had +no previous existence. To do so, he said, would be to incur from future +inhabitants of New Mexico the reproach which Americans justly applied to +their British ancestors for fastening the institution on them. But he +would spare Southern sensibilities by withholding an explicit exclusion +of slavery from New Mexico; Nature and the future would attend to that. +Against any right of secession, against any possibility of peaceful +secession, he declared with strongest emphasis: "War and dissolution of +the Union are identical; they are convertible terms; and such a war!" +Fighting for the extension of slavery, the sympathies of all mankind +would be against the South. + +The venerable old man, speaking with all the sincerity and warmth of his +heart and with all the powers of his mind, was heard, says Schurz, by a +great and brilliant audience. His first faltering words were followed by +regained power; the old elevation of sentiment, the sonorous flow of +words, the lofty energy of action, were enhanced by the pathetic sense +that this was the final effort. + +More pathetic, tragic even, was the last speech of Calhoun, read for him +while he sat in his senatorial chair; the tall form bowed by age and +weakness, the gaunt, impressive face furrowed by the long strife for a +doomed cause, but the old fire still alight in the dark eyes and in the +resolute spirit. He recognized that the strife of the sections was +radical, and that the proposed compromises and palliatives were weak and +temporary. He declared that the South had been thwarted in its rights +from the ordinance of 1787 until now; that the equilibrium would be +destroyed past hope if California and New Mexico were to become free +States; and that the only effective resource lay in some constitutional +amendment to safeguard the rights of the South. What amendment could +effect this, he did not say. But it transpired later that he had in mind +the election of two Presidents, one from each section,--a fantastic and +impossible scheme. In truth, Calhoun in this last utterance was less a +statesman aiming to guide events than a prophet predicting an inevitable +woe. He was too wise to share the elation with which hot-heads talked of +an independent South, and it was with sad forebodings that he sank to +his grave. + +When on the 7th of March Webster rose to speak, the Senate and the +country hung on his words. He too was drawing toward the end, but his +powers were unabated. Hope was strong that in him would be found the +champion of freedom. But the key of his speech was a view of the +situation, not as a contest between freedom and slavery, but as an +opposition of geographical sections, inflamed by extremists on both +sides. The mischief, he declared, was due to Southern disunionists and +Northern Abolitionists. The remedy was a calm, patriotic temper; the +rebuke of fanaticism of both kinds, and the acceptance of reasonable +accommodations and adjustments. He approved substantially the scheme +proposed by Clay. The formal exclusion of slavery from New Mexico was an +unnecessary affront to the South; natural conditions would prevent +slavery there. A fugitive slave law was fairly required by the +Constitution and the South had a right to claim it. He, like Clay, +declared peaceable secession an impossibility, and his speech, +impressive throughout by the power of a lucid and massive intellect, +rose at its close to lofty eloquence in a plea for the maintenance of +the Union and a warning of the catastrophe which secession would +precipitate. + +The defect of the speech was its complete failure to recognize the wrong +and mischief of slavery. Webster had rarely shown himself a moral +idealist, except as to the sentiment of patriotism. He was identified +with the prosperous and "respectable" classes, and the sufferings of the +poor and oppressed woke little sympathy in him. These limitations had +always been apparent, and while Clay seemed to grow finer and gentler +with advance of years, Webster's course was the other way. That imperial +and commanding presence, with its imposing stature and Jove-like visage, +was the tenement of a richly dowered nature. He had not only great +powers of intellect, but warm affections, generous sentiments, and +wholesome tastes for humanity and the outdoor world, but his moral +fiber, never of the stanchest grain, had been sapped by prosperity. He +was self-indulgent in his personal habits and heedless of homely +obligations. His ambition was strong, and as the favor of the South had +come to be the almost necessary condition of the Presidency, he could +not escape the suspicion of courting that favor. He was in substantial +agreement with Clay as to the compromise measures, but the Kentuckian +rose higher than his section and his look was forward; while Webster was +distinctly below the characteristic temper of New England, and his +movement was retrograde. The anti-slavery men mourned his 7th of March +speech as a great apostasy, and Whittier branded it in his poem of +"Ichabod," which fell with Judgment-day weight. Yet it was not an +apostasy, but the natural culmination of his course; and in spite of its +error, he still was true to the characteristic sentiment of his best +period, the love of the Union. His voice like Clay's gave +inspiration--it may well have been a decisive inspiration--to the cause +which triumphed at Gettysburg and Appomattox. Whittier himself, in a +later poem, recognized the patriotic service of the man whom, in the +heat of conflict, he had so scathingly denounced. + +Congress, and especially the Senate, was at this time full of brilliant +men. Among the leaders of the extreme South were Mason of Virginia, +Butler of South Carolina, Davis of Mississippi, and Soule of Louisiana. +From this element came plentiful threats of disunion. But these threats +were met with stern answers. When President Taylor heard of them the +stout old soldier answered that such language was treasonable, and if +necessary he would himself take command of the army that should put down +rebellion. Disunion, he said, is treason; and to one questioning him, he +answered with a soldier's oath that if anyone really attempted to carry +it out, they should be dealt with by law as they deserved, and executed. +Clay's language was no less explicit. When Senator Rhett in Charleston +proposed to raise the flag of secession, and his colleague, Barnwell in +the Senate, half indorsed his words, Clay said, with a lightning flash +that thrilled the audience, that if Senator Rhett followed up that +declaration by overt acts "he will be a traitor, and I hope he will meet +the fate of a traitor!" Clay went on to say that if Kentucky should ever +unfurl the banner of resistance unjustly against the Union, "never, +never will I engage with her in such a cause!" + +There was in Congress a new element, of the smallest in numbers, but +with the promise and potency of a great future. Four days after Webster, +Seward spoke in the Senate. He advocated the admission of California as +a free State, with no additions or compromises. No equilibrium between +freedom and slavery was possible; if established to-day it would be +destroyed to-morrow. The moral sentiment of the age would never permit +the enforcement of a law requiring Northern freemen to return slaves to +bondage. The entire public domain was by the Constitution devoted to +union, justice, defense, welfare, and liberty; and it was devoted to the +same noble ends by "a higher law than the Constitution." The extension +of slavery ought to be barred by all legal means. Threats of disunion +had no terrors for him. The question was "whether the Union shall stand, +and slavery, under the steady, peaceful action of moral, social, and +political causes, be removed by gradual voluntary effort and with +compensation; or whether the Union shall be dissolved and civil war +ensue, bringing on violent but complete and immediate emancipation." + +Salmon P. Chase of Ohio spoke to similar effect. If, he said, the claims +of freedom are sacrificed here by forms of legislation, "the people will +unsettle your settlement." "It may be that you will succeed in burying +the ordinance of freedom. But the people will write upon its tomb, 'I +shall rise again.'" + +The disunionists found that they had little popular support behind them. +A convention at Nashville, held to promote the interests of the South, +refused to countenance any extreme measures. General Taylor steadily +favored the admission of California as a free State, with no +qualifications or accompaniments. Then, while the result in Congress +hung doubtful, in the summer of 1850, President Taylor died. His +successor, Vice-President Millard Fillmore of New York, was a man of +fair ability and cautious or timid disposition; an opponent of Seward in +the politics of their State. He favored the compromise, and called +Webster to his cabinet. The administration's influence seemed to turn +the scale, and Clay's series of measures were adopted one by one. There +was dissatisfaction at the South and indignation at the North. The +territorial settlement was substantially in the North's favor. But the +exasperating fact, and pregnant with consequences, was the Fugitive +Slave law. Its provisions were intolerable to the popular conscience. +All citizens were liable to be called to aid in the pursuit and arrest +of a fugitive. He was to be tried before a United States commissioner, +whose decision was final. A man accused of a crime punishable by a small +fine or a brief imprisonment was entitled to a verdict from an impartial +jury of twelve; but a man whose freedom for life was at stake was at the +mercy of a single official. + +Most of the Northern States sooner or later passed "Personal Liberty +laws," which, without directly assuming to nullify the Federal statute, +aimed to defeat its enforcement. They contained such provisions as the +exemption of State officials and State buildings from service in the +rendition of fugitives, and the right of alleged fugitives to be taken +by _habeas corpus_ before a State tribunal. So against the charge of +inhumanity in the Fugitive Slave law, the South brought the +counter-charge of evasion bordering on defiance of a Federal statute. +Few renditions were attempted. Sometimes they were met by forcible +resistance. An alleged fugitive, Jerry, was rescued by the populace in +Syracuse. A negro, Shadrach, arrested as a fugitive in Boston in 1851, +was set free and carried off by a mob. There was a spasm of excitement +in Congress, but it was brief and resultless. Later, in 1854, when the +anti-slavery tide was swiftly rising, came the rendition of Anthony +Burns, who was taken through the streets of Boston under a strong guard +of Federal troops and State militia, while the popular wrath and grief +at the sight swelled the wave which the repeal of the Missouri +compromise had started on its inevitable way. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A LULL AND A RETROSPECT + + +After the half-year's debate over the compromise of 1850 came a time of +political quiet. "The tumult and the shouting died." It seemed more than +a temporary lull. In a great tide of material prosperity, the country +easily forgot the slaves; if out of sight, they were, to most, out of +mind. Webster's speech had a deep significance. He was identified in +Massachusetts with the classes representing commercial prosperity, +social prominence, and academic culture. In these classes, throughout +the North, there was a general apathy as to slavery. The temper of the +time was materialistic. There was indeed enough anti-slavery sentiment, +stirred by the 7th of March speech and the Fugitive Slave law, to change +the balance of power in Massachusetts politics. The Democrats and the +Free Soilers made a coalition, and it triumphed over the Whigs. The +Democrats took the State offices, with George S. Boutwell as Governor; +and Charles Sumner--a scholar, an idealist, an impressive orator, and a +pronounced anti-slavery man, though never an Abolitionist,--was sent to +the Senate to reinforce Seward and Chase. + +The Presidential election of 1852 came on. In the Whig convention +Fillmore had some support, especially from the South; Webster had most +of the Massachusetts votes and scarce any others; and choice was made of +General Winfield Scott, in the hope of repeating the victory of 1848 +with another hero of the Mexican war. It was to Webster a blow past +retrieval; in bitterness of spirit he turned his face to the wall, in +his old home at Marshfield, and died. The Democratic convention +hesitated between several Northern politicians of trustworthy +subserviency to the South,--Cass, Douglas, and Buchanan--and its choice +fell upon Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire, an amiable man, of fair +ability, but easy to manage; he, too, the winner of a trifle of military +glory in the Mexican conquest. Both conventions professed entire content +with the settlements of the compromise. The Free Soilers nominated John +P. Hale of New Hampshire, and made their familiar declaration of +principles. But they had lost their Democratic allies of four years +earlier, and threw only 150,000 votes--less by 100,000 than at the +previous election. The Whig party proved to be on the verge of +dissolution. It had lost its hold on the "conscience vote" of the North, +and was less trusted than its rival by the South. Pierce was chosen by a +great majority; he carried every State except Vermont, Massachusetts, +Kentucky, and Tennessee. + +Party politics were dull; commercial and material interests seemed +wholly in the ascendant, and the anti-slavery cause was at a low ebb. +But many things had happened in two decades, below the surface current +of public events, and, just on the threshold of a new era, we may glance +back over these twenty years. All the European world had been full of +movement. France had passed through three revolutions. Germany, Austria, +and Italy had undergone a political upheaval and subsidence; and the +liberal reverses of 1848 were the precursors of national unity and +constitutional freedom in the near future. + +England had gone steadily on in the path of conservative progress; had +widened its suffrage by the Reform Act of 1832; had relieved distress +and disarmed discontent by the free trade policy of Sir Robert Peel; her +factory legislation had met a crying need of the new industrial epoch, +and she had pacified and energized Canada by giving her +self-government. Meanwhile American progress had been along lines of its +own. The country had grown at a tremendous rate, and mainly at the North +and West. Immigration had poured in from Europe, and the stream of +native stock from the seaboard States to the West had hardly slackened. +It was the epoch of the railroad and the telegraph. Manufactures had +increased and multiplied; acres fell under cultivation by the million. +In this industrial growth the North had far outstripped the South. +Calhoun had urged the construction of railroads to link the eastern and +western parts of the South, but the political motive could not supply +the want of industrial force. The figures of the census of 1850 were +more eloquent than any orator as to the relative effects of free and +slave labor. Intellectually the period had been prolific. Emerson had +risen, the bright morning star of American literature. Bryant, +Hawthorne, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, were telling their stories or +singing their songs. Theology was fruitful of debate and change. The +Unitarian movement had defined itself. Presbyterians and +Congregationalists were discussing the tenets of old school and new. For +"women's rights" a strong and promising advance had been made, in the +face of unpopularity and derision. Religious revivals, foreign missions, +social reforms, were making active way. From all this intellectual and +social movement, unless we except the emotional revivals of religion, +the South stood apart. Literature it had virtually none; its theology +was only conservative and defensive; at most so-called reforms it looked +askance. + +In two respects the South had an advantage. Its social system was +aristocratic; above the slaves came the non-slave-holding whites, +including a great mass of the ignorant and degraded; but at the summit +the slave-holding class had a social life in many ways attractive and +delightful. The slave-holders, all told, numbered some 350,000. The +controlling element consisted of the large planters, with the affiliated +members of the liberal professions. Plantation life at its best had a +great deal of beauty and charm. A degree of improvidence and +"shiftlessness," by Northern standards, was not inconsistent with free +hospitality, a generous outdoor life, an old-time culture with an +atmosphere of leisure and courtesy, superior in its way to what the busy +and bustling North could show. The charming and chivalrous "Colonel +Carter of Cartersville" had many a prototype in real life. A higher type +was sometimes bred in Southern society; it was not without some reason +that Virginians claimed that the mold which produced Washington was not +broken when it could yield a Robert Lee. There was a somber side; +plantation life was often a rank soil for passions of tyranny and +license. But its better fruitage added an element to the composite +American type which could not and cannot be spared. + +The other advantage the South possessed was the devotion of its +strongest men to political life. The loss of commerce and literature was +the gain of politics. The typical Southern leader was apt to be both a +planter and a lawyer, with a strong and active interest in public +affairs. Political oratory was a favorite resource in the +sparsely-settled districts. The personal force which in the North was +scattered among twenty fields was here centered mainly in one. This +feature of Southern society worked together with the fact that the +section had in slavery a common interest and bond. That interest of the +entire section, led by its ablest men, came naturally to be the dominant +factor in American public life. When it could not rule through its own +men, it found agents in subservient Northern politicians. And so it came +about that in the early '50s the South, while outstripped altogether in +population, wealth, industrial and intellectual achievement, was yet in +substantial control of the governmental power. In the North, by the very +magnitude of the commercial and industrial development the moral +sentiment in public affairs seemed submerged or at least eclipsed. + +It was during such a period of apathy that there was held an +anti-slavery meeting at which two negroes were present, Sojourner Truth, +an old woman whose shrewdness matched her fervor, and Frederick +Douglass. Douglass was the son of a white father and a slave mother; he +taught himself to read and write, made his escape into freedom, gained +an education, and became an effective speaker for the anti-slavery +cause. On this occasion he spoke with power and passion of the gloomy +prospects of their people; government, wealth, social advantage, all +were on the side of their oppressors; good people seemed indifferent to +their wrongs; was there indeed any help or hope? Then rose Sojourner +Truth, and looking at him said only, "Frederick! Is God dead?" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +SLAVERY AS IT WAS + + +And now, in the year 1852, there befell an event perhaps as momentous in +American history as any between the establishment of the Constitution +and the Civil War. A frail little woman, the wife of an obscure +theological professor in a Maine village, wrote a story, and that story +captured the heart of the world. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say +that _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ converted the North to the cause of the slave. +The typical Union volunteer of 1861 carried the book in his memory. It +brought home to the heart of the North, and of the world, that the slave +was a man,--one with mankind by that deepest tie, of human love and +aspiration and anguish,--but denied the rights of a man. + +The book was a birth of genius and love. It is absolutely +sweet-spirited. Its intense and irresistible plea is not against a class +or a section, but against a system. It portrays among the Southern +slave-holders characters noble and attractive,--Mrs Shelby, the faithful +mistress, and the fascinating St. Clare. The worst villain in the story +is a renegade Northerner. Its typical Yankee, Miss Ophelia, provokes +kindly laughter. The book mixes humor with its tragedy; the sorrows of +Uncle Tom and the dark story of Cassy are relieved by the pranks of +Black Sam and the antics of Topsy. With all its woes, the story somehow +does not leave a depressing effect; it abounds in courage and action; +the fugitives win their way to freedom; the final impulse is to hopeful +effort against the wrong. Its basal motive was the same as that of the +Abolitionists, but its spirit and method were so different from +Garrison's that it won response and sympathy where he had roused +antagonism. Against pharisaical religion it uses effective +satire,--which was intensified in its successor, _Dred_,--but the +Christianity of faith and life is its animating spirit. No book is +richer in the gospel of love to man and trust in God. Its rank is high +in the new literature which has stimulated and led the great modern +movement for the uplifting of the poor and oppressed. Its place is with +Victor Hugo's _Les Miserables_ and Tolstoi's _War and Peace_. + +The motive of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ was an appeal to the heart of the +American people. There was no reference to political action, far less +any suggestion of servile insurrection, and there was no discussion of +methods of emancipation. The book set forth an organized, monstrous +wrong, which it was in the power of the American nation, and above all, +of the Southern people, to remove. The effect at the North was +immeasurably to widen and deepen the conviction of the wrong of slavery, +and the desire to remove it. But the way to practical action did not +open; and strangely enough there was at first no visible effect on +politics. The political logic of the situation led straight, as a first +step, to the support of the Free Soil party. But though _Uncle Tom's +Cabin_ appeared (as a book) in April, 1852, and its popularity was +instant, the Presidential election seven months later showed a Free Soil +vote less by 100,000 than four years before. The political effect of the +book was to appear only when public events two years later gave a sudden +spur to the hesitating North. + +The South turned a deaf ear to the appeal. It shut the book out from its +borders as far as it could, and one who inquired for it in a Southern +bookstore would probably be offered _Aunt Phillis's Cabin_ or some +other mild literary anti-toxin. The South protested that the book's +picture of slavery was untrue and unjust. It was monstrous, so they +said, that their labor system should be shown as having its natural +result in the whipping to death of a saintly negro for his virtuous +conduct. Another reply was: "If the book is true, it is really a eulogy +of slavery, for it depicts slavery as producing in Uncle Tom a perfect +character." + +To the objections to the fidelity of her portraiture Mrs. Stowe replied +with _A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin_,--a formidable array of proved facts, +as to the laws of the slave States, and specific incidents which +paralleled or exceeded all she had told. As now judged, the novel has +some serious imperfections as a picture of slavery. Probably the most +important of these was expressed by Judge Tourgee, para-phrasing the +proverb about the Russian and the Tartar: "Scratch one of Mrs. Stowe's +negroes, and you will find a white man." She failed adequately to +differentiate the two races, and described the negro too much from such +specimens as Uncle Tom and George and Eliza Harris. She had never lived +in the South, and her knowledge was obtained from observation in the +border town of Cincinnati, from acquaintance with fugitives, and from +the reports of Northern travelers--all interpreted with the insight of +genius and the impulse of philanthropy. Her avowed purpose was not to +make a literal or merely artistic picture, but to show the actual wrongs +and legalized possibilities of wrong which called for redress. It did +not lessen the justice of her plea, that the mass of negroes were more +degraded than she knew, or that their average treatment was kinder than +her portrayal showed. + +But a true historical judgment of slavery must rest on a comparison of +documents. The story told from the master's standpoint should be heard. +Among the faithful and graphic narrations of this sort may be named Mrs. +Burton Harrison's _Flower de Hundred_,--a volume of personal +reminiscences of Virginia before the war. It is a charming story, +without motive other than the pleasure of recalling happy memories, and +it describes a society of various and vivid charm. The mention of the +slaves is occasional and incidental; but the description of the +plantation hands, and especially the household servants, trusted and +beloved, gives a sunny and doubtless a real side of slavery. Another +book is fuller and more impressive in its treatment. It might be said +that every American ought to read _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ as a part of his +education, and to follow it with two other books of real life. One of +these is _A Southern Planter_,--a biography of Thomas Dabney, of +Virginia and later of Mississippi, written by his daughter. It is a +story amply worth reading for its human interest, and for its +presentation of a man of noble and beautiful character. One is enriched +by the acquaintance, even through a book, of a man like Thomas Dabney. +And it is most desirable for the Northerner to vivify his impression of +the South by the knowledge of men like him. We are misled by general and +geographical terms: "an Englishman" is a vague and perhaps unattractive +term to an American until he knows, in books or in flesh and blood, a +few Britons of the right stamp. And so South and North need mutual +interpretation not alone through their historic heroes, but through the +best of their everyday people. And of those best, surely Thomas Dabney +was one,--a strong, tender, noble man, fulfilling each relation in +family and society with loyal conscience and sympathetic heart. + +From the book we can give but a few instances of plantation life as such +a man made it. When he was to move from Virginia to Mississippi he +called together all his slaves,--some hundreds--and told them he wanted +to take none of them against their will, and especially he would not +break up any families. If any of them had wives or husbands on other +plantations, he would sell or buy, just as they wished, so that every +family should stay or go together. Every one of them elected to go with +their old master. Settled in Mississippi, his cotton plantation became +the admiration and envy of the neighbors, for the size of the crops as +well as the condition of the workers. Their comfort was amply secured. +The general rule was three hours' rest at midday and a Saturday +half-holiday. At the height of the season hours were longer, but there +was a system of prizes, for four or five months in the year, from $1 a +week to a picayune; with an extra prize of a $5 gold piece for anyone +picking 600 pounds a day; and these prizes roused such interest and +excitement that some of the ambitious ones had to be compelled to leave +the field at night, wishing to sleep at the end of their row. The +inefficient were gently tolerated; severe punishment was held to be +alike cruel and useless; an incompetent servant was carried as a burden +from which there was no escape. Such endurance was the way of all good +masters and mistresses at the South,--"and I have known very few who +were not good," adds the writer. The plantation trained and kept its own +mechanics; two each of carpenters, blacksmiths, millers, with five +seamstresses in the house. In the house, under the mistress's eye, were +cut and made the clothes of all the negroes, two woolen and two cotton +suits a year, with a gay calico Sunday dress for each woman. The women +were taught sewing in the house. When their babies were born a nurse was +provided, and all the mother's work done for her for a month, and for a +year she was allowed ample leisure for the care of the baby. The sons of +the family taught reading to those who wished to learn. Some of the +house servants were very fine characters; the sketch of "Mammy Maria" +one would gladly reproduce. When secession came on, Thomas Dabney +altogether disapproved, and foresaw the ruin of the South. He proposed +to his wife that they close up their affairs, and go to live in England. +Her reply was: "What will you do with Abby? and with Maria and Harriet, +and their husbands and children, and the rest of our people?" That was +unanswerable. So he stayed, and with his family shared the +fighting,--for, the war begun, Dabney gave his hearty support to the +Southern cause, and his sons went to the field,--shared the hardships of +a devastated country, the social chaos that followed, and the slow +reconstruction,--a more intrepid and lovable figure in adversity than +before. + +His daughter writes: "In the family of Thomas Dabney the first feeling +when the war ended was of joy that one dreadful responsibility at least +was removed. Gradual emancipation had been a hope and a dream not to be +realized." "A hope and a dream,"--it does not appear that it had ever +been seriously considered as a purpose or a duty. "Not an intelligent +white man or woman in the South," says the writer, "would now wish +slavery restored." But why,--it is impossible not to return to the +question,--why had the South done nothing to rid itself of the evil? Why +had it centered its political energies in maintaining and extending it? +Why had it revolted from the Union and invited war and ruin, for a +system which when once removed it recognized as a burden and a curse? No +right minded man can ponder that question without taking a step further, +and asking whether the evils in our present industrial system shall be +allowed to go on till they bring down the temple on our heads, or be met +with deliberate and resolute cure. And the good and conscientious man +who does his best under the existing system--as Thomas Dabney did under +slavery--is yet derelict unless he gives his thought and effort to such +radical amendment as the system may need. + +There is yet another book in illustration of slavery which ought to be +read by every American. It is Fanny Kemble Butler's _A Residence on a +Georgia Plantation_. She was a woman of unusual genius, character, and +sensibility; the inheritor of a great dramatic talent, and a brilliant +actress until she married Mr. Butler of Georgia, and left the stage to +live with him on the plantation owned by himself and his brother. After +no long period she left her husband, not taking the world into her +confidence as to her domestic affairs, but returning to the stage as a +dramatic reader, and passing into honored private life. After the +outbreak of the Civil War she published, with some reserves and some +additions, the journal she had kept during her life on the plantation. +As to her personal relations, except as touching the slaves, the book is +entirely reticent, but it is plain that slavery as she saw it made life +under those conditions literally intolerable. Below all special +cruelties, she writes, she felt the ever-present, vivid wrong of living +on the unpaid labor of servants. The special wrongs were constant. Thus +she describes the parting of a family of slaves, and the husband's awful +distress. She tells of the head-driver, Frank, an every way superior +man, left at some seasons in sole charge of the plantation; but his wife +was taken from him and made the mistress of the overseer. There was +Engineer Ned, intelligent and capable, and himself not badly treated, +but with a wife broken down by being driven to field work too soon after +the birth of a child. Half the women on the plantation were diseased +from the same cause. One woman brought to her mistress a pitiful tale of +such suffering. A little later the mistress learned that the woman, on +the ground that this visit had caused her day's labor to come short, +had received a flogging. She appealed to her husband, but he refused to +interfere. "To Mr. ----'s assertion of the justice of poor Theresa's +punishment, I retorted the manifest injustice of unpaid and enforced +labor; the brutal inhumanity of allowing a man to strip and lash a +woman, the mother of ten children; to exact from her toil which was to +maintain in luxury two idle young men, the owners of the plantation. I +said I thought female labor of the sort exacted from these slaves, and +corporal chastizement such as they endure, must be abhorrent to any +manly or humane man. Mr. ---- said he thought it was disagreeable, and +left me to my reflections with that concession." Presently he refused to +listen to any more such petitions from her. She writes: "A wild wish +rose in my heart that the river and the sea would swallow up and melt in +their salt waves the whole of this accursed property of ours." + +The principal physical hardships, she writes, fell to the women. The +children and the old people are idle and neglected; the middle-aged men +do not seem over-worked, and lead a mere animal existence, in itself not +peculiarly cruel or distressing, but with a constant element of fear and +uncertainty, "and the trifling evils of unrequited labor, ignorance the +most profound (to which they are condemned by law), and the unutterable +injustice which precludes them from all the merits and all the benefits +of voluntary exertion, and the progress that results from it." + +Her eye notes closely the faces about her. When she gathers the slaves +to read prayers to them, she observes "their sable faces, so many of +them so uncouth in their outlines and proportions, and yet all of them +so pathetic, and some so sublime in their expression of patient +suffering and religious fervor." She says: "Just in proportion as I have +found the slaves on this plantation intelligent and advanced, I have +observed this pathetic expression of countenance in them, a mixture of +sadness and fear." The plantation, she writes, was well reputed, and its +management was considered above the average. + +Her analysis of the master class in the South is keen and striking. "The +shop is not their element, and the eager spirit of speculation and the +sordid spirit of gain do not infect their whole existence, even to their +very demeanor and appearance, as they too manifestly do those of a large +proportion of the inhabitants of the Northern States. The Southerners +are infinitely better bred men, according to English notions, than the +men of the Northern States. The habit of command gives them a certain +self-possession, the enjoyment of leisure a certain ease. Their +temperament is impulsive and enthusiastic, and their manners have the +grace and spirit which seldom belong to the development of a Northern +people; but upon more familiar acquaintance the vices of the social +system to which they belong will be found to have infected them with +their own peculiar taint; and haughty, over-bearing irritability, +effeminate indolence, reckless extravagance, and a union of profligacy +and cruelty which is the immediate result of their irresponsible power +over their dependents, are some of the less pleasing traits." + +She gives another and darker picture of the planter class. It goes +without saying that it is only a part of the class to which it fairly +applies: "A nation, for as such they should be spoken of, of men whose +organization and temperament is that of the southern European, living +under the influence of a climate at once enervating and exciting, +scattered over trackless wildernesses of arid sand and pestilential +swamp, intrenched within their own boundaries, surrounded by creatures +absolutely subject to their despotic will; delivered over by hard +necessity to the lowest excitements of drinking, gambling, and +debauchery for sole recreation; independent of all opinion; ignorant of +all progress; isolated from all society--it is impossible to conceive a +more savage existence within the border of any modern civilization." The +picture of the poor whites is graphic and somber, but space must limit +these quotations. + +She gives credit for the habits of courage and command, which are bred +in the upper class, as when she tells of a heroic rescue from a +shipwreck: "The devil must have his due, and men brought up in habits of +peremptory command over their fellowmen, and under the constant +apprehension of danger and awful necessity of immediate readiness to +meet it, acquire qualities precious to themselves and others in hours of +supreme peril." + +She touches repeatedly on the social restrictions on free speech; thus, +speaking of two gentlemen, one a clergyman: "They seem good and kind and +amiable men, and I have no doubt are conscientious in their capacity of +slave holders; but to one who has lived outside this dreadful +atmosphere, the whole tone of their discourse has a morally muffled +sound which one must hear to be able to conceive." She observes that +whenever she discusses slavery with people she meets, they waive the +abstract right or wrong of the system. Now and then she gets a bit of +entire frankness, as when a very distinguished South Carolinian says to +her, "I'll tell you why abolition is impossible; because every healthy +negro can fetch $1000 in Charleston market at this moment." + +She generalizes as to the effects of emancipation in a way which later +events completely justified. Unlike the West Indies, she says, the South +is not tropical, and will not yield food without labor, and necessity +would compel the liberated blacks to work. That they would not work, and +the ground would lie idle, was, as we know, the bogy which was held up +to scare away from emancipation--just as in our own day the danger of +race mixture is made a bogy to scare away from social justice. But the +event proved that Fanny Kemble was right in her predictions, in which +indeed she was at one with other candid observers at the time. As to +gradual emancipation, she believed it unwise--the system, she writes, is +too absolutely bad for slow measures. Had she owned her husband's +plantation, she would at once have freed the slaves, and hired them, if +only as a means of financial salvation. + +She pronounces _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ to be no exaggeration. Her own story +of facts gives a darker impression than Mrs. Stowe's novel. It may be +asked, why, at this distance, revive the tragic tale? The answer is, +that the truth of history is precious, and our present problems cannot +be understood if we shut our eyes to their antecedents. Just now there +is a fashion, among many Southern writers on the negro question, of +beginning their story with the wrongs and sufferings of the +reconstruction period. Now, it was indeed deplorable, and a thing not to +be forgotten, that ignorant negroes sat in the Senate chambers of South +Carolina and Mississippi, that taxes were excessive, and the public +business mismanaged. But, in the broad view, it is well to remember that +a few years earlier very much worse things than these were happening, +and that a system which made cattle of men and women might be expected +to avenge itself. + +Another work may be merely mentioned as illuminating the facts of +slavery. It is Frederic Law Olmsted's three volumes of travels in the +slave States. He studied them with the eyes of a farmer and a practical +man; a well-equipped, fair, and keen observer. His testimony, already +touched on in these chapters, is very strong as to the economic mischief +of the system, its frequent cruelties, its demoralization of both +master and slave, and the absolute need of its ultimate extinction. From +his pages we can borrow but one or two passages. The contrasts of +slavery are epitomized in two plantations he found side by side in +Mississippi. On one the slaves had good food and clothes, were not +driven hard, were given three stops in the day for meals, and had the +time from Friday night till Monday morning for themselves. In this time +the men cultivated gardens and the women washed and sewed. They were +smartly dressed, and seemed very contented; many could read and write; +on Sundays there was a church service and a Sabbath school taught by +their mistress, both of which they could attend or not as they pleased. +On the other plantation, owned by a religious woman, the working hours +were from 3.30 A. M. to 9 P. M. The slaves had only Sunday free from +labor, and on that day there were three services which they had to +attend under penalty of a whipping. They were never allowed off the +plantation, and were whipped if they talked with slaves from other +plantations. Said a neighbor, "They can all repeat the catechism, but +they are the dullest, laziest, and most sorrowful negroes I ever saw." + +As to the possibilities of gradual emancipation, which he favored, +Olmsted wrote that in Cuba every slave has the right of buying his own +freedom, at a price which does not depend on the selfish exaction of his +master, but is either a fixed price or is determined in each case by +disinterested appraisers. "The consequence is that emancipations are +continually going on, and the free people of color are becoming +enlightened, cultivated, and wealthy. In no part of the United States do +they occupy the high position which they enjoy in Cuba." So much for the +despised Spanish-American. + +From a still different standpoint--that of the non-slaveholding +Southern white--the system was reviewed and scathingly judged in +Helper's _The Impending Crisis_. But that, like _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, was +not merely a book, but an event, and as such is to be mentioned in its +place among events. The general survey of the slave system in itself +need not here be carried further. As to its essential character and +basal principle, no truer word was ever spoken than that which Mrs. +Stowe puts in the mouth of the slaveholder St. Clare: + +"The short of the matter is, cousin, on this abstract question of +slavery there can, as I think, be but one opinion. Planters, +who have money to make by it,--clergymen, who have planters to +please,--politicians, who want to rule by it,--may warp and bend +language and ethics to a degree that shall astonish the world at their +ingenuity; they can press Nature and the Bible, and nobody knows what +else, into the service; but, after all, neither they nor the world +believe in it one particle the more. It comes from the devil, that's the +short of it,--and to my mind, it's a pretty respectable specimen of what +he can do in his own line. You seem to wonder; but if you will get me +fairly at it, I'll make a clean breast of it. This cursed business, +accursed of God and man, what is it? Strip it of all its ornament, run +it down to the root and nucleus of the whole, and what is it? Why, +because my brother Quashy is ignorant and weak, and I am intelligent and +strong,--because I know how, and can do it,--therefore I may steal all +he has, keep it, and give him only such and so much as suits my fancy. +Whatever is too hard, too dirty, too disagreeable, for me, I may set +Quashy to doing. Because I don't like work, Quashy shall work. Because +the sun burns me, Quashy shall stay in the sun. Quashy shall earn the +money, and I will spend it. Quashy shall lie down in every puddle, that +I may walk over dry-shod. Quashy shall do my will, and not his, all the +days of his mortal life, and have such chance of getting to heaven, at +last, as I find convenient. This I take to be about what slavery is." + +St. Clare goes on to say that "for pity's sake, for shame's sake, +because we are men born of women and not savage beasts, many of us do +not and dare not--we would scorn to--use the full power which our savage +laws put into our hands." In truth, a compilation of the slave laws was +one of the most convincing arguments against the whole system. + +This book is characterized by Charles G. Ames,--whose long life of noble +service to humanity included earnest work among the anti-slavery +pioneers: "To my mind, the heaviest blow, though probably not the most +telling one, ever struck against our slave system as a system was the +compilation and publication of Stroud's _Slave Laws_--a codification +from the statute-books of the Southern States of their own barbarous +methods of legislation, made necessary for the protection of the +peculiar institution. All the recent sentimental defenses of it, as +gentle, humane, and patriarchal, seem utterly to ignore the rugged +facts, which Lawyer Stroud's book made as plain as the stratification of +the rocks to the eye of the geologist." + +In its actual administration, the system was in a measure softened and +humanized. It was more humane in the border than in the cotton and sugar +States, and it was generally better when a plantation was managed by its +owner than when left to an overseer,--as the plantation of Fanny +Kemble's husband had been left. But in one respect its disastrous effect +was everywhere felt. By associating manual labor with the stigma of +servitude, it bred, in free men, a strong disrelish for work,--a most +demoralizing and ruinous influence. Inefficiency and degradation were +the marks of the non-slaveholding whites. The master class missed the +wholesome regimen of toil. Nature is never more beneficent than when +she lays on man the imperative command "Thou shalt work." Of all ways of +evading it the worst is to shift the burden to another man. In being +driven to do other men's work as well as his own the negro found some +compensation, but his enslaver paid a constant and heavy penalty. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS + + +The foremost politician of the Northwest, in the early '50s, was Stephen +A. Douglas, United States senator from Illinois. He was a native of +Vermont, and had early gone West and pushed his fortunes with energy, +audacity, and shrewdness. He was an effective, popular speaker; and his +short and stout frame and large head had won for him the nickname of +"The Little Giant." He was a leader in the Democratic party, and a +prominent Presidential candidate, but never identified with any great +political principle or broad policy. He was chairman of the Senate +committee on Territories, and early in the session of 1853-4 he +introduced a bill for the organization of a vast section hitherto known +as "the Platte country," a part of the Louisiana purchase, lying next to +the western tier of States, and stretching from Indian Territory to +Canada; all of which was now to constitute the Territory of Nebraska, +or, as it was soon divided, the two Territories of Nebraska and Kansas. +This region had as yet been scarcely touched by permanent settlers, but +it was the next step in the great onward march toward the Pacific. It +lay north of the line of 36 degrees 30 minutes, above which it had been +declared by the compromise act of 1820 slavery should never be extended. +Douglas incorporated in his "Kansas-Nebraska" bill, a clause declaring +that the prohibition of slavery north of 36 degrees 30 minutes, by the +act of 1820, had been "superseded by the principles of the legislation +of 1850," and was "inoperative and void." Later he added the +explanatory clause: "It being the true intent and meaning of this act, +not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it +therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and +regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to +the Constitution of the United States." On its face, this was a proposal +to withdraw the congressional prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern +territory, and remand the question to the territorial population. But +the latent purpose to distinctly favor slavery was proved when Senator +Chase moved an additional clause: "Under which (the Constitution) the +people of the Territory, through their appropriate representatives, may, +if they see fit, prohibit the existence of slavery therein"; and Douglas +and his followers, in defiance of consistency, instantly threw this out. +The meaning of the whole business was unmistakable; under the pretext of +"popular sovereignty,"--Douglas's favorite watchword--the bars were +thrown down and slavery was invited to enter. + +The proposal took the country completely by surprise. The South was not +asking for any such advantage as was offered, but was prompt to accept +it. This of course Douglas had expected, and in this lay his personal +gain as a Presidential candidate. But he had utterly misjudged the +temper of the North. The general acquiescence in the compromise of 1850 +might seem to indicate a weariness or indifference as to the slavery +question. But just as in 1820 and in 1850, again there sprung up a wide +and deep hostility to any extension of slavery, and now the old +restraints on that hostility were gone, and its sources were newly +filled. For now Clay and Webster were dead, and the case itself offered +no room for compromise; no offset was possible. And the anti-slavery +feeling had strengthened immensely throughout the North. Under the +stimulus of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, the inhumanity of the system had made +the deepest impression on the popular imagination and conscience. To +this system it was now proposed to throw open all the fair and fertile +Northwest, in effect from the Mississippi to the Pacific. The North +awoke like a giant from sleep. The old party organizations went down in +the shock; a new party came instantly to birth; and the last triumph of +slavery in Congress gave the signal for a six-years' campaign, ending in +the triumph of the Republicans and the appeal of the South to +revolution. + +The debate in Congress was hot through the winter and spring of 1854. In +the Senate, Seward and Sumner and Chase had been reinforced by such +allies as Benjamin Wade of Ohio, Hamilton Fish of New York, Solomon Foot +of Vermont, and William P. Fessenden of Maine. The supporters of the +bill, with such leaders as Douglas and Cass from the North and Mason and +Benjamin from the South, proved finally to number three-fourths of the +Senate. In the House, party lines were completely broken, and the +division was almost equal,--the bill passed by 113 to 110. Its +supporters included all the Southern and just half of the Northern +Democrats, and two-thirds of the few Southern Whigs. Its opponents were +all the Northern and a third of the Southern Whigs, with half of the +Northern Democrats and the four Free-Soilers in the House. + +The bill finally passed on the 25th of May, 1854, and there instantly +began a hot battle for the congressional election. On the very next +morning,--so Henry Wilson relates,--a meeting of about twenty members of +the House was held; among their leaders were Israel Washburn, Jr., of +Maine, and Edward Dickinson and Thomas D. Eliot of Massachusetts; and it +was agreed that the best hope lay not in the Whig organization, but in a +new party, for which the name "Republican" was chosen; and of which +this occasion might now be considered the birth and christening. It +came to its earliest maturity in Michigan, where the Whigs and Free +Soilers united in the new party and carried the autumn election. But in +most Northern States there was political confusion, heightened by the +sudden appearance of the "American" party. This was the political +development of the "Know-nothing" secret society, which came into +existence the year before, on the basis of the exclusion of recent +immigrants from political power. Its special animus was hostility to the +Irish Catholics, and in various parts of the country it had for a year +or two a mushroom growth. In Massachusetts, where the Whigs clung +obstinately to their tradition and their social prestige, and the +Republican party was at first only a continuance of the Free Soil, the +Know-nothings won in 1854 a sweeping victory, carrying the State by +almost two to one and electing all the members of Congress. That shrewd +politician, Henry Wilson, contributed to the result; was elected to the +United States Senate; and led the anti-slavery element which controlled +the American party in Massachusetts and a year or two later divided its +national organization. In other States, the term "anti-Nebraska" was the +basis of a temporary union, such as in Ohio had a majority of 70,000. In +New York the influence of Greeley, Seward, and Weed prolonged the Whig +organization as an anti-Nebraska party. The roster of the new Congress +was a jumble of Democrats, Whigs, Republicans, Americans, and +anti-Nebraskans. But the general result was clear; Douglas's bill had +turned an overwhelming administration majority into a minority of the +popular vote; and the political revolution had carried the House in the +first engagement. The result crystallized a year later, when an +obstinate battle of many weeks for the House speakership ended in the +election of Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts. + +The immediate practical effect of the Kansas-Nebraska Act was to throw +the political destiny of those Territories into the hands of the future +settlers. There were men at the North who were prompt to see and seize +the opportunity. In February, 1854, three months before the bill became +law, the New England Emigrant Aid Society was incorporated in +Massachusetts. Its originator was Eli Thayer of Worcester, and among its +active promoters was Edward Everett Hale. In the following July it sent +to Kansas a colony of twenty-four, speedily followed by another of +seventy, which founded the town of Lawrence. Other colonies followed +from various Northern States, and other settlements were made. The +natural westward movement of an active population seeking new homes and +personal betterment was augmented and stimulated by a propaganda of +freedom. Whittier gave the colonists a marching song: + + We cross the prairies as of old + Our fathers crossed the sea, + To make the West as they the East + The home of liberty. + +A counter movement was started from the South. Missouri was its natural +base. But Missouri furnished the material and leadership for another +kind of crusade. The rough and lawless element of a border community was +brought out in its worst character by the appeal to champion the cause +of slavery. Men high in political life were ready to utilize such +forces. The first settlers of Lawrence, before they had time to raise +their houses, were visited by a ruffianly mob from Missouri, who tried +by threats and show of force to drive them from the Territory, but +failed. When in November the first election was held for Territorial +delegate to Congress, there was a systematic invasion by bands of +Missourians, who captured the polling-places and elected their +candidate by 3000 votes; though it was afterward proved that there were +only half that number of voters resident in Kansas. + +In 1855 the first Territorial Legislature was elected by a similar +invasion of armed men, which chose the entire body. A foremost leader in +these operations was United States Senator Atchison of Missouri. +President Pierce's administration recognized the usurping faction. It +sent a succession of governors--Reeder, Shannon, Geary, Walker (the last +was sent by President Buchanan)--who, with the exception of the +incompetent and worthless Shannon, were by the inexorable facts of the +situation won to the side of the Free-State men, and accordingly lost +favor and their office. Meantime the usurping Legislature had enacted an +extraordinary code of laws. By these statutes, decoying a slave from his +master was punishable by death or hard labor for ten years; the +circulation of writings inciting to revolt was made a capital offense; +and the assertion by speech, writing, or the circulation of any book or +paper, that slavery was not lawful in the Territory, was punishable by +two years' hard labor. + +It was not in the blood of free men to submit to such usurpation and +tyranny. In the autumn of 1855 the Free State party held a convention, +adopted a State constitution, and petitioned for admission to the Union. +They elected State officers with Charles S. Robinson as Governor. This +organization had really no legal standing; in form it was revolutionary. +But the Free State party were not only resolute, but adroit. They had no +mind to actively rebel against the United States Government, or come +into collision with its forces. Governor Robinson, their foremost +leader, was a man of New England birth, who had served a profitable +apprenticeship in the settlement of California, and learned a lesson +amid the complications of Federal authority and pioneer exigencies. +Counseled by him and men of like mind, the Free State party, while +maintaining the form of a State government, and disavowing the +Territorial Legislature as fraudulent, always deferred to any express +mandate of Federal authority. The Federal troops in the Territory were +commanded by Colonel Sumner, afterward a distinguished commander in the +Union army, and Governor Robinson (_The Kansas Conflict_), credits him +with a loyal and generally successful purpose to preserve order and +peace. In the mixed population there was much bad blood, many threats, +and occasional violence, but no general conflict. The "border ruffians" +were often insulting, and some murders were committed, but the Free +State men kept steadily on the defensive, though there was among them a +faction which favored more aggressive measures. + +At last, a Free-State man was wantonly murdered; then an eye-witness of +the murder was got away on an apparently trumped-up charge; this was +followed by a bloodless rescue and the witness was carried off to +Lawrence. Then a sheriff with his posse went to Lawrence to arrest one +of the rescuers. In the night the sheriff was fired at and wounded. He +retreated; and immediately afterward a formidable demonstration was made +against the town of Lawrence. The situation was peculiar. Many of the +Free-State men were armed; contributions had been openly taken in the +North for this purpose, and "Sharpe's rifles" was one of the familiar +words of the day. But this policy was fixed--to disown and disobey the +authority of the Territorial Legislature, but never to oppose or resist +a United States official. In this way, says Robinson, the entire odium +of all oppressive proceedings was fixed on the Federal administration; +"the more outrages the people could get the government to perpetrate +upon them the more victories they would gain, and this simply because +the field of battle embraced the entire country, and the chief +victories at this stage were to be moral, political, and national." + +The Territorial authorities were bent on breaking down, if possible, the +passive resistance of the Free-State men. Indictments were found, by a +Federal grand jury, against a number of members of the Free-State +government for "constructive treason," and they were put under arrest. +Indictments were also found against two printing offices in Lawrence, +and the principal hotel in the town. A large force of Missourians, led +by a United States marshal, advanced on the town. The inhabitants +protested, but agreed to respect the United States authority. The hotel +and the two printing offices were accordingly destroyed. A considerable +amount of lawless pillaging was done, and Governor Robinson's house was +burned. Then the force was withdrawn. + +The Free-State leaders, as Robinson states, were in no wise cast down by +the course of events. Their actual losses had not been great; the +temporary confinement of a few of their men did not seriously disturb +them; and they considered that by their self-restraint and +non-resistance they had put their enemies thoroughly in the wrong, and +gained a most valuable vantage-ground for the ensuing Presidential and +congressional elections--an estimate which the result fully justified. + +But in their party were some spirits to whom these peaceful tactics were +distasteful. Chief in this number was John Brown--little known to the +world at large till a later time. He and his family of sons had made +their homes in Kansas, impelled partly by the hostility to slavery which +in him was a master passion. He was a man personally upright and kindly, +of only moderate interest and capacity for the ordinary practical +affairs of life, given to brooding on public events and ideal causes, +and viewing them with a fanatic's narrowness and a fanatic's +absorption. He was a belated Puritan, and his natural place would have +been with Cromwell's Ironsides. His ideas were largely influenced by his +reading of the Bible, especially of the Old Testament. Of the modern +State and the duties of the modern citizen he had no rational idea. +Following the Old Testament analogy, he conceived of the slaveholders as +the enemies of God--like the Canaanites; and he came to imagine for +himself a mission like one of the Hebrew leaders. His favorite hero +seems to have been Gideon, and to assail and overcome the Midianites, a +handful against a host, became his dream. + +How the peaceful tactics of the Free-State party suited his temper may +be easily guessed, and four days after the attack on Lawrence (which was +May 20, 1856), he acted on a plan of his own. At the head of a small +group of men, including two of his sons and a son-in-law, he went at +night down Pottawatomie creek, stopping at three houses. The men who +lived in them were well-known pro-slavery men; they seem to have been +rough characters; their most specific offense (according to Mr. Sanborn, +Brown's biographer and eulogist), was the driving from his home by +violent threats an inoffensive old man. John Brown and his party went +down the creek, called at one after the other of three houses; took five +men away from their wives and children; and deliberately shot one and +hacked the others to death with swords. + +Mr. Sanborn's defense of this act is: "Brown long foresaw the deadly +conflict with the slave power which culminated in the Civil War, and was +eager to begin it, that it might be the sooner over." He begins his +chapter on "The Pottawatomie Executions": "The story of John Brown will +mean little to those who do not believe that God governs the world, and +that he makes his will known in advance to certain chosen men and +women, who perform it consciously or unconsciously. Of such prophetic +heaven-appointed men, John Brown was the most conspicuous in our time, +and his life must be construed in the light of that fact." He also +declares that the "execution" of these five men was an offset to the +killing of five Free-State men by various persons during the preceding +twelve-month, and that it was calculated to strike wholesome terror into +evil-doers. The ethics, theology, and statesmanship of this defense are +possible only to one bent on making Brown a hero at any cost. + +The natural result of the Pottawatomie "executions,"--in which John +Brown's complicity was for a time concealed--was a series of +retaliations on both sides, and a state of affairs far more anarchic +than Kansas had known before. This lasted through the summer of 1856. +The general impression on the country was to strengthen the opposition +to the usurpation of the Territorial Legislature, and to the +administration which sustained it. In September there came a crisis. +Another and graver attack on Lawrence was threatened, and this time a +vigorous resistance was probable. But a new and able governor, John W. +Geary of Pennsylvania, had been dispatched by President Pierce, with +imperative instructions to pacify the Territory, as a pressing political +necessity. Geary met Robinson--the treason prisoners had already been +released--and as the two men had been near each other in the California +troubles and thus had the advantage of a mutual acquaintance, an +understanding was soon reached; Geary called off the dogs of war, and a +time of quiet followed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +"FREMONT AND FREEDOM" + + +The Congress of 1855-6, divided between an administration Senate and an +opposition House, accomplished little but talk. One chapter of this talk +had a notable sequel. Charles Sumner, in an elaborate and powerful +oration in the Senate, denounced slavery, "the sum of all villainies," +and bitterly satirized one of its prominent defenders, Senator Butler of +South Carolina. He compared Butler to Don Quixote, enamored of slavery +as was the knight of his Dulcinea, and unconscious that instead of a +peerless lady she was but a wanton. The response to the speech was made +by a nephew of Senator Butler and member of the House, Preston S. Brooks +of South Carolina. He entered the Senate chamber during a recess, +accompanied and guarded by a friend and fellow member, Lawrence Keitt; +approached Sumner as he sat writing at his desk, and without words +felled him to the ground with a heavy cane, and beat him about the head +till he was insensible. Sumner, a man of fine physique, was for a long +time an invalid from the assault, and was unable for years to resume his +place in the Senate. + +It was not so much the individual act of Brooks as its treatment by his +party and section that gave the deepest significance to the deed and +produced the most lasting effect. A friendly magistrate sentenced Brooks +to a nominal fine and so forestalled further prosecution. His party +friends in Congress left all public rebuke of the deed to Republicans. A +motion to expel Brooks and Keitt from the House failed of the necessary +two-thirds vote. They resigned, and were promptly and triumphantly +re-elected. Noisy applause of the attack came from all parts of the +South, with a stack of canes marked "Hit him again." That better class +of Southerners by whom the assault was felt, as one of them expressed it +long afterward, "like a blow in the face," made no demonstration. So far +from losing caste, as a gentleman or a public man, Brooks not only kept +his place in society, but was honored a few months later with a public +banquet, at which such men as Butler and Toombs and Mason joined in the +laudations, and gave a background to the scene by free threats of +disunion if the Republicans elected their President. + +This treatment of Brooks made an impression at the North far beyond the +first hot indignation at his brutal outrage. The condonation and +applause of that outrage was taken as sure evidence of a barbaric state +of opinion, the natural accompaniment of slavery. What made the matter +worse was that the assault had a technical justification under the code +of honor which it was Brooks's pride as a Southern gentleman to observe. +The code called on a man who had given offense by his words to meet the +offended man in a duel, and if he refused, he was fairly subject to +public disgrace or even physical chastisement. Such a theory and +practice, and the sentiments associated with it, stamped slavery with a +heavier condemnation than orator or novelist could frame. + +This one week in May, 1856, was dark with omens of impending +catastrophe. On May 20 Lawrence was devastated; on the 22d, Sumner was +assaulted; and on the 24th took place the Pottawatomie massacre. A +shadow as of impending doom was reflected in Mrs. Stowe's second +anti-slavery novel, _Dred_, which appeared about this time. While +lacking the inspiration and power of _Uncle Tom's_ Cabin, it had in the +main a similar tone of humanity, sympathy and fairness. Again the better +element of the Southern whites was portrayed, in the benevolent +slave-holder Clayton; the brave Methodist preacher, Father Dickson; and +the book's heroine, Nina Gordon. There were realistic and graphic +pictures of the negro at his best, in Old Tiff and Milly. The +sophistries and time-serving of ecclesiastics were fairly pictured. The +fundamental attitude of the law in regarding the slave as the creature +of his master's convenience was shown with historic fidelity. But the +book took its name from a negro, half-prophetic, half-crazed, who +maintained in the Dismal Swamp a refuge for slaves, and purposed an +uprising to conquer their freedom. To Southern imaginations it might +well recall Nat Turner and the horrors of his revolt. Mrs. Stowe +inevitably idealized everything she touched; and to idealize the leader +of a servile insurrection might well be regarded as carrying fire into a +powder magazine. The moving expostulation of the Christian slave Milly +with Dred, the death of Dred, the frustration of his plans, and the +pitiful wrongs he sought to redress, veiled from the Northern reader the +suggestion of other dangers and tragedies to which the Southern reader +was keenly alive. As we read the book now, the glimpses of coming terror +and disaster in Dred's visions seem like a presage of the war which in +truth was only four years away. + +But the prevailing temper of the time was as yet little clouded by any +such forebodings. It was a great wave of popular enthusiasm, sane, +resolute, and hopeful, which moved forward in the first Presidential +campaign of the Republican party in 1856. The convention met at +Philadelphia in June. Its temper was well described in a letter from +Samuel Bowles to his paper, the _Springfield Republican_,--which which +from moderate anti-slavery Whig had become ardently Republican when the +Missouri compromise was repealed.[1] + +"Certainly we never saw a political convention in which there was so +much soul as in that at Philadelphia. It was politics with a heart and a +conscience in it. Cincinnati (the Democratic convention) gathered the +remains of a once powerful national party and contributed to its further +sectionalization and destruction. Philadelphia called together the +heart, the independence, and the brains of all parties, to establish a +broader and juster nationality. Such a fusion of contradictory elements +was never witnessed in this country before since the times of the +Revolution. Nor could it happen now save under a great emergency, and +from a controlling necessity. Such a combination of the material and +mental forces of the republic as was represented in the Philadelphia +convention, and united in its enthusiastic and harmonious results, has +more power than any political combination ever formed before in this +country, and cannot in the nature of things be long kept in the +background. There is no law more certain than that which will throw such +a union of the moral strength, intellectual activity, and youthful +energy of the nation into supremacy, and that right speedily. It may be +delayed for a season, but its course is onward and its victory is +certain." + +The declaration of principles dealt wholly with the slavery issue. It +asserted that under the Constitution, as interpreted by the Declaration +and the ordinance of 1787, slavery had no right to exist in any of the +national Territories. It called on Congress to prohibit in the +Territories "the twin relics of barbarism, slavery and polygamy." It +dwelt with great emphasis on the wrongs of the Kansas settlers; the +establishment of a Territorial Legislature by a fraudulent vote; its +outrageous statute-book; the sustaining of the usurpation by the Federal +government; the resulting disorder and violence. Congress was asked to +admit Kansas to the Union under its Free State organization. Nothing was +said as to the fugitive slave law. There was an express disclaimer of +any interference with slavery in the States. The doctrine of the party +was embodied in a phrase which became one of its mottoes: "Freedom +national, slavery sectional." + +For its Presidential candidate the convention passed by all the +well-known political leaders, and chose Col. John C. Fremont of +California. Fremont, after a scientific and military education, had +distinguished himself by a series of brilliant exploring expeditions in +the farthest Northwest, marked by scientific achievement and stirring +adventure. Arriving in California at the outbreak of hostilities with +Mexico, he rallied and led the American settlers and drove the Mexicans +from the territory. He took a leading part in organizing the State, and +establishing freedom in its Constitution; and was elected to the United +States Senate as a Free-Soil Democrat. His term as Senator was too brief +to win eminence, but his career as a whole had been singularly various +and distinguished. He was young; he had manly beauty, and a rare +personal fascination. His brilliant and charming wife won favor for him. +Even his name gave aid to the cause, and "Fremont and freedom" became +the rallying cry of the campaign. + +But Fremont's personality was an altogether minor element in the +strength with which the Republican party first took the field, and won, +not yet the country, but the strongholds of the North. The new party +gave expression and effect to the anti-slavery sentiment which had +become so deep and wide. It was wholly dissociated from the extremists +who had shocked and alarmed the conservatism of the country; and +Garrison and Phillips had only impatience and scorn for its principles +and measures. Its leadership included many men experienced in +congressional and administrative life, men like Seward and Sumner and +Chase and Wade and Fessenden and Banks, who had matched themselves +against the best leaders of the South and the South's Northern allies. +It brought together the best of the old Whig, Democratic, and Free Soil +parties. In its rank and file it gathered on the whole the best +conscience and intelligence of the North. After the election the +_Springfield Republican_ pointed out that the party's success had been +exactly along the geographical lines of an efficient free-school system, +and it had been defeated where public schools were deficient, as in +Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, and the solid South. + +The immediate and burning issue of the campaign was Kansas. Whatever the +exact right and wrong of its local broils, there was no question of the +broad facts--the fraudulent election of the Legislature, the character +of its statute-book, and its support by President Pierce's +administration. It was the wrongs of the Kansas settlers far more than +the wrongs of the Southern slaves on which the Republican speakers and +newspapers dwelt. In truth the animus of the party was quite as much +the resentment by the North of Southern political aggression as it was +regard for the slaves or thought of their future condition. The policy +of excluding slavery from the Territories, and thus naturally from the +new States, tended ultimately to its discouragement and probable +extinction where it already existed. But any such result appeared very +remote. + +The opposition to the Republican party was weighty in numbers, but +inharmonious and with no definite creed. The Democratic platform was an +equivocation. It declared for "non-interference by Congress with slavery +in State or Territory." But this left it an open question whether any +one could "interfere." Could the people of a Territory exclude slavery +if they wished? Or did the Constitution protect it there, as Calhoun and +his followers claimed? An ambiguity was left which permitted Calhoun men +and Douglas men to act together against the common foe. + +The Democratic candidate was James Buchanan of Pennsylvania. He was one +of those men, decent and respectable, who go through a life of +office-seeking and office-holding without a particle of real leadership, +and are forgotten the moment they leave the stage unless circumstance +throws them into a place so responsible as to reveal their glaring +incompetence. He had escaped the odium which Pierce and Douglas had +incurred, through his absence as Minister to England. There he had +distinguished himself chiefly by his part in a conference at Ostend, in +1854,--incited by President Pierce and his Secretary of State, William +L. Marcy of New York,--where he had met Mason of Virginia and Soule of +Louisiana, ministers respectively to France and Spain; and they had +issued a joint manifesto, declaring that the possession of Cuba was +necessary to the peace and security of the United States, and the island +should be obtained from Spain, with her consent if possible but without +it if necessary. This became a recognized article in the Democratic and +Southern policy. The Republican platform of 1856 denounced the Ostend +manifesto, as the doctrine that "might makes right," "the highwayman's +plea." It was left for a latter-day Republican to give to the same +doctrine the politer name of "international eminent domain." + +The American or Know-nothing party nominated ex-President Fillmore and +adopted a platform inclining toward the Southern position. There was a +secession of a Northern element, which nominated Banks, but he declined +and supported Fremont. All the opponents of the Republican party laid +stress on its sectional character. Both its candidates (for +vice-president, William L. Dayton of New Jersey), were from the North; +its creed aimed solely at the restriction of the South's peculiar +institution; south of Mason and Dixon's line, it had an electoral ticket +in four States only--Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Kentucky--and +cast hardly 1000 votes. But the South itself had so completely +ostracized even the most moderate anti-slavery sentiment that free +political action was impossible. Thus, Professor Hedrick of the +University of North Carolina said in reply to a question that he favored +Fremont for President; and being denounced for this by a newspaper, he +wrote to it a letter, saying in a modest and straightforward way that he +had made no attempt to propagate his views, but he did desire to see the +slaves free. The students burned him in effigy; the college authorities +forced him to resign; a mob attacked him and he was driven from the +State. It was in the same State that a college professor's right to free +speech on a burning social question was vindicated by his students, his +colleagues, and the community, in 1903, and that Trinity College became +a leader in courageous and progressive sentiment on the questions of +the hour. Few were the men bold enough even to try the question of +personal independence in 1856. The suppression of free speech was in +itself one of the strongest possible arguments for the Republican cause. +The liberty of white men was at stake. + +Conservatism, apprehension, timidity, in various phases, told against +the new party and its candidate. Northern commerce was largely bound up +with Southern interests. The threat of disunion weighed with some; +Grant, in his memoirs, says it was this that led him to vote for +Buchanan. Others shrank from trusting the helm in a tempest to hands as +untried as Fremont's. The mob who hated "niggers" swelled the opposition +vote. Taking advantage of the Know-nothing feeling, the fiction was +persistently circulated that Fremont was a Catholic. The disorder in +Kansas was pacified by the dispatch of a new Governor, Geary, to +reassure the North. Finally, money was spent on a scale unknown before +to defeat the Republican party,--itself in the stage of poverty and +virtue,--and spent probably with decisive effect in the critical October +election in Pennsylvania. + +Against these disadvantages the young party made head gallantly. It +fired the youth of the North with an ardor unknown since the early days +of the republic. It inspired the poets of the people. Great crowds sang +the strains of the Marseillaise, with the refrain: + + Free speech, free press, free soil, free men, Fremont and victory! + +The older heads were satisfied by the moderation and wisdom of the +party's principles. The reasonable element among the Abolitionists +hailed this first great popular advance, and allied themselves with it. +Whittier was the chief minstrel of the campaign. Of those to whom "the +Union" had been the talismanic word, that part which cared for nothing +better than the Union as it was, with slavery and freedom mixed, +supported Buchanan or Fillmore. The part that loved the Union as a means +to justice and freedom were for Fremont. + +The October elections in Pennsylvania and Indiana showed that the first +Presidential battle was lost. November confirmed that verdict. New +England, New York, Ohio, Illinois, and the Northwest, had been +outweighed by the South and its allies, and Buchanan was the next +President. But never was defeat met with better courage or higher hopes +for the next encounter. Some unknown poet gave the battle-song: + + Beneath thy skies, November, + Thy skies of cloud and rain, + Around our blazing camp-fires + We close our ranks again. + Then sound again the bugle! + Call the battle roll anew! + If months have well nigh won the field + What may not four years do? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: A word should be said as to the frequency with which the +_Springfield Republican_ is quoted in this work. The author wrote an +earlier book, _The Life and Times of Samuel Bowles_, (Century Co.)--the +founder of the Republican. As the background of his life, a careful +study was made of the political events during his years of editorial +activity, 1844-77. The original matter for this was largely drawn from +the files of the _Republican_. In studying the whole ground afresh for +the present history, advantage was taken of this material, and further +citations were drawn from the same paper. The interpretation of current +events by an independent and sagacious newspaper yields invaluable +material for the historian; and my study of the _Republican_, from the +repeal of the Missouri compromise in 1854 to the present, has heightened +my respect for the breadth, sobriety, and moral insight with which it +judged the questions of the day.] + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THREE TYPICAL SOUTHERNERS + + +In the group of leaders of public sentiment in the '30s and '40s, as +sketched in Chapter V, some of the foremost--Clay, Webster, and +Birney--were influential in both sections of the country. But in the +next decade the division is clear between the leaders of the South and +of the North. Let us glance at two separate groups. + +Jefferson Davis was in many ways a typical Southerner. He was a sincere, +able, and high-minded man. The guiding aim of his public life was to +serve the community as he understood its interests. Personal ambition +seemingly influenced him no more than is to be expected in any strong +man; and, whatever his faults of judgment or temper, it does not appear +that he ever knowingly sacrificed the public good to his own profit or +aggrandizement. But he was devoted to a social system and a political +theory which bound his final allegiance to his State and his section. +After a cadetship at West Point and a brief term of military service, he +lived for eight years, 1837-45, on a Mississippi plantation, in joint +ownership and control with an older brother. In these early years, and +in the seclusion of a plantation, his theories crystallized and his +mental habits grew. The circumstances of such life fostered in Southern +politicians the tendency to logical and symmetrical theories, to which +they tenaciously held, unmodified by the regard for experience which is +bred from free and various contact with the large world of affairs. +Davis fully accepted the theory of State sovereignty which won general +favor in the South. In this view the States were independent powers, +which had formed with each other by the Constitution a compact, a +business arrangement, a kind of limited partnership. If the compact was +broken in any of its articles, or if its working proved at any time to +be unsatisfactory and injurious, the partners could withdraw at will. +This theory found more or less support among the various utterances and +practices of the framers of the Constitution and founders of the +government. In truth, they had as a body no consistent and exact theory +of the Federal bond. Later circumstances led their descendants to +incline to a stronger or a looser tie, according to their different +interests and sentiments. The institution of slavery so strongly +differentiated the Southern communities from their Northern neighbors, +that they naturally magnified their local rights and favored the view +which justified them in the last resort in renouncing the authority of +the Union if it should come to be exercised against their industrial +system. State sovereignty was the creed, and the slavery interest was +the motive. + +To a man living like Davis on his own plantation, the relation of master +and slave seemed a fundamental condition of the social order. Not only +his livelihood rested on it, but through this relation his practical +faculties found their field; his conscience was exercised in the right +management and care of his slaves; there was a true sentiment of +protection on his side and loyalty on theirs. His neighbors and friends +were situated like himself. The incidental mischiefs of the system, the +abuses by bad masters, the ignorance and low morality of the +slaves,--these things they regarded, let us say, as an upright and +benevolent manufacturer to-day regards the miseries of sweatshops and +the sufferings of unemployed labor. Such things were bad, very bad, but +they were the accidents and not the essentials of the industrial +system. They resented the strictures of their critics; they were +apprehensive of the growing hostility in the North to their +institutions; if the national partnership was to last they must have +their rights under it; and one of those rights was an equal share in the +national domain. + +Davis entered into active politics when he was elected to Congress in +1844. Repudiation was then in favor in Mississippi, and he opposed and +denounced it. He supported the Mexican War in the most practical way, by +taking command of a volunteer regiment from Mississippi. He served with +distinguished gallantry, and was severely wounded at Buena Vista. After +the war he entered the United States Senate. He supported the compromise +of 1850, regarding it as substantially a continuance of the truce +between the sections, and not now sympathizing with those who threatened +disunion. Later, President Pierce made him Secretary of War; in the +Cabinet he was the leading spirit; and this, with a weak President, +meant large power and responsibility. He showed the extent of his +partisanship by supporting with the full power of the administration the +Territorial government imposed on Kansas by a palpably fraudulent vote. + +In 1856 he returned to the Senate, and came to be recognized as the +foremost champion of the Southern interest. He was not a leader in any +such sense as Jefferson or Clay or Calhoun; but he was a representative +man, thoroughly trusted by his associates, their most effective +spokesman, and going by conviction in the midstream of the dominant +tendency. He had that degree of ambition which is natural and normal in +a strong man. He was an effective and elegant orator. When secession +came he was not its originator, but one of a set of men--on the whole +the most considerate and influential men of the Gulf and cotton +States--who took the responsibility of leading their section into +revolution, in the interest of slavery. + +In this typical Southern leader, as in his class, were blended the +elements of a disposition and will that would halt before no barrier to +its claim of mastery. A slaveholder, accustomed to supremacy over his +fellowmen as their natural superior; a planter, habituated to the +practical exercise of such supremacy over hundreds of dependents; a +member of an aristocracy, the political masters of their section, and +long the dominant force in the nation; a theorist, wedded to the dogma +of State sovereignty, and convinced of the superiority of Southern +civilization; the self-confident and self-asserting temper bred by such +conditions--here was a union of forces that would push its cause against +all opposition, at the cost if need be of disunion, of war, of all +obstacles and all perils. + +By a natural exaggeration, at a later time the President of the +Confederacy was regarded at the North as the very embodiment of its +cause. To the unmeasured hostility on this account was added the +opprobrium of deeds in which he had no part. He was charged for a time +with complicity in the murder of Lincoln. He was branded with +responsibility for the miseries in Andersonville and the other +prison-pens in the war,--but without a particle of evidence. Admiration +was yielded by the North to Stonewall Jackson even in his life-time; +there was early recognition of Lee's magnanimous acceptance of defeat; +but the bitterest odium was long visited upon Davis. It was heightened +by the tenacity with which his intense nature clung to "the lost cause" +as a sentiment, after the reality was hopelessly buried. The South +itself gave its highest favor to Lee, its most effective defender, and a +man of singularly impressive character; while Davis's mistakes of +administration, and his reserved and over-sensitive temper chilled a +little the recognition of his disinterested and loyal service. But in +the retrospect of history he stands out as an honorable and pathetic +figure. The single warping influence of his whole career was the mistake +he shared with millions of his countrymen,--the acceptance and +exaltation of slavery. He was faithful to his convictions; he was free +from covetousness and meanness; and in his personality there were high +and fine elements of manhood. "A very intense man and a very lovable +man" was the judgment of one who was his intimate associate through the +war. + +"Love of power was so much weaker in him than love of his theories that +when Congress passed laws enlarging his prerogatives he wrote long +messages declining them on constitutional grounds." A friend described +him as "a game-cock--with just a little strut." Said one who stood in +close relations with him: "He was so sensitive to criticism and even to +questioning that I have passed months of intimate official association +with him without venturing to ask him a question." Pure in his personal +morals, but never having made a religious profession, under the +responsibilities of the Presidency he turned for support to religion, +and was confirmed in the Episcopal Church. Under imprisonment, +indignities, obloquy, long seclusion with the memories of a ruined +cause, he bore himself with manly fortitude and dignity. Schooled by +inexorable reality, he finally acquiesced in the established order, and +his last public words were of fidelity and faith for the new America. + +Before the war, Robert Toombs of Georgia played some such part to the +Northern imagination as Phillips or Sumner to the Southern. He was +regarded as the typical fire-eater and braggart. He was currently +reported to have boasted that he would yet call the roll of his slaves +at the foot of Bunker Hill monument. But in truth this ogre was made of +much the same human clay as the Massachusetts Abolitionists. He is well +pictured, together with Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, in Trent's +_Southern Statesmen of the Old Regime_,--a book admirable in its spirit +and its historic fidelity. Both Toombs and Stephens represented, as +compared with Davis, the more moderate sentiment of the South, until +they parted company with each other on the question of secession. Trent +prefaces the companion portraits with a sketch of the typical Georgian; +his State, like the other Gulf States, less civilized and orderly than +Virginia and South Carolina, less critical and more enthusiastic; the +Georgian, "the southern Yankee," "loving success, strength, +straightforwardness, and the solid virtues generally, neither is he +averse to the showy ones; but above all he loves virtue in action." +Among Southerners, says Trent, the Georgian is nearest to a normal +American. Toombs inherited property; grew up like other Southern boys of +the prosperous class; rode and hunted and studied a little in the +interims. As a lawyer, he would not take a case unless satisfied of its +justice. He was of robust physique, vigorous intellect, and high +spirits; and he was happy in his family life. + +Stephens worked his way up from poverty, and never lost an active +sympathy with the struggling. He helped more than fifty young men to get +an education. He was of a slight and fragile frame, and had much +physical suffering, which he bore with indomitable courage. His +conscientiousness was almost morbid. His temperament was melancholy, and +his life was lonely. In early life he was twice in love, but poverty +forbade his marriage. He was a clear and logical thinker, much given to +refined exposition of constitutional theories, but deficient in large +culture and philosophy. He held the doctrine of State sovereignty, but +from first to last he opposed secession as against the true interest of +the States. At the beginning of his career he was active in opposing +the vigilance committees organized to harry anti-slavery men. He +supported the annexation of Texas, though objecting to doing it in the +interest of slavery,--slavery, he said, was a domestic matter, which the +Federal government had no call to take care of. He and Toombs generally +stood together, as Whigs and Unionists. They opposed the Mexican War, on +the ground that the Union was not to be extended by force; neither, they +both said later, was it to be maintained by force. But they opposed the +exclusion of slavery from the Territories by the Wilmot proviso; and in +the debate Stephens declared that the morality of slavery stood "upon a +basis as firm as the Bible," and as long as Christianity lasted it could +never be considered an offense against the divine laws. The two men did +yeoman's service in carrying through the 1850 compromise, and afterward +in persuading Georgia not to take part in the Nashville convention--a +disunionist scheme which proved abortive. They, with Howell Cobb, held +Georgia for the compromise and for the Union, and thus fixed the pivotal +point of Southern politics for the next decade. They became leaders in +the Constitutional Union party, which, in Georgia, succeeded the Whig. +They made vigorous and successful fights against the Know-nothing folly. +They accepted the gains which came to the South through Douglas's +breaking down of the Missouri compromise, and, a little later, the Dred +Scott decision of the Supreme Court; but they diverged from Davis, by +not favoring the active intervention of Congress to protect slavery in +the Territories. Toombs was accused of abetting Brooks's attack on +Sumner, which he disclaimed; but he found nothing to hinder his taking +part in a banquet in Brooks's honor a few months later, and on this most +ill-omened occasion he joined in the threats of disunion if Fremont +should be elected. But still the catastrophe lingered, and seemed +improbable. Stephens left Congress in 1858. Two years more, and +secession became a burning question; Stephens and Toombs took opposite +sides, but, the issue decided, they both made common cause with their +State. Toombs served in the Confederate Cabinet and Army. Stephens, +vice-president of the Confederacy, seven years after the close of the +war again became a member of the House; an attenuated figure, confined +to a wheel-chair, but still vital and vigorous; respected by all; his +presence a visible symbol of the spanning of "the bloody chasm." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +SOME NORTHERN LEADERS + + +Turning now to the North, the principal leaders in its political life +have already been mentioned, except Lincoln, whose star had not yet +risen; but it is worth while to glance at some of those who, apart from +Congress and public office, were molding public sentiment. Perhaps the +man of the widest influence on public opinion was Horace Greeley. +Through his _New York Tribune_ he reached an immense audience, to a +great part of whom the paper was a kind of political Bible. His words +struck home by their common sense, passion, and close sympathy with the +common people. A graduate of the farm and printing office, he was in +close touch with the free, plain, toiling, American people, and in no +man had they a better representative or a more effective advocate. There +was in him something of John Bright's sturdy manhood, direct speech and +devotion to human rights; something, too, of Franklin's homely +shrewdness,--though little of Franklin's large philosophy or serenity. +He was at first a Henry Clay Whig, and always a zealous protectionist; +then in alliance with the anti-slavery element in the party, and soon +the leading Republican editor. He was a lover of peace, in active +sympathy with social reforms, sometimes betrayed into extravagances, but +generally guarded by his common sense against extremists and +impracticables. His limitations were a want of large culture, a very +uncertain judgment in estimating men, and a temperament liable to such +sudden ebb and flow that he fell sometimes into rashness and sometimes +into panic. But he was disinterested and great-hearted. Other men +broadened the _Tribune's_ scope; its editorial tone was for its audience +persuasive and convincing; and the _Tribune_ was one of the great +educational influences of the country. Beside it stood the _New York +Times_, edited by Henry J. Raymond, an advocate of moderate anti-slavery +and Republican principles, with less of masterful leadership than the +_Tribune_, but sometimes better balanced; and the _Herald_, under the +elder James Gordon Bennett, devoted to news and money-making, and +pandering to Southern interests. + +The clergy at the South were by this time generally united in the +defense of slavery. At the North, there was great variety among them. +Many ministers ignored slavery as apart from their province. Many spoke +of it occasionally as a sin, but regarded it as little concerned with +that daily life of their people which was their main concern. A few +treated it as a great national wrong, speaking such denunciation as the +Hebrew prophets gave to the national sins of their people; and of these +some were driven from their pulpits. A few expressed open sympathy or +apology for slavery,--such as Dr. Nehemiah Adams, of Boston, and Bishop +Hopkins, of Vermont. + +The foremost preacher in America was Henry Ward Beecher. He was above +all things a preacher,--charged with a great spiritual message; of +extraordinary and various eloquence, dramatic, inspiring, thrilling; +impelled and sometimes controlled by a wonderful imagination. He was +taking a leading part in transforming the popular belief. Theology has +radically altered under two influences,--the new view of facts given by +science, and a higher ethical and spiritual feeling. It was under the +ethical and spiritual impulse that Beecher so altered the emphasis of +the traditional theology, so dwelt on the love of God, on Christ's +character as the revelation of God, on the opportunities and +incitements of daily life, on all the hopeful and joyful aspects of +existence,--that in the minds of his hearers the harsher elements, not +only of Calvinism, but of the whole traditional orthodoxy, melted as +imperceptibly and steadily as icebergs melt when they drift southward. +He always avoided any avowed or precipitate break with the old system of +dogma,--partly from a personal sentiment associated with the faith of +the fathers; partly from an instinctive preference of practical and +emotional over intellectual methods; and partly from a studied regard to +the most effective results,--a shrewdness which tempered his +impetuosity. + +In these stirring days Beecher began to take active part in political +discussion,--rarely in his pulpit, but as an occasional speaker at +political meetings, or as a writer in the New York _Independent_. His +ground was that of moderate anti-slavery and Republicanism. Shut off on +the political platform from the highest flights of his pulpit oratory, +he yet had large scope for his ideality, his common sense, his rich and +abounding humor, his marvelous range of illustration from all things in +earth and heaven. As the public questions of the day came still closer +home to the business and bosoms of men, he dealt with them more freely +in his preaching, though never to the subordination of the personal +religious life as the paramount interest. One scene in his church comes +vividly to mind; after the sermon, he stated the case of a little slave +girl, allowed to come North on the chance of her being ransomed; and +after a few moving words, he set her beside him--a beautiful, +unconscious child--and money rained into the contribution boxes till in +a few minutes the amount was raised, and the great congregation joined +in a triumphant closing hymn. + +Of a different type was Theodore Parker. He stood in his pulpit, the +embodiment of courageous attack on every falsehood and abuse as it +appeared to the lofty and luminous mind of the preacher. With his +prophecy there mingled no expediency. He spoke the truth as he saw it, +and let consequences take care of themselves. For a generation, the +Unitarian ministers had denied the doctrine of the Trinity, but they +held the founder of Christianity in such reverence that they would +scarcely define his divine or semi-divine nature. Parker spoke +frankly of Jesus as a man, and a man liable to imperfections and +mistakes, while he honored him as the greatest leader of humanity. The +Unitarians,--their intellectual radicalism kept well in check by the +conservatism natural to their social and ecclesiastical traditions,--had +held to a decided supernaturalism. Parker put religion on a purely +natural basis, and sent home to men's consciousness the ideas of God and +immortal life. His sermons were iconoclastic, but his prayers were full +of reverence, aspiration, and tenderness. He was ostracized by most of +the Unitarian churches, and dreaded by the orthodox, but he was a power +in Boston and in America. He attacked social wrongs as fearlessly as he +discussed theology. Against slavery he struck as with a battle ax. He +was not greatly concerned with constitutions or tolerant of compromises. +When a fugitive slave was seized in Boston, Parker took active part in a +project of rescue. He roused the conscience of New England and the +North. He died at fifty, just before the Civil War, consumed by his own +fire. + +The fable of the traveler who clung the closer to his cloak when the +wind tried to strip it off but cast it aside when addressed by the sun's +genial warmth, had an illustration in the many who surrendered their +prejudice and selfishness, not at the bidding of the stormy reformers, +but touched by the serene light of Emerson. Emerson's specific influence +on slavery or any other social problem is hard to measure, for his power +was thrown on the illumination and inspiration of the individual man. +But in the large view his was an incomparable influence in diffusing +that temper of mingled courage and sweetness, the idealist's vision and +the soldier's valor, which is the world's best help and hope. He spoke +out against slavery whenever he saw that his word was needed; he +vindicated the right of the Abolitionists to free speech, whether they +spoke wisely or not; and in some of his poems, as the "Concord Ode," and +"Boston Hymn," he thrillingly invoked the best of the Puritan and +Revolutionary temper to right the wrongs of the present. It was said of +him that he gave to the war for the Union, "not one son, but a +thousand." But he also gave watchwords that will long outlast the issues +of the war and our issues of to-day. The homely yet soaring idealism of +the true American will always answer to the word, "Hitch your wagon to a +star." + +The group of writers who gave brilliancy to this period have already +been cited as champions of freedom. Most effective in his advocacy was +Whittier, who, in early days, took active part in politics as a Free +Soiler, and afterward did greater service by the lyrics of freedom, +which like his songs of labor and poems of home life and religion, went +to the heart of the common people as no other American voice has done. +One who reads Whittier to-day may be allowed to wish that he had known +the sunny as well as the shady side of Southern life; and that, as in a +later poem he softened his fierce criticism on Webster, so he had +celebrated the virtues and graces of his white countrymen below the +Potomac and the Ohio, as well as the wrongs of his black countrymen. +Lowell, usually a scholarly poet, spoke to the common people nobly for +peace and freedom in the Biglow Papers. In 1857 the _Atlantic Monthly_ +was started under his editorship, the organ at once of the highest +literary ability of New England, and of pronounced anti-slavery and +Republican sentiment. After he gave up the editorship in 1862, he wrote +at intervals of a few years the second series of Biglow Papers, and his +"Commemoration Ode" was the noblest literary monument of the triumph of +Union and freedom. + +Longfellow's main vocation was away from the turmoils of the hour. He +interpreted to America the art, the culture, the legends of Europe and +the Middle Ages; he found the poetry in the early soil of America, as in +"Hiawatha" and "Evangeline." He was not deaf to the wrongs of the slave, +and gave to them some touching poems. But his finest contribution to the +national idea was the apostrophe to the Union which crowns "The Building +of the Ship." It was written in 1849, in the stress of the struggle over +California, and it may well last as long as the nation lasts. The poem +is an idyl of the ship-building folk and the sea; the consummation is +the bridal of the captain and the builder's daughter, and the launching +of the ship, christened "The Union"--emblem of the wife's and husband's +voyage begun together on the sea of life; then,-- + + Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! + Sail on, O Union, strong and great! + Humanity with all its fears, + With all the hopes of future years, + Is hanging breathless on thy fate! + We know what Master laid thy keel, + What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, + Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, + What anvils rang, what hammers beat, + In what forge and what a heat + Were shaped the anchors of thy hope! + Fear not each sudden sound and shock, + 'Tis of the wave and not the rock; + 'Tis but the flapping of the sail, + And not a rent made by the gale! + In spite of rock and tempest's roar, + In spite of false lights on the shore, + Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea! + Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee. + Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, + Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, + Are all with thee,--are all with thee! + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +DRED SCOTT AND LECOMPTON + + +Under Buchanan's administration, 1857-61, three events befell which were +like wedges riving farther and farther apart the national unity. They +were the Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court, the Lecompton +constitution in Kansas, and John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry. + +President Buchanan declared in his inaugural that the people of a +Territory had a right to shape their institutions in their own way, but +as to how far that right extended before they organized as a State, the +United States Supreme Court was the proper arbiter. Two days after the +inaugural, the Supreme Court announced its decision, in a case made up +expressly to test the status of slavery in the Territories. Suit was +brought before it to obtain freedom for Dred Scott, who being held as a +slave in Missouri had been taken by his master to reside for a time in +Illinois, and afterward at Fort Snelling in unorganized territory north +of 36 degrees 30 minutes, and so free under the Missouri compromise. It +was claimed that by being taken upon free soil, in State or Territory, +he became free. The court, in an elaborate opinion delivered by +Chief-Justice Taney, dismissed the case for want of jurisdiction, on the +ground that no person of slave descent or African blood could be a +citizen of the United States or be entitled to sue in its courts. The +court affirmed that the sweeping language of the Declaration, that "all +men are born free," had no application to negroes, because at that time +they were generally regarded "as so far inferior that they had no +rights which the white man was bound to respect." The case being thus +thrown out of court, all further discussion of its merits was +superfluous--a mere _obiter dictum_, without legal force. Nevertheless, +the court through its chief-justice went on to pronounce upon the +plaintiff's claim and declare it baseless; on the ground that inasmuch +as a slave was lawful property, and the Constitution decreed that no man +should be deprived of his property without due process of law, therefore +an act of Congress declaring in effect that when carried beyond a +certain line a slave was lost to his master, was unconstitutional and +void. Thus the court set aside as invalid the exclusion of slavery from +the Territories by Congress. As to the effect of a slave's residence in +a free State by his master's act, followed by a return to a slave +State,--the court held that this question belonged properly to the +Missouri courts, which had decided against the slave's claim. + +Two of the justices, McLean and Curtis (Northern Whigs), dissented +emphatically from the decision. Justice Curtis pointed out, as to the +alleged incapacity of the negro for citizenship at the era of the +Constitution, that at that period free negroes had the right of suffrage +in five of the thirteen States. As to the argument against depriving a +man of his property, the contention of the Republicans was that slaves +were property, not by the common usage of mankind, but only by local +law, and that when a slaveholder moved into a Territory he did not carry +with him that local law by which alone a man could be held as a chattel. +But the authoritative voice of the highest court in the land had +proclaimed these amazing propositions,--that the guarantee of freedom to +the Northwest, which the nation had accepted for a third of a century, +was invalid, and that no person with negro blood had any civil rights as +a citizen of the United States. + +When, forty years later, a law of Congress establishing an equitable +income tax was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and a +Democratic national convention protested against that decision, the +Republican papers of the day denounced the protest as hardly less than +treason. But the Republicans of an earlier day were not so reverential +toward the Supreme Court as an infallible authority. Could the court as +a finality outlaw the negro from the common rights of man, and prevent +Congress from establishing freedom in the national domain? Not so +thought the men who led the Republican party and the sentiment of the +North. The New York Legislature, for example, promptly enacted that +African descent should not disqualify from State citizenship; that any +slave brought into the State by his master became free, and any attempt +to hold him was a penal offense. It passed a resolution declaring that +the Supreme Court had lost the confidence and respect of the people. +Lincoln said in his dry way that the Republican party did not propose to +declare Dred Scott a free man (by the way, he was soon manumitted by his +former master's daughter)--but neither did they propose to accept the +court's decision as a political rule binding the voters, or Congress, or +the President; and they intended so to oppose it as to have it reversed +if possible, and a new judicial rule established. Seward was very +outspoken. He said a year later, in the Senate, "The people of the +United States never can and never will accept principles so +unconstitutional, so abhorrent. Never, never! Let the court recede. +Whether it recede or not, we shall reorganize the court, and thus reform +its political sentiment and practices, and bring them in harmony with +the Constitution and the laws of Nature." + +The court's decision, _obiter dictum_ and all, extended only to the +power of Congress over the Territories. What a Territorial Legislature +might do by way of excluding slavery had not been passed on; and +Douglas thus found room for his doctrine of "popular sovereignty." But +as to just what that meant, he was adroitly non-committal, till the more +adroit Lincoln in the joint debate in 1858 drew from him the statement +that a Territorial Legislature might by "unfriendly legislation" +practically exclude slavery--a committal which ended his favor from the +South. + +But meanwhile attention was focused on a different and more concrete +question. Buchanan began his administration with an effort to pacify +Kansas, by sending a new governor, Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi, +with strong pledges from the President that the people should have fair +dealing. But the situation was badly complicated. The Legislature had +provided for a convention to frame a State Constitution. This was to be +elected on the basis of a census taken by the county officials. But the +Free State men having never recognized this Territorial Legislature, and +having kept up the form of a State government of their own, there were +no officials to take the census and register the votes in fifteen out of +the thirty-four counties, and the registration was confined to the part +of the Territory lying convenient for invasion from Missouri. Under +these circumstances the Free State party resisted all Governor Walker's +appeals to take part in the election, and the convention was chosen by a +small vote. It met at Lecompton, and drew up a constitution. One article +provided for the exclusion of free negroes, and another forbade any +amendment for seven years. One section affirmed ownership of slaves as +an inviolable right of property, and forbade any adverse legislation; +and this section alone of the Constitution was submitted to the popular +vote. A vote of the people was ordered, as between "constitution with +slavery" and "constitution without slavery." The Free State men scouted +the whole proceeding, and refused to vote. So, by the form of a popular +election, the "constitution with slavery" was adopted. + +The administration now gave its whole strength to the admission by +Congress of Kansas with the Lecompton constitution. The same election +that made Buchanan President had made the House as well as the Senate +Democratic. But it was no longer the disciplined and docile Democracy of +old. The proposal to admit a State under a constitution of which only a +single article had been submitted to even the form of a popular vote, +was too obnoxious for any but the most unflinching partisans. It was +impossible to a leader whose watchword was "popular sovereignty." + +Douglas broke squarely with the administration, and acted with the +Republicans against the bill. He came in close touch with their leaders, +and his open accession to their party seemed probable. Meanwhile in the +Democratic party he had a small following in Congress and a large +following among the people. The struggle in Congress over the Lecompton +bill was obstinate. Senator Crittenden of Kentucky,--belonging nominally +to the remnant of the American party, which sheltered some of the +moderate Southerners, and himself one of their best leaders--proposed a +bill submitting the entire Constitution to a direct popular vote. This +was defeated in the Senate, but passed by the House, with the support of +the Republicans. A committee of conference sought for some agreement, +and found a singular one: a bill proposed by and named from Mr. English, +a Douglas Democrat from Illinois. It provided that the Constitution +should be submitted to a popular vote; if accepted, Kansas was at once +to become a State and receive an immense land grant; if rejected, it was +to remain a Territory until it had the population requisite for one +representative in the House,--93,340,--and get no land grant. The +combination of a bribe and a threat gave an almost grotesque air to the +proposition. Party lines were broken in the vote; Douglas and a part of +his associates joined with the bulk of the Republicans in opposing the +bill; but enough of both sides saw in it the best they could get, to win +a majority in both houses, and the English bill became law, in April, +1858. + +In the previous summer, the assurances of Governor Walker and the advice +of sagacious politicians like Henry Wilson had induced the Free State +men to give up their separate organization and take part in the election +of the Territorial Legislature. They carried the election by two to one. +But again fraud was attempted. From a hamlet with eleven houses was sent +in a return of 1624 votes,--the names, it was found, copied in +alphabetical order from a Cincinnati directory; and from another +district an equally dishonest return was made; and the two would have +changed the majority in the Legislature. This catastrophe was averted by +the firmness of Walker, who threw out the fraudulent returns. In this he +was vainly opposed by the Territorial chief justice, a servile partisan. +After this the President turned against Walker and in the following +December drove him into resignation. He protested in an indignant letter +that the President had betrayed and deserted him, and that his policy +had saved the Territory from civil war and brought the entire people +together for the first time in a peaceable election. + +Indeed the troubles of Kansas were practically ended. The people +rejected the Lecompton constitution and its land grant by a heavy +majority. They framed and ratified a Constitution of their own at +Wyandotte, and came into the Union as a free State when secession had +left the Republicans in full control of Congress in the winter of +1860-1. + +The accession of Kansas to the Free States was full of significance. It +was fresh evidence that in the actual settlement of the new country the +inevitable preponderance lay with free labor. Its industrial advantage +could not be overborne by a hostile national administration, nor by the +inroads of aggressive and lawless neighbors. The management of their +affairs by the Free State settlers was a great vindication of the +methods of peace. The guerrilla warfare undertaken by Brown and his +party had won no real advantage. The decisive triumph came from the +habitual self-control of the Free State men, their steady refusal to +resist the Federal authority, and the sympathy they thus won from the +peaceful North, turning at last the scales of Congressional authority in +their favor. Thus far, peace and freedom moved hand in hand. + +The tide in the country was running strongly with the Republicans. The +alliance with Douglas failed, because his price was the Senatorship from +Illinois, and the Republicans of that State were "willing to take him on +probation, but not to make him the head of the church." They named +Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for the Senatorship, and these two +men held a series of joint debates which fixed the attention of the +country; with the result that Lincoln won the popular majority, but +Douglas the Legislature and the Senatorship. In the country at large, +the Republicans made such gains, in this election of 1858, that they won +the control of the National House. The Whigs were defunct, the Americans +were a dwindling fraction; the "Constitutional Union" party held a +number who sought peace above all things; but the great mass divided +between the Republicans and the Democrats. Douglas, the most dextrous of +rope-dancers, had regained his place as the foremost man in his old +party. The Republicans held firmly to their constitutional principles; +but the depth of the antagonism of the two industrial systems grew ever +more apparent. Lincoln had declared: "A house divided against itself +cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half +slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not +expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. +It will become all one thing or all the other." Seward, too, had said: +"The United States must and will, sooner or later, become either +entirely a slave-holding or entirely a free-labor nation." Between the +two systems there was an "irrepressible conflict." But he added that he +desired and expected the triumph of freedom "not otherwise than through +the action of the several States, co-operating with the Federal +Government, and all acting in conformity with their respective +constitutions." Yet over these utterances of Lincoln and Seward some +conservatives in the party shook their heads, as liable to be +misinterpreted and to needlessly alarm the South. But men more radical +than Lincoln and Seward were coming to the front. Sumner was silenced +for the time, but among the leaders of Massachusetts now appeared John +A. Andrew, her future war Governor, large-brained and large-hearted. In +this year, 1858, at the State convention of which he was president, he +said, "I believe in the Republican party because I believe that slavery, +the servitude of humanity, has no business to exist anywhere; because it +has no business to exist and no right to be supported where the sun +shines or grass grows or water runs." + +One of the sensations of the time was a book, dated 1857, which showed a +rift in the solid South. It was _The Impending Crisis_, by Hinton Rowan +Helper, a North Carolinian by long descent, birth, and residence; the +son of "a merciful slave-holder"; writing at the age of twenty-seven. +His standpoint was that of the non-slave-holding Southern white. "Yankee +wives"--so he begins--"have written the most popular anti-slavery +literature of the day. Against this I have nothing to say; it is all +well enough for women to give the pictures of slavery; men should give +the facts." His method is largely the comparison of the industrial +progress of the two sections, and his chief arsenal is the United States +census. North and South started, he says, with the establishment of the +government and the North's abolition of slavery, with advantage in soil, +climate, rivers, harbors, minerals, forests, etc., on the side of the +South, but in sixty years she has been completely outstripped. He +brackets Virginia and New York; at the start, Virginia had twice the +population of New York; now New York's population doubles Virginia's. +Virginia's exports have been about stationary at $3,000,000; New York's +have risen from $2,500,000 to $87,000,000. New York almost trebles +Virginia in valuation, even including slaves. So he compares North +Carolina and Massachusetts; the empty port of Beaufort and the teeming +one of Boston; the northern State with a production from manufactures, +mines, and mechanic arts double the whole cotton crop of the South. So +he compares South Carolina and Pennsylvania. Again: Sail down the Ohio, +and you will find the lands on the right bank worth double and treble +those on the left bank,--slavery makes all the difference. The hay crop +of the free States is worth more in dollars and cents than all the +cotton, tobacco, rice, hay, and hemp, in the slave States. The marble +and free-stone quarries in New England yield more wealth than all the +subterranean deposits in the slave States. And so for many pages he goes +on piling Pelion upon Ossa with his figures. He pictures the South's +economic dependence: "In infancy we are swaddled in Northern muslin; in +childhood we are humored with Northern gewgaws; in youth, we are +instructed out of Northern books; at the age of maturity, we sow our +wild oats on Northern soil.... In the decline of life we remedy our +sight with Northern spectacles, and support our infirmities with +Northern canes; in old age we are drugged with Northern physic; and +finally, when we die, our inanimate bodies, shrouded in Northern +cambric, are stretched upon the bier, borne to the grave in a Northern +carriage, entombed with Northern spade, and memorized with a Northern +slab!" + +Land in the Northern States averages $28.07 an acre in value, and in the +Southern States it is $5.34. The difference measures the robbery +committed on a community of 10,000,000 by the 350,000 slave-holders. +These "chevaliers of the lash" he arraigns with a rhetoric compared to +which Sumner's and Phillip's words were pale. The slave-holders are +worse, he declares, than thieves, for they steal from all. They are +worse than common murderers, for they issue to themselves licenses to +murder; the slave who resists may be killed. He is for no +half-measures,--he avows himself a free-soiler, an emancipationist, an +abolitionist, a colonizationist. "The liberation of five millions of +'poor white trash,' from the second degree of slavery, and of three +millions of miserable kidnapped negroes from the first degree, cannot be +accomplished too soon." The process is simple and easy; emancipation +will be followed by such an instant rise in all values and in general +prosperity that the slave-owners themselves will be recouped. Let each +of these, he says, give to each slave his freedom and $60 in money; half +that sum will transport him to Liberia, whither all should go. He +foresees the tempest which his book will arouse. "What are you going to +do about it? Something dreadful as a matter of course? Perhaps you will +dissolve the Union. Do it, if you dare! Our motto, and we would have you +understand it, is the abolition of slavery and the perpetuation of the +American Union. If by any means you do succeed in your treasonable +attempt to take the South out of the Union to-day, we will bring her +back to-morrow,--if she goes away with you, she will return without +you." In his closing paragraph he predicts the election to the +Presidency in 1860 of some anti-slavery Southerner, of the type of +Cassius M. Clay, or James G. Birney, and in 1864, of a Northerner like +Seward or Sumner. And he thus concludes: "Furthermore, if in these or in +any other similar cases the oligarchy do not quietly submit to the will +of a constitutional majority of the people, as expressed at the +ballot-box, the first battle between freedom and slavery will be fought +at home--and may God defend the right!" + +The book raised a tempest of denunciation. The more it was denounced the +more it was read. It was easily "the best-selling book" of the time. The +concrete reply of the party criticised was first to drive Helper out of +North Carolina. Next his book was condemned in a resolution proposed at +the opening of Congress in 1859-60, and aimed especially at John +Sherman, of Ohio, the Republican candidate for speaker, who had signed a +qualified recommendation of the book. After a long contest the +Republicans dropped Sherman for Pennington, of New Jersey, whom they +elected. _The Impending Crisis_ was a portent and an impulse of the +coming catastrophe. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +JOHN BROWN + + +About this time there was a revival of activity in the slave trade +between Africa and Cuba. The American Government had always acted +half-heartedly in its co-operation with the British Government for the +suppression of this traffic. Now it happened that some British cruisers +in the West Indies stopped and examined some vessels under the American +flag, suspected of being slavers. This was resented by the American +Government, which sent war ships to the scene and took the British +Government to task. In Congress both parties joined in denunciation of +British aggression. The right of search, exercised by England for the +reclamation of her seamen from American vessels, had been one of the +grounds of war in 1812. It had been left unmentioned in the treaty of +peace, but England had silently relinquished the practice. Now, at the +demand of the United States, she expressly relinquished the right of +search in the case of supposed slave ships under the American flag, +unless the result should justify the suspicion. Thus the honor of the +Stars and Stripes was vindicated,--and the flag was made a great +convenience to slavers. The administration, however, bestirred itself +toward doing its own share in the work of sea-police, and several slave +ships were captured. The crew of one of these were acquitted, by a +Charleston jury, against the clearest evidence. There was some open talk +in the Southern papers of legalizing the traffic. But the trade was +destined to a discouraging check a year or two later, when President +Lincoln signed the first death warrant of the captain of a slaver. + +After the Kansas troubles had subsided, John Brown sought some way to +make a direct attack on slavery. For many years he had brooded on the +matter, in the light of his reading of the Old Testament, and he felt +himself called to assail it as the Jewish heroes assailed the enemies of +Jehovah and his people. As early as 1847 he had disclosed to Frederick +Douglass, during a visit to Brown's home in Springfield, Mass., a plan +for freeing the slaves. He did not contemplate a general insurrection +and slaughter. But he proposed to establish a fugitive refuge in the +chain of mountains stretching from the border of New York toward the +Gulf. "These mountains," he said, "are the basis of my plan. God has +given the strength of the hills to freedom; they were placed here for +the emancipation of the negro race; they are full of natural forts, +where one man for defense will be equal to one hundred for attack; they +are full also of good hiding-places, where large numbers of brave men +could be concealed, and baffle and elude pursuit for a long time.... The +true object to be sought is, first of all, to destroy the money-value of +slave property; and that can only be done by rendering such property +insecure. My plan, then, is to take at first about twenty-five picked +men, and begin on a small scale; supply them arms and ammunition, and +post them in squads of five on a line of twenty-five miles. The most +persuasive and judicious of them shall then go down to the fields from +time to time, as opportunity offers, and induce the slaves to join them, +seeking and selecting the most restless and daring." + +It was substantially this plan to which Brown now returned, and he +sought aid among those men at the East who had backed the Free State +cause in Kansas. He was not known to them, as he has been presented to +the reader, as the chief actor in the Pottawatomie massacre, but as a +bold guerrilla chief, who had lost a son in the Kansas strife. Even so, +he was a recognized dissenter from the peace policy which had finally +won success for freedom in the Territory. But there were men in the +anti-slavery ranks who were impatient of the whole policy of peace, and +the impressive personality of Brown won some of these to active support +of his project. Among them were Theodore Parker, Gerritt Smith, Dr. S. +G. Howe, George L. Stearns, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Franklin B. +Sanborn, who formed a secret committee to forward this plan. They were +not informed of its details, but knew its general scope. To a +considerable number Brown was known as a hero of past fights and not +averse to fresh ones. He visited Concord, where he spoke at a public +meeting, and made a great impression on Emerson, Alcott, and Thoreau. +Alcott made a pen-picture of him. "I think him equal to anything he +dares,--the man to do the deed, if it must be done, and with the +martyr's temper and purpose. Nature obviously was deeply intent in the +making of him. He is of imposing appearance personally,--tall, with +square shoulders and standing; eyes of deep gray, and couchant, as if +ready to spring at the least rustling, dauntless yet kindly; his hair +shooting backward from low down on his forehead; nose trenchant and +Romanesque; set lips, his voice suppressed yet metallic, suggesting deep +reserves; decided mouth; the countenance and frame charged with power +throughout." + +Emerson, from his own observation and from hearsay, drew his spiritual +portrait: "For himself, Brown is so transparent that all men see him +through. He is a man to make friends wherever on earth courage and +integrity are esteemed,--the rarest of heroes, a pure idealist, with no +by-ends of his own. Many of us have seen him, and everyone who has heard +him speak has been impressed alike by his simple, artless goodness and +his sublime courage. He joins that perfect Puritan faith which brought +his ancestor to Plymouth Rock, with his grandfather's ardor in the +Revolution. He believes in two articles--two instruments, shall I +say?--the Golden Rule and the Declaration of Independence; and he used +this expression in a conversation here concerning them: 'Better that a +whole generation of men, women, and children should pass away by a +violent death, than that one word of either should be violated in this +country.'... He grew up a religious and manly person, in severe poverty; +a fair specimen of the best stock of New England, having that force of +thought and that sense of right which are the warp and woof of +greatness.... Thus was formed a romantic character, absolutely without +any vulgar trait; living to ideal ends, without any mixture of +self-indulgence or compromise, such as lowers the value of benevolent +and thoughtful men we know; abstemious, refusing luxuries, not sourly +and reproachfully, but simply as unfit for his habit; quiet and gentle +as a child, in the house. And as happens usually to men of romantic +character, his fortunes were romantic." + +But the romance in this portrait is due quite as much to the imagination +of the artist as to the character of the subject. Emerson seems to have +entirely overlooked in his estimate of Brown that he had no rational +idea of the moral obligations of the citizen to the civil government and +to the peace of society; and that his conscience in its apparent +simplicity was really in dire confusion. The sentence he quotes from +Brown's conversation has its practical commentary in Brown's acts. He +was as ready to take the sword, to redress what he considered a breach +of the Golden Rule or the Declaration of Independence, as if mankind had +not for thousands of years and with infinite cost been building up +institutions for the peaceful settlement of difficulties. In Kansas he +saw in the political struggle simply an issue to be tried out by force +between good men and bad men; and he made himself executioner of a group +of men he considered bad, thereby plunging into a series of murders +utterly repugnant to his natural humanity. He afterward justified the +deed, without avowing his own part in it, which was not fully known till +twenty years later. After Harper's Ferry, the _Springfield Republican_ +(which judged him very favorably), speaking partly from personal +knowledge gained during his residence in Springfield, said: "He is so +constituted that when he gets possessed of an idea he carries it out +with unflinching fidelity to all its logical consequences, as they seem +to him, hesitating at no absurdity and deterred by no unpleasant +consequences to himself personally. He is a Presbyterian in his faith, +and feels that it is for this very purpose that God has reared him up." + +When a man is so possessed by the conviction that he is God's instrument +as to set himself outside of ordinary human morality, he is presumably +on the verge of shipwreck. The _Republican_, while emphasizing the +popular estimate of John Brown as "a hero," coupled with this the +characterization of him as "a misguided and insane man." + +The project he was now pressing--the establishment of a mountain refuge +for fugitive slaves, working toward the depreciation of slave property, +and the ultimate extinction of the system--had a certain superficial +plausibility; and it seemed to avoid the inhumanity of general +insurrection. But it was at the best hardly more than a boy's romance, +and at the last moment Brown abandoned it for a still more impracticable +plan. + +On the morning of October 17, 1859, the little town of Harper's Ferry, +on the upper Potomac, awoke to the amazing discovery that in the night +the buildings of the United States armory had been seized and held by a +company of armed men, white and black; that they had gathered in a +number of prisoners, including some prominent citizens; and that their +design was to free the slaves. Brown had struck his blow. With eighteen +faithful associates, including three of his sons, he had lurked near the +town till all was ready; then in the night he had marched in and seized +the armory, and brought in as prisoners some of the neighboring planters +who were told they were held as hostages. Other citizens were captured +almost without resistance in the early morning hours, till the prisoners +were twice the number of their captors. But there was no rising of the +negroes. Brown, after his first easy success, stayed still as if +paralyzed. Either he had no further plan, or his judgment and will +failed him at the crisis. His complete failure to improve his +first advantage--whether the weakness lay in his plan or the +execution--indicated the radical unsoundness which underlay his +impressive exterior. The town rallied its forces, surrounded the armory, +and a fight was kept up through the afternoon. At night Colonel Robert +E. Lee with a force of troops arrived from Washington, and the next +morning they easily stormed the armory, which had lost half its +garrison, including two of Brown's sons, and Brown and the rest of his +party were made prisoners. + +The country was in a state of profound peace; Kansas had fallen out of +mind; the Presidential election was a year away; and even political +discussion was languid. The news of the raid came as an utter surprise. +Brown was unknown to the general public, and beyond the patent fact of +an attempted slave insurrection there was at first general bewilderment +as to the meaning of the event. Brown's secret committee,--ignorant of +his exact plan, most of them having had but little to do with him, and +none of them expecting the blow when it fell,--were in no haste to +enlighten the public, or acknowledge their responsibility. But Brown +became his own interpreter. The ubiquitous _New York Herald_ reporter +was instantly on the ground, and never were interviews more eagerly read +and more impressive in their effect than Brown's replies to his various +examiners. A prisoner, wounded, in the shadow of a felon's death, the +old man bore himself with perfect courage and composure. Asked on what +principle he justified his acts, he replied: "Upon the Golden Rule. I +pity the poor in bondage, that have none to help them; that is why I am +here; not to gratify any personal animosity, revenge, or vindictive +spirit. It is my sympathy with the oppressed and wronged, that are as +good as you and as precious in the sight of God." The Virginians +recognized his sincerity and integrity. The Governor of the State, Henry +A. Wise--an extreme Southerner in his politics--visited Brown, and said +publicly: "They are mistaken who take Brown to be a madman. He is a +bundle of the best nerves I ever saw,--cut and thrust and bleeding and +in bonds. He is a man of clear head, of courage, fortitude, and simple +ingenuousness. He is cool, collected, and indomitable, and it is but +just to him to say that he was humane to his prisoners, and he inspired +me with great trust in his integrity as a man of truth. He is a fanatic, +vain and garrulous, but firm, truthful, and intelligent." + +For Brown and his associates there could be but one conclusion to the +business. They were put on trial for treason and murder. They had a fair +trial, and indeed the case admitted of no doubt. They were sentenced to +be hanged, and the sentence was carried out, within six weeks of their +act. + +At the North, Brown was widely honored as a hero and a martyr. No one +defended his act,--a slave insurrection, in whatever form, found no +public justification. Probably a considerable majority of the community, +including all the more conservative political elements, condemned the +man and his deed, and perhaps justified his execution. But wherever +anti-slavery feeling was strong, and with a multitude who, apart from +such feeling, were sensitive to striking qualities of manhood, there was +great admiration and sympathy for Brown and sorrow for his fate. John A. +Andrew spoke a common feeling when he said: "Whatever may be thought of +John Brown's acts, John Brown himself was right." Emerson eulogized him +in daring words. If, he said, John Brown is hung, he will glorify the +gallows as Jesus glorified the cross. On the day of his death the church +bells were tolled in many a Northern town. Said the _Springfield +Republican_ the next morning: "There need be no tears for him. Few men +die so happily, so satisfied with time, place, and circumstance, as did +he.... A Christian man hung by Christians for acting upon his +convictions of duty,--a brave man hung for a chivalrous and +self-sacrificing deed of humanity,--a philanthropist hung for seeking +the liberty of oppressed men. No outcry about violated law can cover up +the essential enormity of a deed like this." + +Never was a man dealt with more generously by posthumous fame. In the +Civil War, two lines of verse, fitted to a stirring melody, became the +marching song of the Union armies: + + John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave + His soul is marching on! + +This was the last touch of the apotheosis; John Brown became to the +popular imagination the forerunner and martyr of the cause of Union and +freedom. + +At the North, one immediate and lasting effect of the tragedy was to +intensify the conviction of the essential wrong of slavery. However +mistaken was Brown's way of attack, it was felt that nothing short of an +organized system of injustice and cruelty could have inspired such a man +to such an attempt. The very logic of facts, which compelled Virginia in +self-defense to hang him, showed the character of the institution which +needed such defense. Yes, it was necessary to hang him,--but what was +the system that made necessary the sacrifice of such a life? + +But Andrew's words "whatever may be thought of John Brown's acts"--call +for further consideration. What were his acts, and what were their +consequences? A part of the answer was seen in the bodies of men of +Harper's Ferry, lying in the streets, peaceful men with wives and +children, slain for resisting an armed invasion of their quiet little +village. The first man to fall was a negro porter of a railway train, +who, failing to halt when challenged by one of Brown's sentinels, was +shot. The second man killed was a citizen standing in his own doorway. +The third was a graduate of West Point who, hearing of trouble, came +riding into town with his gun, and was shot as he passed the armory. + +Among the letters that came to Brown in prison was one from the widow of +one of the Pottawatomie victims, with these words: "You can now +appreciate my distress in Kansas, when you then and there entered my +house at midnight and arrested my husband and two boys, and took them +out in the yard, and in cold blood shot them dead in my hearing. You +can't say you did it to free our slaves; we had none and never expected +to own one; but it only made me a poor disconsolate widow with helpless +children." + +Brown's first plan, of drawing off the slaves to a mountain +fortress,--peaceable only in semblance, and involving inevitable +fighting,--he exchanged at last for a form of attack which was an +instant challenge to battle. In a conference with Frederick Douglass, on +the eve of the event, Douglass vainly urged the earlier plan, but found +Brown resolved on "striking a blow which should instantly rouse the +country." On the day of his death, Brown penned these sentences and +handed them to one of his guards: "I, John Brown, am now quite certain +that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with +blood. I had, as I now think vainly, flattered myself that without very +much bloodshed it might be done." But no man so directly and +deliberately aimed to settle the difficulty by bloodshed as he. It is +thus that men make God responsible for what themselves are doing. + +The Civil War when it came brought enough of suffering and horror. But +it was mild and merciful compared to what a slave insurrection might +have been. And it was essentially a slave insurrection that Brown aimed +at. The great mass of the Northern people would have recoiled with +abhorrence from a servile revolt. But who could wonder if the Southern +people did not believe this, when they saw honors heaped on a man who +died for inciting such an insurrection? How could they nicely +distinguish between approval of a man's acts and praise for the man +himself? If the North had one thinker who set forth its highest ideals, +its noblest aims, that man was Emerson. Yet Emerson passed Brown's acts +almost unblamed, and named his execution together with that on Calvary. +Not all the disclaimers of politicians, the resolves of conventions, +could reassure the South, after that day of mourning with which Northern +towns solemnized John Brown's death. What wonder that an ardent +Southerner like Toombs, speaking to his constituents a few months later, +called on them to "meet the enemy at the door-sill." And what wonder +that the Southern people were inclined as never before to look upon the +Northern people as their foes? + +The more deeply we study human life, the more do we realize that as to +individual responsibility "to understand is to forgive." Half a century +after the event, we may well have forgiveness--not of charity, but of +justice--for John Brown, and for the Governor who signed his +death-warrant; we can sympathize with those who honored and wept for +him, and with those who shuddered at his deed. But, for the truth of +history and for the guidance of the future, we must consider not only +the intentions of men, but the intrinsic character of their deeds; not +only John Brown himself, but John Brown's acts. And in that long series +of deeds of violence and wrong which wrought mutual hatred and +fratricidal war between the two sections of a people, that midnight +attack on the peaceful Virginia village must bear its heavy +condemnation. Hitherto aggression had been almost entirely from the +South; this was a counter-stroke, and told with dire force against the +hope of a peaceable and righteous settlement. + +Probably most readers of to-day will wonder at the degree of admiration +and praise which Brown received. It must be ascribed in part to some +quality in his personality, which cast a kind of glamour on some of +those who met him, and inspired such highly idealized portraiture as +Emerson's. But there remains the extraordinary fact that men like +Theodore Parker and Gerritt Smith and Dr. S. G. Howe gave countenance +and aid to Brown's project. Before history's bar, their responsibility +seems heavier than his; they, educated, intelligent, trained in public +service; he an untaught, ill-balanced visionary, who at least staked his +life on his faith. Their complicity in his plot illustrates how in some +moral enthusiasts the hostility to slavery had distorted their +perception of reality. Such men saw the Southern communities through +the medium of a single institution, itself half-understood. They saw, so +to speak, only the suffering slave and his oppressor. They failed to see +or forgot the general life of household and neighborhood, with its +common, kindly, human traits. They did not recognize that Harper's Ferry +was made up of much the same kind of people, at bottom, as Concord. They +did not realize that a slave insurrection meant a universal social +conflagration. Indeed, Brown's original scheme of a general flight of +slaves to a mountain stronghold had a fallacious appearance of avoiding +a violent insurrection, and it was with the background of this plan that +Brown, a wounded prisoner with death impending, appealed to the Northern +imagination as a hero and martyr. + +But this glorification of him wrought a momentous effect in the South. +It is best described by those who witnessed it. John S. Wise, son of the +Governor who signed Brown's death-warrant, writes in his graphic +reminiscences, _The End of an Era_: "While these scenes were being +enacted"--the trial and execution of Brown and the Northern comments--"a +great change of feeling took place in Virginia toward the people of the +North and toward the Union itself. Virginians began to look upon the +people of the North as hating them, and willing to see them assassinated +at midnight by their own slaves, led by Northern emissaries; as flinging +away all pretense of regard for laws protecting the slave-owner; as +demanding of them the immediate freeing of their slaves, or that they +prepare against further attacks like Brown's, backed by the moral and +pecuniary support of the North. During the year 1860 the Virginians +began to organize and arm themselves against such emergencies." + +The spirit of proscription against all anti-slavery men broke out +afresh. At Berea, Kentucky, a little group of anti-slavery churches and +schools had been growing for six years, championed by the stalwart +Cassius M. Clay, and with the benignant and peaceful John G. Fee as +their leader. A month after Brown's foray a band of armed horsemen +summoned twelve of their men to leave the State. Governor Magoffin said +he could not protect them, and with their families they went into +exile--stout-heartedly chanting at their departure the 37th Psalm: "Fret +not thyself because of evil-doers." + +In the South itself there had been developing recently an antagonism to +the slave power. Its strength lay not in the moral opposition to +slavery, which indeed always existed, but was quiet and apparently +cowed; but rather in the growing class of city residents,--merchants and +professional men,--whose interests and feelings were often antagonistic +to the large planters. The hostility to slavery on economic grounds, and +in the white man's interest, found passionate expression in Helper's +_Impending Crisis_, and in a milder form was spreading widely. But at +the menace of invasion and servile insurrection all classes drew +together. Especially the women of the South became suddenly and +intensely interested in the political situation. The suggestion of +personal peril appealed to them, and to the men who were their natural +defenders. The situation is well described in Prof. J. W. Burgess's _The +Civil War and the Constitution_,--a generally impartial book, written +with personal appreciation of the Southern standpoint: "No man who is +acquainted with the change of feeling which occurred in the South +between the 16th of October, 1859, and the 16th of November of the same +year can regard the Harper's Ferry villainy as anything other than one +of the chiefest crimes of our history. It established and +re-established the control of the great radical slaveholders over the +non-slaveholders, the little slaveholders, and the more liberal of the +larger slaveholders, which had already begun to be loosened. It created +anew a solidarity of interest between them all, which was felt by all +with an intensity which overbore every other sentiment. It gave thus to +the great radical slaveholders the willing physical material for the +construction of armies and navies and for the prosecution of war." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN + + +Every American may be presumed to be familiar with the external facts of +Abraham Lincoln's early life,--the rude cabin, the shiftless father, the +dead mother's place filled by the tender step-mother; the brief +schooling, the hungry reading of the few books by the fire-light; the +hard farm-work, with a turn now of rail-splitting, now of flat-boating; +the country sports and rough good-fellowship; the upward steps as +store-clerk and lawyer. But the interior qualities that made up his +character and built his fortune will bear further study. + +He was composed of traits which seemed to contradict each other. In a +sense this is true of everyone. Dr. Holmes says (in substance): "The +vehicle in which each one of us crosses life's narrow isthmus between +two oceans is not a one-seated sulky, but an omnibus." Sometimes, as +depicted in that wonderful parable, _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, one +inmate ejects the others. But in Lincoln the various elements were +wrought as years passed by into harmony. + +He was prized among his early companions as a wit and story-teller. The +women complained because at their parties all the men were drawn off to +hear Abe Lincoln's stories. When he came to be a public speaker, he +feathered the shafts of his argument with jest and anecdote. The vein of +humor in him was rich and deep; it helped him through the hard places. +When as President he announced to his cabinet the Emancipation +Proclamation, he first refreshed himself by reading to them a chapter +from Artemus Ward. + +His early growth was in rough soil, and some of the mud stuck to +him,--his jests were sometimes broad. But if coarse in speech he was +pure in life, and neither the rancor of political hate nor the research +of unsparing biographers ever charged him with an unchaste act. + +Along with this rollicking fun he had a vein of deepest melancholy. In +part it was temperamental. The malarial country sometimes bred a strain +of habitual depression. His mother was the natural daughter of a +Virginia planter, and had the sadness sometimes wrought by such +pre-natal conditions; it was said she was never seen to smile. Lincoln's +early years had hardships and trials, over many of which he triumphed, +and triumphed laughing; but there were others for which there was +neither victory nor mirth. Some of his early letters of intimate +friendship (as given in Hay and Nicolay's biography), show a singular +capacity for romantic affection, and gleams of hope of supreme +happiness. But death frustrated this hope, and the disappointment +brought him to the verge of insanity. In his domestic life,--it was an +open secret,--he had some of the experience which disciplined Socrates. +Perhaps we go to the root of his sadness if we say that in his deepest +heart he was a passionate idealist, and by circumstances he was long +shut out from the natural satisfaction of ideality. His partner Herndon +said of him, "His melancholy dripped from him as he walked." + +Out of these experiences he brought a great power of patience and a +great power of sympathy. These armed him for his work. He became +invincible against the perversities and follies of men, and the blows of +fate. He ripened into a tenderness such as prompted him, when burdened +with cares beyond measure, to give a sympathetic hearing to every mother +who came to the President with the story of her boy's trouble. + +To take another brace of qualities, he was at once a powerful fighter +and an habitual peace-maker. His long, gaunt, sinewy frame, and his +tough courage, made him a formidable antagonist, but it was hard to +provoke him to combat. Lamon,--whose biography is a treasury of good +stories, sometimes lacking in discretion, but giving an invaluable +realistic picture,--relates an encounter with the village bully, Jack +Armstrong. The "boys" at last teased Lincoln into a wrestling match, and +when his victory in the good-natured encounter provoked Jack to unfair +play, Abe shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. Then he made peace with +him, drew out the better quality in him; and the two reigned "like +friendly Cæsars" over the village crowd, Abe tempering Jack's +playfulness when it got too rough, and winning the boys to kindly ways. + +In that day and region, men were very frank about their religious +beliefs and disbeliefs. The skepticism or unbelief which lies unspoken +in the hearts of a multitude of men,--silent perhaps out of regard to +public opinion, perhaps from consideration for mother or wife--found +free and frequent utterance in the West, long before Robert Ingersoll +gave it eloquent voice. Lincoln, though we have called him an idealist +at heart, habitually guided himself by logic, by hard sense, and by such +evidence as passes in a court of law. He was one of the class to whom +books like Tom Paine's _Age of Reason_ appealed strongly. In early life +he wrote a treatise against Christianity. A politic friend to whom he +showed his manuscript put it in the stove, but the writer was not +changed in his opinions. To Christianity as a supernatural revelation he +never became a convert, but the belief in "a Power that makes for +righteousness" grew with his growth and strengthened with his strength. + +With deepening experiences, the awe and mystery of life weighed heavily +on him. When travelling on circuit, his days spent in law-cases, +diversified with sociability and funny stories, he would sometimes be +seen in the early morning brooding by the fire-place with hands +outspread, and murmuring his favorite verses,--a soliloquy on the +mournfulness and mystery of life: "Oh, why should the spirit of mortal +be proud!" + +In his early youth he read eagerly and thoroughly such few books as came +in his way. Later, his taste for reading seemed to grow less. He had a +keen instinct for reality, and perhaps he found little in books that +satisfied him. For poetry and philosophy he had small aptitude, and in +science he had no training. What books he read he seemed to digest and +get the pith of. Once, made suddenly conscious by defeat of his lack of +book-culture, he took up Euclid's geometry, and resolutely studied and +re-studied it. Doubtless that helped him in the close logic which often +characterized his speeches. The strength of his speeches lay in their +logic, their close regard to fact, their adaptation to the plain people +of whom he was one, their homely illustrations, and, as the years +developed him, an appeal to some high principle of duty. His chief +library was men and women. From them, and from his own experience, he +drew the elements of his politics, history, philosophy. + +He had the ambition natural to a man of high powers. With all his genial +sociability, he was in a way self-centered. His associates often thought +him,--and Lamon shares the opinion--not only moody and meditative, but +unsocial, cold, impassive; bent on his own ends, and using other men as +his instruments. Partly we may count this as the judgment of the crowd +to whom Lincoln's inner life was unimaginable. He shared their social +hours, and then withdrew into thoughts and feelings and purposes which +he could share with no one. Doubtless, too, he was in fault for some of +that neglect of the small courtesies and kindnesses which besets men +whose own thoughts fascinate them too strongly. There is a graphic +touch, in the story of his love affairs, of a girl who rejected his +advances because she had seen him on a hot day walk up a hill with a +woman and never offer to relieve her of the baby she was carrying. + +As a lawyer he won more than ordinary success, making good his lack of +erudition by shrewdness and knowledge of human nature. It was observed +that he always tried a case honestly and fairly; that he was not fond of +controversy, and always preferred to settle a case out of court; that he +never argued well or strongly unless his conviction was fully on his +client's side; that, if unconvinced himself, he simply brought forward +the proofs which fairly counted on his side, and left the decision to +others; and that he was so little attentive to gain that, although he +became one of the leading lawyers of Illinois, he never accumulated much +money. + +His fairness as a lawyer, and his integrity in politics, won his popular +nickname of "Honest Abe." Perhaps honesty, in its fullest sense, was his +central quality. He was always true to the truth as he saw it--true in +thought and word and deed. One feels in his printed speeches that he is +trying to see and to say things as they are. He had not the aid of the +mystic's vision, in which the moral universe is revealed in such +splendor that to accept and obey it is pure joy. But he saw and felt and +practiced the homely obligations of honesty and kindness. His education +came largely as at successive epochs there were disclosed to him new +heights of moral significance in the life of the nation; and as fast as +such disclosures came to him he set himself to obey them with absolute +loyalty. + +His conscience was not of the self-contemplating and self-voicing kind. +He was chary of words about duty. It has been alleged that the typical +New Englander is afflicted with "a chronic inflammation of the moral +sense." Such a malady does exist, though many a New Englander is bravely +free from it, while it is not unknown in Alaska or Japan. From such an +over-conscientious conscience, and from its incidents and its +counterfeits, there is bred a redundancy of verbal moralising. That was +not a foible of Lincoln. The sense of moral obligation underlies his +weightier utterances, as the law of gravitation underlies scientific +demonstrations,--not talked of, but assumed. + +Lincoln's political career gave high promise at the start. He seemed to +have the qualities for success,--ambition, shrewdness in managing men, +power as a speaker, integrity which won general confidence, ideals not +too high above the crowd. Yet his success was so moderate that in +contrasting himself with Senator Douglas, at the outset of their debate +in 1858, he declared that, "With me the race of ambition has been a +failure,--a flat failure; with him it has been one of splendid success." +There were reasons for it: Douglas had given himself without reserve to +his personal advancement, and Lincoln had been hampered by regard for +other men and for larger ends. After one term in Congress as a Whig, +1847-8, he retired in deference to the fashion of "rotation" between +localities. When roused to new activity by the anti-Nebraska campaign in +1854, he was the favorite candidate of his party for the senatorship; +but seeing that the knot of men who held the balance of power were +gravitating to the other side, he insisted on withdrawing in favor of +Lyman Trumbull, as a stronger candidate, who accordingly won the day. +Before the revival of the slavery issue, there had been nothing in the +old-time Whig and Democratic contests to appeal to the deeper elements +in Lincoln's nature, and personal ambition alone was not strong enough +to push him to eminence. Though he could handle men skillfully, he had a +distaste for the petty arts of the politician's trade. "Politics," he +said, "is the combination of individual meannesses for the general +good." And he had small relish for the game, until "the general good" +loomed clear and large. + +His attitude on slavery was typical of the men at the North who were at +once humane and regardful of the established order. He gave his general +position, in homely and graphic fashion, in a letter to his old friend, +Joshua F. Speed, of Kentucky, in 1855. This was at the time he referred +to when he wrote: "I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of +the Missouri Compromise roused me again." To Speed he wrote: "I +acknowledge your rights and my obligations under the Constitution in +regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted +down and caught, and carried back to their stripes and unrequited toils; +but I bite my lips and keep quiet. In 1841, you and I had together a +tedious low-water trip in a steamboat from Louisville to St. Louis. You +may remember, as well as I do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the +Ohio there were on board ten or a dozen slaves shackled together with +irons. That sight was a continued torment to me; and I see something +like it every time I touch the Ohio or any other slave border. It is not +fair for you to assume that I have no interest in a thing which has, and +continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought +rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do +crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the +Constitution and the Union. I do oppose the extension of slavery, +because my judgment and feelings so prompt me; and I am under no +obligations to the contrary." + +It was this strong regard for the established law of the land which set +the moderate anti-slavery men apart from the Abolitionists of the +extreme type. And up to this time, Lincoln, though hostile to slavery, +had not been especially concerned as to the nation's dealing with it. +But now came the opportunity and call to resist its extension into the +territories, and with the response to that call came the sense that a +great contest was impending between right and wrong, between the good of +the many and the selfishness of the few. + +Lincoln had close at hand a friend to spur him on. His law-partner, +William H. Herndon, was an enthusiastic radical in politics and +religion. He was an Abolitionist, and a follower of Theodore Parker. He +had long plied Lincoln with Parker's sermons and with anti-slavery +literature. When in 1856 Herndon and his friends began to organize to +support armed resistance in Kansas, Lincoln remonstrated with them +successfully. Then came the parting of the ways,--Republican, Democrat, +or Know-nothing? The Illinois Abolitionists threw themselves heartily +into the Republican movement. At its first State convention, at +Bloomington, Lincoln was the great figure. The faithful Herndon, his +missionary zeal rewarded at last by such a convert, describes in glowing +language the speech of Lincoln,--which so carried him away that after +trying for fifteen minutes to take notes as usual, he threw away his +pencil. "Heretofore, and up to this moment, he had simply argued the +slavery question on grounds of policy,--on what are called the +statesman's grounds,--never reaching the question of the radical and the +eternal right. Now he was newly baptized and freshly born; he had the +fervor of a new convert; the smothered flame broke out; enthusiasm +unusual to him blazed up; his eyes were aglow with an inspiration; he +felt justice; his heart was alive to the right; his sympathies, +remarkably deep for him, burst forth, and he stood before the throne of +the eternal Right, in presence of his God, and then and there unburdened +his penitential and fired soul. This speech was fresh, new, genuine, +odd, original; filled with fervor not unmixed with a divine enthusiasm; +his head breathing out through his tender heart its truths, its sense of +right, and its feeling of the good and for the good. If Lincoln was six +feet four inches high usually, at Bloomington he was seven feet, and +inspired at that." + +But the prairie fire was slow to light. Five days after the convention, +Herndon and Lincoln got up a ratification meeting in Springfield. There +were posters, illuminations, a band of music,--and at the appointed +hour, one man in the hall besides Lincoln and Herndon! Lincoln took the +platform, began with words half-sad, half-mirthful, and concluded: "All +seems dead, dead, dead; but the age is not yet dead; it liveth as sure +as our Maker liveth. Under all this seeming want of life and motion, the +world does move nevertheless. Be hopeful. And now let us adjourn, and +appeal to the people." + +The prairie caught fire at last. The Republicans carried Illinois that +autumn for Fremont. Two years later, Lincoln and Douglas traversed the +State in their famous series of joint debates. The main issue was +slavery in the territories; the background was the general attitude of +the white man toward the negro. Douglas held that the whole business was +a question for white men only. If they wanted slavery in any Territory, +let them have it. If they did not want it, let them keep it out--unless +the Supreme Court forbade. Lincoln summed up this "popular sovereignty" +doctrine: "If one man wants to make another man a slave, a third man has +no right to prevent him!" His position was that the nation's duty was to +hold the common domain for freedom, and that this was the business of +Congress. Douglas constantly twitted Lincoln with belief in negro +equality. This Lincoln disclaimed; he did not believe in the negro's +equality with the white man; did not believe in making him a voter or a +juror; but because an inferior, had a negro no rights? Lincoln's +anti-slavery position was very moderate; in reply to Douglas's +challenge, he disclaimed any disposition to agitate against the fugitive +slave law; as to practical restriction, he had nothing to urge except +exclusion from the territories. Here he was emphatic, and he protested +earnestly against Douglas's "not caring whether slavery was voted up or +voted down." + +The best test which the debate gave of his quality was the memorable +passage in which he declared his conviction that "A house divided +against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot +permanently endure half slave and half free." In this he rose above his +wonted level, and spoke with a prophet's forecast. He read this passage +in advance to a group of the party leaders. Though, after this bold +opening, the speech was only a calm and weighty argument that the +interest of slavery was being deliberately and systematically promoted +by all branches of the Democracy,--yet all, except Herndon, were alarmed +at this passage, and besought Lincoln to withhold it. But he answered +soberly and half-mournfully that it expressed his full conviction, and +he would face defeat rather than suppress it. In the immediate result, +it injured his cause; a general comment of Republicans, through the +campaign, says Herndon, was "Damn that fool speech!" + +Douglas won the Legislature and the senatorship, though Lincoln won the +popular majority. When he was asked how he felt about his defeat, he +answered: "I feel as the boy did when he stubbed his toe,--he was too +big to cry, and it hurt too bad to laugh!" The country at large, which +had closely watched the debate, forgot him for two years. Early in 1860 +he was invited to lecture in New York. He was not regarded as a +Presidential candidate; and when he appeared,--in clothes full of +creases from his carpet-bag, with no press copy of his speech and not +expecting the newspapers to report it--he was such a figure as to his +audience in Cooper Institute seemed to give little promise. But he +carried them with him completely, and the next morning the seven-column +report in the _Tribune_ told the country that in this man there was a +new force to reckon with. The speech ranks with the great historical +orations of the country. The first part was a careful review of the +position which the signers of the Constitution took in their individual +capacity as to the right of Congress to regulate or exclude slavery from +the territories. He showed by specific proof that of the thirty-nine +signers twenty-one voted definitely on various occasions for +Congressional Acts which did so exclude or regulate slavery; and that of +the remaining eighteen almost all were known to have held the same +opinion. This was a masterly refutation of the claim of Douglas and the +Democracy that the fathers of the nation were on their side as to the +territorial question. Lincoln then passed to a broader view, and +inquired: What can we do that will really satisfy the South? Every word +is sober, temperate, well-weighed. The South, he showed, is really +taking very little interest now in the Territories. It is excited about +the John Brown raid, and accuses the Republican party of responsibility +for that. But not a single Republican was implicated in the raid--not +one. You, said Lincoln, addressing the South--interpret your +constitutional rights in a different way from what we do, and say if we +do not admit your interpretation,--if we elect a Republican +president,--you will break up the Union. But this is simply the +highwayman's plea. What, then, can we Republicans do to satisfy the +South? We must not only let them alone, but somehow convince them that +we do let them alone. In a word, this and this only will convince them; +we must cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. +And this must be done thoroughly,--done in acts as well as in words. +Silence will not be tolerated; we must place ourselves avowedly with +them. "Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, +suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in +politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and +return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our +Free-State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from +all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe +that all their troubles proceed from us." + +Thus he concludes: "If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand +by our duty fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of +those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied +and belabored,--contrivances such as groping for some middle ground +between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should +be neither a living man nor a dead man,--such as a policy of 'don't +care' on a question about which all true men do care,--such as Union +appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to disunionists, reversing +the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous, to +repentance,--such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay +what Washington said and undo what Washington did. Neither let us be +slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened +from it by menaces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons to +ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith, +let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it." + +In behalf of the South, Jefferson Davis, at about this time, presented +in the Senate, as their ultimatum, a set of resolutions. These called +for the recognition of slave-property as an indefeasible right of +territorial settlers, entitled to congressional protection; for the +enforcement of the fugitive slave law, and the repeal of the "personal +liberty laws" by which it was hindered or nullified in many States; and +in general, for the rebuke of all anti-slavery agitation. This was an +exact equivalent of Lincoln's interpretation of the South's demand; the +North must say that slavery is right, and act accordingly. And this was +indeed an ultimatum, with the distinct intimation: "This, or we dissolve +the Union." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE ELECTION OF 1860 + + +Now came on the battle in the Presidential convention. The Democratic +convention was dramatic and momentous. It met at Charleston, S. C., in +the last days of April, 1860. The struggle was between Douglas and the +extreme South. The contest was not over the nomination, but on the +resolutions. The Douglas party proposed the reaffirmation of the +Cincinnati platform of 1856, of which the kernel lay in the words: +"Non-intervention by Congress with slavery in State or Territory"; and +to this they would now add only a clause referring doubtful +constitutional points to the Supreme Court. But the Southern party would +accept nothing short of an affirmation that in the Territories until +organized as States, the right of slave-holding was absolute and +indefeasible, and Congress was bound to protect it. On this issue the +dispute in the convention was obstinate and irreconcilable. + +The South had long held unbroken sway in the Democracy and in the +nation. It had absolutely controlled the last two administrations, +though headed by Northern men. Its hold on the Senate had been unbroken, +and temporary successes of the Republicans in the House had borne no +fruit. The Supreme Court had gone even beyond the demands of the South. +Only in Kansas had its cause been lost, because the attempt to coerce a +whole territorial population had at last provoked revolt in the Northern +Democracy. The breach had been in some sort healed, but the leader of +the revolt was not forgiven or trusted. Meantime the alarm at John +Brown's raid had intensified the South's hostility to all opponents or +critics. All through the winter there had been constant expulsion of +anti-slavery men from that section. And now the Southern forces mustered +in the convention of the party they had so long controlled, insistent +and imperious, rejecting anything short of the fullest affirmation of +their claims in the territories. + +Douglas was not on the ground, but through his lieutenants, and still +more through the spirit he had infused into his followers, he was a +great and decisive power. In the Senate he had been almost isolated +among the Democrats; of late only Senator Pugh of Ohio had stood with +him against the administration. But he had appealed to the people, and +they had answered the call of the sturdy, audacious leader. However he +might at times court the favor of the South, he really stood for a broad +and simple principle,--the right of the majority of white men to rule. +For the negroes he cared nothing. But, in the territories, the majority +of white men should have slavery or not as they pleased. In the +Democratic party, the majority should control. And, in the last resort, +in the nation itself the majority should rule. Douglas thus stood +squarely for the rule of the majority within the white race. The +Republicans coupled with the supremacy of the legal majority in the +nation the right and obligation of the majority to maintain the personal +freedom of the negro, except where the Constitution allowed the States +to maintain slavery. The Southern Democracy asserted as its paramount +principle the right of slave-holding wherever the flag flew, except +where the State constitution forbade. If that right was denied or +limited--by a majority in the Democracy, or by a majority in the +nation--then beware! + +The Douglas men met the threat with a defiance,--not wordy, but +resolute. In Charleston, the stronghold and citadel of the South, with +their leader absent, with the disruption of the party impending, they +stood their ground. The majority should rule, or they would know the +reason why! They decisively outvoted their opponents as to the platform. +Then the delegates from South Carolina and the Gulf States deliberately +and solemnly marched out of the hall, and organized a separate +convention. With that act the rift began to open which was to be closed +only after four years of war. + +With what expectation did the extreme South thus break up the party? Did +they believe that their Northern associates would again capitulate, as +they had done so often before? Failing that, did they not know that a +divided Democracy meant victory for the Republicans? and had they not +committed themselves in that event to dissolve the Union? Were they +deliberately courting disunion, and wilfully throwing away the large +chance of continued dominance within the Union which a united Democracy +might have? Did they really attach supreme importance to this dogma +about the territories, when Kansas had shown how inevitably the local +population must determine the question, even against the efforts of the +Federal Government? Did the Southern leaders prefer the election of a +Republican, their open opponent, to Douglas, their friend and half-ally? +To such questions as these there can be little more than a conjectural +answer. It would be most interesting to know the true thoughts and +purposes of the leading delegates. We shall see a little later the +interpretation given by one of their defenders. But the strong +presumption is that their action was the fruit less of a policy than of +a temper. They had long been growing into a disposition which could +brook no resistance and no contradiction. The irresponsible power of the +master over his slaves; the domination of the slave-holding class over +the local communities, and the expulsion of their opponents; the control +of the government by a united South over a divided North,--these things +had bred a self-confidence and self-assertion which would stop at +nothing. The slave-holding principle, in full flower, was a principle +which recked nothing of legal majorities or governments. Its basis was +force, and it would use whatever force was necessary to maintain itself. + +The Douglas Democrats were still patient. Left with the original +convention in their hands, they declined to press their advantage. The +traditional rule required a two-thirds vote to nominate; and it was +agreed that for this purpose the seats left vacant by the seceders must +be counted,--which would prevent the nomination of Douglas. +Administration men from the North had stayed in the convention when +their Southern friends left. The body adjourned, to meet in Baltimore in +the last of June. The rival convention met in Richmond only to adjourn +to the same time and place. But any hopes of reunion were vain. Neither +side would yield. In the regular convention, to some of the vacant seats +Douglas delegates had in the interim been chosen. They were admitted, +against the protest of the administration minority, who found in this a +pretext for withdrawing and joining the seceding convention. With these +went a majority of the Massachusetts delegates, including Benjamin F. +Butler and Caleb Cushing; Cushing had been president of the Charleston +body. The two conventions now made their respective nominations. With +Douglas was joined for Vice-President Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia. +The seceders nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky and Joseph Lane +of Oregon. Breckinridge was Vice-President under Buchanan; a man of +character and ability, of fine presence and bearing, a typical +Kentuckian, afterward a general in the Confederate service. + +Alexander H. Stephens in his _War Between the States_--perhaps the best +statement of the Southern side of the whole case that has ever been +made,--says that this secession from the party was made (against his own +judgment) not recklessly, nor to provoke disunion, but with the +expectation of electing Breckinridge. The calculation was that with four +Presidential candidates there would be no choice by the people, and, the +election being thrown into the House, Breckinridge would be chosen; or, +if the House could not choose, Lane would surely be elected by the +Senate. This, says Stephens, was the view of President Buchanan, of +Breckinridge, Davis and a great majority of the Charleston seceders. +Stephens himself considered this a most precarious and hazardous +calculation, wholly insufficient for so grave a step. So obviously sound +was this judgment, that we inevitably recur to the belief that the +Southern secession was inspired not by calculation, but by a temper of +self-assertion, which fitted its hopes to its wishes. + +The "Constitutional Union" party--legatee of the Whig and American +parties--held a convention at Baltimore in May; resolved simply for the +maintenance of the Union and Constitution and the enforcement of the +laws; and nominated John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of +Massachusetts. It was the refuge of those who disliked the whole +sectional controversy, and were indifferent to both pro-slavery and +anti-slavery claims in comparison with peace and union. It held a middle +position, geographically as well as in sentiment, and was strong in the +border States. + +The Republican convention met in Chicago in May. It was a more +sophisticated body than its predecessor of 1856; with less of youthful +and spontaneous enthusiasm for a principle, and more of keen maneuvering +for the candidates. But it represented a disciplined and powerful +party, clear and strong in its essential principles, and looking +confidently to a national victory as almost within its grasp. The +platform affirmed its familiar doctrines as to slavery, and threw out +various inviting propositions as to foreign immigrants, a homestead law, +a Pacific railroad, etc. The vote of Pennsylvania being important and +doubtful, a bait was thrown out in a high-tariff resolution. When a year +or two later the exigencies of the war demanded a large revenue, this +was obtained partly by a high tariff. In these circumstances originated +the Protectionist character of the Republican party; a character +confirmed by the natural alliance of the favored interests with the +favoring power. + +The most prominent and in a sense logical candidate was William H. +Seward. As Governor and then Senator of New York, as a polished and +philosophic orator, as a man whose anti-slavery and constitutional +principles were well understood,--he was easily in the popular estimate +the foremost man of the party. Lincoln was in comparison obscure; his +fame rested mainly on his achievements as a popular debater; he was +wholly unversed in executive work and almost equally so in legislation; +highly esteemed in his own State, but little known beyond its borders. +He had been proposed for the Presidency only a week before in the State +convention, with great hurrahing for "the rail-splitter," "honest old +Abe." It seemed hardly more than one of the "favorite son" candidacies +which every canvass knows in plenty. But he was supported by a group of +very skillful Illinois politicians. They worked up the local sentiment +in his favor; they filled the galleries of the Wigwam at daylight of +the decisive day, and they took quieter and effective measures. Simon +Cameron claimed to control the vote of Pennsylvania in the convention, +and a bargain was made with him that if Lincoln were elected he should +have a seat in the Cabinet. Lincoln was not a party to the compact, but +when informed of it afterward he reluctantly made good his part. The +same thing was done with the friends of Caleb B. Smith of Indiana, and +with a like sequel. + +Meantime, Seward met such difficulties as always beset the first +favorite in a race. The old alliance between Seward, Weed and Greeley, +had been broken, with anger and resentment on Greeley's part, and he was +now on the floor of the convention actively opposing his old ally. +William M. Evarts led the New York delegation for Seward. Edward Bates +of Missouri had some support, as more moderate than Seward in his +anti-slavery principles, but he was too colorless a candidate to draw +much strength. One of Seward's friends, in seeking to win over the Bates +men, declared that Lincoln was just as radical as Seward. A newspaper +containing this being shown to Lincoln, he penciled on the margin a +reply which was forwarded to his supporters, "Lincoln agrees with Seward +in his irrepressible-conflict idea, and in negro equality; but he is +opposed to Seward's higher law." The "irrepressible conflict" was the +exact counterpart of the "house divided against itself." "Negro +equality" marked a distinct advance since the Douglas debate two years +before, and such advance, gradual but steady, was characteristic of +Lincoln. It was no less characteristic of him to disclaim the "higher +law" doctrine,--an obligation recognized by the individual conscience as +paramount to all human enactments. Indeed Seward, though the phrase was +his, was as little an idealist of the individual conscience as was +Lincoln. + +Of the circumstances just mentioned, a part belongs to the undercurrents +which few spectators at the time discerned. What the crowd and the world +saw was three successive ballots. First, Seward, 173-1/2; Lincoln, 102; +Cameron, 50-1/2; Chase and Bates following close. Then Cameron's name +was withdrawn, and Lincoln shot up abreast of Seward. A third ballot, +and Lincoln went up, up till he touched the line of a clear majority. +Then the Wigwam roared; the guns boomed; in the first subsidence of the +cheering Evarts gallantly moved that the choice be made unanimous,--and +the tall, homely Illinois lawyer was the Republican candidate for the +Presidency. If the result was not without its illustrations of his own +definition of politics--"the combination of individual meannesses for +the general good,"--he at least had sacrificed nothing of his +convictions, had not worked for his own elevation, or smirched his +hands. And, unproved though he was as to administrative power and +seamanship in a cyclone, there was yet a singular and intrinsic fitness +in his candidacy. His recognized quality was that which is basal and +dear to the common people, honesty; honesty in thought, word and act. In +his convictions, he was near to the great mass of the party of freedom +as it actually was; frankly opposed to slavery, but reverent and +tenacious of the established order, even though it gave slavery a +certain standing-ground. He had, too, that intimate sympathy with the +common people, that knowledge of their thoughts and ways, that respect +for their collective judgment and will as the ultimate arbiter--which +are the essential traits in a great leader of democracy. + +In the four-sided canvass which followed, the lines were not strictly +geographical. The Republican party indeed took its Vice-Presidential +candidate from the North--Hannibal Hamlin of Maine; for no Southern man +was likely to invite exile or worse by taking the place; and the +Republican electoral tickets had no place or only a nominal one south of +Mason and Dixon's line, except in Missouri, where the emancipation idea +was still alive. But the three other parties contested with each other +in all the States. In Massachusetts, the Breckinridge party had as its +candidate for Governor the unscrupulous Butler; and among its +supporters was Caleb Cushing, erudite, brilliant, conscienceless, and a +pro-slavery bigot. At the South, the Douglas party had considerable +strength. The hot-heads who had split the Democracy and were ready to +divide the nation had by no means an undisputed ascendency. Stephens and +Toombs parted company; they headed respectively the Douglas and +Breckinridge electoral tickets in Georgia. Davis spent part of the +summer in privacy at the North; he saw enough to convince him that the +North would fight if challenged, but the warning was in vain. + +The special interest of the campaign centered in the menace of disunion. +The territorial question in itself had grown almost wearisome, and had +no immediate application. The fugitive slave law had fallen into the +background; renditions were so uncertain and dangerous that they were +seldom attempted. John Brown's foray was to the North a bygone affair, +with no dream of its repetition. The few promoters of his project had +shrunk back at the catastrophe; the mass of the people had always looked +on it as a crazy affair; and with personal sympathy or honor for him, +the raid was almost forgotten,--but the South could not so easily +forget. But the living and burning issue was the threat of secession if +Lincoln should be elected,--a threat made openly and constantly at the +South. The campaign was full of bitterness. "Black Republicans" was a +term in constant use. The violent language was not all at the South. +Cushing declared, when in the preceding autumn Massachusetts reëlected +Banks as governor, "A band of drunken mutineers have seized hold of the +opinion of this commonwealth--the avowed and proclaimed enemies of the +Constitution of the United States,"--with further hysteric talk about +the ship of state, with the pirate's flag at the masthead, drifting into +the gulf of perdition. The New York _Herald_ was full of wild and +inflammatory words. Papers of a different character--like the Boston +_Courier_, representative of the party which included Everett and +Winthrop--habitually charged the Republican party with John Brownism and +disunionism. The South not unnaturally believed that the North was +seriously divided, and could never hold together against its claims. But +most Northern people regarded the disunion threats as mere +gasconade,--meant only to carry an election, and then to be quietly +dropped. But if they were meant in earnest--well, there would be +something to be said, and done too, on the other side. + +Douglas, with almost no chance of success, made a bold and active +canvass. Through this year he showed a courage far higher than the mere +dexterity which had been his chief distinction before. In part, it was +an expression of a changing temper in the people. He stood openly and +stoutly for the principle of majority rule. While speaking at Wheeling, +Va., he was questioned as to whether he held that the election of +Lincoln would justify secession. He answered promptly that it would not, +and if secession were attempted, he would support a Republican President +in putting it down by force. That pledge to the country he redeemed, +when at the outbreak of the war he gave his immediate and full adherence +to President Lincoln,--representing and leading the "War Democrats" who +practically solidified the North, and insured its victory. At Wheeling, +he passed on the question answered by him for Breckinridge to answer. +But Breckinridge ignored the challenge,--a silence which was what the +lawyers call a "pregnant negative." + +November brought victory to the Republicans. In the popular vote, +Lincoln had about 1,860,000; Douglas, 1,370,000; Breckinridge, 840,000; +and Bell, 590,000. The electoral votes stood--or would have stood, if +the electoral conventions had all met--Lincoln, 180; Breckinridge, 72; +Bell, 39; Douglas, 12. Lincoln carried every Northern State except New +Jersey; Douglas, only part of New Jersey and Missouri; Bell, Virginia, +Kentucky and Tennessee; Breckinridge, all the rest of the South. The +successful candidate was thus in a popular minority,--no new thing. The +distinctively Southern candidate was doubly in a minority. The +supporters of Lincoln, Douglas and Bell, were all to be counted against +the extreme Southern claim, and much more against any assertion of that +claim by secession. Unitedly, their support outnumbered that of +Breckinridge by more than four to one. If ever a party was fairly and +overwhelmingly out-voted, it was the party whose central doctrine was +that slavery must be protected in the United States territories. + +Now the question was, would that party acquiesce in the decision of the +majority? At every previous election in the nation's history the +minority had acquiesced promptly and loyally. When Jefferson was +elected, New England looked on the new President as a Jacobin in +politics and an infidel in religion. But New England acquiesced without +an hour's hesitation. When Jackson was chosen, his opponents saw in him +a rude and ignorant demagog. But the anti-Jackson people accepted the +new President as they had accepted Monroe and Adams. In the choice of +Buchanan, the Republicans saw an assertion of the nationalism of +slavery, and a menace of the subjugation of Kansas. But the supporters +of Fremont recognized Buchanan as unhesitatingly as if he had been their +own choice. What was the meaning of popular government, except that the +minority should submit to the legitimate victory of the majority? On +what did the nation's existence rest, but the loyalty of its citizens to +the nation's self-determination in its elections? And now, would the +minority resist the decision of the majority? Would the Southern States +attempt to break up the Union? The North could not and would not +believe it. But there was a strong party at the South which was fully +convinced that the election of Lincoln was the crown of a series of +grievances which justified the South in withdrawing from the Union; that +such withdrawal was a clear constitutional right; and that the honor and +interest of the South demanded that it be made. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +FACE TO FACE + + +To understand the meaning of secession and the Civil War which followed +it, we must fathom the thoughts and feelings of the opposing parties. +Let us suppose two representative spokesmen to state their case in turn. + +Let the Secessionist speak first. The Secessionists were not at first a +majority of the people of the Southern States, but it was their view +which prevailed. What that view was we know certainly and from abundant +evidence,--the formal acts of secession, the speeches of the leaders in +Congress and at home, the histories since written by the President and +Vice-President of the Confederacy, and countless similar sources. This, +substantially, was the Secessionist's position:-- + +"This Union is a partnership of States, of which the formal bond is the +Constitution; the vital principle is the enjoyment by each section and +community of its rights; and the animating spirit is the mutual respect +and good-will of all members of the Union. The Northern people have +violated the provisions of the Constitution; they have infringed the +essential rights of the Southern communities, and threatened to invade +them still further; and they have displaced the spirit of mutual +good-will by alienation, suspicion, and hostility. The formal bond of +the Union being thus impaired, and its vital spirit lost, we propose +explicitly and finally to dissolve this partnership of States, and +reorganize our Southern communities in a new Confederacy. + +"We charge you of the North with explicit violation of the Constitution +in the matters of the territories, the Supreme Court and the fugitive +slaves. + +"You deny our right to carry a part of our property,--our unquestioned +property under the Constitution,--into the territories which belong +equally to the whole nation, and which have been acquired by our +treasure and our blood not less than by yours. You prevent slave-holders +from participating in the colonization of this domain, and thus +determine in advance that its future States shall exclude our +institutions. You thus unfairly build up a political preponderance, +which you use for the discouragement and injury of our industrial +system. + +"Against this wrong we have appealed to the Supreme Court, and secured +its express affirmation of the right to carry slave property, equally +with any other property, into the territories. This solemn decree of the +highest judicial authority you set at naught and defy. You say you will +reorganize the court and reverse the decision. You do not even wait for +that; you assume in party convention to reverse the mandate of the +Supreme Court. You not only contradict its declaration that slavery in +the territories is protected by the Constitution; you go farther, and +affirm that Congress has no authority to protect it there. + +"The Constitution affirms that fugitives from labor must be returned to +their masters. A Federal statute provides for such return. That statute +is not only decried by your orators and resisted by your mobs; it is +contravened and practically nullified by statutes in all the free +States. + +"These specific wrongs against us are inspired by a disposition which in +itself dissolves the bond of friendship between you and us,--a spirit of +open and avowed hostility to our social and industrial system. The Union +as our fathers established it, and as alone it has any value, is not a +thing of mere legalities,--it must be a true union of hearts and hands, +a spirit of mutual confidence and respect among the various communities +of one people. But for many years our most characteristic Southern +institution has been widely and loudly denounced among you as wicked and +inhuman. It has been proclaimed as 'the sum of all villainies.' We have +been held up to the reprobation of the world as tyrants and +man-stealers. Those at the North who disapproved of such abuse have +failed to silence or repress it. This denunciation has spread until +apparently it has won the preponderating sentiment of the North. A +national household in which we are thus branded as sinners and criminals +is no longer a home for us. + +"This hostility has borne its natural fruit in open attack. A peaceful +Virginia village has been assailed by armed men, its citizens shot down +while defending their homes, and the summons given for servile +insurrection with all its horrors. The leader in this crime, justly +condemned and executed under Virginia's laws, has been widely honored +throughout the North as a hero and martyr. By the light of that applause +we must interpret the real feeling of the North, and its probable future +course toward us. + +"The Presidential election has now been won by a party whose avowed +principle is the restriction of slavery, while its animating spirit is +active hostility to slavery. We cannot trust the Republican party in its +profession of respect for the Constitution. Even in its formal +declaration it ignores a Supreme Court decision, and advances a +revolutionary doctrine as to slavery in the territories. Its elected +candidate has declared that 'this government cannot endure permanently +half slave and half free.' The party's only reason for being is +opposition to slavery, and there is every probability that this +opposition will, with growing power and opportunity, be directed against +the system as it now exists in our Southern States. + +"The spirit of the American Union is dissolved already, when its chief +magistrate has been elected by the votes of one section and by a party +animated solely by hostility to the industrial and social system of the +other section. The formal bond of the Union can hereafter be only an +instrument to harass and destroy our liberties. We therefore propose +that that bond be at once and finally cancelled. It is and has been from +the beginning the right of any State to withdraw from the national +partnership at its own pleasure. We call on our brethren of the South to +take prompt action for the deliberate, legal and solemn withdrawal of +their States from the Union, and their organization in a new +Confederacy." + +So in effect spoke the leading spirits of the Gulf and Cotton States as +soon as Lincoln was elected in November, 1860. Less promptly, coming +only gradually into unison, but with growing clearness and emphasis, +spoke the dominant spirit of the North in the months between Lincoln's +election and inauguration. This in substance was the Northern reply to +the Secessionist:-- + +"We deny that we have violated the Constitution, that we have wronged +you, or that we intend to wrong you. We have taken no advantage of you +beyond the legitimate victories of political controversy. We are loyal +to the Constitution, and to that which is deeper and higher than the +Constitution,--the spirit of American nationality. + +"Taking up your specific charges,--the status of slavery in the various +territories has been debated and battled in Congress and among the +people for seventy years, and as now one decision and now another has +been reached it has been accepted by all until peaceably changed. For +six years past it has been the cardinal question in national politics. +Within that period three views have been urged,--that slavery goes by +natural and constitutional right into all the territories, that the +matter is to be settled in each territory by the local population, and +that slavery should be excluded by national authority from all the +territories. For this last view we have argued, pleaded, waited, until +at last the supreme tribunal of all--the American people in a national +election--has given judgment in our favor. + +"You cite the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court as establishing +slavery in the territories. But you wrest from that decision a force +which it does not legally carry. The best lawyers are with us as to +this. The court at the outset dismissed the case for want of +jurisdiction, because Dred Scott, being a negro, could not be an +American citizen, and therefore had no standing before the court. This +being said, the court by its own decision could go no farther with the +case. When a majority of the judges went on to discuss the status of +slavery in the territories,--as it might have come up if they had gone +on to try the case on its merits--they were uttering a mere _obiter +dictum_,--a personal opinion carrying no judicial authority. The attempt +to make these side-remarks a decisive pronouncement on the supreme +political question of the time is beyond law or reason. It is +preposterous that the court's incidental opinion, on a case which it had +disclaimed the power to try, should invalidate that exclusion of slavery +by national authority which had been affirmed by the great acts of 1787 +and 1820, and had been exercised for seventy years. + +"As to fugitive slaves, the Personal Liberty laws are designed to +safeguard by the State's authority its free black citizens from the +kidnapping which the Federal statute, with its refusal of a jury trial, +renders easy. If they sometimes make difficulty in the rendition of +actual fugitives,--you must not expect a whole-hearted acceptance of the +rôle of slave-catchers by the Northern people. You have the Federal +statute, and may take what you can under it,--but if under the bond +Shylock gets only his pound of flesh, there is no help for him. + +"Come now to your broader complaint, that the spirit of the Union has +been sacrificed by Northern hostility toward your peculiar institution. +True, you have had to put up with harsh words, but we have had to put up +with a harsh fact. You have had to tolerate criticism, but we have had +to tolerate slavery under our national flag. It is an institution +abhorrent to our sense of right. We believe it contrary to the law of +God and the spirit of humanity. We consider it unjust in its essential +principle, and full of crying abuses in its actual administration. Its +existence in one section of the Union is a reproach to us among the +nations of the earth, and a blot on the flag. Yet we so thoroughly +recognize that our national principle allows each State to shape its own +institutions that we have not attempted and shall not attempt to hinder +you from cherishing slavery among yourselves as long as you please. If, +for the vast and vital interests bound up with the unity of this nation, +we can tolerate the presence within it of a system we so disapprove, +cannot you on your part tolerate the inevitable criticism which it calls +out among us? + +"If mutual grievances are to be rehearsed, we have our full share. What +has become of the constitutional provision which guarantees to the +citizens of every State their rights in all the States? When black +seamen, citizens of our commonwealths, enter South Carolina ports, they +are thrown into jail or sold into slavery. If we send a lawyer and +statesman to remonstrate, he is driven out. Our newspapers are excluded +from your mails. You have extinguished free speech among your own +citizens. If the Republican party is sectional, it is because any man +who supports it, south of the Ohio, is liable to abuse and exile. You +have shaped our national policy in lines of dishonor. With your +Northern allies you have forced war on a weak neighbor and despoiled her +of territory. You have poured thousands of fraudulent voters into +Kansas, have supported their usurping government by Federal judges and +troops, and have tolerated the ruffians who harried peaceful settlers. +One of your congressional leaders has answered a senator's arguments by +beating him into insensibility, and you have honored and reëlected the +assailant. And now, when we have fairly won the day in a national +election, and for purposes peaceful, constitutional, and +beneficent,--you propose to break up the nation, and reorganize your +part of it expressly for the maintenance and promotion of slavery. + +"With such complaints on your part, and such complaints on ours, what is +the manly, the patriotic, the sufficient recourse? That which we offer +is that you and we, the whole American people, go forward loyally and +patiently with the familiar duties of American citizens. Let Time and +Providence arbitrate our controversies. Let us trust the institutions +under which for seventy years our nation has grown great; let us, now +and hereafter, acquiesce in that deliberate voice of the people which +our fathers established as the sovereign authority. For thirty years you +have had in the Presidency either a Southerner or a Northern man with +Southern principles,--and we acquiesced. Now we have chosen a genuine +Northerner,--will not you acquiesce? Four years ago the Presidential +contest was held on the same lines as this year; you won, and we +cheerfully submitted,--now we have won, will not you loyally submit? We +disclaim any attack on your domestic institutions. The invasion by John +Brown was repudiated by practically the entire North. Honor for a brave, +misguided man meant no approval of his criminal act. For the advance of +our distinctive principles,--inimical, we own, to your system of slave +labor,--we look only to the gradual conversion of individual opinion, +and to the ultimate acceptance by your own people of the principles of +universal liberty. We believe that civilization and Christianity must +steadily work to establish freedom for all men. On that ground, and in +that sense, do we believe that 'this government cannot permanently +endure half slave and half free.' Pending that advance, we propose only +to exclude slavery from the common domain; to tolerate slavery as +sectional, while upholding freedom as national. If you are still +dissatisfied, yet is it not better to bear the evils that we have than +fly to others that we know not of? Nay, do we not too well know, and +surely if dimly foresee, the terrific evils which must attend the +attempted disruption of this nation? + +"A nation it is, and not a partnership. A nation, one and inseparable, +we propose that it shall continue. We deny that the founders and fathers +ever contemplated a mere temporary alliance dissoluble at the caprice of +any member. To the Union, established under the Constitution, just as +earnestly as to the cause of independence, they virtually pledged 'their +lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.' With every year the +nation has knitted its texture closer, as its benefits increased and its +associations grew. A nation is something other than a pleasure party, or +a mutual admiration society,--it includes a principle of rightful +authority and necessary submission. The harmony vital to national unity +is not merely a mutual complacence of the members,--at its root is a +habitual, disciplined obedience to the central authority, which in a +democracy is the orderly expressed will of the majority. You cannot +leave us and we cannot let you go. And if you attempt to break the bond, +it is at your peril." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +HOW THEY DIFFERED + + +If the typical Secessionist and the typical Unionist, as just described, +could rally a united South and a united North to their respective views, +there was no escape from a violent clash. Whether the two sections could +be so united each in itself appeared extremely doubtful. But below these +special questions of political creed were underlying divergences of +sentiment and character between North and South, which fanned the +immediate strife as a strong wind fans a starting flame. There was first +a long-growing alienation of feeling, a mutual dislike, rooted in the +slavery controversy, and fed partly by real and partly by imaginary +differences. Different personal and social ideals were fostered by the +two industrial systems. The Southerner of the dominant class looked on +manual labor as fit only for slaves and low-class whites. His ideal of +society was a pyramid, the lower courses representing the physical +toilers, the intermediate strata supplying a higher quality of social +service, while the crown was a class refined by leisure and cultivation +and free to give themselves to generous and hospitable private life, +with public affairs for their serious pursuit. He regarded the +prominence of the laboring class in Northern communities as marking the +inferiority of their society, and in the absorption of the wealthier +class in trade he read a further disadvantage. The virtues he most +honored were courage, courtesy, magnanimity,--all that he delighted to +characterize as "chivalry." He was inclined to consider the North as +materialistic and mercenary, and even its virtues as based largely on +"honesty is the best policy." + +This low opinion was heartily reciprocated by the Northerner. He +believed the very foundation of Southern society to be injustice,--the +unpaid labor of the slave,--and the superstructure to correspond. He +looked on the slave-holders as cruel to their slaves and arrogant +toward the world at large, especially toward himself. The popular +opinion of slavery fastened on its abuses and ignored its mitigations. +On the average reader of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, Legree made a deeper +impression than St. Clare or Mrs. Shelby. + +Even the religious and intellectual life of the two sections had grown +unsympathetic and often antagonistic. The South held tenaciously to the +traditional orthodox theology. In the North there was free discussion +and movement of thought. Even the conservative Presbyterian church had +its New School and Old School; and in New England the Congregational +body was divided by the birth and growth of Unitarianism. At all this +turmoil the South looked askance, and was genuinely shocked by the +disintegration of the old creed. The North in turn looked with something +like suspicion, if not scorn, on a Christianity which used the Bible as +an arsenal to fortify slavery. The Northern brood of reforms and +isms,--wise, unwise, or fantastic,--moved the South to a hostility which +made little discrimination between the idealism of Emerson, the +iconoclasm of Parker, and the vagaries of "free love." The group of +literary lights,--Bryant, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Holmes, and +their compeers,--won Southern dislike by their hostility to slavery. The +South itself, singularly barren of original literature,--its prolific +new births in our own day are one of the most conspicuous fruits of +emancipation,--clung fondly to the classical and feudal traditions, and +hardly admitted any literary sovereign later than Scott and Byron. + +In a national union, as in marriage, there may be long continuance and +even substantial happiness in spite of many differences. So was it with +England and Scotland, so is it with Germany and with Italy. But in +slavery there was so profound an incompatibility with the fact and idea +of personal freedom as held by the American people at large, that the +inevitable opposition of the two systems was desperate almost beyond +cure. That opposition, and all the attendant circumstances of +divergence, were aggravated in their divisive effects by the extreme +bitterness of the foremost debaters on both sides. The very nature of +the subject tempted to vehement criticism, and defense of equal +vehemence. But there was a great aggravation of bitterness when, in the +van of the attack on slavery, the temper of Woolman and Lundy, of +Jefferson and Franklin and Channing, was replaced by the temper of +Garrison and his followers. Their violence inflamed alike the North and +the South, and, with the answering violence it provoked, worked the two +peoples into a largely false and unjust conception of each other's +character. The South's retort was no less passionate in words, while in +act it took form in expulsion of citizens and suppression of free +speech. Garrison's burning words, and the polished invective of +Phillips, live in literature; the wrath which answered them in Southern +orators and newspapers has left less of record; but on both sides the +work was effectually done of sowing mutual suspicion and hate. + +If only North and South could have known each other's best, as they knew +each other's worst! They were kept apart by the want of any stream of +migration between them, like that which united East and West, with the +resulting network of family connections and friendly intercourse. +Sometimes a Northern visitor, or an English traveler like Thackeray, saw +and appreciated the cultivated society of Charleston or Richmond, or +plantation life at its best,--a hospitable, genial, outdoor life, with +masters and mistresses who gave their best thought and toil to the care +of their servants. Sometimes a Southerner had a revelation like that of +General Zachary Taylor, when, looking from one of the heights in +Springfield, "the city of homes," on a landscape thick dotted with the +cheerful abodes of an industrial community, he exclaimed: "You can see +no such sight as that in a Southern State!" And always there were some +men and women who out of wide knowledge or a natural justice recognized +and loved the people of the whole land. But too frequently, in those +days, the Southerner saw in the North only a mass of plebeian laborers +excited by political and religious fanaticism; while the Northerner +looked south to a group of tyrannical and arrogant slaveholders lording +it over their victims. To the one, the typical figure of the North was +John Brown; to the other, the representative of the South was Brooks of +South Carolina. + +There were two other marked differences between the sections. The first +was the greater concentration of interest in the South on national +politics, and the leadership conceded to the political class. In the +North, the general occupation in laborious and gainful pursuits, +and the wide variety of social interests which competed for +attention,--education, reform, the debating society, the +town-meeting,--all acted to hold men in other fields than those of +national politics. The best brains were invited by commerce, the +factory, the railroad, the college, the laboratory, the newspaper,--as +well as by the Capitol. But to the Southern planter and his social +compeer no pursuit compared in attraction with the political field, and +above all the public life of the nation. The mass of the people, +especially in the country districts, found in the political meeting an +interest whose only rival was the camp-meeting. Besides, when the +burning political question was slavery, it came home to the business and +bosoms of the South, while to the North it was remote. And thus, when +the secession movement broke upon the land, the Southern people grasped +it with a concentration, energy, and response to their habitual leaders, +in strongest contrast to the surprise, hesitation, and division, which +at first characterized the North. + +And, as the last distinction to be here noted, one section was far more +habituated than the other to methods of physical force in private and +public affairs. It was an instance of this that the duel was in common +practice at the South up to the Civil War, while at the North it had +disappeared sixty years earlier, after the encounter of Burr and +Hamilton. At the South the street affray was common. There is a picture +of Southern life which ought to have a wide reading, in _Kate Beaumont_, +a story of South Carolina, written by J. W. De Forest, a Northerner and +a Union soldier. Its tone is sympathetic, and neither the negro nor the +sectional question plays a part. It portrays admirable and delightful +people; old Judge Kershaw is indeed "the white rose of South Carolina +chivalry," and the Beaumonts and McAllisters, with all their foibles, +are a strong and lovable group. But the pistol is the ready arbiter of +every quarrel; the duelist's code is so established that it can hardly +be ignored even by one who disapproves it; and the high-toned gentleman +is no whit too high for the street encounter with his opponent. Old-time +Southerners know how faithful is that picture. So, too, the Southern +people turned readily to public war. They supplied the pioneers who +colonized Texas and won by arms its independence of Mexico. They not +only supported the Mexican war by their votes, but many of the flower +of their youth enlisted for it. From their young men were recruited the +"filibusters" who, from time to time, tried to revolutionize or annex +Cuba or some Central American State. The soldier figured largely in the +Southern imagination. But the North inclined strongly to the ways of +peace. That is the natural temper of an industrial democracy. It is the +note of a civilization advanced beyond slavery and feudalism. And of the +moral leaders of the North, some of the foremost had been strong +champions of peace. Channing had pleaded for it as eloquently as he +pleaded for freedom. Intemperance, slavery, and war had been the trinity +of evil assailed by earnest reformers. Sumner had gone to the length of +proclaiming the most unjust peace better than the justest war,--an +extreme from which he was destined to be converted. Garrison and +Phillips, while their language fanned the passions whose inevitable +tendency is toward war, had in theory declared all warfare to be +unchristian. And, apart from sentiment or conviction, the industrial and +peaceful habit was so widely diffused that it was questionable how much +remained of the militant temper which can and will fight on good +occasion. The South rashly believed that such temper was extinct in the +North, and the North on its part doubted how far the vaunts of Southern +courage had any substance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +WHY THEY FOUGHT + + +Now, when the issue was about to be joined, let it be noted that +Secession based itself, in profession and in reality, wholly on the +question of slavery. There lay the grievance, and for that alone a +remedy was to be had even at the price of sundering the Union. Later, +when actual war broke out, other considerations than slavery came into +play. To unite and animate the South came the doctrine of State rights, +the sympathy of neighborhood, and the primal human impulse of +self-defense. But the critical movement, the action which first sundered +the Union and so led to war,--was inspired wholly and solely by the +defense and maintenance of slavery. The proposition is almost too plain +for argument. But it receives illustration from the great debate in the +Georgia Legislature, when Toombs advocated Secession and Stephens +opposed it. Toombs, evidently unwilling to rest the case wholly on +slavery, alleged three other grievances at the hands of the North--the +fishery bounties, the navigation laws, and the protective tariff. +Stephens easily brushed aside the bounties and navigation laws as bygone +or unimportant. As to the tariff, he showed that the last tariff law, +enacted in 1857, was supported by every Massachusetts member of Congress +and every Georgia member, including Toombs himself. What further he said +belongs to a later chapter. But he was unquestionably right, and all +rational history confirms it, that the one force impelling the South to +Secession was the imperilled interest of slavery. + +But the resistance which Secession encountered from the North was from +the outset other and wider than hostility to slavery. Anti-slavery +feeling was indeed strong in the Northern heart; the restriction of +slavery was the supreme principle of the Republican party; the +resentment that the national bond should be menaced in the interest of +slavery gave force to the opposition which Secession instantly aroused. +But, on the one hand, the extreme opponents of slavery, Garrison and his +followers, were now, as they had always been, willing and more than +willing that the South should go off and take slavery with it. And on +the other hand, the anti-secessionists of the nation included a +multitude, North and South, who were either friendly to slavery or +indifferent to it. Even of the Republican party the mass were more +concerned for the rights of the white man than of the black man. They +were impatient of the dominance of the government by the South, and +meant to unseat the Southern oligarchy from the place of power at +Washington. + +They intended that the territories should be kept for the free +immigrant, who should not be degraded by slaves at work in the next +field. Only a minority of the party,--though a minority likely in the +long run to lead it--looked with hope and purpose to ultimate +emancipation. And when the question of Secession was at issue by the +people's votes and voice, and had not yet come to the clash of arms, the +rights and interests of the slave fell into the background. The supreme +question of the time was felt to be the unity or the division of the +nation. + +The Secessionists' plea was in two clauses; that their States were +aggrieved by Northern action, and that they had a legal right to leave +the Union without let or hindrance. A double answer met them, from their +fellow-Southerners that it was impolitic to secede, and from the North +that secession was illegal, unpermissible, and to be resisted at all +costs. + +The Secessionists were fluent in argument that the framers of the +Constitution intended only a partnership of States, dissoluble by any at +will. However difficult to prove that the original builders purposed +only such a temporary edifice, there was at least ground for maintaining +that they gave no authority for coercing a State into obedience or +submission, and indeed rejected a proposal to give such authority. If +there were no legal or rightful authority to keep a State in the Union +by force, then for all practical purposes its right to go out of the +Union was established. But against that right, as ever contemplated by +the fathers, or allowable under the Constitution, there was strong +contention on legal and historic grounds. + +But deeper than all forensic or academic controversy was the substantial +and tremendous fact, that the American people had grown into a nation, +organic and vital. That unity was felt in millions of breasts, cherished +by countless firesides, recognized among the peoples of the earth. + +There had developed that mysterious and mighty sentiment, the love of +country. It rested in part on the recognition of material benefits. From +the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes to the Gulf, the tides of +commerce flowed free, unvexed by a single custom-house. The Mississippi +with its traffic united the Northern prairies and the Louisiana delta +like a great artery. Safety to person and property under the laws, +protection by an authority strong enough to curb riot or faction at +home, and with a shielding arm that reached wherever an American +traveler might wander,--these benefits rooted patriotism deep in the +soil of homely usefulness. And the tree branched and blossomed in the +upper air of generous feeling. Man's sympathy expands in widening +spheres, and his being enlarges as he comes into vital union, first +with wife and children, then successively with neighborhood, community, +country, and at last with humanity. The Russian peasant, in his +ignorance and poverty, or facing the foe in war, is sublimated by his +devotion to the White Czar and Holy Russia. Still more inspiring and +profound is the patriotism of a citizen whose nation is founded on equal +brotherhood. Deeper than analysis can probe is this passion of +patriotism. Gladstone characterized it well, when, writing in August, +1861, he recognized among the motives sustaining the Union cause, "last +and best of all, the strong instinct of national life, and the +abhorrence of Nature itself toward all severance of an organized body." + +This sentiment, though strained and weakened in the South, was still +powerful even in that section. This was especially true of the border +States, where slavery was of less account than in the Gulf and Cotton +States. The spirit of Clay was still strong in Kentucky, and was +represented by the venerable John J. Crittenden in the Senate. Of a like +temper was John Bell of Tennessee, Presidential candidate of the Union +and Constitutional party in 1860. From the same State Andrew Johnson, in +the Senate, stood for the sturdy and fierce Unionism of the white +laboring class. Virginia was strongly bound to the Union by her great +historical traditions. North Carolina, Missouri, and Arkansas were, +until the war broke out, attached to the Union rather than the Southern +cause. It was in the belt of States from South Carolina to Texas, in +which the planter class was altogether dominant, that the interest of +slavery, and the pride of class and of State, had gradually loosened the +bonds of affection and allegiance to the national idea. Calhoun himself +had been an ardent lover of the Union. The clash between the national +and sectional interests had been to him a tragedy. Nullification was his +device for perpetuating the Union while allowing its members relief +from possible oppression,--but nullification had failed, in fact as in +logic. + +Now the Secessionists went further than Calhoun had ever found occasion +to go. They proposed to break up the nation, at first by the withdrawal +of their separate States, to be followed by the organization of a +Southern Confederacy. Their grievance was the restriction of their +industrial system, and its threatened destruction, and the failure of +the Union to serve its proper ends of justice and fraternity. But they +wholly disclaimed any revolutionary action. They maintained that the +withdrawal of their States was an exercise of their strictly legal and +constitutional right. This is the plea which is insistently and +strenuously urged by their defenders. Their foremost actors in the +drama, Davis and Stephens, became at a later day its historians, not so +much to record its events, as to plead with elaboration and reiteration +that Secession was a constitutional right. But all their fine-spun +reasoning ran dead against a force which it could no more overcome than +King Canute's words could halt the tide,--the fact of American unity, as +realized in the hearts of the American people. + +The mass of men live not by logic, but by primal instincts and passions. +Where one man could explain why the nation was an indestructible +organism rather than a partnership dissoluble at will, a thousand men +could and would fight to prevent the nation from being dissolved. But +here and there on this planet is a man who must think things through to +the end, and have a solid reason for what he does. Such a man was +Abraham Lincoln. He never could rest contented till he had worked the +problem out clearly in his own head, and then had stated the answer in +words that the common man could understand. Such an answer to the whole +Secessionist argument, quite apart from the slavery question, he gave in +one brief paragraph of his inaugural. "There is no alternative for +continuing the government but acquiescence on the one side or the other. +If the minority in such a case will secede rather than acquiesce, they +make a precedent which in turn will ruin and divide them; for a minority +of their own will secede from them, whenever a majority refuses to be +controlled by such a minority. For instance, why not any portion of a +new Confederacy, a year or so hence, arbitrarily secede again, precisely +as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who +cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper +of doing this. Is there such perfect identity of interests among the +States to compose a new Union as to produce harmony only, and prevent +renewed Secession? Plainly, the central idea of Secession is the essence +of anarchy." That was the key-word of the situation, in the court of +reason and conscience,--"the central idea of Secession is the essence of +anarchy." + +The system which the Secessionists proposed to break up had a part of +its highest value in that very division of authority between State and +nation which gave them their pretext for a separation. The Federal plan +was the special contribution of America to the evolution of popular +self-government. Until that step had been taken, not only did the +practical difficulties of democracy increase enormously with the +increase of area and population, but a vast centralized democracy was +liable to be itself an oppressive despotism, as France has learned at +bitter cost. The Federal plan, like most other great advances, came not +as the conception of an ingenious brain, but from the growth of social +facts. The thirteen colonies started and grew as individual offshoots +from Great Britain. Under a common impulse they broke loose from the +mother-country; then, by a common necessity, they bound themselves +together in a governmental Union, each member retaining jurisdiction in +such affairs as were its special concern. The resulting Federal Union +was a combination of strength and freedom such as the world had never +seen. With this for its organic form, with its spiritual lineage drawn +from the Puritan, the Quaker and the Cavalier, with Anglo-Saxon stock +for its core, yet with open doors and assimilating power for all races, +and with a continent for its field of expansion,--the American people +became the leader and the hope of humanity. This was the nation which +the Secessionists proposed to rend asunder. + +All government implies a principle of authority, and requires the +occasional sacrifice of the individual's pleasure. The national bond has +one strand in mutual good-will, but another strand is personal +sacrifice, and another is stern command. The Union required some +sacrifices, not only of material price,--as when a man pays just taxes, +or acquiesces in a fiscal system which he considers unjust,--but +sacrifices sometimes even of moral sentiment. Lincoln, explaining his +position in 1855 to his old friend Speed, of Kentucky, repelled the +suggestion that he had no personal interest in slavery. He says that +whenever he crosses the border he sees manacled slaves or some similar +sight which is a torment to him. "You ought to appreciate how much the +great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings in order to +maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union." + +That acquiescence,--a costly sacrifice to the higher good; and the +typical attitude of the Republicans and the moderate anti-slavery +men,--seemed to Garrison and Phillips and their school a sinful +compliance with evil. The extreme Abolitionists, as much as the +extremists of the South, were opposed to the Union. They had no +comprehension of the interests and principles involved in the +preservation of the national life. One of the pleasant traits told of +Garrison's private life is this: He was fond of music, especially +religious music, but had little cultivation in that direction; and he +would sit at the piano and pick out the air of the good old hymn-tunes +with one hand, not knowing how to play the bass which makes a harmony. +That was typical of his mental attitude,--he knew and loved the melody +of freedom, but the harmony blended of freedom and national unity he did +not comprehend. + +The Southern disunionists finally carried their section, but the +Abolition disunionists never made the slightest approach to converting +the North. It was not merely that many at the North were indifferent to +slavery, while to the whole community its interest was remote compared +to what it was to the South. There was another reason for the failure of +the Northern disunionists. Among the class to whom the appeal for +freedom came closest home, the idealists, the men of moral conviction +and enthusiasm, were many to whose ideality and enthusiasm American +unity also spoke with powerful voice. Patriotism was more to them than a +material interest, more than an enlarged and glowing sentiment of +neighborhood and kinship,--it was devotion to moral interests of which +the national organism was the symbol and the agent. They saw, as Webster +saw, that "America is inseparably connected, fast bound up, in future +and by fate, with these great interests,"--of free representative +government, entire religious liberty, improved systems of national +intercourse, the spirit of free inquiry, and the general diffusion of +knowledge. They looked still higher than this,--they saw that America +rightly tended toward universal personal liberty, and full opportunity +and encouragement to man as man, of whatever race or class. That was +what America stood for to those moral enthusiasts whose sanity matched +their ardor. They saw that this ideal was still in the future, and that +progress might be slow and difficult, but they were pledged in their +souls to pursue it. And, with that purpose at heart, they were ready to +maintain the national unity at whatever cost. + +This was the composite and mighty force against which the Secessionists +unwittingly set themselves,--the love of country, strong alike in the +common people and the leaders, a love rooted in material interest and +flowering in generous sentiment; and beyond that the moral ideals which, +born in prophets and men of genius, had permeated the best part of the +nation. With this, too, went the preponderance of physical resources +which free labor had been steadily winning for the North. Judging even +in the interest of slavery, was it not wise to acquiesce in the +election, to remain under the safeguards with which the Constitution +surrounded slavery in the States, to have patience, and to make the best +terms possible with the forces of nature and society? So urged the +wisest counselors, like Stephens of Georgia. But men rarely act on a +deliberate and rational calculation of their interests. They are swayed +by impulse and passion, and especially by the temper and habit which +have become a second nature. The leaders in Secession acted in a spirit +generated by the very nature of slavery, and fostered by their long +defense of slavery. That genesis of the movement is all the more +impressive when we recognize the high personal character of its leaders, +and acquit them of conscious motives of personal ambition. Slavery was +their undoing. The habit of absolute control over slaves bred the habit +of mastery whenever it could be successfully asserted. There grew up a +caste, its members equal and cordial among themselves, but +self-assertive and haughty to all besides. They brooked no opposition at +home, and resented all criticism abroad. They misread history and +present facts, misconceived their place in the order of things, and set +themselves against both the finest and the strongest forces of the +time. When the political party which had been their most effective tool +became difficult to handle, they broke it in two. When they could no +longer rule the nation, they set out to sunder it. + +Thus, after forty-five years, we try to trace the springs of +action,--action which at the time moved swiftly, in cloud and storm and +seeming chaos. We have endeavored to see a little of how the men of the +North and of the South thought and felt. Now let us see what they did. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +ON NIAGARA'S BRINK--AND OVER + + +The election of Lincoln in November, 1860, found South Carolina +expectant and ready for action. The Legislature was in session, and +immediately ordered an election to be held December 6 for a convention +to meet December 17, and pass on the question of Secession. The action +of the convention was in no doubt. + +Governor Pettus of Mississippi summoned a group of leading men to +consider the question of immediate Secession. In the conclave the +principal opponent of instant action was Jefferson Davis. His grounds +were prudential; he knew that the arsenals, foundries, and military +supplies were chiefly at the North; he foresaw a long and bloody war; he +advised that further efforts be made at compromise, or at least that +united action of the South be insured. This counsel prevailed, and the +convention was deferred until mid-January. + +In the Georgia Legislature it was proposed that the question of +Secession be at once submitted to a popular vote. Toombs and Stephens +threw each his whole weight respectively for and against Secession. +Stephens has preserved his own speech in full. He emphasized the gravity +of the South's grievances, and the need of redress from the North if the +Union was to permanently endure. But he denied that the danger was so +pressing as to justify immediate Secession. He pointed out that Lincoln +would be confronted by a hostile majority in the Senate, the House and +the Supreme Court, and could not even appoint his Cabinet officers +except with the approval of a Senate in which his opponents outnumbered +his friends. He urged that it was wise to wait for some overt aggression +on the President's part before seceding. He dwelt on the immense +advantages the Union had brought to all sections. He showed (as in our +last chapter) that Toombs could allege no injuries except such as +affected slavery. Georgia's wealth had doubled between 1850 and 1860. "I +look upon this country," he said, "with our institutions, as the Eden of +the world, the paradise of the universe. It may be that out of it we may +become greater and more prosperous, but I am candid and sincere in +telling you that I fear if we yield to passion, and without sufficient +cause shall take that step, that instead of becoming greater or more +peaceful, prosperous and happy,--instead of becoming gods we will become +demons, and at no distant day commence cutting one another's throats." + +Stephen's counsel was that the State should hold a convention, that with +the other Southern States it should draw up a formal bill of complaint +as to the personal liberty laws and the like, and if the North then +refused redress, secede. But whatever the State should do, he would +accept its decision, since the only alternative was civil war within the +State. He succeeded in having the convention deferred till January, and +the other Gulf States took similar action, while Virginia called a +convention for February 13. + +With the tide of secession rising swiftly in the South, and surprise, +consternation, and perplexity at the North, Congress met in early +December. President Buchanan, in his message, following the advice of +his attorney-general, Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania,--both of them +honest and patriotic men, but legalists rather than statesmen--argued +that Secession was wholly against the Constitution, but its forcible +repression was equally against the Constitution. Thus encouraged, the +Southern leaders confronted the Republicans in Congress,--how far would +they recede, how much would they yield, to avert Secession? Naturally, +the Republicans were not willing to undo the victory they had just won, +or to concede the very principle for which they had fought. But in both +Houses large committees were appointed and the whole situation was +earnestly discussed. On all sides violence was deprecated; there was +general dread of disruption of the Union, general doubt of the +feasibility of maintaining it by force, and the wide wish and effort to +find some practicable compromise. + +But there was no hesitation on South Carolina's part. Her convention +passed, December 20, an Ordinance of Secession; a clear and impressive +statement of her complaints and the remedy she adopts. The Federal +compact has been broken; the personal liberty laws violate the +Constitution; the Northern people have denounced as sinful the +institution of slavery; they have elected a man who has declared that +"this government cannot permanently endure half slave and half free"; +they are about to exclude Southern institutions from the territories, +and to make the Supreme Court sectional. "All hope of redress is +rendered vain by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested +a great political error with the sanction of a more erroneous religious +belief." So, from a partnership of which the letter has been broken and +the spirit destroyed, South Carolina withdraws. + +The State was, at least on the surface, almost unanimous,--in Charleston +only the venerable James L. Petigru ventured to call himself a +Unionist,--and was in high heart and hope for its new venture. But, +facing the palmetto flags so gayly unfurled to the breeze, still floated +the Stars and Stripes over a little garrison in Fort Moultrie, commanded +by Major Anderson. His supplies were low; should aid be sent him? No, +said Buchanan timidly; and thereat Cass withdrew indignantly from the +Cabinet, to be replaced as Secretary of State by Black, while the +vigorous Edwin M. Stanton took Black's former place; and Buchanan's +courage rose a little. At the request of the South Carolina authorities, +Floyd, the Secretary of War, had ordered Anderson to act strictly on the +defensive. Finding himself at the mercy of his opponents on the +mainland, he quietly withdrew his handful of men, on the night of +December 26, to Fort Sumter, whose position on an island gave +comparative security. The South Carolinians instantly occupied Fort +Moultrie and Castle Pinckney, and took possession of the custom-house +and post-office. They cried out against Anderson's maneuver as a breach +of good faith, and Secretary Floyd resigned, in sympathy with the +Carolinians. The President, heartened by his new counselors, dispatched +the steamer _Star of the West_ with supplies for Anderson, but she was +fired on by the South Carolinians and turned back, January 9. Resenting +the President's act, Thompson of Mississippi and Thomas of Maryland left +his cabinet. The President brought in General Dix of New York; Joseph +Holt, now Secretary of War, was a Southern loyalist, and in its last +months Buchanan's Cabinet was thoroughly Unionist. But in him there was +no leadership. + +Leadership was not wanting to the Secessionists. A movement like theirs, +once begun and in a congenial atmosphere, advances like a glacier by its +own weight, but with the pace not of the glacier but of the torrent. In +the country at large and at Washington there was confusion of counsels. +There was manifest disposition among the Republicans to go a long way in +conciliation. Of forcible resistance to Secession there was but little +talk. But that the Republicans should disown and reverse the entire +principles on which their party was founded was out of the question. On +the night of January 5 there met in a room at the Capitol the Senators +from Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and +Texas. They agreed on a common program, and telegraphed to their homes +that Secession was advisable at the January conventions and that a +common convention was to be held at Montgomery, Ala., in mid-February, +for the organization of the Southern Confederacy. Meantime, all United +States officials were to resign, and the Federal forts, arsenals and +custom-houses were to be seized. + +A last formal presentation of the Southern ultimatum was made by Toombs +in the Senate. It was the familiar demand--slavery in the territories; +slavery under Federal protection everywhere except in the free States; +fugitives to be returned; offenders against State laws to be surrendered +to justice in those States; inter-State invasion and insurrection to be +prohibited and punished by Congress. No partial concessions would +answer: this, or nothing! "Nothing be it then!" was the answer of the +Republicans: and Toombs, Davis, and their associates bade a stern and +sad farewell to their fellow-congressmen and went home to organize the +Confederacy. Congress took up fresh plans for reconciliation and +reunion. + +Mississippi, through its convention, seceded January 9, 1861. Florida +followed, January 10, and Alabama, January 11. Then, in the great +"keystone State" of Georgia, came deliberation and momentous debate. +Against immediate Secession, the policy of patience, of conference with +the other Southern States including the new "independent republics," and +a united remonstrance to the North, of which the rejection would justify +Secession,--this policy was embodied in a resolution presented by +Herschel V. Johnson and supported by all the eloquence and +persuasiveness of Stephens. Against him was the strong personal +influence of Howell Cobb, and the argument--which Stephens says was +decisive,--"we can make better terms out of the Union than in it." The +test vote was 164 to 133 for immediate Secession. On the motion of +Stephens the action was made unanimous. This accession of Georgia marked +the triumph of the Secessionists' cause; and most fitly, in a speech on +the evening of the same day, Stephens declared the fundamental idea of +that cause. Jefferson, he said, and the leading statesmen of his day, +"believed slavery wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically +... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the +assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy +foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the storm came +and the wind blew. Our new government is founded upon exactly the +opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon +the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that +slavery--subordination to the white race--is his natural and normal +condition. This, our new government, is the first in the history of the +world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." + +The Louisiana convention voted to secede January 26, and Texas February +1. The seven seceded States sent delegates to a convention which met at +Montgomery, February 4. They quickly organized the Confederate States of +America, with a Constitution closely resembling that of the United +States. One article forbade the foreign slave trade, except that with +"the United States of America," which was left subject to Congress. +Davis was elected President, by general agreement. He was clearly marked +for the place by ability, by civil and military experience, by +unblemished character, and by his record as a firm but not extreme +champion of the Secessionist cause. He disclaimed any desire for the +office, preferring the position which Mississippi had given him as +commander of her forces, but when the summons came to him at his +plantation home he promptly accepted. Stephens was chosen +Vice-President, in spite of his late and half-hearted adherence, to +conciliate Georgia and the old Whigs. In the Cabinet the leading figures +were Toombs of Georgia and Benjamin of Louisiana. + +With this purposeful, swift, and effective action, Secession seemed to +have reached its limit. The other Southern States held back. Among the +plain folk, not over-heated about politics, there was wide +disinclination to any such extreme measure as disunion. It was well +represented by Robert E. Lee, in whom the best blood and worthiest +tradition of Virginia found fit exemplar. He wrote to his son, January +23: "Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our +Constitution never expended so much labor, wisdom and forbearance, in +its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if +it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at +will." + +North Carolina voted against a convention by 1,000 majority. Tennessee +voted against it by 92,000 to 25,000. Arkansas postponed action till +August. Missouri held a convention which voted not to secede. In +Maryland the governor would not convene the Legislature, and an +irregular convention took no decisive action. Delaware did nothing. +Virginia held a convention, which was not ready for Secession, but +remained in session watching the course of events. The Kentucky +Legislature refused to call a convention, but pledged assistance to the +South in case of invasion. + +This last declaration illustrated the second line of defense, behind the +Secessionist advance. The sentiment was general throughout the South, +even among Unionists, that there must be no armed repression of +Secession. It rested partly on the theory of State Sovereignty, and +partly on the sympathy of neighborhood and of common institutions. Even +at the North there was wide disinclination to the use of force against +the Secessionists. The venerable General Scott, chief of the Federal +Army, gave it as his personal opinion that the wise course was to say, +"Wayward sisters, depart in peace." The New York _Tribune_, foremost of +Republican newspapers, declared: "If the cotton States wish to withdraw +from the Union, they should be allowed to do so." "Any attempt to compel +them to remain by force would be contrary to the principles of the +Declaration of Independence, and to the fundamental ideas upon which +human liberty is based." And again: "We hope never to live in a Republic +whereof one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets." Such +expressions were not uncommon among Republicans, and very frequent among +Democrats. Garrison and Phillips were loud in welcoming a separation. +But there were leaders like Wade of Ohio and Chandler of Michigan, whose +temper was very different, and ominous that the West would never consent +to a disruption of the nation. + +The governor of Virginia invited all the States to send delegates to a +Peace congress to find means to save the Union. Almost all sent +delegates, and the congress held long sessions, while the Senate and +House were essaying the same task. Little result came in either body, +because neither party would accept the other's concessions. The favorite +measure was that known as the Crittendon compromise, framed by the +Kentucky senator, of which the central feature was the extension of the +old Missouri compromise line of 36 degrees 30 minutes to the Pacific, +with express provision that all territory north of this should be free +and all south should be slave. To this the Republicans would not +consent, but they went far toward it by agreeing to a plan proposed by +Charles Francis Adams of Massachusetts,--that New Mexico (including all +present territory south of 36 degrees 30 minutes except the Indian +territory), be admitted as a State with slavery if its people should so +vote. They offered also to admit Colorado, Nevada, and Dakota as +territories, with no express exclusion of slavery. But neither side +would leave to the other the possible future extension to the South--in +Mexico and Cuba. Further, the Republicans showed a willingness to amend +the Personal Liberty laws, so far as they might be unconstitutional, and +to provide for governmental payment for fugitives who were not returned. +They expressed entire readiness to unite in a national convention for +the revision of the Constitution. And finally there was not only +proposed, but actually passed by the Senate and House, by two-thirds +majorities, at the very end of the session, a constitutional amendment +prohibiting any future amendment that should authorize Congress to +interfere with slavery in the States where it existed. + +In vain, all,--in vain for the Republicans to hold out the olive branch, +to mutilate their own principles, and to bar the door against any +ultimate constitutional abolition of slavery. Even the slave States +still in the Union were not to be satisfied by all this, and the +Confederacy gave it no heed. And now, in the background, was visible a +rising force, in which the temper was far other than compromise. The +most significant voice came from Massachusetts. After all the old +antagonism of Massachusetts and South Carolina,--after the clash of +Calhoun and Hayne with Webster, the expulsion of Samuel Hoar, the +assault of Brooks on Sumner,--the two commonwealths stood forth, each +the leader of its own section. It was a hostility which sprung from no +accident, and no remembrance of old feuds, but from the opposition of +two types of society, the oligarchic idea most fully developed in South +Carolina, the industrial democracy in Massachusetts. The new Governor of +the State was John A. Andrew, a man of clear convictions, a great heart, +and a magnanimous temper. His New Year's message to the Legislature +opened with a businesslike discussion of the State's finances and other +materialities. Thence he passed to national affairs; he defended the +Personal Liberty law, of which his more conservative predecessor, +Governor Banks, had advised the repeal, but which Andrew justified as a +legitimate defense against kidnapping; while suggesting that whatever +slaves South Carolina had lost from this cause were offset by +Massachusetts black seamen enslaved in her ports. Then he took up the +matter of disunion. "The question now is, Shall a reactionary spirit, +unfriendly to liberty, be permitted to subvert democratic republican +government organized under constitutional forms?... The men who own and +till the soil, who drive the mills, and hammer out their own iron and +leather on their own anvils and lapstones ... are honest, intelligent, +patriotic, independent, and brave. They know that simple defeat in an +election is no cause for the disruption of a government. They know that +those who declare that they will not live peaceably within the Union do +not mean to live peaceably out of it. They know that the people of all +sections have a right, which they intend to maintain, of free access +from the interior to both oceans, and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, +and of the free use of all the lakes and rivers and highways of +commerce, North, South, East and West. They know that the Union means +peace and unfettered commercial intercourse from sea to sea and from +shore to shore; that it secures us against the unfriendly presence or +possible dictation of any foreign power, and commands respect for our +flag and security for our trade. And they do not intend, nor will they +ever consent, to be excluded from these rights which they have so long +enjoyed, nor to abandon the prospect of the benefits which humanity +claims for itself by means of their continued enjoyment in the future. +Neither will they consent that the continent shall be overrun by the +victims of a remorseless cupidity, and the elements of danger increased +by the barbarizing influences which accompany the African slave trade. +Inspired by the ideas and emotions which commanded the fraternization of +Jackson and Webster on another great occasion of public danger, the +people of Massachusetts, confiding in the patriotism of their brethren +in other States, accept this issue, and respond in the words of Jackson, +'The Federal Union, it must be preserved.'... We cannot turn aside, and +we will not turn back." + +The crowded, anxious, hurrying months, brought the 4th of March, and +Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as President. His speeches on his way to +the capital,--pacific, reassuring, but firm for national unity and +liberty,--had in a degree brought him into touch with the mass of the +people. But when his gaunt and homely form rose to deliver the inaugural +address, it was as a little-known and untried man that he was heard. +That speech gave signal that the man for the hour had come. No words +could better describe its quality than "sweet reasonableness";--that, +and unflinching purpose. He began by earnest reassurances as to the +fidelity to the Constitution of himself and the party behind him. He +suggested the means and temper by which mutual grievances might be +approached. Then in his clear, logical fashion, and in the plain speech +of the common man, he showed that the Union is in its nature +indissoluble, older than the Constitution, unaffected by any attempted +Secession. His own official, inevitable duty is to maintain the Union. +But there need be no bloodshed or violence. "The power confided to me +will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places +belonging to the government, and collect the duties and imports; but +beyond what may be necessary for these objects there will be no +invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere." If +resident citizens will not hold Federal offices, there is to be no +intrusion of obnoxious strangers. The mails will be furnished wherever +they are wanted. "So far as possible the people everywhere shall have +that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought +and reflection." This will be his course unless events shall compel a +change. And then follows a most calm, rational, moving plea against +sacrificing a great, popular, orderly self-government, to individual +caprice or fancied wrongs; a demonstration, irresistible as mathematics, +that "the central idea of Secession is anarchy." "Unanimity is +impossible, the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is +wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy +or despotism in some form is all that is left." In the address there is +not one word of heat or bitterness; it is all in the spirit of his words +spoken in private, "I shall do nothing maliciously,--the interests I +deal with are too vast for malicious dealings." + +He does not belittle the complaints of the South, but pleads for mutual +forbearance. If there are defects in the organic framework of the +nation, let them be discussed and amended if necessary in a +constitutional convention. No justice can be done to this inaugural in a +condensation; it should be studied line by line; it is one of the great +classics of American literature and history. Thus he ended: "I am loth +to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. +Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of +affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every +battlefield and patriot's grave to every living heart and hearthstone +all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when +again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our +nature." + +Through the weeks that followed, Lincoln was plunged in a sea of +perplexities, while the nation seemed weltering in chaos, with nothing +clear but the steady purpose of the Confederate leaders to maintain +their position and achieve complete independence by the shortest road. +Lincoln had formed a Cabinet including some very able and some ordinary +men, with one--Seward--of highest promise and at first of most +disappointing performance. He regarded himself as the real power in the +administration; he underrated alike the gravity of the situation and the +President's ability to cope with it; he trusted to conciliation and +smooth assurance; and he tried to take the reins of control into his own +hands--an attempt which Lincoln quietly foiled. The President and his +Cabinet were as yet strangers to each other. In the Senate (the House +was not in session), Douglas assailed the President's position, and +declared three courses to be open: Constitutional redress of the South's +grievances; the acceptance of Secession; or its forcible +repression,--the first the best, the last the worst. Three commissioners +of the Confederacy were in Washington, refused official recognition, but +holding some indirect intercourse with Seward, which they apparently +misunderstood and exaggerated. A swarm of office-seekers, like Egyptian +locusts, beset the President amid his heavy cares. The border States, +trembling in the balance, called for the wisest handling. Heaviest and +most pressing was the problem what to do with Fort Sumter. Closely +beleaguered, with failing supplies, it must soon fall unless relieved. +Almost impossible to relieve or save it, said the army officers; easy to +slip in supplies, contradicted the naval officers. Leave Sumter to fall +and you dishearten the North, urged Chase and Blair in the Cabinet; +answered Seward, Reinforce it, and you provoke instant war. + +Lincoln answered the question in his own way. He was true to the +principle he had laid down in his inaugural,--to maintain the essential +rights of the national government, but with the least possible exercise +of force. He would "hold, occupy, and possess the property and places +belonging to the government, and collect the duties and imports"--that +and nothing more. Practically the only "property and places" now left to +the government at the South were Forts Sumter and Pickens. To yield them +without effort was to renounce the minimum of self-assertion he had +reserved to the nation. + +As to the means of supply, he had recourse to the best instrument that +offered,--a scheme proposed by Captain Fox, an energetic naval officer, +who planned a relief expedition of five vessels to be privately +dispatched from New York and try to run past the batteries. The +expedition was quickly fitted out and sent, in early April. According to +promise, in case of any such action, notice was telegraphed to the +Governor of South Carolina. He communicated with the Confederate +government at Montgomery. That government was bent on maintaining, +without further debate, its full sovereignty over the coasts and waters +within its jurisdiction. There is no need to impute a deliberate purpose +to rouse and unite the South by bloodshed, any more than there is reason +to impute to Lincoln a crafty purpose to inveigle the South into +striking the first blow. Each acted straight in the line of their open +and avowed purpose,--Lincoln, to retain the remaining vestige of +national authority at the South; the Confederacy, to make full and +prompt assertion of its entire independence. + +Orders were telegraphed from Montgomery, and General Beauregard, +commanding the Charleston forces, sent to Major Anderson a summons to +surrender. It was rejected; and the circle of forts opened fire and +Sumter fired back. The roar of those guns flashed by telegraph over the +country. In every town and hamlet men watched and waited with a tension +which cannot be described. All the accumulated feeling of months and +years flashed into a lightning stroke of emotion. All day Friday and +Saturday, April 12, 13, men watched the bulletins, and talked in brief +phrases, and were conscious of a passion surging through millions of +hearts. Saturday evening came the word,--the fort had yielded. After a +thirty-four hours' fight, overmatched, the expected relief +storm-delayed, his ammunition spent, his works on fire, Anderson had +capitulated. + +There was a Sunday of intense brooding all over the land. Next morning, +April 15, came a proclamation from the President. The laws of the United +States, it declared, were opposed and their execution obstructed in +seven States, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the +ordinary course of judicial proceedings; and the militia of the States, +to the number of 75,000 were called to arms for three months to suppress +the combinations and cause the laws to be duly executed. + +The North rose as one man to the call. Party divisions were forgotten. +Douglas went to the President and pledged his support. Regiments from +Pennsylvania and Massachusetts hurried to the capital. Every Northern +State hastened to fill its assigned quota of militia. No less promptly +the South rallied to defend the seceding States from invasion. The +Virginia convention voted Secession two days after the President's +proclamation, and the people's vote ratified it by six to one. North +Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas joined the Confederacy. Maryland, +Kentucky, and Missouri, wavered and were distracted, but as State +organizations remained in the Union, while their populations divided. + +Constitutional logic, argumentation, distinctions between holding the +national property and invasion, all vanished in the fierce breath of +war. Between union and disunion, argument was exhausted, and the issue +was to be tried out by force. In a day a great peaceful people resolved +itself into two hostile armies. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE CIVIL WAR + + +At the outbreak of war, what the Northerner saw confronting him was an +organized attempt to overthrow the government and break up the nation in +the interest of slavery. This as the essential fact took form in the +circle of fire let loose on a beleaguered fort, and the Stars and +Stripes lowered before an overwhelming force. Close following came the +menace against the national capital, for Washington was believed to be +in imminent peril. A Massachusetts regiment marching to its relief was +assailed by the populace of Baltimore; communication was cut; and the +city which was the centre and symbol of the national life seemed +stretching her hands in appeal to the country's faithful sons. To the +conscience, the heart, the imagination of the North, it was a war of +national self-defense,--a holy war. + +What the Southerner saw was an attempt to crush by force a legitimate +exercise of the right of sovereign States to an independent existence. +The typical Southerner, whether he had thought Secession expedient or +not, believed that each State was the rightful judge of its own course, +that the citizen's first allegiance was due to his State; and that the +attempt at coercion was as tyrannical as the refusal by Great Britain of +independence to the American colonies. And, apart from all political +theories, there instantly loomed on the horizon the armies of the North, +bearing down with fire and sword on the people of the Southern States. +The instinct of self-defense, and the irresistible sympathy of +neighborhood and community, prompted to resistance. Beyond doubt, the +typical Southern volunteer could say in all sincerity, as one of them +has expressed it: "With me is right, before me is duty, behind me is +home." + +So natural and profound was the motive on each side, when the war began. +Wholly different from the moral responsibility of those who initiated +Secession, is the case of those who afterward fought for what to each +side was the cause of home and country. But, driven though both parties +felt themselves to war, none the less terrible was the war in itself. +There are difficulties from which the only escape is through disaster. +John Morley writes: "It is one of the commonest of all cheap +misjudgments in human affairs, to start by assuming that there is always +some good way out of a bad case. Alas for us all, this is not so. +Situations arise, alike for individuals, for parties, and for States, +from which no good way out exists, but only choice between bad way out +and worse." For the American people, in the situation into which by sins +of commission and omission they had been brought, the only way out was +one of the worst ways that human feet can travel. + +It does not belong to this work to give a history of the Civil War. But +a truthful history might be written in a very different vein from the +accepted and popular narratives. These for the most part describe the +conflict in terms resembling partly a game of chess and partly a +football match. We read of grand strategic combinations, of masterly +plans of attack and admirable counter-strokes of defense. On the +battlefield we hear of gallant charges, superb rushes of cavalry, +indomitable resistance. Our military historians largely give us the +impression of man in battle as in the exercise of his highest powers, +and war as something glorious in the experience and heart-thrilling in +the contemplation. + +But a succinct account of the whole business would be to say that for +four years the flower of the country's population were engaged in +killing each other. All other industries were overshadowed by the +occupation of human slaughter. Shop and farm, church and college, school +and home, all were subsidiary to the battlefield. + +The battlefield itself is not easily conceived by the civilian, even +with the aid of poets and story-tellers from Homer to Kipling. The +reader, who has perhaps never seen a shot fired in anger, may have +chanced to witness a man struck down in the street by a falling beam or +trampled by a runaway horse. Or, as a better illustration, he may +remember in his own case some hour of sudden and extreme suffering,--a +hand caught by a falling window, a foot drenched by scalding water. +Intensify that experience, extend it through days, for the home couch +and the nursing of mother or wife put the bare ground and the onrush of +hostile men,--and you have the nucleus, the constituent atom, of a +battle. Multiply it by hundreds or thousands; give to each sufferer the +background of waiting parents, wife, children, at home; give to a part +death, swift or agonizing; to another part lifelong infirmity or +irritation,--and you begin to get the reality of war. + +It was Wellington who said that the worst sight on earth, next to the +field of defeat, was the field of victory. It was Lee who wrote from +Mexico to his son: "You have no idea what a horrible sight a +battle-field is." And he said that the strongest memory left from his +first battle was the plaintive tone of a little Mexican girl whom he +found leaning over a wounded drummer-boy. + +Men not only witness such carnage but inflict it, in the excitement of +battle, because animated by feelings of which only a part can rightly be +called heroic. Honor indeed is due to the subordination of personal fear +to the sense of duty and comradeship,--yes, high honor; and the appeal +of the soldier to the imagination, as a type of self-sacrifice and +nobility, has its element of truth. But the ordinary courage of the +battle-field is largely an excitement half-animal, half-contagious, +running often into savagery and insensate fury. In that situation the +highest and lowest elements in man come into play. For the most part +only the highest is portrayed for us by the historians and +romancers,--they keep the wild beast and the devil out of sight. Only in +these later days, when mankind begins to scrutinize its boasted glories +more closely, do Tolstoi in literature and Verestchagin in art give us +glimpses of the grim reality. + +An industry which has murder for its main output will have some +by-products to match. In the armies of both sides the human stuff was of +mixed character and motive. Some enlisted from pure patriotism,--for +Union, State, or Confederacy; some from thirst of adventure; others for +ambition; others for the bounty or under compulsion of the conscription +officer; many from the mere contagious excitement. Army life always +brings to many of its participants a great demoralization. Take away the +restriction of public opinion in a well-ordered community, take from men +the society of good women, and there will be a tendency to barbarism. A +civilized army has indeed a code and public opinion of its own, which +counts for some sterling qualities, but it is lax and ineffective for +much that goes to complete manhood. Just as the war left a host of +maimed and crippled, so it left a multitude of moral cripples. At the +reunion, around the "camp fire," with the reminiscences of stirring +times and the renewal of good comradeship runs a vein of comment which +the newspapers do not relate. "What's become of A.?" "Drank himself to +death." "And where is X.?" "Never got back the character he lost in New +Orleans,--went to the dogs." It is a chronicle not recorded on the +monuments, but remembered in many a blighted household. The financial +debt the war left behind it was not the heaviest part of the after-cost. + +Nor must there be forgotten the temper which war begets, of mutual hate +between whole peoples. Forty years later we bring ourselves,--some of +us, and in a measure,--to see that our opponents of either side had some +justification or some excuse; that they perhaps were honest as we. But +little room was there for such mutual forbearance of judgment while the +fight was on. For the average man, for most men, to fight means also to +hate. While the contest lasted, Northerners habitually spoke of their +foes as "the rebels,"--not in contumely, but as matter-of-fact +description. They were "rebels" in common speech, and when one warmed a +little they were "traitors." Good men said that now for the first time +they saw why the imprecatory Psalms were written,--theirs was the only +cursing strong enough for the country's enemies. Quite as hearty was the +South's detestation of the Yankee invaders and despots,--the fanatics +and their hired minions. The Southern feeling took the keener edge, +because sharpened by the bitter fact of invasion and the hardships it +brought. With them the home suffered, not only as at the North, by the +departure of father or son to danger or death; the Southern homes often +saw the foes in their midst, and sometimes suffered ravage and spoil. +"How can you expect me to be well reconstructed," asked a Virginian +after the war, "When I remember the family vaults in which the silver +plates were wrenched from the coffins by your soldiers?" When the +fighting was over, the life of the reunited nation had to work its way +for a generation,--and the end is not yet,--against the hostilities, the +rancors, the misunderstandings, generated in those four years of +strife. + +The reality of war where it fell heaviest,--in the border States, where +neighborhoods and families were divided, and both armies marched and +fought,--is touched by the graphic pen of a woman, Mrs. Rebecca Harding +Davis, who saw and felt a part of it: "The histories which we have of +the great tragedy give no idea of the general wretchedness, the squalid +misery, which entered into every individual life in the region given up +to the war. Where the armies camped the destruction was absolute. Even +on the border, your farm was a waste, all your horses or cows were +seized by one army or the other, or your shop or manufactory was closed, +your trade ruined. You had no money; you drank coffee made of roasted +parsnips for breakfast, and ate only potatoes for dinner. Your nearest +kinsfolk and friends passed you on the street silent and scowling; if +you said what you thought you were liable to be dragged to the county +jail and left there for months. The subject of the war was never +broached in your home where opinions differed; but one morning the boys +were missing. No one said a word, but one gray head was bent, and the +happy light died out of the old eyes and never came to them again. Below +all the squalor and discomfort was the agony of suspense or the +certainty of death. But the parsnip coffee and the empty purse certainly +did give a sting to the great overwhelming misery, like gnats tormenting +a wounded man." + +Visiting in war-time the sages of Concord, she saw the difference +between war as viewed by visionaries at a distance and the reality: "I +remember listening during one long summer morning to Louisa Alcott's +father as he chanted pæans to the war, the 'armed angel which was +wakening the nation to a lofty life unknown before.' We were in the +little parlor of the Wayside, Mr. Hawthorne's house in Concord. Mr. +Alcott stood in front of the fire-place, his long gray hair streaming +over his collar, his pale eyes turning quickly from one listener to +another to hold them quiet, his hands waving to keep time with the +orotund sentences which had a stale, familiar ring as if often repeated +before. Mr. Emerson stood listening, his head sunk on his breast, with +profound submissive attention, but Hawthorne sat astride of a chair, his +arms folded on the back, his chin dropped on them, and his laughing, +sagacious eyes watching us, full of mockery. + +"I had come up from the border where I had seen the actual war; the +filthy spewings of it; the political jobbery in Union and Confederate +camps; the malignant personal hatreds wearing patriotic masks, and +glutted by burning homes and outraged women; the chances in it, well +improved on both sides, for brutish men to grow more brutish, and for +honorable gentlemen to degenerate into thieves and sots. War may be an +armed angel with a mission, but she has the personal habits of the +slums. This would-be seer who was talking of it, and the real seer who +listened, knew no more of war as it was, than I had done in my +cherry-tree time, when I dreamed of bannered legions of crusaders +debouching in the misty fields." + +The youth who reads may ask in wonder, "And was then the war to which we +have been used to look back with exultation and pride,--was it but a +horror and a crime?" No; it was something other and more than that; it +had its aspects of moral grandeur and of gain for humanity; it was a +field for noble self-sacrifice, for utmost striving of men and deepest +tenderness of women, it had its heroes and martyrs and saints; it was in +the large view the tremendous price of national unity and universal +freedom. But in the exaltation of these better aspects, we have as a +people too much forgotten the other and awful side. That is what we need +now to be reminded of. For among our present dangers none is greater +than the false glorification of war. Against such glorifications stands +Sherman's word, "War is hell." And on that grand tomb with which our +greatest city crowns its proudest height is inscribed, as the one word +by which Grant forever speaks to his countrymen, "Let us have peace." + +The nobler side of the war is told and will be told in many a history +and biography, romance and poem. In the broad view, the grandest fact +was that a multitude of men and women felt and acted as never before for +a cause greater than any personal gain. Under the discipline of +sacrifice and suffering, and with the personal horizon widened to take +in nations and races, a multitude on the field and at home grew to +loftier stature. The hardships and perils which wrecked some +strengthened others. The development of energy and resource was beyond +measure. The North created armies and navies; it organized a new system +of finance; it transformed a peaceful industrial community into an +irresistible military force; and all the while it carried on its +productive industries with scarcely visible shrinkage; farm and mill, +school and college, kept on with their work. The South made itself into +a solid army of resistance; cut off from its accustomed sources of +supply, it developed for itself all the essentials of material life; it +showed an ingenuity and resourcefulness beyond all expectation; and the +fidelity of its slaves supplied its armies with food while keeping its +homes secure. In peace haunted always by latent dread of insurrection, +in war the South found its servants its best friends. So, in both +sections, wonders were wrought and deeds never dreamed of were achieved. + +In justly viewing the evil and the good of war, we must compare it with +other disturbances and catastrophes. The finest traits and highest +efficiency of men come out under disasters which yet it must be our +habitual effort to avert. It is the ship on the rocks, the theater on +fire, that shows the hero. But what should we think of one who ran a +ship on shore, or set fire to a theater, in order to call out heroism? +Exactly so are we to regard those who glorify war as in itself a fine +and admirable thing, a proper school and arena of manhood. The +refutation of such talk comes not so well from men of the church or +closet as from those who have drunk deepest of war's reality. A man of +exuberant vitality, whose personal delight in physical strife colors his +statesmanship, and who is exhilarated by the memory of a skirmish or two +in Cuba, may talk exultantly of "glory enough to go round," and preach +soldiering as a splendid manifestation of the strenuous life. But the +grim old warrior whose genius and resolution split the Confederacy like +a wedge, General Sherman, in the very midst of his task wrote to a +friend: "I confess without shame that I am sick and tired of the war. +Its glory is all moonshine. Even success, the most brilliant, is over +dead and mangled bodies, the anguish and lamentation of distant families +appealing to me for missing sons, husbands, and fathers. It is only +those who have not heard a shot, nor heard the shrieks and groans of the +wounded and lacerated (friend or foe), that cry aloud for more blood, +more vengeance, more desolation." + +One glance we here may give at the traits which against this dark +background shone with the light which redeems humanity. The worst scenes +of all were not on the battlefield but in the military prisons. At +Andersonville, and other points, thousands of Northern prisoners were +crowded together, with insufficient supply of unnutritious food, with +scanty and foul water; surrounded by harsh guards, quick to shoot if the +"dead line" was crossed by a foot; harassed by petty tyranny; starved, +homesick, diseased, dying like infected sheep. It is a black, black +page,--but let its blackness be mainly charged to war itself, and what +war always breeds. In Northern prisons, the rate of mortality was nearly +as high as in Southern; the work of hunger in the one was matched by +cold in the other. "All things considered," says J. F. Rhodes in his +impartial _History of the United States_, "the statistics show no reason +why the North should reproach the South. If we add to one side of the +account the refusal to exchange the prisoners"--a refusal based by Grant +at one time on the military disadvantage of restoring the Southern +prisoners to active service--"and the greater resources, and to the +other the distress of the Confederacy; the balance struck will not be +far from even." Enough for our present purpose that the Andersonville +prison-pen was a hell. Well, after a time the Union armies were +recruited by negroes, and the Confederates in resentment refused to +consider these when captured as prisoners of war, and would not include +them in the exchanges. Thereupon the Federal Government declared that +its negro soldiers must receive equal rights with the whites, and until +this was conceded there should be no exchange at all. Then some of the +Andersonville prisoners drew up a petition, and signed and sent it to +Washington, praying the government to hasten their release, and if +necessary to hold the question of negro prisoners for negotiation, while +pressing forward the liberation of its faithful and suffering white +soldiers. But promptly by others in the prison-pen a counter petition +was started, signed, and sent on. It ran in substance thus: "We are in +evil case, and we earnestly desire that you hasten our deliverance by +every means consistent with right and honor. But--honor first! Let the +nation's plighted faith to its black soldiers be kept, at whatever cost +to us. We ask you to still refuse all exchange of prisoners, until the +Õsame treatment can be secured for black and white." Was ever a braver +deed than that? + +One picture more. In a military hospital at Washington, Walt Whitman was +engaged as a volunteer nurse. In a letter to a friend, he depicted in a +few sentences the tragedy of it all, and yet the triumph of the spirit +over the body and over death itself. He wrote of a Northern hospital, +but the like might be seen on Southern soil, as to-day among Russians or +Japanese,--it is the tragedy and triumph of humanity. "These thousands, +and tens and twenties of thousands, of American young men, badly wounded +... operated on, pallid with diarrhoea, languishing, dying with fever, +pneumonia, etc., open a new world somehow to me, giving closer insights, +... showing our humanity ... tried by terrible, fearful tests, probed +deepest, the living souls, the body's tragedies, bursting the petty +bonds of art. To these, what are your dreams and poems, even the oldest +and the tearfulest?... For here I see, not at intervals, but quite +always, how certain man, our American man,--how he holds himself cool +and unquestioned master above all pains and bloody mutilation.... This, +then, what frightened us all so long! Why, it is put to flight with +ignominy--a mere stuffed scarecrow of the fields. Oh, death, where is +thy sting? Oh, grave, where is thy victory?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +EMANCIPATION BEGUN + + +When the war began, the absorbing issue at the North was the maintenance +of the Union. The supreme, uniting purpose was the restoration of the +national authority. Slavery had fallen into the background. But it soon +began to come again to the front. Two tendencies existed at the North; +one, to seek the restoration of the old state of things unchanged; the +other, to seize the opportunity of war to put an end to slavery. + +The pressure of events raised special questions which must be met. As +soon as Northern armies were on Southern soil, slaves began to take +refuge in the camps, and their masters, loyal in fact or in profession, +followed with a demand for their return. Law seemed on the master's +side; but the use of the army, engaged in such a war, to send slaves +back to bondage, was most repugnant. At first some commanders took one +course, some another. General Butler, a volunteer from Massachusetts, +hit on a happy solution; he declared that slaves, being available to the +enemy for hostile purposes, were like arms, gunpowder, etc., "contraband +of war," and could not be reclaimed. The stroke was welcomed with cheers +and laughter; and "contraband" became a catchword. Congress, in March, +1862, forbade the army and navy to return fugitives. + +General Fremont was in command in Missouri. He was ardent and +uncompromising, and in August, 1861, he issued a drastic proclamation, +declaring the State under martial law, threatening death to all taken +with arms in their hands, and giving freedom to the slaves of all +rebels. The President remonstrated by letter against this too heroic +surgery, and when Fremont declined to modify his order, used his +authority to cancel it. The public reception of the incident marked and +heightened the growing division of sentiment; the conservatives and +especially the border State men, were alarmed and indignant at Fremont's +action, while he became at once a favorite of the strong anti-slavery +men. + +This divergence among his own supporters added another to the +complications which beset Lincoln and taxed him to the utmost. He had +extraordinary tact and shrewdness in managing men, and in dealing with +tangled situations. He showed this power toward his Cabinet officers, +who included the most various material,--Seward, accomplished, +resourceful, somewhat superficial, but thoroughly loyal to his chief +after he knew him, managing the foreign relations with admirable skill, +and somewhat conservative in his views; Chase, very able as a financier +and jurist, but intensely ambitious of the Presidency, regarded as a +radical as to slavery; Stanton, a great war minister but of harsh and +intractable temper. These men and their colleagues Lincoln handled so +skilfully as to get the best each had to contribute, and keep them and +the political elements they represented in working harmony. No less +successfully did he deal with Congress, guiding it to a great extent, +but acquiescing in occasional defeats and disappointments so patiently +that he disarmed hostility. He kept in closest touch with the common +people; he was accessible to every one, listened to each man's +grievance, remonstrance, or advice; and acquired an instinctive +knowledge of what was in the hearts and minds of the millions. + +In his own conduct, his guiding principle was fidelity to his official +duty as he read it in the Constitution and the laws. He felt the +specific, supreme task laid upon him to be the restoration and +maintenance of the Union. And to succeed in that, he knew he must +rightly interpret and enforce the general sentiment and desire of the +loyal people. If he let them become so divided as to no longer act +together, the cause was lost. And to follow any personal opinion or +conviction of his own, in disregard of his official duty, or in defiance +of the popular will, was to betray his trust. + +It was under these conditions that Lincoln dealt with slavery. No man +more than he detested the institution, or desired its removal. But he +felt that he had no right to touch it, except as empowered by the +Constitution and the laws, or as guided by the supreme necessity of +saving the nation's life. Beyond that he had no authority. Beyond that, +his position toward slavery must be like that of a President toward, for +example, a system of religion which he believed to be false and +injurious. Be he intensely orthodox, believing infidelity to be the road +to hell,--yet he must not as President, put a straw across the path of +the free-thinker. Be he as heretical as Thomas Jefferson, he must not +as President, any more than did Jefferson, lay a finger on the churches. +Just so did Lincoln feel himself restricted as to slavery,--he could not +touch it, except as the civil laws brought it within his province, or +unless as supreme military commander the laws and necessities of war +brought it within his authority. + +Congress soon proceeded to discuss questions about slavery. Sumner, the +foremost leader of the radicals, proposed resolutions, in February, +1862, declaring that the seceded States had by their acts extinguished +their State organizations and relapsed into a territorial condition, +subject only to Congress; and that slavery within them, existing only by +a local authority now defunct, was thus abolished. Congress would take +no such ground as that. But, as within its proper sphere, it abolished +slavery in the District of Columbia, in April, 1862, giving +compensation to owners at a maximum rate of $300 for each slave. And in +the following June, it abolished slavery in all the national +territories,--thus giving full force to the cardinal doctrine of the +Republican party up to the war. But the war had inevitably brought a +more radical issue to the front,--the question of slavery in the States. + +Under the name of a confiscation act, Congress passed a law, July 17, +1862, which declared freedom to all slaves of convicted rebels; to +slaves of rebels escaping within the army lines, or captured, or +deserted by their masters; and to all slaves of rebels found in places +captured and occupied by the Union army. This came near to making the +abolition of slavery follow exactly the progress of the Union arms. But, +leaving untouched the slave property of loyalists, it spared the +institution as a system. + +Lincoln, in many ways a man of the people by his convictions and +sympathies, in other aspects towered in solitude. He was almost unique +in that he could fight--fight if need were to the death,--with no spark +of hatred in his heart. In the midst of war he was a devoted +peace-lover. To an old friend, though a political opponent, Congressman +D. W. Voorhees, of Indiana, who called on him at the White House, he +said with a pathetic look of anxious pain: "Voorhees, doesn't it seem +strange that I should be here--I, a man who couldn't cut a chicken's +head off,--with blood running all around me?" While he was overseeing +campaigns, selecting and rejecting generals, learning the business of a +commander, keeping touch with all the great matters of administration, +besieged by office-seekers, importuned by people in all manner of +private troubles,--he found intervals in which to devise ways out of the +horrid business of war, ways that might lead both to peace and freedom. + +The key of the situation he thought lay largely with the border +States,--Maryland, Missouri and Kentucky,--all of them formally in the +Union, but their population divided, sending recruits to both armies, +and with hopes in the Confederacy that they might be entirely won over. +If they could be bound faster to the Union, if at the same time they +could be helped to make themselves free States,--then might the Union +cause be mightily helped, and at the same time the work of emancipation +be begun. Aiming at this result, Lincoln sent a message to Congress, +March 6, 1862, proposing this resolution: "That the United States ought +to co-operate with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment of +slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State, +in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and +private, produced by such change of system." He urged this with special +reference to its application in the border States; and, inviting the +Congressional members of these States in a body to the White House, he +pleaded with them earnestly to support the resolution, and apply the +plan. They listened, but were non-committal. Congress received the plan +coolly. The Radicals were little in the humor of compensating +slaveholders, and the Conservatives apprehended a progressive attack on +slavery. But the President's influence triumphed; the resolution passed +in mid-April; and the nation pledged itself to assist compensated +emancipation in any State that would adopt it. + +Nothing came of it. The border States did not move. Three months later, +July 12, their delegations were again invited to the White House. The +situation was at the gravest; McClellan's army had been baffled in the +desperate seven-days' fight; factions at the North were growing hot. +Lincoln pleaded reasonably, movingly, that they would bring decisive +help to the national cause, by committing their States to emancipation, +with help from the nation, gradually if they pleased, with colonization +if they desired--peace, union, freedom, all lay that way! Two days they +took to make answer, and then of the twenty-nine members only nine were +favorable; the rest with one accord began to make excuse,--and that hope +failed. + +Events were forcing on the question of slavery. In the previous May, +General David Hunter, in South Carolina, finding himself with 10,000 +fugitives in his camps, whom the laws forbade him to return to their +masters and did not permit him to hold as slaves, met the difficulty by +a proclamation, declaring that the martial law of the United States was +incompatible with slavery, and the slaves in his military +district--South Carolina, Georgia and Florida,--were set free. Again the +President overruled his subordinate, but in the proclamation he +distinctly said that the question of emancipation as a military +necessity belonged to himself as commander-in-chief. It was a note of +warning. Twenty years before, John Quincy Adams had written,--and the +words came from a conservative statesman of the highest standing: "I say +that the military authority takes for the time the place of all +municipal institutions, and slavery among the rest"; and had elaborated +and reiterated the doctrine that in case of war slavery might be +abolished by the commander. These statements had lately been recalled; +the action of Fremont and Hunter had given life to the idea; and Lincoln +now intimated that he might yet assume this authority. + +Party divisions had soon reappeared at the North. The Democrats were not +harmonious; a part called themselves "War Democrats," and a part were +ready to let the South go, or went as near that as they prudently could; +now one and now the other faction controlled the party according to time +and locality. The Republicans were more united, yet among them was a +cleavage between conservatives and radicals; the one taking for their +watchword, "the Constitution as it is and the Union as it was"; the +other eager to see the war turned against slavery; and both claiming the +President, and jealously watching any leaning on his part toward their +rivals. + +There was developing at the North a profound sentiment for attacking +slavery. The war was protracted beyond all early expectation; it was +costly, bitter, woeful. What was to be at last the recompense for all +this blood and tears? Was there, if victory came at last, to be with it +no advance, nothing but the old Union, half slave and half free? For +nothing better than this were sons, fathers, brothers, husbands to be +sacrificed? Was the nation crossing a Red Sea of anguish only to emerge +into the old bondage? Rather, let us fight at once for union and for +liberty! + +Those who voiced this cry could not always see the difficulties that +beset the President. Many of them failed to realize that at heart he was +as true to freedom as they. Even Lowell, in the later _Biglow Papers_, +which pleaded with deeper pathos and power than before for freedom--even +he could write of "hoisting your captain's heart up with a derrick." +Wendell Phillips on one occasion, impatient of Lincoln's attitude toward +the fugitive slave law, called him "the slave-hound from Illinois." +Beecher,--who did great service, especially by his speeches in +England,--wrote in the _Independent_ a series of articles, to spur the +President to more pronounced action. Some one gave the articles to +Lincoln; he sat down and read them all, then rose to his feet +exclaiming, "Am I a dog?" + +All this time the conservatives were no less urgent that the President +must make no move against slavery. Among their spokesmen was General +McClellan. On him rested the chief hope of the North for military +success during the year following the disaster of Bull Run. He was an +admirable organizer and a good theoretical strategist; his care for his +men won their affection; and sometimes in the field he struck heavy and +effective blows. But he was always prone to overrate the enemy's +resources and underrate his own; he was slow to follow up a success; and +he lacked the bulldog grip by which Grant won. Right on the heels of his +failure in the seven-days' fight in the Peninsula, he wrote a letter to +the President, from Harrison's Landing, July 7, 1862, lecturing him +severely as to the errors he must avoid. Nothing must be done or said +looking to confiscation, forcible abolition, or territorial organization +of the States. "Until the principles governing the future conduct of our +struggle shall be made known and approved, the effort to obtain +requisite forces will be almost hopeless. A declaration of radical +views, especially upon slavery, will rapidly disintegrate our armies." +This letter was given to the public, and on this platform McClellan +began to loom up as an opposition candidate for the Presidency. + +So Lincoln was buffeted on the right hand and on the left. In this +summer of 1862, Greeley wrote in the _Tribune_, August 20, an open +letter to the President, upbraiding him for his slackness against +slavery. Lincoln replied, August 22, in a letter which startled many of +his friends, and to this day bewilders those who do not understand the +man himself or the position in which he stood. He wrote: "I would save +the Union, I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution.... +My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not +either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without +freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all +the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and +leaving others alone, I would also do that." In fact, the last was the +course which he eventually took. + +This letter stated with full sincerity Lincoln's basal principle. It was +not necessary to add that the purpose was growing within him to save the +Union by freeing the slaves in the seceded States. The very growth of +that purpose made it necessary for him to freshly bind to himself the +conservatives whose only care was for the Union and not for +emancipation. Nothing could serve this purpose better than the +declaration in this letter to Greeley. In Lincoln, sincerity and +shrewdness were thoroughly blended. + +At a later day he told the artist Frank Carpenter, when he was to paint +"The Signing of the Emancipation Proclamation": "It had got to be +mid-summer, 1862. Things had gone on from bad to worse, until I felt +that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan we had been +pursuing; that we had about played our last card, and must change our +tactics or lose the game. I now determined upon the adoption of the +emancipation policy; and without consultation with, or the knowledge of, +the Cabinet, I prepared the original draft of the proclamation, and +after much anxious thought, called a Cabinet meeting upon the +subject.... I said to the Cabinet that I had resolved upon this step, +and had not called them together to ask their advice, but to lay the +subject-matter of a proclamation before them, suggestions as to which +would be in order after they had heard it read." This proclamation--the +first sketch--set forth that at the next meeting of Congress, four +months later, the President designs to again recommend a practical +measure for tendering pecuniary aid to any State then recognizing the +authority of the United States, which should have adopted, or should +thereafter adopt, gradual abolishment of slavery; that the object of +this is to promote the restoration of constitutional relations between +the general government and all the States; and finally, as +commander-in-chief, the President declares that from the first of +January next all slaves in States still rejecting the national authority +shall then and forever be free. + +The Cabinet were amazed--and divided. Only Stanton and Bates were for +immediate promulgation. Chase thought it would be better to leave the +matter to district commanders, but would support the proclamation as +better than inaction. Blair opposed it as likely to be unpopular and +lose the Fall election. All this Lincoln had weighed beforehand. But now +came a suggestion from Seward, that the immediate time was inopportune, +because just after military reverses (McClellan's Peninsula defeat) it +would seem like a desperate cry for help,--"our last shriek on the +retreat," as Lincoln phrased it. His judgment welcomed this as a wise +suggestion, and he put the draft of the proclamation aside and waited +for victory. Among the elements which entered into his decisions was a +subtle instinct as to when and how far he could command the support of +the various elements on whom success depended. His rare capacity as a +listener, and his keen sagacity, enabled him to divine that the hour was +at hand when a decisive move against slavery would attract more support +than it would repel. Seward's suggestion gave the final shape to his +purpose. + +This happened July 22, 1862; and when the President made his calm reply +to Greeley's onslaught a month later, the unsigned proclamation lay in +his desk, and he was still waiting for a victory before he issued it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +EMANCIPATION ACHIEVED + + +Instead of victory came defeat. Pope, taking the command after +McClellan's failure, was beaten and driven back in the second battle of +Bull Run, and matters were at the worst. McClellan was recalled; his +genius for organization rehabilitated the demoralized army; the +soldiers' confidence in their old chief gave them new courage. When Lee, +after a year on the defensive, took the offensive and entered Maryland, +he was beaten and turned back at Antietam. + +Then Lincoln summoned his cabinet again, September 22, 1862. Before he +spoke the momentous word, he freshened himself in his own way,--he said +that Artemus Ward had sent him his book, and he would read them a +chapter which he thought very funny; and read it he did, with great +enjoyment; the secretaries also laughing as in duty bound--all except +Stanton! Then the President became grave enough--he told them that he +had been thinking a great deal about the proclamation he had read them +two months before; that victory seemed to have brought a favorable +occasion; that when the rebel army was at Fredericksburg he determined +as soon as it was driven out of Maryland to proclaim emancipation. He +went on: "I said nothing to any one, but I made the promise to myself, +and,"--hesitating a little--"to my Maker." So now, he tells them, he +fulfills that promise. One last word,--some other might do better than +he; he would surrender his place to a better man if he saw the way; he +believes that he has not so much of the confidence of the people as he +once had, but on the whole he does not know that any one has more, and +at any rate there is no way for him to give place to any other. "I am +here; I must do the best I can, and bear the responsibility of taking +the course which I feel I ought to take." It is the counterpart of +Luther's "Here stand I; I cannot do otherwise; God help me!" + +Discussion in the Cabinet: general approval; slight modification only. +The proclamation runs on the original lines; compensated abolition +recommended; colonization favored; freedom to be declared next New +Year's day to all slaves in rebellious States: ultimate compensation +recommended for all loyal owners. The proclamation is issued, +September 23, 1862, and the nation is inexorably committed to +emancipation,--compensated if possible; forcible if necessary; partial +at first, but moving inevitably, swiftly, toward universal freedom. + +The proclamation with its sequence was the best Lincoln found himself +able to do. What he wanted to do,--his own ideal which he could not +bring his countrymen to accept,--was shown in his message to Congress +when it met in December. The main burden of that message was an earnest +plea for action on the line of compensated emancipation. The President +proposed an amendment to the Constitution, to this effect: every State +abolishing slavery before 1900 to receive compensation from the United +States, at some fixed rate, in government bonds; meantime, all slaves +freed by chances of war to remain free, with compensation to loyal +owners; Congress authorized to spend money for colonization of such as +wish to go. For the general plan of compensation Lincoln argues as +broadly and calmly as if dealing with a purely economic question, and +with the restrained fervor of the patriot and statesman. He dwells on +the vast growth which the country promises; on the increasing resources +which will make light the burden of ransoming the slaves; the safety of +a process of gradual liberation; the humane, economic, Christian +superiority of this settlement instead of prolonged war. This is the +close: "We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. In +giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free--honorable +alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or +meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this +could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just--a way which, +if followed, the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless." + +But as for practical effect, he might as well have read Dr. Watts's +Cradle-hymn to a couple of fighting bulldogs. The proposition of +compensated emancipation was thirty years too late. Now the blood of +both sections was up, the fighting animal in man let loose,--and they +would go on indefinitely killing and being killed, to free the slaves or +to hold them, but they would not lay down their arms and peacefully +share the light burden of emancipation. + +So came in New Year's day, 1863, and the final word was spoken, +declaring freedom to all the slaves in Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, +Alabama, Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and the greater portion of +Virginia and Louisiana; enjoining good order on the freedmen; and +opening the army and navy to their enlistment. "And upon this act, +sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the +Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment +of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God." + +How far, it may be asked, was the military necessity on which the +proclamation was based actually met by its results? Immediate gain, in a +military sense, did not accrue. Not a slave was freed except as the +ground was conquered foot by foot. But by opening the door to the +enlistment of negroes, there was soon a substantial advantage won to +the Union armies; for, enlisting by many thousands, they proved +themselves docile, trustworthy, and not lacking in courage. In the last +two years of the war, they added nearly 200,000 men to the Union forces. +They were not considered equal to white soldiers, for they succumbed far +more easily to wounds and disease; and though their officers were chary +of exposing them in battle, their mortality was greater than that of the +whites. In a sense broader than the military, the first results of the +emancipation policy were adverse. It was said by many that the +proclamation would "unite the South and divide the North." The seceded +States could hardly be more united than they were before, but a fresh +motive was added to their struggle. In the border States, there was a +wide alienation of slave owners and their sympathizers. At the North, a +similar effect was obvious at first. From the day of the first +proclamation, a war now evidently waged in part for emancipation lost +favor with many who cared nothing for the slaves. The elections two +months later, in November, 1862, were disastrous. New York, +Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana, all went against the +administration. Its majority in Congress was greatly reduced. + +But the emancipation proclamation had struck deep to the hidden springs +of power. For the exigencies of a prolonged and desperate struggle, it +had evoked the full power of a great sentiment. It had roused the +passion of freedom which nerves men to suffer and die. It was an +unselfish passion,--it was for the freedom of other men that the North +now fought. The loss of the half-hearted and the materialists was +outweighed by the enlistment of the enthusiasts for humanity. And the +sympathies of the nations, which had wavered while the Union cause was +declared to be apart from the slavery question, now swung weightily to +the side of the North, since it was avowedly the side of freedom. + +By his proclamation, Lincoln had,--to use his language to +Greeley,--"freed some and left others alone." He could not go further on +the ground of military necessity. But the work, or the promise, could +not be left in that imperfect shape. The natural resource was soon +found,--universal freedom by a constitutional amendment. This, the +Thirteenth Amendment, was brought forward in April, 1864, and received +more than the necessary two-thirds vote in the Senate--38 to 6; but in +the House (elected in the reaction of 1862) only 95 to 66. The next +winter it was brought up again in the same House, but a House +enlightened now by the Republican victory in Lincoln's re-election; and +strongly urged by him it won the necessary two-thirds vote--119 to 56. +The States had still to pass upon it, after the war, but to resist +emancipation then was fighting against the stars in their courses; and +only Kentucky and Delaware rejected the amendment, while Texas was +silent, and Alabama and Mississippi gave a qualified assent. The +amendment was declared adopted, December 18, 1865, and on that day +slavery in the United States came to an end. + +When the issue was finally shaped by the Emancipation Proclamation of +January 1, 1863, both sides set themselves anew for the grim +struggle--two years more of hard fighting. Since fighting it must be, +they bore themselves all, let us say, as brave men and women,--North and +South, white and black. The Confederates came often into dire +extremities. Men whose lives had been luxurious fared on the plainest +and hardest. Delicate women bore privations uncomplainingly, and toiled +and nursed and endured. Food, clothing, medicines were scant. Invasion +was borne, with its humiliation and suffering, its train of ravage and +desolation. The supporting motive was the common defense, the +comradeship of danger and of courage. The Confederacy and its flag had +won the devotion which sacrifice and suffering breed. Little thought was +there of slavery, little calculation of the future, as the siege grew +closer and the shadows darkened--but an indomitable purpose to hold on +and fight on. The chief hero of the Confederacy was Lee. He was the +embodiment and symbol of what the Southern people most believed in and +cared for. He was not one of those who had brought on the trouble; his +whole attitude had been defensive. He and his Army of Northern Virginia +were the shield of the South. A skilful commander, strong to strike and +wary to ward; his personality merged in the cause; gentle as he was +strong,--his army trusted and followed him with a faith that grew with +every victory, and did not wane under reverses. + +Let the negroes in the war-time be judged in the calm retrospect of +history. Their fidelity meant the security of the families on every +lonely plantation from Virginia to Texas. + +Instead of the horror of servile insurrection, women and children were +safe in their homes, supported and protected by their servants. It was +their labor that made it possible for the whole white population to take +the field. It was their fidelity and kindliness that kept the social +structure sound, even though pierced and plowed by the sword. Their +conduct was a practical refutation of the belief that they were in +general sufferers from inhuman treatment. It was a proof that slavery +had included better influences than its opponents had recognized. But it +suggested, too, that a people capable of such things under slavery were +fully ready for an upward step, and might be trusted with freedom. + +They gave another proof of fitness for freedom when, enlisted in the +Union armies, they showed the qualities of good soldiership. They +accepted discipline, and developed under it. They were brave in battle, +and in victory they were guiltless of excess. It was a wonderful epoch +in the race's history,--the transition from servitude to freedom,--and +in that ordeal, first as slaves and then as soldiers, they showed +themselves worthy of the deliverance that had come at last. + +As soldiers, they found leaders in the flower of the North. Such was +Robert Gould Shaw, of the best blood and training of Massachusetts; a +son of Harvard; serving from the first as private and then as captain; +called by Governor Andrew in 1863 to the command of the Fifty-fourth +Massachusetts, the first black regiment mustered into service; taking a +place which risked not battle peril only but social obloquy; training +his recruits into soldiers; leading them in a hopeless onset against the +batteries of Fort Wagner; falling at their head; buried in a ditch with +his men; honored in an immortal sculpture which portrays the young, +highbred hero in the midst of the humble, faithful men for whom he +gave his life. + +All the energies of the North were at the highest stretch. In those +whose hearts were in the strife, at home or in the field, there was a +great glow and elation. The intensity of the time communicated itself to +industry and trade. There was an almost feverish activity; with heavy +taxation and a fluctuating currency--gold was long at a premium of +250--mills and markets and stores were in full tide of operation. The +North matched the South in personal courage and generalship; and greatly +outweighed it in numbers, material, and in the productivity engendered +in a free, urban, industrial society. The passion of the war touched +everything. The churches were strongholds of the national cause. The +Sanitary and Christian Commissions kept camp and home in close touch. +But under all this stir was the tragedy of wide-spread desolation and +bereavement. The multitudinous slaughter of campaigns like the +Wilderness had an awful background of woful families. + +Arduous achievement, heroism and anguish, suffering and sacrifice for +the cause of the nation and humanity--that was the North's story in +those years. It is a sublime story as we look back: + + The glory dies not, and the grief is past. + +Once more the North was called on to solemnly decide, in the election of +1864. Against Lincoln was nominated by the Democrats, General McClellan, +himself a stainless soldier and a patriot, but supported by every +element of hostility to emancipation, of sympathy with the Southern +cause, and of impatience with the long and burdensome struggle. The +platform called for an immediate armistice, to be followed by a +convention of the States, or other peaceable measures for the +restoration of the Union. McClellan's letter of acceptance ignored the +platform, and declared strongly for the persistent maintenance of the +Union. The result of the election was a majority of 400,000 votes in +4,000,000 for Lincoln, every State supporting him save New Jersey, +Kentucky, and Delaware. + +It was the greatness of the prize at stake that justified the cost. +Lowell sang the true song of the war, when the end was almost reached, +in the poem that records the sore loss to his own family,--his three +nephews, "likely lads as well could be,"--slain on the battle-field. In +that lofty, mournful verse, there is no drum and trumpet clangor, but +the high purpose whose roots are watered by tears: + + Come, Peace, not like a mourner bowed + For honor lost an' dear ones wasted, + But proud, to meet a people proud, + With eyes thet tell o' triumph tasted! + + Come, with han' grippin' on the hilt, + An' step that proves ye Victory's daughter! + Longin' for you, our sperits wilt + Like shipwrecked men's on raf's for water. + + Come, while our country feels the lift + Of a gret instinct shoutin' "Forwards!" + An' knows thet freedom ain't a gift + Thet tarries long in han's o' cowards! + Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when + They kissed their cross with lips thet quivered, + An' bring fair wages for brave men, + A nation saved, a race delivered. + +With Grant and Lee locked in the last desperate struggle at Petersburg, +with final victory almost in sight, Lincoln spoke his second +inaugural,--too grave for exultation, with the note of humility and +faith. He is awed before the course of events since he stood there four +years ago. He feels the strangeness of both combatants appealing to the +same Bible and the same God. For himself and his people he utters the +fond hope, the fervent prayer, that "this awful scourge of war may pass +away." He accepts the suffering as the penalty of the nation--the whole +nation--for the sin of slavery. Humbly, resolutely, he faces with his +people the final effort, the sacred duty: "With malice toward none, with +charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the +right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the +nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for +his widow and his orphan, and to all which may achieve and cherish a +just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +RECONSTRUCTION: EXPERIMENTS AND IDEALS + + +"God uses a good many ugly tools to dig up the stumps and burn off the +forests and drain the swamps of a howling wilderness. He has used this +old Egyptian plow of slavery to turn over the sod of these fifteen +Southern States. Its sin consisted in not dying decently when its work +was done. It strove to live and make all the new world like it. Its +leaders avowed that their object was to put this belt of the continent +under the control of an aristocracy which believes that one-fifth of the +race is born booted and spurred and the other four-fifths ready for that +fifth to ride. The war was one of freedom and democracy against the +institutions that rest on slaves. It will take ten years for the country +to shed the scar of such a struggle. The state of society at the South +that produced the war will remain and trouble the land until freedom and +democracy and the spirit of the nineteenth century takes its place. Only +then can we grapple the Union together with hooks of steel, and make it +as lasting as the granite that underlies the continent." + +These were the brave words of a Southern newspaper, the Galveston +_Bulletin_, in January, 1867, in the mid-throes of reconstruction. So it +was that the best minds of the reunited nation foresaw and accepted the +path on which we still are slowly mounting; often slipping, stumbling, +falling, but still getting upward. + +When, on January 31, 1865, the vote of the House completed the +ratification by Congress of the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing +slavery, a burst of jubilant cheering swept the whole assembly, and a +wave of joy went through the North. Universal freedom seemed close at +hand. Two months more, and the Confederate capital fell, on April 3, and +still higher rose the triumph. Another week, and the North woke at +midnight, to forget sleep and rejoice as over the final +consummation,--Lee had surrendered! In those days it seemed to ardent +souls that all the sacrifices of the past four years were repaid, and +freedom and Union were completely won. + +But real freedom of men, true union of a nation, are not achieved by +votes of Congress alone, or victories of the sword. The first and worst +was over, yet the work was only begun. And these first steps had been by +a rough and bitter road, of which the next stage could not be smooth or +sweet. The plow of slavery had been followed by the harrow of +war,--blossoms and fruitage could not instantly follow. + +Lincoln practically made his own the motto ascribed to the Jesuits, "The +goal of to-day, the starting-point of to-morrow." Even before to-day's +goal was reached, his eye was measuring the next stage. While his +patient shoulders were still bowed under the weight of war, his hands +were reaching out to the work of reconstruction. In December, 1863, a +year after the Emancipation Proclamation, he issued another +proclamation. In this he offered full amnesty to all who had taken arms +against the government, on condition simply of an oath to support the +Constitution, and all laws and proclamations concerning slavery until +such were legally overruled. From this amnesty were excepted those who +had held diplomatic or high military offices in the Confederacy; those +who had left Congress or the army or navy to aid the Confederate cause; +and those who had maltreated negro prisoners of war. Whether Lincoln in +his own mind regarded the official classes as more blameworthy or more +dangerous than their followers, we can only surmise; but he doubtless +considered that public opinion was not ripe--the war being still +flagrant--for a wider offer of pardon. + +Further, he invited a return of the seceded States to their former +relations, under these conditions: Wherever a number of voters equal to +one-tenth of the registered list of 1860, having individually taken the +oath of allegiance, shall unite to form a loyal State government, their +organization will be recognized by the Federal government. It is +desirable to retain as far as practicable the old State boundaries, +constitution, and laws. Such a State government may make regulations for +the negroes,--if their freedom and education are provided for,--as a +"laboring, homeless, and landless class." The admission of +representatives and senators must depend on the action of Congress. + +Under this plan--regarded by the President as somewhat tentative and +provisional, and expressly made dependent on Congress for its +consummation by the admission of senators and representatives--within +the next twelve months governments were established in three States +where the Union arms were partly in the ascendant, Louisiana, Arkansas, +and Tennessee. Congress, in July, 1864, passed a reconstruction bill on +more radical lines; assuming that the rebel States were by their own act +extinguished as States and were to be created _de novo_; directing that +a provisional governor be forthwith appointed for every such State; +requiring the new Legislatures to abolish slavery, exclude high +Confederate officials from office, and annul the Confederate debt. The +President let this bill fail for want of his signature, and in a +proclamation explained his objections: He was not ready to accept the +"State suicide" theory; he did not want to rest the abolition of +slavery on the fiat of Congress (he was looking for the adoption of the +Thirteenth Amendment); and he was unwilling to sacrifice the provisional +governments already set up in Louisiana and Arkansas. If in any other +State a movement on the congressional plan was initiated, that might do +well; but for any hard-and-fast, all-round plan the time was not ripe. +The radicals, led by Wade and Henry Winter Davis, chafed bitterly, but +Lincoln was not an easy man to fix a quarrel on. + +In the following winter, 1864-5, the new Louisiana Legislature, +recognized and encouraged by the President, elected two senators who +applied at Washington for admission. The judiciary committee, headed by +Lyman Trumbull, reported in their favor, and the large majority of the +Senate took the same view. But Sumner was strongly opposed to beginning +the readmission of the rebel States to congressional power until the +rights of the freedmen were fully and finally established. Aided by two +other radicals, Wade of Ohio and Zachariah Chandler of Michigan, he +"talked against time," and defeated action until the end of the session. +Under senatorial usage it was legitimate--but it was exasperating. The +little world of Washington, always greatly given to tempests in a +teapot, looked for a break between the President and the foremost man of +his supporters. What it saw instead was, at the inauguration ball, Mr. +Sumner entering in company with the President and with Mrs. Lincoln on +his arm! No, Lincoln was not going to quarrel with Sumner--nor with any +one, if it lay with him. + +Richmond was taken, and through its streets moved the gaunt form of the +President, his eyes taking grave, kind note of all. Back to Washington, +and the supreme word comes at last. Lee has surrendered, the war is +over, the victory won! A cheering, exultant crowd beset the White +House. Lincoln came out on the balcony, said a word of response, and +invited them to come back two days later for a fuller word. When they +came again, he talked to them and to the country. His whole theme was, +What is our next duty? Here is the next step, the first of the "erring +sisters" to return is to be welcomed back. Louisiana has adopted a +constitution abolishing slavery, establishing public schools for black +and white alike, and allowing the Legislature at its discretion to +extend suffrage to the blacks. Under this constitution 12,000 voters +have been enrolled. The Legislature has met and ratified the Thirteenth +Amendment. Can we do better than to accept and restore them to the full +privileges of statehood? For them would it not also be wise to extend +the suffrage to the most intelligent negroes, and to those who have +served in the Union army? As to all the seceded States, the question +whether they have ever been out of the Union is "a merely pernicious +abstraction." The real question is, how to get them again into proper +practical relations with the Union. "Concede that the new government of +Louisiana is to what it should be only as the egg is to the fowl, we +shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it." Let +us be flexible as to our methods, inflexible as to vital principles. + +These were his last words to his countrymen. Three days later, April 14, +as he sat in Ford's theatre,--the strain of responsibility lightened by +an hour of kindly amusement--there fell on him, from an assassin's hand, +the stroke of unconsciousness and speedy death. For himself, how could +he have died better! At the summit of achievement, hailed by the world's +acclaim, in the prime of manly strength, unweakened by decay, unshadowed +by fear; a life of heroic service crowned by a martyr's death; a place +won in the nation's heart of such love and gratitude as has been given +to no other,--how better could he have died? + +But never was heavier bereavement than his death brought to the American +people. It was not sorrow only, but lasting loss, beyond estimation and +beyond repair. We know not how in the sum of things all seeming evil may +find place, but to human eyes seldom was man taken who could so ill be +spared. By nature and capacity he was above all else a peace-maker. +Called to be captain in a great war, his largest contribution to its +success had been in holding united to the common purpose men most widely +varying among themselves. He said, toward the end, that he did not know +that he had done better than any one else could, except perhaps at one +point,--he did think he had been pretty successful in keeping the North +united. And while he did this, while he kept radicals and conservatives, +Abolitionists and Unionists, New Englanders and Kentuckians, loyal to +the common cause, he also shaped that cause toward the highest aims that +his various constituency would admit. He could not bring them to his own +highest thought,--they would not be persuaded to try compensated +emancipation and peaceful reunion instead of war to the extremity. But +he did lift a war for the Union to a war for freedom also, and so direct +it that from the strife should emerge not the old, but a nobler nation. +And now, the harder half was to be done! Instead of generalship, +statesmanship; instead of animal courage, justice and kindness toward +former foes; instead of holding the North together, to bring North and +South together; that was the gigantic task now to be wrought. Who so fit +for it as he? And for want of him, grievous and slow has been the +journey. + +From the first thrill of passionate grief, men turned to ask anxiously +what the new President was to be. He had been selected with that +carelessness as to the Vice-Presidency which is a tradition of American +politics. Had the convention which renominated Lincoln chosen with care +the man best fitted to aid or possibly succeed him in his work--had they +for instance chosen John A. Andrew of Massachusetts--history might have +been very different. But they took Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, with +little scrutiny of his qualities, but desiring to broaden their ticket +by including a Southern Unionist. Johnson had been bred as a tailor, +with only the meagerest schooling, with no training in the law, going +straight from his trade into politics, and by native force rising to the +senatorship. He was regarded, and rightly, as a man of honesty, +patriotism, courage, and rough energy. He had been conspicuous in +denouncing the seceders with the heat of a border-State Unionist, and +something of the uncontrolled temper of the "poor white." "Treason must +be made odious," had been his cry, "traitors must be punished." In that +war-heated time, there were good men who thought they read the purpose +of the Almighty in removing the too kindly Lincoln, that the guilty +rebels might be more severely scourged. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +RECONSTRUCTION: THE FIRST PLAN + + +The new President gave at once the best possible reassurance as to his +general course by retaining all the members of Lincoln's Cabinet. They +remained, not as a temporary formality, but for a considerable time in +full harmony with the President. Chase having left the Cabinet for the +chief-justiceship, by far the two strongest secretaries remaining were +Seward and Stanton. Seward had been struck down at the same time with +Lincoln, and dangerously wounded, but after a few weeks was able to +resume his duties. Thus the two foremost men, after Lincoln, of the +Republican party, Sumner and Seward, had been murderously assaulted, yet +neither of them was embittered or altered in his course. Seward probably +had great influence on President Johnson's early measures. The degree of +that influence is a disputed point among historians, but the internal +evidence points strongly to his having had a large share in the +President's original plans, and materially aided their execution, though +Johnson's strong will and hot temper marred and thwarted Seward's +efforts. One of the secretary's special powers was a genial and +persuasive skill in conversation; his historic place as the Republican +premier gave him influence with the President; he had been in full +sympathy with Lincoln's late course; and his constitutional theories and +his optimism appear in the reconstruction scheme which the President +soon proposed. Responsibility had steadied and sobered Johnson; his +vindictiveness toward the South had disappeared,--one guesses with +Seward's aid; and his plan looked to a prompt and early return of the +seceded States. + +His proclamation of amnesty, indeed, issued May 29, was more numerous in +its exceptions than Lincoln's; including almost the entire official +class throughout the South, and adding all such as held property in +excess of $20,000,--which in theory was little other than an attempt to +behead the political community of all its intelligent or wealthy +members. But the added clause providing for a pardon of such by the +President on special application proved in practice more significant +than the formal exemptions. Scarcely an application for amnesty was +refused, and it is recorded that in less than a twelvemonth 14,000 such +applications were made and granted. + +On the same day, May 29, President Johnson by proclamation appointed a +provisional governor of North Carolina, and ordered an election of +delegates to a constitutional convention. By July 13, he had issued +similar proclamations for Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina +and Florida. Texas's turn came a little later, the last embers of the +war lingering there for a while. In Virginia, the President had +recognized a shadowy loyal State government which had kept up a nominal +existence. The three other seceded States,--Louisiana, Arkansas and +Tennessee,--had already the State governments established under Lincoln, +though unrepresented in Congress. + +These overtures for formal reconstruction came to communities +impoverished, forlorn, and chaotic, almost beyond imagination. Property, +industry, social order, had been torn up by the plowshare of war. The +prolongation of resistance until defeat was complete and overwhelming +had ended all power and all wish to contend with the inevitable. The +people, groping back toward even a bare livelihood,--toward some settled +order, some way of public and private life,--met eagerly the advances +of the President. Constitutional conventions were elected and met, +within the remaining months of 1865; they were chosen on the old basis +of suffrage, conditioned by the exceptions to amnesty and by the oaths +of allegiance; these conventions based the new constitutions largely on +the old; they affirmed the ordinances of secession to be null and void; +they repudiated the Confederate debt, and they declared that slavery no +longer existed. Legislatures were duly elected, and proceeded to enact +laws. They all ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, though Mississippi and +Alabama affixed some qualifications to their assent, while Texas was +still unreconstructed and could not act; and Kentucky and Delaware gave +a negative. The President and Secretary of State, December 18, declared +the adoption of the amendment by the vote of 31 States out of 36. +Slavery was finally and forever abolished. + +President Johnson used his influence to have the new constitutions open +the door to a qualified negro suffrage. He telegraphed to the +Mississippi convention, urging that the suffrage be extended to all +negroes who could read and write, or who possessed $250 worth of real +estate. Well would it have been if that appeal had been heeded. + +Thus far, reconstruction had moved with singular swiftness and ease. Too +swift and easy was the recovery to be trusted--so thought some--where +the disease had been so desperate. But the Cabinet, including the grim +and jealous Stanton, held with the President. More, the autumn +Republican conventions throughout the North passed resolutions cordially +approving the President's course and its results--all, with the ominous +exceptions of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, controlled respectively by +Thaddeus Stevens and Sumner, the leader of the House and the foremost +man in the Senate. + +Thus was initiated and begun the first of the three successive plans of +reconstruction. Before seeing its fate, it is opportune to consider the +general ideal of the situation, as presented by two of the greatest men +of the North, the two, we may say, who best comprehended the whole case; +the one standing in the Church and the other in the State, but alike in +breadth of mind and loftiness of spirit--Henry Ward Beecher and John A. +Andrew. + +During the war, the Northern churches had been centers of inspiration to +the national cause, and Plymouth church among the foremost. Beecher had +made a series of speeches in England in 1862, which did much to turn the +tide of English opinion. The disclaimers by the Federal Government of a +crusade against slavery had perplexed and divided the anti-slavery +sentiment of Great Britain; the issues at stake were little understood; +the stoppage of the cotton supply aroused a commercial opposition to the +war; there was some degree of aristocratic sympathy with the Southern +oligarchy; and a wider sympathy with the weaker of the two combatants +that was fighting pluckily against odds. The North had few strong +friends, except a group of radical leaders--Mill, Bright, Cobden and +their allies,--and a host of working people, including even the +suffering cotton operatives, who instinctively recognized and supported +the cause of the common people. Beecher's eloquent and lucid orations +went far to convince that the Union cause was the cause of liberty; and +no less effect was produced by the splendid courage and self-possession +with which he faced and mastered one audience after another where the +mob tried to howl him down. After the close of the war, when a company +went down to raise the Stars and Stripes once more over Fort Sumter, +Beecher was the chosen orator, and his speech was inspired by the spirit +of fraternity and reconciliation. In a sermon in his church, October 29, +1865, he outlined with a master's hand the principles of +reconstruction. The South should be restored at the earliest possible +moment to a share in the general government. Idle to ask them to repent +of secession; enough if they recognize that it is forever disallowed. +The best guarantee for the future is the utter destruction of slavery. +Let there be no further humbling: "I think it to be the great need of +this nation to save the self-respect of the South." What then are the +necessary conditions of reconstruction? The Southern States should +accede to the abolition of slavery by the Constitution. They should +establish the freedman's "right to labor as he pleases, where he +pleases, and for whom he pleases," with full control of his own +earnings; he should be the equal of all men before the courts. What +about suffrage? It is the natural right of all men, says Beecher; but, +tempering as usual his intellectual radicalism with practical +conservatism, he goes on: It will be useless to enforce negro suffrage +on the South against the opposition of the whites. As to the general +treatment of the freedmen, "the best intentions of the government will +be defeated, if the laws that are made touching this matter are such as +are calculated to excite the animosity and hatred of the white people in +the South toward the black people there. I except the single decree of +emancipation. That must stand, though men dislike it." But beyond that, +all measures instituted under the act of emancipation for the blacks in +order to be permanently useful must have the cordial consent of the wise +and good citizens of the South. "These men (the negroes) are scattered +in fifteen States; they are living contiguous to their old masters; the +kindness of the white man in the South is more important to them than +all the policies of the nation put together." As to suffrage, whatever +the colored man's theoretical right, "you will never be able to secure +it and maintain it for him, except by making him so intelligent that men +cannot deny it to him. You cannot long, in this country, deny to a man +any civil right for which he is manifestly qualified." It will be a +sufficient beginning if the vote is given to such as can read and write +and have acquired a certain amount of property. As a beginning, a +stepping-stone to larger things, it might suffice even to give the +suffrage to black men who have borne arms for the Union. And, +emphatically, the negroes should be given such education as will make +them worthy of citizenship. "You may pass laws declaring that black men +are men, and that they are our equals in social position; but unless you +can make them thoughtful, industrious, self-respecting, and intelligent; +unless, in short, you can make them what you say they have a right to +be, those laws will be in vain." The work of education should be done +for black and white alike; the South is not to be treated as a pagan +land to which missionaries are to be sent, but as part of our common +country, to which the richer and more prosperous section ought to give +aid. "I do not think it would be wise for the North to pour ministers, +colporteurs and schoolmasters into the South, making a too marked +distinction between the black people and the white. We ought to carry +the gospel and education to the whites and blacks alike. Our heart +should be set toward our country and all its people, without distinction +of caste, class, or color." + +Governor Andrew had been the fit leader of Massachusetts through the war +period. He was strong as an administrator; he inspired and voiced the +patriotism of the people; he supported the forward policy without +harassing the President; and he was the first governor to organize negro +troops. Now, on his retirement to private life, he gave a valedictory +address, January 4, 1866, which was a worthy sequel to his inaugural of +five years before. He specially emphasized the need of a generous and +inclusive policy toward the Southern people and their recent leaders. +"I am confident we cannot reorganize political society with any +security: 1. Unless we let in the people to a co-operation, and not +merely an arbitrarily selected portion of them. 2. Unless we give those +who are by intelligence and character the natural leaders of the people, +and who surely will lead them by-and-by, an opportunity to lead them +now.... The truth is, the public opinion of the white race in the South +was in favor of the rebellion." The loyalists were not in general the +strongest minds and characters, and when the revolution came they were +swept off their feet. For present purposes, there should be no +discrimination. "The capacity of leadership is a gift, not a device. +They whose courage, talents, and will, entitle them to lead, will +lead.... Why not try them? They are the most hopeful subjects to deal +with in the very nature of the case. They have the brain and experience +and the education to enable them to understand the exigences of the +present situation." + +The ideals thus presented by Beecher and Andrew,--as practical, we see +now after forty years, as they were lofty,--were at the time somewhat +like what Catholic theologians call "counsels of perfection"--precepts +of conduct too high to be practiced except by the saintly. They fell on +the ears of a people whose two sections had long been struggling in +deadly opposition, and who still surveyed each other through eyes +inflamed by the bitter struggle. Could it be hoped that the North would +invite co-operation as of fellow-patriots from those whom they had been +denouncing as arch-traitors? And was it to be expected that the South, +which had seceded and battled on the ground that the negro was fit only +for slavery, should at once begin heartily and practically to establish +and elevate him as a freeman? + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +CONGRESS AND THE "BLACK CODES" + + +Congress assembled at the beginning of December, 1865, and at the very +outset declared that the work of reconstruction must pass under its +hands. Before the President's message was read, Thaddeus Stevens, the +leader of the House, moved that a joint committee of fifteen on +reconstruction, be appointed by the House and Senate; and that until +that committee had reported no senator or representative from the lately +seceded States should be admitted. This action was taken at once, by a +large majority in both houses, and the committee was promptly appointed, +with Senator Fessenden at its head. Then the President's message was +read,--a very able paper, broad and statesmanlike in tone, recounting +the President's action and the choice of conventions and Legislatures in +the seceded States; their repudiation of secession and slavery; the +inauguration of loyal State governments;--this, with an invitation to +Congress to accept and co-operate in this policy, and a hopeful view of +the general situation. The message was favorably received, and for a +moment it looked as if the President and Congress might work in harmony. + +But the claim of Congress to a paramount voice in the settlement was +well based, not only in constitutional theory, but in the immediate +facts. Congress came fresh from the people; its members knew how the +currents of popular thought and feeling ran. The President was +comparatively out of touch with the nation; he had, so to speak, no +personal constituency; he was a Southern loyalist, apart from the mass +of both South and North. Further, this Congress was personally a strong +body of men. They represented in an unusual degree not merely the +average sentiment but the better sentiment of the North. To glance at a +few of their leaders: Thaddeus Stevens was a Pennsylvanian, a leader at +the bar, active in anti-slavery politics, conspicuous by his successful +defense of the State's public school system; a man of strong convictions +and strong passions, a natural fighter; skillful in parliamentary +management; vigorous and often bitter in debate; not scrupulous in +political methods; loyal to his cause and his friends, and vindictive to +his enemies; an efficient party leader, but in no high sense a +statesman. Up to his death in 1868 he exercised such a mastery over the +Republican majority in the House as no man since has approached. He is +sometimes spoken of as if he had been the ruling spirit in +reconstruction, but this seems a mistake. He was a leader in it, so far +as his convictions coincided with the strong popular current; but his +favorite ideas were often set aside. He was an early advocate of a wide +confiscation, but that policy found no support; and at the crucial +points of the reconstruction proceedings he was often thwarted and +superseded by more moderate men. + +Charles Sumner was a high-minded idealist and a scholar, devoted to +noble ends, but not well versed in human nature. He was a lover of Man, +but with men he was not much acquainted. His oratory was elaborate and +ornate, and he unduly estimated the power of words. Sometimes, says +Senator Hoar, he seemed to think the war was to be settled by +speech-making, and was impatient of its battles as an interruption--like +a fire-engine rumbling past while he was orating. But he had large +influence, partly from his thoroughly disinterested character, and +partly because beyond any other man in public life he represented the +elements of moral enthusiasm among the people. His counterpart was +Henry Wilson, his colleague in the Senate. Wilson had risen from the +shoe-maker's bench, and knew the common people as a cobbler knows his +tools. He was genial in temperament; public-spirited and generous in his +aims; a most skilful tactician, and not over-scrupulous. He joined the +Know-nothings, with no sympathy for their proscriptive creed, but in the +break-up of parties using them for the anti-slavery cause,--and to +secure his own election to the United States Senate. He was a good +fighter, but without rancor; and he was an admirable interpreter of the +real democracy. Senator Hoar, in his autobiography, graphically +describes how at some crisis Wilson would travel swiftly over the State, +from Boston to Berkshire, visit forty shops and factories in a day, talk +with politicians all night, study the main currents and the local +eddies; and after a week or two of this--seeming meanwhile to be backing +and filling in his own mind--would "strike a blow which had in it not +only the vigor of his own arm, but the whole vigor and strength of the +public sentiment which he had gathered and which he represented." + +Prominent in the Senate was "bluff Ben Wade" of Ohio, an old-time +anti-slavery man, radical, vigorous, a stout friend and foe. Another +conspicuous radical was Zachariah Chandler of Michigan. He was born in +New Hampshire, went West early in life, and was a chief organizer and +leader of the Republican party in Michigan. He was a mixture of Yankee +shrewdness and Western energy; patriotic, masterful, somewhat +coarse-grained and materialistic; and, like many of his associates, +better suited for controversy and war than for conciliation and +construction. Of a higher type were three men who stood near the head in +the Senate,--John Sherman of Ohio, Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, and +William P. Fessenden of Maine. In the qualities for solid work, few men +of his time surpassed Sherman. He was wise in framing legislation, and a +good administrator,--an upright, moderate, serviceable man. Trumbull, of +Connecticut birth, was well trained in the law and eminent as a +constitutional lawyer. He made his serious entrance into public life +along with Lincoln, and was his near friend and adviser. He was an able +though not a brilliant debater; a man of independent convictions and +thorough courage. Fessenden, like Trumbull, was entitled to rank as a +real statesman. Like Trumbull he had no popular arts, and where Trumbull +was reticent and withdrawn in manner, Fessenden was austere and +sometimes irascible. In private character both were above reproach. +Fessenden had a finely-trained and richly-equipped mind. In an +emergency, after Chase's retirement, he accepted the secretaryship of an +almost bankrupt treasury, and handled it well. His devotion to duty was +unreserved; he was an admirable debater; and he had the high power of +framing legislation. His was the most important work of the +reconstruction committee, and Trumbull, as chairman of the judiciary +committee, had a chief hand in the other leading measures. The Democrats +were few and not strong in leadership; their ablest man was Reverdy +Johnson of Maryland,---highly educated and large-minded. With these were +other senators of repute; and in the House there were abundant men of +mark,--Colfax, Blaine, Banks, Boutwell, Dawes, Conkling, Henry J. +Raymond, Randall, Hayes, Garfield, Bingham, Shellabarger, Voorhees, +Elihu B. Washburn;--space is wanting to name others, or to individually +characterize these. + +In estimating the work of reconstruction we must take account of the +character of the men who shaped it. Taking these leaders as a body, they +fall into groups,--Sumner for the uncompromising idealists; the radicals +by temperament, like Stevens, Wade, and Chandler; the men of higher +training, minds of the statesman's type, and a certain austerity of +temper, such as Fessenden, Trumbull, and Sherman. Among them all there +was a deficiency of that blending of large view, close insight, and +genial humanity, which marked Lincoln. Small discredit to them that they +were not his peers,--but the work in hand demanded just such a +combination. + +It is to be remembered that all of these, like the mass of the Northern +people, had been for many years contending with all their might for +certain ends, and in keenest hostility to the Southern whites. They had +fought for the Union and freedom; the South had fought for the +Confederacy and slavery. By sheer overpowering physical force the +Southern armies had been beaten down, and peace restored, and in name at +least the national authority re-established. But by conviction, habit, +instinct, these opponents yet hot from the battle-field would scrutinize +with jealous care the real success of their principles and the +disposition of their late foes. + +The President's policy, as laid down in his message, was at once +challenged in Congress. Stevens opened the debate in the House, and, +without directly assailing the President, antagonized his theory that +the States, like the Union, were indestructible, that secession had only +temporarily suspended their relation, and that they now by right +recurred at once to their normal position. Against this Stevens +maintained that by their rebellion these States had, as organizations, +committed suicide, that they now were in the position of conquered +territory, and that out of this territory Congress was to create new +States on whatever terms it judged most expedient. The President's +theory found an able supporter in Henry J. Raymond, who had just +exchanged the editorship of the New York _Times_ for a seat in Congress. +But he had only a single ally among his Republican colleagues, and the +lonely couple, with four Republican senators, proved to be the only +habitual supporters of the President in the party that had elected him. +But the Democrats came to his side with an alacrity that strengthened +the Republican opposition. Their party had as a whole leaned toward the +South during the war, and they now welcomed the easy terms held out by +the President to their old associates. The Republican doctrine was best +formulated by Shellabarger of Ohio, who, without going to the full +length of Stevens's theory, maintained the essential right of Congress +to lay down the conditions on which the seceded States could resume +their old relation with the Federal Government. That seemed the just and +inevitable logic of the situation; and it was expressed in as much +conformity with the Constitution as was practicable after the rude +jostle of a four years' war. + +Meantime, Republican leaders in the Senate--Sumner, Wilson and +Fessenden--were announcing the same doctrine, and were earnestly +declaring that the actual conditions of the South called for stronger +remedies than the President had provided. A joint resolution brought +before Congress a report which had been made to the President by Carl +Schurz, after a tour of several months for which he had been specially +commissioned. With this report, the President sent also one from General +Grant, whom he had asked, during an official trip of a few days, to +observe the general disposition and temper of the Southern people. Grant +stated his conclusion to be that "the mass of thinking men of the South +accept the present situation of affairs in good faith"; and that they +cordially acquiesce in the restoration of the national sovereignty and +the abolition of slavery; and Grant's name carried great weight. + +But Mr. Schurz's much longer and more careful study had brought him to +very different conclusions. He was a trained observer and thinker; a +German refugee after the disturbances of 1848; a leader among the +emancipationists in Missouri before the war, a general in the Union +army, and a political radical. Mr. Schurz recapitulated his observations +and conclusions, as he then reported them, in an article in _McClure's +Magazine_ for January, 1904; and they come now with increased weight +after a life-time of disinterested and sagacious public service. That he +found the Southern whites acquiescing in their defeat only as of +necessity, conquered but not convinced--is no matter of surprise; though +Mr. Schurz seems somewhat to have shared the Northern expectation that +their late foes should take the attitude of repentant sinners. But as to +their practical attitude toward the negro, his testimony is important. +He relates that he found the general assertion to be "You cannot make +the negro work without compulsion." This conviction he encountered +everywhere; all facts to the contrary were brushed aside, and every +instance of idleness or vagabondage was cited as proof positive of the +negro's unwillingness to labor. The planter who seriously maintained in +Mr. Schurz's presence that one of his negroes was unfit for freedom +because he refused to submit to a whipping, went only a little further +than his neighbors. + +As to actual behavior of the negroes, under this sudden and tremendous +change of condition, certain facts were noted; not a single act of +vengeance was charged against them; a great part, probably the large +majority, remained or soon went back to work for their old employers; +but a considerable part began an aimless roaming to enjoy their new +liberty, or huddle around the stations where the agents of the +Freedmen's Bureau doled out some relief. As to their education, popular +opinion was no less unfavorable than as to their labor. The common +expressions were "learning will spoil the negro for work," "negro +education would be the ruin of the South," and even "the elevation of +the blacks would be the degradation of the whites." In practical +application of these views, negro schools were frequently broken up and +the school-houses burned; and in many places they were only safe under +the immediate protection of the Federal troops. After many further +particulars, especially as to the oppressive laws passed by the new +governments, Mr. Schurz sums up: "To recapitulate; the white people of +the South were harassed by pressing necessities, and most of them in a +troubled and greatly excited state of mind. The emancipation of the +slaves had destroyed the traditional labor system upon which they had +depended. Free negro labor was still inconceivable to them. There were +exceptions, but, as a rule, their ardent, and in a certain sense not +unnatural, desire was to resist its introduction, and to save or restore +as much of the slave labor system as possible." + +It was the character of the laws and ordinances passed under these +circumstances which was to the better sentiment of the North the most +concrete and convincing argument against restoring the Southern States +by the short and easy road proposed by President Johnson. It is to those +laws, and the condition underlying them, that we must ascribe the +refusal of Congress--backed by Northern conviction--to confirm the early +restoration which at first seemed so promising. So those laws deserve +careful consideration, as well as the situation which led to them. + +The Southern people, blacks and whites, were in a position of almost +unexampled difficulty. To the ravages of war and invasion, of +impoverishment and bereavement--and, as it fell out, to two successive +seasons of disastrous weather for crops,--was added at the outset a +complete disarrangement of the principal supply of labor. The mental +overturning was as great as the material. To the negroes "freedom" +brought a vague promise of life without toil or trouble. The hard facts +soon undeceived them. But for the indulgent Providence they at first +hoped for, some occasional and partial substitute appeared in the +offices of the Freedmen's Bureau. This had been established by Congress, +in March, 1865, with the laudable design of helping to adjust the +freedmen to their new condition; to make temporary provision for the +extreme physical wants of some; to aid them in arrangements for labor +and education; and, as was at first contemplated, to lease to them +abandoned or confiscated lands, in plots of forty acres, for three +years. This land provision was soon abandoned, there being no +confiscation to provide the necessary land; but it started the +expectation of "forty acres and a mule," which misled many a freedman. +As chief of the Bureau was appointed General O. O. Howard, a +distinguished Union commander, of the highest personal character, and +entirely devoted to his new work; and under him was a commissioner with +a working force in each of the States. The Bureau accomplished +considerable good; but its administration on the whole was not of the +highest class; among its subordinates were some unfit men; and a good +deal of offense and irritation attended its operations. At most, it +touched only the circumference of the problem. Three and a half millions +of newly enfranchised, ignorant men, women and children! What should +provide for the helpless among them, especially for the children, whom +the master's care had supported? How should order be maintained in the +lower mass, half-brutalized, whom slavery had at least restrained from +vagabondage, rapine, and crime? And how should the whole body be induced +to furnish the dynamic, driving power of industry essential to the +community's needs? These questions the South essayed to answer in part +by a system of laws, of which we may take as a fair specimen the +legislation of Mississippi--the only State which had enacted this class +of laws before Congress met,--as they are summarized in the thorough and +impartial book of Professor J. W. Burgess, _Reconstruction and the +Constitution_. + +The law of apprenticeship ran thus: Negro children under eighteen, +orphans or receiving no support from their parents, to be apprenticed, +by clerk of probate court, to some suitable person,--by preference the +former master or mistress; the court to fix the terms, having the +interest of the minor particularly in view; males to be apprenticed till +end of twenty-first year, females to end of eighteenth. No other +punishment to be permitted than the common law permits to a parent or +guardian. If the apprentice runs away, he is to be apprehended and +returned, or, if he refuses to return, to be confined or put under bonds +till the next term of the court, which shall then decide as to the cause +of his desertion, and if it appears groundless compel his return, or if +he has been ill-treated fine the master not more than $100 for the +benefit of his apprentice. This statute seems not oppressive but +beneficent. + +The law of vagrancy provided that all freedmen having no lawful +employment or business, or who are found unlawfully assembling, and all +white persons so assembling in company with freedmen, or "usually +associating with freedmen, free negroes, or mulattoes, on terms of +equality," are to be deemed vagrants, and fined, a white man not more +than $200, a negro not more than $50, and imprisoned, a white man not +more than six months, a negro not more than ten days. If the negro does +not pay his fine within five days, he is to be hired out by the sheriff +to the person who will pay his fine and costs for the shortest term of +service. The same treatment is to be applied to any negro who fails to +pay his tax. This statute meant legal servitude for any negro not +finding employment, and the same penalty for a white man who merely +consorted with negroes on equal terms. + +The law of civil rights provided that all negroes are to have the same +rights with whites as to personal property, as to suing and being sued, +but they must not rent or lease lands or tenements except in +incorporated towns and cities, and under the control of the corporate +authorities. Provision is made for the intermarriage of negroes, and the +legalization of previous connections; but intermarriage between whites +and negroes is to be punished with imprisonment for life. Negroes may be +witnesses in all civil cases in which negroes are parties, and in +criminal cases where the alleged crime is by a white person against a +negro. Every negro shall have a lawful home and employment, and hold +either a public license to do job-work or a written contract for labor. +If a laborer quits his employment before the time specified in the +contract, he is to forfeit his wages for the year up to the time of +quitting. Any one enticing a laborer to desert his work, or selling or +giving food or raiment or any other thing knowingly to a deserter from +contract labor, may be punished by fine or imprisonment. No negro is to +carry arms without a public license. Any negro guilty of riot, affray, +trespass, seditious speeches, insulting gestures, language or acts, or +committing any other misdemeanor, to be fined and imprisoned, or if the +fine is not paid in five days to be hired out to whoever will pay fine +and costs. All penal and criminal laws against offenses by slaves or +free negroes to continue in force except as specially repealed. + +Many of these clauses speak eloquently for themselves, and as to the law +in general Professor Burgess, who certainly has no anti-Southern bias, +comments: "Almost every act, word or gesture of the negro, not +consonant with good taste and good manners as well as good morals, was +made a crime or misdemeanor, for which he could first be fined by the +magistrates and then be consigned to a condition of almost slavery for +an indefinite time, if he could not pay the bill." And Professor Burgess +adds, "This is a fair sample of the legislation subsequently passed by +all the States reconstructed under President Johnson's plan." + +The case against this class of laws may be left--in the necessary limits +of space--with this careful and moderate statement, though the +temptation is strong to quote from Mr. Schurz and other authorities +further specimens of the great body of harassing legislation, both state +and local;--the establishment of pillory and whipping-post; the +imposition of unjust taxes, with heavy license fees for the practice of +mechanic arts; requirements of certified employment under some white +man; prohibition of preaching or religious meetings without a special +license; sale into indefinite servitude for slight occasion; and so +on--a long, grim chapter. Whatever excuses may be pleaded for these +laws, under the circumstances of the South, all have this +implication,--that the negro was unfit for freedom. He was to be kept as +near to slavery as possible; to be made, "if no longer the slave of an +individual master, the slave of society." And further, as to the broad +conditions of the time, two things are to be noted. The physical +violence was almost wholly practiced by the whites against the negroes. +Bands of armed white men, says Mr. Schurz, patrolled the highways (as in +the days of slavery) to drive back wanderers; murder and mutilation of +colored men and women were common,--"a number of such cases I had +occasion to examine myself." In some districts there was a reign of +terror among the freedmen. And finally, the anticipation of failure of +voluntary labor speedily proved groundless. A law was at work more +efficient than any on the statute-books,--Nature's primal law, "Work or +starve!" Many, probably a majority of the freedmen, worked on for their +old masters, for wages. The others, after some brief experience of +idleness and starvation, found work as best they could. No tropical +paradise of laziness was open to the Southern negro. The first Christmas +holidays, looked forward to with vague hope by the freedmen and vague +fear by the whites, passed without any visitation of angels or +insurrection of fiends. In a word, the most apparent justifications for +the reactionary legislation,--danger of rapine and outrage from +emancipated barbarians, and a failure of the essential supply of +labor--proved alike groundless. + +As the facts of the situation became known, not only by Mr. Schurz's +report, but by news from the Southern capitals and by various +evidence--it was very clear that Congress could not and would not set +the seal of national authority on any such settlement as this. Granted, +and freely, that no millennium was to be expected, that a long and +painful adjustment was necessary,--yet it was out of the question that +any political theory or any optimistic hopes should induce acquiescence +in the legal establishment of semi-slavery throughout the South. It was +not Stevens's rancor, nor Sumner's unpracticability, but the serious +conviction of the North, educated and tempered by long debate and bitter +sacrifice, which ordained that the work of freedom must not be thrown +into ruins. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +RECONSTRUCTION: THE SECOND PLAN + + +Congress addressed itself, in the first instance, to extending and +prolonging that provision for the freedmen which it had already made +through the Freedmen's Bureau. A bill was reported, having the weighty +sanction of Senator Trumbull and the judiciary committee, greatly +increasing the force of officials under the Bureau; putting it under the +military administration of the President and so with the direct support +of the army; and broadening its functions to include the building of +school-houses and asylums for the freedmen, and a wide jurisdiction over +all civil and criminal cases in which local laws made an unjust +discrimination between the races. The bill passed the Senate and House, +by the full party majority. It was sent to the President, February 10, +1866, and nine days later he returned it with a veto message, calmly and +ably argued. He objected to the bill as a war measure after peace had +been proclaimed. He took exception to the intrusion of military +authority upon the sphere of the civil courts, and to the extension of +Federal authority in behalf of black men beyond what had ever been +exercised in behalf of white men. The message was strong enough to win a +few of the orthodox Republicans, including ex-Governor Morgan of New +York, and the two-thirds vote necessary to carry the bill over the veto +could not be gained. + +Up to this time there seems reason to believe that while the Republicans +in Congress were firm in claiming for that body a decisive voice in +reconstruction, yet a majority of them were more favorable to the policy +of President Johnson than to that of Sumner and Stevens. But now, upon +the necessity of safeguarding the freedmen by exceptional measures in a +wholly exceptional time, the preponderance of conviction turned against +him in Congress and in the country. His own acts quickly converted that +first opposition into hostility and alarm. + +Until now President Johnson, whatever dissent he might provoke, had +appeared as a dignified statesman. But three days after his veto, on +February 22--Washington's birthday--a cheering crowd called the +President to the balcony of the White House. They heard a speech,--how +different from what Lincoln had spoken in the same place in the previous +April. Johnson was exhilarated by his success, forgetful that he still +faced a hostile majority in Congress, exasperated by opposition, and +roused by the shouts of the crowd,--and his native passion and +coarseness came out. Sumner had been severe in his language; he had +likened President Johnson to President Pierce in the Kansas days, and +hinted a family resemblance to Pharaoh of Egypt. Wendell Phillips was in +his native element of denunciation. Now the President declared to his +applauding hearers that he had against him men as much opposed to the +fundamental principles of the government, and he believed as much +laboring to pervert or destroy them, as had been the leaders of the +rebellion,--Davis, Toombs, and their associates. To the responsive +cheers, and the cry for names, he answered by naming Stevens, Sumner and +Phillips. He rehearsed his rise from tailor to President, and declared +that a ground swell, an earthquake of popular support, was coming to +him. His speech brought surprise and dismay to the country. It fanned +into hot flame the opposition between President and Congress. In vain +did John Sherman,--who had conferred with the President in the summer, +and thought highly of his patriotism--now hold out the olive branch in +the Senate. A keen observer at Washington, Samuel Bowles,--who had held +a friendly attitude toward both the President and the party +leaders,--now wrote, February 26, "Distrust, suspicion, the conceit of +power, the infirmities of temper on both sides, have brought affairs to +the very verge of disorder and ruin." He dissuaded from taking sides in +the quarrel; there was too much right and too much wrong on both sides. +He urged, March 3,--and no doubt he represented the best sentiment of +the country: "The great point is to secure protection and justice for +the freedmen.... For the present the Freedmen's Bureau, military +occupancy, and United States courts, must be our reliance.... We want +the President firm and resolute on this point, and we want to arouse the +better class of the Southern people to do their duty in the same +regard." + +The weakness of the veto message on the Freedmen's Bureau bill had been +the absence of any solicitude for the welfare of the freedmen; +constitutional theory seemed to wholly supersede the practical necessity +of the case. Now Congress again approached the matter in the Civil +Rights bill, carefully formulated in the judiciary committee, thoroughly +debated and amended, and passed by both houses late in March. It +affirmed United States citizenship for all persons born in the country +and not subject to any foreign power; it declared for all citizens an +equal right to make and enforce contracts, sue, give evidence, hold and +sell property, etc.; full equality as to security of person and +property, as to pains and penalties,--in short, complete civil equality. +Original jurisdiction was given to United States courts, and to these +could be transferred any case involving these subjects begun in a State +court. The bill empowered the President to use the army for its +enforcement. All this was under authority of the Thirteenth Amendment. + +This, too, the President vetoed, as unnecessary, as employing the +military arm too freely, as extending unwisely the power of the Federal +Government, and as especially unwise legislation while eleven States out +of thirty-six were unrepresented in Congress. But the President was now +going in the face not only of the congressional majority but of the +North at large, which was unmistakably opposed to leaving the freedmen +with no protection against their old masters. The veto was overridden, +and became a law April 9. The Freedmen's Bureau bill, somewhat amended, +was again passed, this time over a veto, and became a law July 16. + +It was after the decisive victory over the President on the Civil Rights +bill that Congress took up the comprehensive measure which embodied its +own plan of reconstruction as a substitute for the President's. That +measure was the Fourteenth Amendment. It was drawn up by the +reconstruction committee, of which Senator Fessenden was chairman, and +probably his was the leading part in framing its provisions. The first +proposition was only to make the basis of congressional representation +dependent on the extension or denial of suffrage to the freedmen. This +was proposed January 22, 1866, and after some weeks' discussion passed +the House but failed in the Senate. It was replaced by a broader +measure, which was reported April 30, debated and amended for six weeks, +and finally in mid-June took the form in which it now stands in the +Constitution, and was approved by Congress. It then went before the +States for their action, with a tacit but strong implication that upon +its acceptance and adoption the lately seceded States would be fully +restored. It was in effect the plan of reconstruction first offered by +Congress, as a substitute for the President's. + +The first article of the amendment declares that all persons born or +naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States, and +of the State wherein they reside; and that all are entitled to the equal +protection of the laws. Another section guarantees the validity of the +public debt, and forbids payment of the Confederate debt or payment for +the emancipation of slaves. Both these articles appear at this distance +of time to be beyond question or criticism. Another article apportions +representation in Congress, as heretofore, according to population; but +further provides that any State which denies the suffrage to any part of +its adult male population, except for rebellion or other crime, shall +have its congressional representation reduced in the same proportion. It +will be remembered that under the old Constitution the basis of +representation was fixed by adding to the total of the free population a +number equal to three-fifths of the slaves. Now that the slaves had +become freedmen, the representation of the old slave States would to +that extent be increased. But it seemed neither just nor expedient to +permit such an increase of power, unless the class on whose enumeration +it was based were made _bona fide_ citizens, and sharers in this power. +If under this amendment the Southern States should choose to give the +vote to the freedmen, their total representation in Congress would be +raised from sixty-one to seventy. If they did not give it, their +representation would fall to forty-five. There was thus offered them a +strong inducement to establish impartial suffrage; while yet they were +at full liberty to withhold it at the price of some diminution of power +compared with communities adopting the broader principle. The +reconstruction committee had listened to prominent Southerners as to the +probable reception of this provision. Stephens thought his people would +consider it less than their due and would not ratify it. But Lee thought +that Virginia would accept it, and then decide the question of suffrage +according to her preponderating interest; that at present she would +prefer the smaller representation, but would hold herself ready to +extend the suffrage if at any time the freedmen should show a capacity +to vote properly and understandingly. + +So far, the Fourteenth Amendment seems now to embody a sound +statesmanship. But the remaining article must be judged by itself. It +excludes from all State and national offices all those, who, having +taken an official oath to support the Constitution, have afterward taken +part in insurrection and rebellion. This was ingeniously framed with an +appearance of justice, as if debarring from office only those who to +rebellion had added perjury. But, as a matter of ethics, the breaking of +official oaths is an inevitable incident of every revolution; and just +as war is held to suspend in a measure the command "thou shalt not +kill," so revolution must be held to cancel the obligation of official +oaths. The opposite view would affix the full guilt of perjury to many +leaders in the American Revolution, perhaps to Washington himself. It +was not really as perjurers that the excluded class were debarred from +office, but as prominent leaders in the rebellion, so marked by having +previously held office. It shut out, and was so intended, a class not +only very large in numbers but including the best intelligence and +social leadership of the South. To exclude these men from all political +leadership in the new régime was in flat defiance of that statesmanship, +as wise as magnanimous, which Andrew and Beecher had voiced. As one New +England observer put the matter, it would help matters greatly if no man +favored a government for others that he would not like to live under +himself; now how would it work in Massachusetts to exclude from the +government the whole Republican party? Yet the Democrats in the State +have ten times the knowledge, character and ability, that are possessed +in the South by the elements free from stain of rebellion. + +The disqualification, to be sure, was removable in each case by a +two-thirds vote of Congress. But it could not be foreseen how Congress +would be disposed; and in fact, the President's pardon, so freely given, +had been by Congress expressly deprived of any political value; being +held to exempt only from legal pains and penalties. The new exclusion, +if adopted, could hardly work other than disastrously. And, being +offered, as the entire amendment necessarily was, for acceptance or +rejection by all the States, this provision was as well suited to repel +the South as if it had been designed for that purpose. It offended that +loyalty to their tried leaders in stress and storm which is one of the +best traits in a people's character. Compare it with Beecher's saying of +a few months earlier, "I think it to be the great need of this nation to +save the self-respect of the South." The difference measures the degree +of the mistake under which the mass of the North were still laboring. +They looked upon the rebellion as a moral and personal crime. They had +no comprehension of the Southern standpoint; and, sure that their own +cause was just, they believed that their opponents were not only +mistaken but morally guilty. As it was hardly possible to suppose the +8,000,000 to have all gone wrong out of individual perversity, the +current view at the North was that Secession sprang from a conspiracy; +that its leaders had secretly plotted, like Aaron Burr, and thus misled +their followers. The impulse to inflict death or imprisonment or +confiscation on anybody was infrequent or short-lived; the desire for +such punishment lingered only in an irrational wish for vengeance on +Jefferson Davis. But, if the leading class in the society and public +life of the South were morally responsible for a great treason and +rebellion, it might seem not only just but wise to exclude them from the +new political order. + +The critics of the reconstruction policy are often challenged by its +defenders with the question, "But what better course can you suggest, +even now?" And the immense difficulty of the problem, even as calmly +viewed to-day by the closet student, may well make us charitable toward +the men who, for the most part, did the best they knew under the +immediate besetment of measureless perplexities and contradictions. But +while we may approve of their work in the rest of the Fourteenth +Amendment, with equal emphasis we may say: The mistake was great, in the +amendment and later, of shutting out the very men who should have been +included. Better by far would it have been to take their counsel and +co-operation even beforehand in planning the work of reconstruction. +Even as to that crucial point, the legislation oppressive to the +freedmen, and the deeper difficulty underlying it, the ingrained +Southern attitude toward the negro as an inferior being,--even as to +this, something might have been accomplished had the Southern men, who +went to Washington in the vain hope of immediate admission to Congress, +been met by a President of Lincoln's or Andrew's calibre. Even as it +was, there were signs of promise in Georgia,--so says Rhodes in his +excellent _History of the United States_. The newly elected Governor, +Judge Jenkins, a man of "universally acknowledged probity and +uprightness of character" made in his inaugural address (December 14, +1865) a strong plea for the negroes who had so faithfully cared for the +lands and homes and families of the soldiers in the field: "As the +governing class individually and collectively we owe them unbounded +kindness and thorough protection.... Their rights of person and +property should be made perfectly secure." To like effect spoke +Alexander H. Stephens, revered by all Georgians, February 22, 1866; +recalling the fidelity of the slaves during the war and the debt of +gratitude it created; the obligation of honor to the poor, untutored, +uninformed; asking for the negroes ample and full protection, with +equality before the law as to all rights of person, liberty and +property. And such equality the Georgia Legislature speedily ordained. +Tennessee did the like. Rhodes expresses confidence that by gentle +pressure from the President and Congress, Virginia, North Carolina and +Alabama could have been persuaded to similar legislation within a twelve +month, and the other States would have followed. + +The excluding article in the amendment was probably made as a concession +by the moderate Republicans to the radicals. It replaced an article +originally reported by the committee, excluding not only from office but +from the suffrage all who had taken part in the Rebellion, until July 4, +1870. The article as adopted was disliked by Sherman and Wilson, the +latter especially declaring his willingness to remove the +disqualifications as soon as possible after a settlement had been made. +In point of fact they were removed piecemeal by Congress almost as +freely as President Johnson had done the like, and were ended except for +a few hundred by a sweeping amnesty in 1872. + +Grant said to A. H. Stephens in April, 1866, "The true policy should be +to make friends of enemies." If these men, with a few others of like +temper in North and South, could have settled the terms of the new +order, a different foundation might have been laid. But in default of +any such happy, unlikely conjuncture of the right men in the right +place, it is the deep and wide tides of public opinion that largely +shape events. The average Southern view of the negro, and the average +Northern view of the "rebel," were the Scylla and Charybdis between +which the ship of state steered its troubled voyage. + +Returning now to the course of events,--Congress made it plain that the +acceptance of the Fourteenth Amendment would bring the restoration of +the South, not by a formal declaration, but by its action in promptly +admitting Tennessee when within a month it ratified the amendment. So +before the South and the country were now the two policies,--of Congress +and the President,--and the summer and autumn saw a general and eager +discussion. The South waited events, hoping for the President's success. +In the North there was at first a marked effort to rally conservative +men of both parties to his side. A great convention was held at +Philadelphia, promoted by the President, Seward, Weed and Henry J. +Raymond; with delegates from every State; the first day's procession led +by Massachusetts and South Carolina representatives arm-in-arm; Southern +governors and judges heartily assenting to the declaration that not only +is slavery dead, but nobody wants it revived; and with cordial +indorsement of the President's reconstruction policy. + +There was a counter-convention at Pittsburg; there were "soldiers' and +sailors' conventions" on both sides. From the Cabinet three members, +Speed, Denison and Harlan, resigned because their convictions were with +Congress; but Stanton remained as Secretary of War, though he was now a +bitter opponent of the President,--a safeguard over the army, as the +radical leaders considered him, and by his attitude and natural temper a +constant exasperation to his nominal chief. A fierce and bloody riot in +New Orleans, of which the precise causes were obscure, but in which the +negroes were the sufferers, heightened the Northern anxiety as to the +general situation. + +The popular tide evidently ran with Congress, yet Johnson had the +promise of very respectable support until he threw it away. His +extempore expressions suggested an overweening view of his own position. +To the committee reporting to him the Philadelphia convention, he said, +"We have seen hanging upon the verge of the government, as it were, a +body called, or which assumes to be, the Congress of the United +States--but in fact a Congress of only a part of the States." In +September he made a tour of the Northern States, taking in his train +Secretaries Seward and Welles, with Grant and Farragut;--"swinging round +the circle," he called his trip. He made addresses in the principal +cities, in which he denounced his opponents, sometimes with vulgar +abuse, bragged of his own rise from tailor to President, and bandied +words with the mob. He shamed many of the men of character--Beecher +among them--who had viewed him with favor. The tide turned +overwhelmingly against him. The November election returned a Congress +consisting in the House of 143 Republicans to 49 Democrats, with a +Senate of 42 Republicans to 11 Democrats. + +It was like the hand of Nemesis that the South, led to crushing defeat +by its slave-holding aristocracy, should now have its interests +sacrificed through the characteristic faults of one of its poor +whites,--his virtues overborne by his narrow judgment, uncontrolled +temper and coarse speech. + +Warned by the election, the South might well have accepted the +Fourteenth Amendment as the price of its restoration. But it failed to +read the handwriting on the wall. It could not yet brook acquiescence in +the exclusion of its old leaders, and the alternative of negro suffrage +or reduced power in Congress. The pride of race, the unquenched spirit +of the "lost cause," prompted it to stand out for better terms. During +the autumn and winter of 1866-7 the lately seceded States, except +Tennessee, rejected the amendment. So failed the first congressional +plan of reconstruction, as the President's earlier plan had failed. And +now there was small hesitation or delay in framing and enforcing the +final plan. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +RECONSTRUCTION: THE FINAL PLAN + + +The Congress which met in December, 1866, was the same body as in the +previous winter; but the prolonged contest, the President's misbehavior, +the South's rejection of the offered terms, and the popular verdict at +the November election, had strengthened the hands of the Republicans and +intensified their temper. Thaddeus Stevens brought in, February 6, 1867, +a bill which was trenchant indeed. It superseded the governments of the +ten unreconstructed States, divided their territory into five military +districts, placed their commanders under the orders, not of the +President, but of the general of the army, and suspended the habeas +corpus. It was military rule in its barest form, and for an indefinite +period. Blaine moved an amendment, specifying the terms on which the +States might be released from this military control and restored to +their normal status. But Stevens's despotic sway shut out the amendment +and carried the bill through the House. In the Senate, Sherman +successfully carried a substitute, much the same as the Blaine +amendment. This went back to the House, where a majority of Republicans +favored the change, but Stevens still opposed it, and had enough +followers to make together with the Democrats a majority that threw out +the whole measure. But success by such allies was undesired by the +radicals and alarming to the moderate Republicans. There was +reconsideration, minor concessions to Stevens, and the bill finally +passed February 20, not at all as he had designed it, but in a form due +either to Blaine or Sherman. It is singular that so important a measure +should be of doubtful paternity. It seems more like a production of +Sherman, who in constructive ability was far ahead of Blaine and of most +of his congressional colleagues. In its substance it represents +apparently the judgment and purpose of the great majority of the +Republicans in Congress. + +It is remarkable that so vital and momentous a law should have been +enacted with so little discussion. It was hurried through, in order that +its passage twelve days before the close of the session might prevent +the President from "pocketing" it--letting it fail for want of his +signature, without risking a veto. The debate, as Blaine reports it in +his _Twenty Years of Congress_, seems to have been mainly for the +scheme, and against the far more drastic proposal of Stevens and +Boutwell,--in opposing which Blaine himself seems to have done service +certainly as creditable as any in his checkered career. But the radical +character of the bill as passed, its great advance on all earlier +proposals, seems to have called forth hardly any challenge among the +Republicans. + +In a word, the law put the whole unreconstructed South,--all of the old +Confederacy except Tennessee,--under temporary military government, +subject to the President; and the commanders were at once to initiate +measures for new State organizations. They were to enroll all adult +males, white and black, as voters, except only such as the Fourteenth +Amendment would shut out from office; these voters were then to elect +delegates in each State to a convention; this body was to frame a +constitution incorporating permanently the same conditions of suffrage; +this constitution was then to be submitted to popular vote; and if a +majority ratified it,--if Congress approved it,--if the Legislature +elected under it ratified the Fourteenth Amendment,--and if and when +that amendment received enough ratifications to enact it,--then, at +last, each State was to be fully restored to the Union. + +On this plan the States were rapidly and finally reconstructed. Its +central feature was the enforcement of suffrage for the negroes +throughout the South. Of this tremendous measure, but small discussion +appears in the debate over the bill. But it seems to have had behind it +the prevailing sentiment of the North. A good witness on this point is +the Springfield _Republican_. That paper had strongly advocated the +adoption of the Massachusetts plan, a reading and writing qualification +for suffrage--the State's only good legacy from the Know-nothing period. +Of such a provision it said January 9: "It would be a most potent +stimulus to education, and once made the national rule there would be +such a studying of spelling books as never was seen before.... There can +be no sure reliance on the votes of blacks any more than of whites who +cannot read their ballots." But this plan found little popular favor. +The objection to it which we now recognize,--that the Southern States +might probably have forborne to educate the freedmen, and so left them +disfranchised,--was not then prominent. But there had not come to be a +general recognition at the North of the danger of ignorant suffrage. Of +the actual drift of opinion the _Republican_ said, March 3, that equal +suffrage is "the sole condition about which there is any approach to +unanimity among our people." + +To understand this opinion we must look back a little. The belief in +universal male suffrage was part of the Democratic movement that swept +almost unchallenged from Jefferson's time till Lincoln's. The mass of +ignorant immigrants gave some alarm, but they seemed to be successfully +digested by the body politic. Beecher, we have seen, thought suffrage a +"natural right," and that was a common doctrine. Besides, it was assumed +at the North that the negroes were naturally the friends of the +national government and of the party that had given them freedom. There +were politicians in plenty who looked to the negro vote to keep the +Republicans in control of the national government. Many of these +doubtless valued the party organization mainly as a means of +self-advancement; while others like Sumner devoutly believed that in the +Republican party lay the sole hope of justice and freedom. To the North +generally, the convincing argument for negro suffrage was that the +ballot would give the black man the necessary weapon for +self-protection. On this ground Mr. Schurz favored it in his report of +1865, and in reviewing the situation in 1904 he holds the same opinion. +The assumption in this view was that the freedmen and the former master +class were, and were to remain, natural enemies. Looking back to +slavery, which really combined an element of oppression with an element +of protection, the North saw only the oppression. Viewing the present, +it was not merely the State laws, but the frequent personal abuse of the +negroes which confirmed the idea that they must have the ballot for +self-protection. + +On broader grounds, the question was reasoned thus: "The logical, the +necessary ultimate step in the negro's elevation to full manhood is his +possession of the vote. By far the most desirable road to this +consummation would be a gradual and educational introduction of the body +of freedmen to the franchise. But toward such a course the South +shows no inclination. The alternative remains--in the brief period +during which the national authority can be applied to organic +reconstruction--of establishing universal manhood suffrage; with the +drawback of a present admixture of a large ignorant and unfit element; +with the great disadvantage, too, of further alienating the two races +for the present; but with the possibility and hope that the exercise of +the ballot will in itself prove educational, and that the Southern white +man and Southern negro will ultimately fare better than if the one is +allowed to permanently disfranchise the other." Something like this, +apparently, whether wise or unwise, was the predominant judgment of the +better class at the North. + +With others the argument was simpler. Blaine in his _Twenty Years_ gives +a common sentiment, himself in 1884 still concurring in it: "The North +believed, and believed wisely, that a poor man, an ignorant man, and a +black man, who was thoroughly loyal, was a safer and better voter than a +rich man, an educated man, and a white man, who in his heart was +disloyal to the Union." The _Republican_, on the contrary, expressed the +opinion: "It is better to be governed by ex-rebels than by fools." + +The Fourteenth Amendment had been put forward virtually as an +invitation. It was rejected by the South, and the new plan--military +government, to give place to new constitutions with universal +suffrage--was issued as a mandate. It was promptly carried out. In +little more than a twelvemonth, the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, +Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas had been reconstructed; their State +organizations were provisionally accepted by Congress in June, 1868; and +as their Legislatures at once ratified the Fourteenth Amendment and +secured its adoption, they were fully restored and their senators and +representatives admitted in July. Virginia and Mississippi managed to +stave off final action, hoping to escape the excluding clauses, until +after Grant's election to the Presidency in 1868; and their hopes were +justified when Grant gave his influence successfully with Congress +against the excluding clauses; so that these two States, with belated +Texas, were reorganized in the following year and admitted early in +1870. Georgia had troubles of her own, and a suspension by Congress +from full statehood for half a year; and her final admission, on July +15, 1870, marked definitely the end of the reconstruction process. The +registration of voters in the ten States had shown that in Alabama, +Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, the colored voters +were in a majority; in Georgia, the two races were about equal; and in +Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas and Texas, one-third or more were +colored. The preponderance of voting power had been given to a people +just out of slavery. The practical working of the plan, and the six +further years of Federal supervision over the South, belong to another +chapter. + +An episode in this story, though an important feature in a general +history, must be the impeachment of President Johnson in the spring of +1868. Though the main questions at issue were definitely settled, the +bitterness between the President and Congress lasted and increased. At +the same time with the final reconstruction measure, there was passed +the "Tenure of Office bill," which took away from the President the +power of removing his subordinates which all his predecessors had +enjoyed, and required the Senate's concurrence in removals as in +appointments. Some exception was made as to Cabinet officers; and the +President, exasperated beyond endurance by Stanton, after vainly, though +reasonably, asking the Senate to relieve him of his hostile secretary, +assumed the right to remove him by his own authority, and appointed Gen. +Lorenzo Thomas in his place, February 21, 1868. The House, in which the +radical temper had grown stronger than ever, in a blaze of excitement +voted the President's impeachment. He was tried before the Senate, the +House prosecutors being led by Stevens, Boutwell, and Benjamin F. +Butler, whose vindictive and unscrupulous personality had come to the +front. The President was defended by a group of the foremost lawyers in +the country, including Benjamin R. Curtis, Jeremiah S. Black, and +William M. Evarts. The only weighty article in the charge was that +concerning Stanton's removal, and upon this a legal defense was made +which now seems conclusive. But it has been justly said that the +President was on trial nominally for one class of offenses, but +practically for another--namely, his persistent opposition to the policy +of Congress. Party loyalty was invoked for his condemnation; the general +temper of the North was hot against him; wrath and tribulation were +predicted for any Republican senator who should vote for his acquittal. +In face of the storm, there were a few who quietly let it be known or +surmised that they should vote in their capacity as judges sworn to +follow the law and the facts, whatever the political consequences. The +decisive hour came, May 16, and the result no one could predict; the +Democratic senators and the four administration Republicans all would +sustain the President; seven additional votes would prevent the decisive +two-thirds condemnation. Man after man, Fessenden, Fowler, Grimes, +Henderson, Ross, Van Winkle, and Trumbull--Republicans all--voted "Not +guilty"; and, by nineteen to thirty-five, President Johnson escaped +deposition--to get rid of Stanton finally, and finish his term; to +return to the Senate from Tennessee; to take his place in history as an +honest and patriotic man, beyond his proper sphere, whose limitations +worked a part in the partial failure of reconstruction. The country +escaped a dangerous dislocation of the relation of Congress and the +executive, and the triumph of an exaggerated radicalism. The seven +independent senators sacrificed their future careers, and deserve the +perpetual gratitude of their country. + +And now it remained for the nation, through a Presidential election, to +pass upon the completed work. In the Democratic convention at New York, +in July, 1868, the reactionary and the progressive elements strove. A +new Democracy was growing, intent on administrative reform and moderate +Constitutionalism; Samuel J. Tilden of New York and his allies were +among the leaders; their candidate was Chief Justice Chase. Only the +incongruity with his judicial position marred the fitness of Chase's +candidacy. Lincoln, though he had his own troubles in dealing with him, +said, "Of all the great men I have known, Chase is equal to about one +and a half of the best of them." He had proved eminent on the bench as +in the Cabinet, and under his lead the Supreme Court gave a series of +conservative decisions on reconstruction questions which were a most +valuable contribution to the national stability and security--a vital, +though not to the popular eye a conspicuous service in the +reconstruction period. Against him, the candidacy of George H. Pendleton +of Ohio represented the element historically unfriendly to the war for +the Union, and intensely opposed to the reconstruction measures. He had +the support of the Southern delegates, present in full force, and +lending to the cheering the dominant note of the well-known "rebel +yell." The reactionists got their own way with the resolutions, which +declared the reconstruction acts to be "unconstitutional, revolutionary, +and void." On the new question which was looming up, of shirking the +national debt by payment in promises, the platform leaned strongly +toward repudiation. Pendleton's supporters, seeing their candidate could +not win, and determined that the other Ohio man, Chase, should not win, +thwarted their New York opponents by a clever trick, and successfully +rushed through the convention the nomination of its presiding officer, +Horatio Seymour of New York, against his protest and to the discomfiture +of his associates. An able, accomplished man, but reckoned half-hearted +in the war, and not rising to statesmanlike proportions, he could not +outweigh the mischievous platform and the Vice-Presidential candidate, +the hot-headed Gen. Francis P. Blair of Missouri, who had just proposed +measures nothing short of revolutionary to override Congress. Against +this combination the Republicans advanced securely to victory. Meeting +in Chicago in May, they showed a temper more moderate than that of +Congress; they of course condemned the President, but they refused to +censure the seven independent senators; and upon Carl Schurz's motion +passed a resolution welcoming back all former enemies now become loyal, +and favoring the early and rapid removal of disabilities. As to the +Presidential nomination, there was no division,--it was given +unhesitatingly, unanimously, heartily, to General Grant. His +steadfastness and success in war had been matched by his magnanimity in +victory and his prudence in the troubled times that followed. Of manly +simplicity and solid worth, sagacious and successful wherever he had +been tried, he seemed at once an embodiment of past victory and an +assurance of future safety. Of the thirty-four States that voted, all +but eight were for Grant and Colfax. Seymour had New York, New Jersey, +Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Oregon, Georgia, and Louisiana. The +popular vote was 3,012,000 for Grant and Colfax to 2,703,000 for Seymour +and Blair. + +The Republican convention had shirked the question of negro suffrage at +the North by referring it to the individual States. Its refusal in many +of the Northern States was felt as a discredit after it had been +enforced throughout the South. The Republicans in Congress took courage +from the election. The Fifteenth Amendment, forbidding the States to +deny the right to vote "on account of race, color or previous condition +of servitude," was brought forward in Congress in December, and passed +February 28, 1869. It was ratified in rapid succession by thirty States +out of thirty-seven,--Tennessee not acting, and negative votes being +given by California, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, and +Oregon,--and proclaimed as adopted, March 30, 1870. + +With Grant's election, and the last touches of reconstruction sure to +follow close, the North, as it were, drew a deep breath of relief. It +felt that the fundamental issues were settled. The war had preserved the +Union and destroyed slavery. The consummation had been fitly rounded out +by the changes in the Constitution. The Southern States were restored to +their places. Vast tides of material advance were setting in. New +questions were rising, new ideas were fermenting. Good-bye to the +past,--so felt the North,--to its injustice and its strife. As the +nation's chieftain had said, in accepting the call to the nation's +Presidency, "Let us have peace." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +RECONSTRUCTION: THE WORKING OUT + + +So the North turned cheerfully to its own affairs--and very engrossing +affairs they were--and the South faced its new conditions. It was still +struggling with the economic wreckage left by four years of battle, +invasion and defeat. It had borne the loss of its separate nationality +and the flag endeared by countless sacrifices. It had accepted the +sudden emancipation of its servile class by the conqueror's hand. It had +been encouraged by President Johnson to resume with little change its +old ways of government. For two years it had gone along precariously +with State organizations of the earlier pattern, subject to occasional +interruption by military authority or officials of the Freedmen's +Bureau. Then, in 1867, all State governments were set aside, and +military rule pure and simple held the field,--in most States for about +fifteen months; in Mississippi, Texas and Virginia, by their own choice, +for as much longer. Though as it was generally administered the military +government was just, as well as economical, yet its maintenance was a +bitter ordeal for a people with the American political habit; a people, +too, who had fought gallantly for four years; who had, upon accepting +their defeat, been assured that the object of their conqueror was +attained in restoring them to their old position, except for +emancipation of the slaves; and who now for a year or two longer were +held under martial law. + +At last--for most of them in mid-summer of 1868--they were again +restored to self-government of the American pattern. Self-government +for all, thought the North complacently; whites and blacks were equal, +not only as subjects of the law but as makers of the law; and so freedom +and democracy were established. But the Southern whites asked in dismay, +What kind of fellow-lawmakers have we got? The question answered itself. +The million or so of new voters were most of them ignorant in a sense of +which illiteracy gives but a hint. They were unversed even in genuine +family life; skilled only in manual industry; unpracticed in +citizenship; utterly untaught in the principles, the facts of history, +the theory and art of self-government, which make up the proper +equipment of the voter. A great part of them, field hands on the great +cotton and sugar plantations, were rude and degraded, trained to live +solely under close and constant control. + +How were the whites to deal with these new-made voters? From the +standpoint of expediency, three courses offered,--to conciliate and +educate them; to outvote them by massing the whites together; or to +suppress them by force or fraud. From the standpoint of unregenerate +human nature, the whites as a body at first took none of these +courses,--they stood apart from the whole business of politics, in wrath +and scorn. Unregenerate perhaps, but most natural, most human! At first, +some crude policy mingled with the sentiment that kept them aloof; there +was the hope that if the whites generally abstained from voting, at the +elections held in November, 1867, to pass on the question whether to +hold constitutional conventions, the proposal might fail for want of the +requisite majority of the registered voters. It was a fallacious hope; +suppose the conventions were to fail, what better terms were now to be +expected from Congress? But the conventions were all held; and as in the +same spirit most of the whites refused to vote for delegates, these were +chosen from the negroes, their friends from the North, and the few +Southern whites who accepted the inevitable. + +Is it not the wisest, the manliest course, to accept the inevitable? So +asked General Longstreet, in a letter to a friend, June 3, 1867. He had +just listened to Senator Wilson, and had been surprised by his fairness +and frankness. For himself he says, "I will be happy to work in any +harness that promises relief to our discomfited people, whether bearing +the mantle of Mr. Davis or Mr. Sumner." Negro suffrage is for the +present an established fact; if after a fair trial it works +disastrously, we will appeal to Congress to repeal it. "If every one +will meet the crisis with proper appreciation of our condition and +obligations, the sun will rise to-morrow on a happy people." But his +words fell on deaf ears, and when he acted with the Republicans he was +visited with ostracism, denunciation, and attack upon his war record. +The typical attitude, at first, was that of the planter who, after +listening to a discussion of the final reconstruction act, inquired, +"Does it say anything about raising cotton?" "No." "Then, damn Congress +and its laws! I'm going to raise cotton." So he and a good many others +gave themselves to raising cotton, and for a while left the choice of +State officers and legislators to "niggers," "carpet-baggers," and +"scalawags." A "scalawag" was any Southern white who allied himself +politically with the negroes, and a "carpet-bagger" was a Northern +adventurer, for whose worldly goods a gripsack sufficed,--or, in +general, any Northerner whatever. + +For the blacks, the sudden opening of political power and preferment, +however designed, was in effect a very doubtful benefit. It turned their +hopes and aspirations in a way which was really "no thoroughfare." To +the more promising and ambitious it offered sudden and brilliant prizes, +instead of the patient apprenticeship which they needed. Of those who +quickly rose to office, a few were by character and attainments really +fit for their position; many won favor by shallow arts; and others were +thrown up like driftwood by the tide. The negroes as a body could follow +only a personal leadership,--how many whites, North or South, really +follow any other?--could be organized in bodies, attached to a party +name and watchwords, and voted in mass by the men who had their +confidence. They understood that their freedom and their right to vote +had been given them by the North and by the Republican party, and to +that party they naturally turned. Their old masters--in many cases their +best friends--frankly told them they were unfit to vote, and wanted no +dealings with them in political affairs. So they found leadership +principally in the men who had come from the North. + +There was a Northern immigration which may be classified as business +men, teachers and adventurers. A considerable number sought an +opportunity in reviving and developing industry,--substantial men and +good citizens. Sometimes a patriotic motive mingled with the industrial. +Governor Andrew, on retiring to private life as a lawyer, tried for some +time to advance a company for bringing into conjunction Southern lands +and Northern enterprise and capital. There were various projects of this +kind, but they met with little success. Private individuals, however, +added something to the industrial and civic forces of the South. A +larger class were the teachers. Men and women by hundreds went to the +South, some sent by missionary organizations, some independently, to +organize schools and to teach the children of the freedmen. Many of them +were of the highest character, devoted, self-sacrificing, going to the +blacks simply because they supposed their need was greatest. But +Beecher's warning proved sound--because as a whole this movement took +the negroes as a distinct field, ignoring the needs of the whites, it +incurred odium as an alien and half-hostile work. The barbaric element +among the whites--and slavery had left a deep taint of barbarism--came +out at its worst in insults to the "nigger teachers," with occasional +burning of a school-house. The better social elements looked askance at +those whose presence was a reminder of conquest and humiliation. + +From the business and the educational immigration, a few Northern men +were drawn into public affairs, less by choice than by necessity of the +situation. With these mingled a different class, men who had been +disreputable hangers-on of the army or the Freedmen's Bureau, or who had +come for the sole purpose of plunder. It was a very mixed company of +whites and blacks that made up the conventions and then filled the +legislative halls and the public offices. The constitutions were not +badly framed, except as they, for the most part, continued the exclusive +clauses. The general legislation was various in its character. There +were some excellent features, above all the institution in every State +of a genuine public school system, where before there had been only +makeshifts or make-believes. Some other good constructive work was done, +toward establishing society on the new basis. Certainly nothing was +enacted so bad as the "black codes" of a few years earlier, not to speak +of the legislation under slavery. There were some unsuccessful attempts +at engrafting institutions, like the township system, which had worked +well in their native soil but could not be created out of hand. In +general the white leadership of the dominant party averted much that +might have been expected from the ignorance of its legislators as a +mass. But plenty of waste and mischief was wrought. Place a crowd of +hungry and untaught men next the public treasury with the lid off, and +some results are sure. The men will not be safer guardians of the +treasure for having had for most of their lives no property rights of +their own, not even the ownership of their own souls and bodies. Yet +most of the plunder seems to have gone into the pockets of knaves of the +superior race. There was a degree of extravagance, waste and corruption, +varying greatly with localities and times, but sufficient to leave a +permanent discredit on the Southern Republican governments as a class. +To judge accurately of the merits and demerits of these governments is +perhaps as difficult a task as historian ever undertook. So fierce is +the passion which invests these events in the memory of the present +generation, that it is almost hopeless to sift and adjudicate the sober +facts. Time has softened much; even the Civil War begins to stand forth +in some firmness of outline and clarity of atmosphere. But when we come +to reconstruction--grave historians grow almost hysterical, romancers +pass the bounds of possibilities, and even official figures contradict +one another with sublime effrontery. + +Yet this very passion of remembrance, which in one way obscures, in +another way illuminates the historical situation. The grievance most +profoundly felt in the reconstruction period was not unwise laws nor +waste of public money nor oppressive taxes. It was the consciousness by +the master class of political subjection to the servile class. It was +the spectacle of rude blacks, yesterday picking cotton or driving mules, +sitting in the legislators' seats and executive offices of Richmond and +Columbia, holding places of power among the people of Lee and Calhoun. +Fancy the people of Massachusetts, were the state-house on Beacon hill +suddenly occupied by Italian, Polish and Russian laborers,--placed and +kept there by a foreign conqueror. Add to the comparison the prouder +height of the slaveholder, and the lower depth of his serf. Put this as +the case of a people high-strung and sensitive, still fresh from the +passion of war, still smarting from defeat. They had fought to +exhaustion, and their banner had fallen without disgrace. Now the +victors who had won by superiority of force had placed their late +bondmen as their rulers. The offices from which their own captains and +chiefs were shut out were filled by plantation field-hands. + +It was not likely that the first attitude of scornful passivity would +long continue, and it did not. The warnings vainly uttered +beforehand,--that the natural leaders would surely lead, and had best be +won as allies, were proved right when it was too late. Said the +_Republican_, August 10, 1868, in protesting against the plan of the +party managers in organizing the Southern wing to consist mainly of the +blacks: "The Republican party cannot long maintain its supremacy at the +South by negro votes alone. The instincts of submission and dependence +in them and of domination in the whites, are too strong to permit such a +reversal of the familiar relations and the natural order. The +slave-holding element has learned to combine, conspire and command, in +the best school on earth, and they will certainly come to the top. Nor +is it desirable that such a state of things should continue." + +The old official class being excluded--to the number, it was estimated, +of 160,000,--and the stand-aloof policy, or drift rather, prevailing in +the political field, it was the more lawless element that first began to +conspicuously assert the white supremacy. There grew up an organization +called "the Ku-Klux Klan," designed at first partly as a rough sport and +masquerade, partly to overawe the negroes. There were midnight ridings +in spectral disguises, warnings, alarms and presently whippings and even +murders. The society, or imitations of it, spread over most of the +South. It was at its height in 1868-70, and in the latter year it +gradually gave way, partly owing to vigorous measures ordered from +Washington, and partly perhaps as legitimate political combinations +again occupied the whites. But it is to be noted that throughout the +decade of reconstruction, though the present fashion is to lay exclusive +stress on the wrong-doing of the negroes and their friends, yet the +physical violence, frequent and widespread, was almost wholly practiced +by the whites. + +From the political torpor, due to discouragement and resentment, there +was an early recovery. When it was found that cotton-planting pure and +simple, with ignoring of politics, resulted in heavy taxes for the +planter; when to the first numbness there succeeded the active +smart,--the whites betook themselves to the resource which in most +States soon proved adequate,--the ballot, and political combination. In +several States the whites were easily in the majority, and where they +were slightly outnumbered their superior intelligence soon gave them the +advantage. In Georgia, finally readmitted at the end of 1869, the +Democrats--constituting the great body of the whites--carried the +election in the next year, and remained in control of the State. +Virginia, which had advisedly kept under military rule until, with +President Grant's aid, she came in without the excluding clauses, early +in 1870, passed at once under Democratic rule. In the same year North +Carolina became Democratic. Texas and Arkansas remained under Republican +sway until the majority shifted to the Democrats in 1874. In Alabama, +the Democrats gained the Governorship and the lower House as early as +1870; two years later the result was disputed, the Democrats conceding +the Governor but claiming the Legislature, while the Republicans +organized a rival Legislature; the Republican Governor-elect called for +United States troops, which were promptly dispatched, and with their +backing a Republican Legislature was secured. In 1874 a Democratic +Governor and Legislature were chosen and installed without dispute. The +Federal interference in Alabama, and the experience of others of the +reconstructed States,--South Carolina, Mississippi, and +Louisiana,--recalls us to that phase of the history which deals with +Washington and the national government. + +Through the eight years of Grant's administration, the public life of +the nation was concerned mainly with clearing away the wreckage left by +the war. There was an enormous debt to be handled and an inflated +currency to be reduced; there was to be curbed administrative +extravagance and corruption, bred of profuse expenditure; a bitter +quarrel with England was to be guided toward war or peace; and the +disordered South was to be composed. These tasks were encountered by men +whose habits and sentiments had been formed in a long and desperate +contest, and in an atmosphere slowly cooling from the fiery glow of +battle. The soldier had to beat his sword into a plowshare, and small +wonder if the blacksmithing was sometimes clumsy. + +Grant was too completely a soldier to be changed into a statesman. He +could deal with a definite, limited, though gigantic business,--the +overcoming of the armies of the Confederacy. But it was beyond his power +to comprehend and master the manifold and intricate problems that center +in the Presidency. Given a specific, well-defined question, within the +reach of his sturdy sense and loyal purpose, and he could deal with it +to good effect, as he did with the English arbitration and the Inflation +bill. But he was incapable of far-reaching and constructive plans +carefully laid and patiently pursued. When he communicated to Congress +the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment, he urged in wise and forcible +language that the new electorate could only be qualified through +education, and that to provide such education was a pressing duty of +Congress so far as its power extended, and of the people through all the +agencies it could command. But having once said this, he let the subject +drop. National education for the freedmen was left unnoticed, save by an +occasional lonely advocate like Sumner. Nor did President Grant take any +personal and positive measures to win and hold the old South to the new +order; he failed to invite and consult its representative men, he made +no journeys among the people. + +In most matters of public policy, save in emergencies, Grant let matters +be shaped by the men whom he had taken into his counsel--in his official +Cabinet or the "kitchen cabinet"--and by the Republican leaders in +Congress, of whom the controlling group, especially in the Senate, were +in close touch with the White House. His affiliations were with men of +material power, men who had strongly administered civil or military +affairs, stout partisans, faithful friends and vigorous haters. His +tastes did not draw him to the idealists, the scholars, the reformers. +He was accessible to good fellowship, he was easily imposed on by men +who were seeking their own ends, and he was very slow to abandon any one +whom he had once trusted. Absolutely honest, the thieves stole all round +him. Magnanimous at heart, the bitter partisans often made him their +tool. Of the great questions of the time, the English quarrel was +brought to an admirable healing, under the management of the Secretary +of State, Hamilton Fish, in 1871, by the joint high commission, the +treaty of Washington, and the Geneva award. In the long contest for a +sound currency, the inflation policy received its death-blow by the +President's veto in 1874, and resumption was undertaken when Sherman +carried his bill through Congress in 1875. As to honesty of +administration, the president's good intentions were constantly baffled +through his misplaced and tenacious confidences. The vast expenditures +of the war, the cheating incident to its great contracts, the +speculation favored by a fluctuating currency, the huge enterprises +invited by the return of peace,--had infected private and public life +with a kind of fever; the treasury was an easy mark; and while the +people held to Grant for his personal honesty, and re-elected him, an +army of rogues throve under his lax administration. + +The let-alone policy toward the South, to which Grant was prompted both +by his virtues and his limitations, would not on the whole have been +unacceptable to the mass of the Southern whites. Left wholly to +themselves, those States would soon have righted themselves from the +unstable equilibrium in which they had been placed by the imposition of +an ignorant electorate. Natural forces,--just or unjust, benignant or +cruel,--would soon have reversed the order. But the nation at large +would not at once abandon its protectorate over its recent wards, the +freedmen. For their greatest need, education, it assumed no +responsibility. But when stories were rife of abuse and terrorism under +the masquerade of the Ku-Klux, Congress interfered, even if by some +stretch of its constitutional power, to bring the raiders under the arm +of Federal law. When elections were reported to be controlled by fraud +and intimidation, it seemed incumbent on the national government to +protect the ballot-box by which its own members were chosen. When rival +bodies claimed each to be the legitimate government of a State, it was +necessary for the Washington authorities to decide which they would +recognize, and it was a natural sequence to back their decision by the +military force. And in all of these cases, the maintenance of law and +order easily became confused with the support of factions allied +politically with the party in power at Washington. As the Southern +Republicans were gradually outvoted or overpowered at home, their +appeals for help from the general government became more urgent, while +the continuance of such interference became more questionable to +thoughtful men. + +Before this state of things, there was a gradual division of opinion +among Republicans at the North, and especially among their leaders. +Against the call to protect the freedmen and bridle the slave-holding +spirit in its new forms, rose the call to return to the old respect for +local rights, and let each Southern State manage its own affairs, as did +each Northern State. To this changed attitude came some of the +staunchest of the old anti-slavery leaders, and many of the younger +generation. During the early years of Grant's administration, the +question did not present itself in acute forms. The Ku-Klux law of 1870, +though it might strain the Constitution a little, received general +acquiescence because the abuse it aimed at was so flagrant. But the +ostracism of the entire official class of the old South was growingly +recognized as a grievance and a wrong. It was the spirit of proscription +that brought on the political crisis of 1872. That proscriptive spirit +broke up the Republican party in Missouri; the liberal element, led by +Carl Schurz and B. Gratz Brown, held a State convention. Their movement +fell in with a strong rising tide of opposition to Grant's +administration within the Republican party. Its grounds were +various,--chiefly, a protest against wide and gross maladministration, a +demand for a reformed and scientific civil-service, opposition to the +high tariff, and the desire for a more generous and reconciling policy +toward the South. The movement was especially prompted by a group of +leading independent journals conducted by very able men,--the New York +_Evening Post_, under William Cullen Bryant; the _Nation_, edited by E. +L. Godkin; the Cincinnati _Commercial_ of Murat Halstead; the +Louisville _Courier-Journal_ of Henry Watterson; the Springfield +_Republican_ of Samuel Bowles. Sympathetic in the main was Horace +Greeley's New York _Tribune_. In more or less close alliance were a few +of the congressional leaders, notably Sumner, who had quarreled bitterly +with Grant over the proposed annexation of San Domingo; Trumbull, who +was never in close touch with his old party after the impeachment trial; +and Carl Schurz, who was now in the Senate. + +A national convention was held at Cincinnati, in May, 1872. The +Democrats had so little hope of separate success that they stood ready +to fall in with the new departure, and this gave greater importance to +its action. For its Presidential candidate, the foremost name had been +that of the elder Charles Francis Adams. Of the most distinguished +family in the country's political annals; one of the founders of the +Free Soil party; a conservative but resolute Republican; minister to +England through the war, and most serviceable there by his firmness and +wisdom; eminent by character, experience, and mental equipment; so +indifferent to office that he almost openly scorned the proffered +honor,--he seemed to the reformers a nearly ideal candidate, however +much his reserved and distant manners might handicap him before a +popular constituency. + +But the spite of a disappointed aspirant, B. Gratz Brown, and the +caprice of the convention, turned its choice by a sudden impulse to +Horace Greeley. It was a choice that from the first moment not only +defeated but almost stultified the liberal movement. It mattered not +much what principles the convention set forth. Tariff reform it had +already set aside, and Greeley was a zealous protectionist. For +scientific civil-service reform he cared nothing, and to mistakes in his +personal choices he was at least as liable as Grant. His revolt against +Grant was due partly to a dispute about State patronage. Only in +generous sentiment toward the South did he fitly represent the original +and best element of the convention. He was dropped at once by the +_Evening Post_, the _Nation_, and a large part of the liberals. The +Democrats, despairing of any other way to success, indorsed his +nomination. But the acceptance of a candidate who for thirty years had +been showering hard words on the Democracy was almost grotesque. The +South was halfhearted in his support. A few of the faithful nominated +Charles O'Conor on an independent Democrat ticket. The question was only +of the size of the majority against Greeley. + +His wisest supporters avowed as the best significance of his candidacy: +"It means that the war is really over." Greeley had proved the sincerity +of his friendliness toward the South at a heavy cost. President Johnson +held Jefferson Davis in long imprisonment, with the aggravation not only +of close confinement and even a temporary manacling, but of a public +accusation of complicity in the murder of Lincoln. It was treatment +wholly unfit for a prisoner of state and a man of Davis's character. Its +effect on the South may be judged by imagining how the North would have +felt had Lincoln fallen into Southern hands and been kept in shackles +and under the charge of assassination. The imprisonment of Davis and the +avowed purpose to try him as a traitor were utterly out of keeping with +the general recognition that secession and its sequel were to be dealt +with as a political wrong and not a personal crime. + +Greeley, who on the very morning after Lee's surrender had called for a +universal amnesty, showed his faith by his works when at the opportunity +in May, 1867, he offered himself, in company with Gerrit Smith, as +bondsmen for Davis, thus obtaining his release, and incurring for +himself a storm of obloquy. The storm was short-lived, but revived in +greater fury when Greeley became a Presidential candidate against Grant, +with the support of the Democracy and the South. The campaign was full +of bitterness and abuse. In _Harper's Weekly_, of which the editorial +page was conducted by the high-spirited and gentle George William +Curtis, Nast assailed the liberals in savage cartoons; in one Sumner was +depicted as scattering flowers on the grave of Preston Brooks, and +another showed Greeley shaking hands with the shade of Wilkes Booth over +the grave of Lincoln. From the other side Grant was attacked with equal +ferocity. + +Greeley went down in overwhelming defeat, and died of exhaustion and a +broken heart before the electoral votes were counted. But something had +been gained. There had been a breaking of old lines. And one of the +South's main grievances had been almost removed. Within a month after +the Cincinnati convention, its call for amnesty was vindicated by a bill +passed in Congress removing the disabilities of almost all the excluded +class. Out of some 160,000, only about 700 were left on the proscribed +list. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +THREE TROUBLED STATES + + +In Grant's second term, the divergence between the Republicans on +Southern questions, though never taking permanent form, often found +marked and effective expression. In the Senate, the controlling group, +who were also the special friends and allies of Grant, were radicals, +and generally of a more materialistic class than the earlier leaders. +Fessenden had died in 1869; Sumner was alienated, and died in 1874; +Wilson had passed into the insignificance of the Vice-Presidency; +Trumbull was in opposition. At the front were Chandler, of Michigan; +Oliver P. Morton, War Governor of Illinois, powerful and partisan; +Roscoe Conkling, of New York, showy and arrogant. In the House the +foremost man was James G. Blaine, Speaker until with the Democratic +majority he became leader of the opposition; brilliant in speech, +fascinating and "magnetic" in personal intercourse, always prominent and +popular, but almost never closely identified with any great principle or +constructive measure. Very prominent on the floor was General Butler, a +foremost radical toward the South; always a storm-center; an advocate of +inflation, an ally of most bad causes, an effective mischief-maker; +followed, feared, and hated with equal ardor. The membership of the +House was notable for able men,--the Hoar brothers, Henry L. Pierce, +Eugene Hale, Dawes, Hawley, Poland, Garfield, Kasson, and others of +almost equal mark. The death of Thaddeus Stevens, in 1868, had left the +House without a master. The Greeley campaign, disastrous though it was, +had started a contagious spirit of independence. During Grant's second +administration, 1873-7, there was shown in the House, on important +questions, a degree of independence rare in American politics. It was +the growing Republican opposition to Federal interference in the South +that hastened its end, and prepared the way for the consummation of that +result under President Hayes. + +We now return to the individual cases of three Southern States. To South +Carolina fell the bitterest experience of misgovernment. Its black +majority was organized and led by a group of white men of the worst +character, who were resisted for a time without success by a better +element in the party. Under four years' administration of Governor R. K. +Scott, a Northerner, and two of F. J. Moses, Jr., a South +Carolinian--who later disappeared from public view in a +penitentiary,--money was lavished in profligate expenditure; hundreds of +thousands spent for legislative furniture and luxuries; franchises were +corruptly sold; bogus enterprises enriched; debt piled up by millions, +and thrown off by millions. (Repudiation, be it said, always came easily +to the South,--before the war and after; during reconstruction and +after; whether the borrowed money had been spent for railroads or +squandered by thieves; and the ghost of an unpaid $300,000,000 still +scares Southern Senators when a general arbitration treaty is +discussed.) South Carolina went from bad to worse for six years. + +When, in 1872, the honest Republicans bolted, under an unimpeachable +candidate, Reuben Tomlinson, a Philadelphia Quaker, and gave him 35,000 +votes, the Democrats stood scornfully aloof--"better a native thief than +an honest Yankee!" But in 1874 came a revolution in the Republican +ranks. Honesty triumphed, under the lead of the elected governor, Daniel +H. Chamberlain, of Massachusetts birth and education,--a remarkable +man; shrewd, long-headed, a past master in political management; with +high aims; by no means indifferent to personal success, but generally +succeeding in combining personal and public service. With a Legislature +in which two-thirds were Republicans, and whites and blacks were about +equal in number, he achieved a surprising reversal of the evil +tendencies that had prevailed. In the Legislature the best of the +Democrats backed him, together with the best of the Republicans, and +overmatched the corruptionists. Stealing was stopped; the abuses of the +pardoning power were ended; the tax laws were amended so as to secure +uniformity and equality of assessment; expenditure was reduced and +regulated. These were the statements of the Charleston _News and +Courier_, the leading paper of the State, in July, 1876, when another +election was coming on. Most of the Democratic papers had praised and +supported Governor Chamberlain. It was now very seriously contemplated, +and advocated by the _News and Courier_, to let him be re-elected +without opposition. But the old-time pride of race and party was too +strong, and the Democrats nominated Wade Hampton. They supported him +with little scruple as to means,--with free use of intimidation and +proscription, with frequent threats and often the reality of violence. +There was a shocking massacre at Hamburg. Governor Chamberlain called on +the President for aid, and a thousand troops were sent into the State. +When the election came, there was claimed a majority for Chamberlain and +for the Republican Presidential ticket. The claim was instantly and +fiercely challenged by Hampton's supporters. And here the story pauses, +until it joins the main current of national affairs. + +Mississippi was under Republican control until 1875. If one attempts to +judge of the character of that control, he plunges into a sea of +contradictions almost enough to submerge the hope of truth. Whether we +turn to standard historians, to the 1000 pages of sworn testimony before +a Congressional committee, or to individual witnesses, the perplexity is +the same. Thus, we consult Woodrow Wilson's _History of the American +People_,--and this book invites a word of comment. Its author has woven +together the immense material of the national history for three +centuries, in the main with admirable judgment and skill. He has +produced a comprehensive, well-proportioned, graphic narrative, which +closely holds the reader's attention, and gives in general the spirit as +well as the substance of the people's story. But upon the main theme of +the crowning century, he misses some of the vital elements. Of the wrong +and mischief of slavery he has hardly a word, waving the subject aside +as if beyond his province. He gives with admirable sympathy and +intelligence the attitude of the well-meaning Southerner before and +after the war; and this feature has special value for those familiar +only with the Northern standpoint. But he has not the least appreciation +of the anti-slavery spirit in its heroic phase. On the wrongs of the +slave he is silent, while upon the sins of the carpet-bagger he is +eloquent. This one-sidedness robs of its significance what should be the +American epic of the nineteenth century. + +Of the misgovernment of Mississippi, Dr. Wilson instances that "before +the work of the carpet-baggers was done, 640,000 acres of land had been +forfeited for taxes, twenty per cent. of the total acreage of the +State." The nearest atlas or gazetteer is enough to check this +statement. The total acreage of the State is 29,640,000,--of which +640,000 is not twenty per cent., but a trifle over two per cent. Dr. +Wilson goes on to say that the State tax levy in 1874 was fourteen times +as great as in 1869. This is apparently taken from the "Taxpayers' +petition" of 1875, but from whatever source, it gives an utterly +exaggerated impression. Before the Congressional committee Judge H. R. +Ware, chairman of the State Republican committee,--a Kentuckian by +birth, and a life-long resident of Mississippi,--gave his testimony; and +it included documents showing that the total State expense during the +last two years of Democratic rule, 1864 and '65, was $1,410,250 and +$1,860,809; for twenty years of Democratic administration, throwing out +the extra expenses of the war period, the average cost was $699,200; +under military government (always the cheapest) in 1869 it was $563,219; +while under the Republicans in 1875 it was $618,259; and the average for +six Republican years had been $992,920. When the Republicans came in, +they had to make payments in warrants worth only sixty-five cents on the +dollar, with proportionate increase of expense; they had to provide for +a free population doubled by the emancipation of the slaves, and for the +last four years they had made an annual reduction. + +Yet the "Taxpayers' petition"--addressed to the Legislature early in +1875, and without effect,--must be taken as evidence of at least a +considerable extravagance and waste. A reading of it gives the +impression of a needless multiplication of offices and excessive +salaries. The public printing seems clearly a scandal, running above +$73,000 a year, as against a cost in the sister State of Georgia of only +$10,000. The general charge seems to be of laxness and needlessly high +salaries rather than any wholesale corruption. Some question as to the +justice of the general charge occurs when a point is encountered as to +the payment of teachers in the public schools. The petitioners claim +that this should be reduced to $25 a month for second-class schools, and +$50 a month for first-class schools. In fact, when the Democrats came +into power, they reduced the rate to $40 a month,--which, for a school +year of four months only, seems like penny-wise economy. The petition +makes perhaps the strongest impression in its statement that the boards +of supervisors, controlling local taxation, are, as a general rule, +"wholly unfit to discharge their duties, and without respectability or +even accountability"; that the public works under their care are +recklessly and carelessly managed, and the county taxes are grievous. It +would seem that in these local bodies, especially in the "black +counties," lay the worst of the taxpayers' grievance. + +Judge Story makes a vigorous retort, testifying after a year of +Democratic administration, 1875-6, as to the question of comparative +expense. He shows that the State tax had indeed been reduced from 9-1/4 +mills to 6-1/2 mills, but this only by cutting off outright the school +tax of two mills. Not to follow further the labyrinth of figures, it is +interesting to note, as to the favorite term "carpet-bagger," that of +the six Republican candidates for Congress in Mississippi, in 1876, only +one was of Northern birth, and he had married and lived in the South +since the war; one had been an old Southern Democrat and a circuit +judge; two had been Confederate officers; and one, John R. Lynch, was a +colored man of high intelligence and excellent character. He, as Speaker +of the House, and B. K. Bruce, United States Senator, were among the +colored men who showed capacity and character worthy of the high +positions they attained. Among the Republican leaders of Northern birth +were some who were honored and trusted in their old homes; such men as +General Eggleston, president of the Constitutional convention; Colonel +Warner, afterward State Treasurer of Connecticut, and Henry W. Warren, +of Massachusetts. The first Republican governor, J. M. Alcorn, was a +Southern man, very able, but apparently not of the highest moral +standards. His successor, Adelbert Ames, was from Massachusetts, +conceded now to have been "honest and brave, but narrow and +puritanical," and with the mysterious trait of "hating the Aryan race of +the South." + +These last words are quoted from the story of an old friend of the +reader's,--Thomas Dabney, the "Southern planter," whose noble character +was sketched in chapter XII. He had fought a brave fight with poverty +and hardship since the war, and as we come again into his company for a +moment, it is with a sense of confidence which even official documents +do not inspire. He had no doubt of the oppressiveness of Republican +rule, and the need of shaking it off by vigorous measures. It is related +that the taxes on his plantation for 1873 were over $900, while the +income was less than $800. Yet one letter tells that he is in "a +laughing humor" because he has just paid his taxes for 1875--only +$375,--a reduction of more than half--and this was still under +Republican rule. + +One other witness may be heard, the writer's life-long friend, Henry W. +Warren, now of Holden, Mass. To those who know him his name is a synonym +for integrity, efficiency and modesty; he is one of the men who never +seek a public honor and never decline a public service. From his own +words some statements are here condensed. "After graduating at Yale in +1865, I was called to a position as public school teacher at Nashville, +Tenn.; and from there, seeing a promising opportunity, I went with two +friends to work a cotton plantation in one of the 'white' counties of +Mississippi. We bought it from its old owner, who had kept his slaves in +his employ as paid laborers, and they continued to work for us. As +slaves they had not been badly treated, except by the overseer during +the master's absence. Many of the whites of the county, owning no +slaves, had been indifferent to the Confederate cause, and many of them +had served in its army only when hunted by the conscription officer, +sometimes with bloodhounds. More than a few of them were Republicans. I +was asked to serve as registrar of voters for the Constitutional +convention, being one of the few who could take the 'iron-clad oath' +(that is, that he had never aided the Confederacy) and this led to my +going to the convention, and afterward to the Legislature. The Speaker +dying, I was chosen to his place for the rest of the term. Our county +going Democratic, I was not re-elected; but I was chosen chief clerk of +the House, and served for four years, after my two years as a member. +All the Democrats united in signing a paper, asking me to be always +present in the House,--this was after I had induced the Speaker to +change a mistaken ruling. So I was in a position to know pretty well +what was going on. From the first there were plenty of Confederate +generals and colonels in the Legislature." (The excluding clauses were +struck out of the Mississippi constitution at the start.) "The manner of +the blacks to the whites was habitually civil, and something of the +slave's deference to the white man remained. I think the legislation was +generally of reasonably good character. I knew positively of but little +corruption. That there was some corruption and more extravagance, I have +no doubt. But I have served since in the Massachusetts Legislature, and +I think the Southern State was but little worse than the Northern. The +negro members, though with some able and honest leaders of their own, +like Bruce and Lynch, followed largely the prominent white men. Of the +Northerners whom I knew, almost all were men of substance and had come +to stay. Six out of ten owned plantations. A 'carpet-bagger' I hardly +ever met, though no doubt there were some,--but the name was given to +all Northerners. As to expense, you must remember that the State had to +be completely rehabilitated. The war had ruined everything; public +buildings were destroyed or dilapidated; and under military rule things +had simply been kept going. Everything had to be reconstructed. The +slaves had become citizens, and that doubled the number to be provided +for. There had been practically no public schools, and they were set up +throughout the State. Taxes had fallen largely on slave property, now +they came on land. So it was inevitable that there should be an increase +of taxation. About county taxes I have no special knowledge, though in +our locality they certainly were not burdensome. In some of the black +counties it may have been worse. The Republicans, both blacks and +whites, were drilled in the 'Loyal League of America,'--it was a purely +political organization, often meeting in the woods at night. In those +years there was immense progress on the part of the negroes,--political +discussion was educational. I think if the Federal government had +provided better school education, and had protected the voters at the +polls, all might have gone well. That there was more or less of +extravagance on the part of the Legislature is not to be denied. So +there is in Massachusetts. That there was anything to justify the means +resorted to in 1875 and 1876 to get complete control of the State +government, might safely be questioned." + +What those means were, there is no serious question. The Democrats +organized a campaign of clubs, processions, enthusiasm, +and--intimidation. The better part would have disclaimed the last +feature, but they did not prevent it. Thomas Dabney was among the +leaders. He relates that the best men were brought out for the +nominations, often against their own desire. He, in his old age, was +made president of the local club, and kept busy with marchings, +meetings, and barbecues. He quotes sympathetically the response of a +friend to his remark that the uprising was wonderful: "Uprising? It is +no uprising. It is an insurrection." He relates that at Clinton the +Republicans got up a riot, that they might have a pretext for asking +President Grant for troops. "They succeeded in getting up their riot, +which was put down by our own people after so sanguinary a fashion as to +strike them with a terror not easily described." There can be no doubt +as to the "sanguinary fashion" and the "terror." Testimony abounds of +the invasion of Republican meetings, enforced demands on the Republican +speakers to "divide the time," with threats and occasional violence. +Sometimes the meetings were prevented, sometimes they were broken up. +There was a great deal of terrorizing and now and then a murder. In some +cases the officers at the polls interposed so many hindrances that many +of the negroes were unable to vote. There was but a handful of Federal +troops in the State, and the President declined to send more at Governor +Ames's request. The reign of terror was effective. Once again we quote +Mr. Warren: "In our part of the country there were constant parades of +the 'red-shirted cavalry,' and the negroes were thoroughly frightened. +Two rough fellows once assailed me with threats and abuse, but drew off +when I stood my ground. When the election came on, to get our ballots +printed I had to go to New Orleans; spies dogged me in going and coming; +and as with a friend I rode toward home, we were beset and besieged in a +planter's house, that they might get possession of the ballots. Finally +we rode away on an unguarded road, pistol in hand, and escaped. But they +afterward captured and destroyed a part of the ballots, and by such +means they carried the local election. By such means and more violent +measures they carried the State." + +The Democratic Legislature now proceeded to impeach Governor Ames, on +frivolous charges, but agreed to drop the proceedings if he would +resign, which he did, and left the State, knowing that his trial would +be a farce. In 1876 the campaign was of the same character as in 1875, +and so Mississippi was "redeemed." + +The case of Louisiana was widely different. In that State the corruption +of the Republican managers was flagrant; it extended to the manipulation +of election returns; and the Federal Government interfered freely, and +with notable results. A knot of knavish adventurers were in +control,--Henry C. Warmoth, William P. Kellogg, F. F. Casey, and United +States Marshal S. B. Packard. Casey was the President's brother-in-law, +and General Grant was almost as incapable of believing a relative of his +to be a bad man as he was incapable of knowingly supporting a bad man. +Casey was made collector of New Orleans, and was allowed to hold the +Republican convention in the custom-house, with United States soldiers +guarding the doors and regulating the admissions. As he and his crew +were wrecking the finances of the State, there was in 1872 a general +combination against them of the better elements,--they preferred the +name "Conservatives" to "Democrats,"--and they claimed to have elected +their candidate, John McEnery, as governor. Warmouth, who had been +governor for a four years' term, had quarreled with his confederates +over the division of plunder, and gone over to the Conservatives. He +controlled the State returning-board, to which the laws intrusted a very +elastic and dangerous power of throwing out returns from districts where +intimidation was proved, and undertook to declare McEnery elected. But +there was a split in the board; then two rival boards, one awarding the +governorship to Kellogg and the other to McEnery. + +The imbroglio was suddenly ended by the intervention of a United States +judge, E. H. Durell, who issued a writ at midnight, directing the United +States marshal, S. B. Packard, to occupy and hold the capitol, and +ordering a detachment of United States troops to support the Kellogg +government. This fixed the character of the State for the next four +years, by perhaps the most lawless act done under the name of law in +this whole troubled period. It was perhaps only the overshadowing +interest of the Presidential campaign that prevented its reversal by +Congress,--that, and the lingering disposition of the North to pin faith +on whatever wore the label "Republican." + +McEnery kept up a shadowy claim to the governorship, with the +countenance of the "respectable" element. But Kellogg and his pals had +the actual administration, and used it to such effect that in two years +the State bonds had fallen from seventy or eighty to twenty-five, and +New Orleans city bonds from eighty or ninety to thirty or forty. In 1874 +the Conservatives made a determined effort to carry the Legislature. +There was an organization called "The White League,"--a legitimate +political society, said one side;--a revival of the Ku-Klux spirit and +methods in a more guarded form, said the other side. Beyond question, +there was in Louisiana, at all stages of reconstruction, some degree of +terrorism, and occasional acts of cruelty and outrage. There was knavery +among the Radicals, and there was violence among the Conservatives. At +the 1874 election the Conservatives were successful at the polls; but +the State returning-board at once began to juggle with the returns so +palpably that the Conservative member protested and resigned. The +remainder of the board, after a month of diligent work, threw out a +number of districts, on the pretext of intimidation, and as to five +seats referred the question to the House itself. That body met, +organized in a hasty and irregular fashion, and awarded the five seats +to the Democratic claimants. But Governor Kellogg had the United States +troops at his disposal, and by his command General De Trobriand with a +file of soldiers entered the House and ejected the five +Democrats,--whereupon the Republicans organized the House anew. + +But now the whole country took alarm. The President sent General +Sheridan in haste to New Orleans, and his first dispatch sustained +Kellogg, and threw the blame on the White League, to which Secretary of +War Belknap telegraphed his full approval. But the affair transcended +ordinary politics in its importance. New York spoke through Cooper +Institute, and Boston by Faneuil Hall. Such citizens as Bryant, Evarts, +and George T. Curtis led the protest. Congress rose above partisanship. +A committee of the House, including such Republicans as George F. Hoar, +William A. Wheeler, Charles Foster, William W. Phelps and William P. +Frye, with Clarkson N. Potter and Samuel S. Marshall for the Democrats, +visited New Orleans, and after full inquiry agreed that the +returning-board had "wrongfully applied an erroneous rule of law"; that +the five Democrats had been defrauded of their seats; and that the +Louisiana House should be advised--the national House having no +compulsory power--to "repair this great injustice." The two Democrats +went further, and declared that Governor Kellogg himself held by no +rightful tenure. But the Republicans backed a compromise offered by +Wheeler, which the Louisianians accepted,--the Democrats took the +Legislature, while the Republicans kept the governorship. The returning +board survived, to put in its deadly work two years later. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +RECONSTRUCTION: THE LAST ACT + + +We turn back to the course of national politics. The Republican triumph +of 1872 was followed by an overwhelming reverse at the Congressional +election of 1874. There was a growing impression of maladministration at +Washington. The Credit Mobilier scandal--the easy acceptance by +Congressmen of financial favors from the managers of the Union Pacific +Railway, followed by disingenuous denials--had especially discredited +the party in power. There had been a great financial reverse in 1873, +such as is always charged in the popular mind against the ruling powers. +The South had increased its Democratic vote. So from various causes, in +the new House the Republicans passed from a majority of one hundred to a +minority of forty; with New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and even +Massachusetts, in the Democratic column. + +But the clique of bitter partisans and radicals, with whom President +Grant had become closely associated, if they took warning from the +election, drew the inference that they must make good use of the brief +time left them in the final term of the old Congress. While the +Louisiana imbroglio was still seething, the President sent a message, in +February, 1875, recommending that the State government of Arkansas be +declared illegal. It had held an unquestioned tenure for two years, and +the proposal to oust it was simply in the interest of its two Senators, +Powell Clayton and Stephen W. Dorsey, who belonged to the Grant faction. +At the same time there was brought forward a comprehensive measure, +popularly known as the "Force bill," bringing every form of violence or +intimidation of the blacks within the jurisdiction of the United States +courts; putting elections under supervision and control of the Federal +officials, and giving the President large power for the supervision of +the _habeas corpus_. Another long debated measure aimed at the fuller +enforcement of civil rights--a bill good in itself, said the moderate +Republicans; better if a part of a general pacification; but with its +present accompaniment it is "civil rights prodded in with bayonets." In +the Republican press of the country, and in the party in Congress as +well as the opposition, the battle over these measures was hot. The +administration organ in Washington gave big type and prominent display +to the paragraph: "The passage of the bill"--the Force bill--"is +required to preserve to the Republican party the electoral vote of the +Southern States." The President's personal influence was used to its +limits. Butler's unscrupulous tactics were all employed. But the weight, +if not the numbers, of the House Republicans, rose in opposition. Forty +of them, including Garfield, Dawes, the Hoars, Hawley, Hale, Pierce, +Poland, and Kasson, joined with the Democrats under the able leadership +of Samuel J. Randall. In the House, brains and conscience were beaten by +patronage; the bill went through. But it went no further,--in spite of +Morton and Conkling the Senate served again the useful function of +obstruction. The Arkansas bill was beaten in the House. Only the Civil +Rights bill became a law. Independence among Republicans had saved the +party from its most dangerous leadership. + +It was perhaps this result, following the reverse of 1874, that +disinclined Grant to further interference in the South, and held his +hand when Governor Ames asked aid in Mississippi. The Louisiana business +had so shown the risks of Federal intervention in local affairs, that +even the best friends of the freedmen began to recognize that the +States were most safely left to themselves. But the sectional fires were +not left to die unfanned. When the new Congress met, 1875-6, the +Democrats showed themselves conservative enough. They chose two +excellent Northern men as speakers: Michael C. Kerr, of Indiana, and +upon his death Randall, of Pennsylvania; and they showed themselves +chiefly concerned to probe administrative abuses, which, in truth, +needed heroic surgery. But for these prosaic matters Blaine, now leader +of the opposition, substituted a far more lively tune, when a bill for +universal amnesty at the South was brought before the House. There was +no serious Republican opposition, but Blaine saw his opportunity,--he +moved that sole exception be made of Jefferson Davis, and on that text +he roused Northern passion by the story of Andersonville, goaded to +exasperation the "Confederate brigadiers" among his listeners, and made +himself most conspicuous for the time among the Republican leaders. He +eclipsed the foremost of the Grant clique, Morton and Conkling, who +after a little fruitless third-term talk were both hoping to be legatees +of the Grant influence in the approaching Presidential convention. But +at the eleventh hour a cloud swept over Blaine's prospects, in charges +of discreditable receipt of favors from railroads looking for political +aid. The testimony was conflicting, but Blaine's palpable seizure of his +own letters from a hostile witness was hardly outweighed even by his +spectacular vindication of his acts before the House. A sudden illness +stopped the investigation; and later his transference to the Senate +postponed its renewal until it frustrated his ambition in 1884. The +convention in 1876 met at Cincinnati, with Blaine the favorite, and +Morton and Conkling dividing the Grant strength. The reform element, led +by George William Curtis, supported Benjamin F. Bristow, of Kentucky, +who had made an honorable record as Secretary of the Treasury, by +attacking powerful rings, which through their connection with the +President's friends succeeded in driving Bristow out of office. The +choice of the convention fell on Rutherford B. Hayes, Union general, +governor of Ohio, leader of a State campaign in 1875 which had been a +decisive victory for sound money, and a man highly acceptable to the +reformers. Against him the Democrats nominated Samuel J. Tilden, of New +York, a statesman in his aims and the craftiest of politicians in his +means; tolerant of Tammany Hall while it was a necessary factor +in the party, but leader in the fierce and skilful assault which +drove the Tweed ring from power. As Governor he had attacked +and routed a formidable gang of plunderers connected with the canal +management. On the issues which to thoughtful men were becoming +paramount,--administrative reform and sound finance,--he offered as good +promise as did Governor Hayes. + +The two men, and the elements supporting them, stood for the new +politics instead of the old,--the replacement of the war issues and +their sequels by the matters of clean administration, sound currency, +and interests common alike to the whole nation. But the Republican +leaders found their best campaign material in what the slang of the time +called "waving the bloody shirt,"--reviving the cry of abuse of the +freedmen, suppression of the negro vote, and the need of national +protection for the nation's wards. It was out of keeping with Hayes's +record, and with his later performances,--but he let the campaign take +its way, and the sectional temper that was roused provided the +atmosphere in which the next act of the drama was played. + +Election day came: the returns indicated the election of Tilden; +Democrats went to bed jubilant and Republicans regretful. Then, just +before the night-editor of the New York _Times_ put his paper to press +at 3 A.M., he noticed that the returns from South Carolina, Louisiana, +and Florida were hardly more than conjectural, and, on the chance of +making his tables more complete, he sent a neighborly inquiry to the +Republican headquarters as to whether they had definite returns from +those States. The inquiry came to the ears of a little knot of the party +managers, among them Zachariah Chandler, chairman of the national +committee. He caught at it,--"the Democrats are not sure of those +States,--we have a chance." Instantly--so the story goes--he sent +dispatches to the party managers in the three States, "Claim +everything." So they did--and so did he. Next morning, following the +first announcement of Tilden's election, came the assertion that the +Republicans had carried South Carolina, Louisiana and Florida--which +would give Hayes a majority of one vote in the electoral college. All +hung on the vote in those three States,--no, on the counting of the +votes! The returning-board of Louisiana, which had before been so +useful, was in full working order; Florida was similarly equiped; South +Carolina was in much the same case. The boards had authority to throw +out the entire vote of districts where there was proof that intimidation +had tainted the election. The business of merely counting the votes +might be supplemented by the operation of throwing out enough districts +to leave the prize with the party that did the counting. It soon +appeared that the returning boards could be trusted by their friends. +With all reasonable speed, they threw out enough votes to give all the +doubtful States to Hayes. In each of these States an indignant and +protesting opposition sent in a counter set of returns giving the +electoral vote to Tilden. And any one of the three States would be +enough to insure Tilden's election. + +The controversy extended to the state governments--in South Carolina, +both Wade Hampton and Chamberlain claimed the Governorship, and each +had a Legislature organized to support him. The case was the same in +Louisiana, with Nichols and Packard. President Grant refused recognition +or active support to either party; but United States troops kept the +peace, and their presence prevented the Democratic claimants from +summarily ousting their opponents. + +The whole country was in a storm of excitement. The returning-boards had +done their counting,--but who was to judge the judges? Who was to decide +which of the returns of Presidential electors were the valid ones? They +were to be passed on by the two Houses of Congress in joint session. But +the Senate was Republican, the Representatives were Democratic,--what if +they disagreed as to the returns? The President of the Senate is to +decide, claimed the Republicans,--on very slender grounds, it must be +said. The House of Representatives, said the Democrats,--with more +plausible yet doubtful argument. The deadlock was alarming. Then the +emergency was met with a self-control, a resourcefulness and efficiency, +worthy of the best that is claimed for the American character. By +general agreement of the moderate men of both parties, a special +tribunal was constituted for the occasion. It consisted of five +Senators, five Representatives, and five Justices of the Supreme Court. +The Congressmen were evenly divided between the two parties. The +justices were two and two, with the fifth place assigned to David Davis, +an independent. It was an ideal division. But at the critical moment, +Davis was chosen by the Illinois Legislature to the Senate, so that he +could not act. As a substitute, Justice Joseph Bradley, was put on the +commission. He was a Republican, but in the generous temper which had +risen to meet the emergency, there was a general feeling that party +lines would be forgotten by the tribunal. The commission consisted of +Justices Bradley, Miller, Strong, Field and Clifford; Senators Edmunds, +Morton, Frelinghuysen, Bayard and Sherman; Representatives G. F. Hoar, +Garfield, Payne, Hunton and Abbott. + +The two Houses proceeded to count the electoral votes in the usual form, +and whenever the return was contested the case was referred to the +commission and debated before it. Each side had its ablest lawyers to +plead; for the one party, Evarts, Kasson, McCrary, Stoughton and +Matthews; for the other, O'Conor, Black, Field and Tucker. The +commission then made its decision; and the result was reported to the +two Houses for their acceptance. In the pleading, the Republicans took +their stand on legality and the Democrats on equity. The Democrats +claimed as the question at issue, For whom did the majority of the +people of the State give their votes? The Republicans made it, Whom does +the official authority of the State certify as elected? When the +commission came to vote, on the preliminary questions, it was apparent +that the party line was just as rigid among its members as between the +advocates who pled. And it was clear that the Republicans stood upon the +narrowest possible construction of the case before them. For example, in +the case of Louisiana, it was moved, first, that evidence be admitted +that the returning body was an unconstitutional body and its acts void. +No, said the Republican eight. Moved, next, that evidence be admitted +that the board was illegal because its acting members were all of one +party,--No. Moved, that evidence be admitted that the board threw out +votes dishonestly and fraudulently,--No. In each case, the Republican +eight refused to look a hair's breadth beyond the governor's seal to the +returning board's certificate. In the same way they dealt with Florida +and South Carolina. + +Tilden's friends had contrived an ingenious scheme to put the commission +in a dilemma. They had managed that there should be two returns from +Oregon,--a Republican State where one of the three electors chosen was +claimed to be disqualified,--the return bearing the Governor's seal +naming one Democrat along with two Republican electors. They argued, +Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; if the Governor's seal is +taken as settling everything, we gain the one electoral vote we need; +if, confronted by the Oregon case, the commission decide that they may +go back of the governor's seal,--that opens the three Southern States to +our rightful challenge. But the commission, or its Republican members, +were not to be so easily posed; in the case of Oregon, they accepted the +seal of the Secretary of State, certifying the three Republicans. As the +Springfield _Republican_ bluntly put it, "The electoral commission +decided that there was no way of recovering the stolen goods in the +Louisiana case; it has found a way of restoring the Oregon vote to its +rightful owner." + +That the goods were stolen, at least in Louisiana, there can scarcely at +this day be any doubt. Whether the commission did its duty in declining +to investigate and right the wrong may be debated, but the judgment of +history will probably say that neither equity nor statesmanship, but +partisanship guided the decision. Undoubtedly in Louisiana, and probably +in Florida, the returning board deliberately threw out some thousands of +votes for no other reason than to change the State's vote, and the +Presidency. The commission refused to correct or even investigate the +wrong, on the plea of scrupulous respect for State rights. A great +victory for the principle of local rights, argues Senator Hoar in his +autobiography. Possibly. But it is also open to say, that the general +government having tolerated and supported an iniquitous local oligarchy, +a special and supreme tribunal of the nation allowed that oligarchy to +decide the Presidency by a fraud. + +The popular judgment of the matter at the North was largely affected by +the belief that the frauds of the Republicans were offset by +intimidation on the part of the Democrats. In various parts of the +South, notably in Mississippi and South Carolina, and probably in +Louisiana, there was a wide terrorizing of the negro Republicans. "One +side was about as bad as the other," was a common feeling. A year or two +later, the New York _Tribune_ unearthed and translated a number of +cipher telegrams, which disclosed that while the dispute over the result +was going on, agents high in the confidence of the Democratic leaders +made efforts to buy up a returning board or a presidential elector. So +both parties were badly smirched, and the election and its sequel +furnished one of the most desperate and disreputable passages in +American politics. + +Yet the better sentiment of the country, triumphant in the creation of +the commission, but baffled by its partisan action, shone clear again +when the decision was deliberately and calmly accepted by the beaten +party. Congress had reserved to itself the power to reverse by a +concurrent vote of both Houses the commission's decision upon any State. +But each decision was accepted by a party vote, except that in the case +of Louisiana two Massachusetts Republicans, Julius H. Seelye and Henry +L. Pierce, spoke and voted against their party. But when the final count +gave a majority to Hayes, the formal declaration of the result was +supported by all save about eighty irreconcilables, chiefly Northern +Democrats, who were overborne in a stormy night session. It had become +simply a question between order and anarchy, and the party of order, by +a strange chance, was led for the occasion by Fernando Wood, the +"copperhead" of earlier days. For the body of the Southern Democrats, +Henry Watterson spoke manly words, accepting the inevitable with +resolution and dignity. But among the influences that weighed with the +Southern Congressmen was the assurance from Hayes's friends that as +President he would make an end of military interference in the South. In +the giving of the assurance there was nothing unworthy, for the +withdrawal of the troops was dictated by the whole logic of recent +events, and was in keeping with Hayes's convictions. + +So, quickly following the inauguration of President Hayes came the +withdrawal of the blue-coats from South Carolina and Louisiana and the +Republican State governments tumbled like card houses. Nicholls took the +governorship in New Orleans and Hampton in Columbia. But it was not by +this act alone that the new President inaugurated a new régime. He +called to his Cabinet as postmaster-general, David M. Key, of Tennessee, +who had fought for the Confederacy. Schurz, liberal and reformer of the +first rank, was given the department of the interior. Evarts in the +State department; Devens, of Massachusetts, as attorney-general; Sherman +in the treasury, to complete the work of resumption; McCrary, of Iowa, +and Thompson, of Indiana, for the war and navy; and Blaine, Morton, +Conkling, Chandler,--nowhere. The administration went steadily on its +way, little loved by the old party chiefs; under some shadow from the +character of its title; but doing good work, achieving resumption of +specie payments; ending the administrative scandals which had grown +worse to the end of Grant's term; reforming the civil service. It was a +peaceful and beneficent revolution, and in its quiet years the Southern +turmoils subsided, and for better or for worse South Carolina and +Mississippi worked out their own way as New York and Ohio worked out +theirs. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +REGENERATION + + +"Evil is good in the making," says the optimist philosopher. Even the +more sober view of life reveals + + That men may rise on stepping-stones + Of their dead selves to higher things. + +Out of the calamities and horrors of war came to the nation a larger +life. Communities had been lifted out of pettiness, churches had half +forgotten their sectarianism, to millions of souls a sublimer meaning in +life had been disclosed. Lowell said it in two lines: + + Earth's biggest country's got her soul, + And risen up earth's greatest nation. + +The South had suffered far more than the North, and the South reaped the +larger profit. The fallacy of the old Southern civilization had been the +idea that labor is a curse and is to be shirked on to somebody else. +Overthrow and impoverishment brought labor as a necessity to every one, +and slowly it was revealed as a blessing. + +When General Lee, stately in figure and bearing and splendid in dress, +met in surrender the sturdy Grant, in worn and homely service uniform, +it was emblematic of the yielding of the aristocratic order to the +industrial democracy. There was significance in the victor's kindly +words,--"Let your soldiers keep their horses; they will need them when +they get home for the spring plowing." That was it,--they turned from +chargers to plow-horses, and much to their safety and gain. Their +masters, too, from fighters became toilers, and if it seemed a fall it +proved a rise. + +Before long on the street cars of Charleston and New Orleans were seen +young men of good family as drivers and conductors. Anything for an +honest living! Our fine old friend, Thomas Dabney, had been ruined along +with everybody else. He and his family undauntedly set themselves to do +their own household work. General Sherman was reported to have said, "It +would be a good thing if this sent every Southern woman to the +wash-tub." "Did Sherman say that?" said Dabney; "he shall not send my +daughters to the wash-tub!" and the old hero turned laundry-man for the +family as long as the need lasted. But the educated class soon found +fitter work than as laundry-men or car conductors. The more exacting +places called for occupants. There was a great enlistment in the ranks +of teachers. Lee took the presidency of Washington university and gave +to its duties the same whole-hearted service, the same punctilious care, +that he had given to the command of the army of Northern Virginia. In +peace as in war he was an exemplar to his countrymen,--and his +countrymen now were spread from Maine to California. + +But what was to be the fate of the emancipated negro? Jefferson had +believed that he must be sent back to Africa. "Colonization" had been +the watchword of Southern emancipators, so long as there were any. Even +Lincoln apparently looked to that. But wholesale colonization was +clearly impossible. The freedmen neither could nor would be transported +in a body to Africa. And had it been possible it would have stripped the +land of laborers and left it a waste. + +The South's assumption was that the negro was intrinsically an inferior +and must be kept subordinate to the white man. The North, in its +management of political reconstruction, had practically assumed that the +negro was the equal of the white man and was so to be treated. There was +a third view of the matter,--that the negro was at an inferior stage of +manhood, and the necessary task was to develop him. He is a man, but an +imperfect man,--make him a whole man. To that end some of the finest +forces of the nation were now directed. But the invigorating and +commanding spirit, who conceived the saving idea, put it into practice, +and gave guidance and inspiration to both races,--the man who found the +way out was Samuel Chapman Armstrong. + +He came of Scotch-Irish blood, and of sturdy farming stock, bred in the +fertile fields of Pennsylvania and in the best traditions of +Christianity. His father and mother gave themselves to the missionary +work, in that lofty enthusiasm whose wave swept through the country +early in the nineteenth century. The boy was born in 1839 in the +Hawaiian Islands, and grew up in the joy-giving climate, with a happy +boy-life, swimming the sea and climbing the mountains; trained firmly +and kindly in obedience and service; impressed by the constant presence +in the home of unselfish and consecrated lives. As he grew older, his +bright eyes studied the native character, emotional, genial, unstable; +he saw the wholesale conversions to Christianity, speedy, happy, and +well-nigh barren of fruit. Going to America for his education, he +completed it at Williams College under the presidency of Mark Hopkins. +Garfield said that his conception of a university was a pine bench with +Mark Hopkins at one end and a student at the other. He gave a stimulus +alike intellectual and moral; his special teaching was in philosophy, +broadly reasoned, nobly aimed, closely applied to the daily need. +Armstrong spoke of him in later years as his spiritual father. +Graduating in 1862, he enlisted in the Union army, took his share in +Gettysburg and other fights, became an officer of negro troops, and rose +to a brigadier-generalship. He said that to him, born abroad, the cause +of Union made no strong appeal,--what he was fighting for was the +freedom of the slaves. The war finished, he left the army, entered the +service of the Freedmen's Bureau under General Oliver O. Howard, and was +assigned to the Jamestown peninsula in Virginia. There were huddled +together thousands of the freedmen,--the unconscious cause of the war, +the problem of the future,--simple, half-dazed, a mixture of good and +bad, of physical strength, kindly temper, crude morals and childish +ignorance. For a time the officials of the Bureau, as best they could, +kept order, found work, settled quarrels, and promoted schools. But what +was to be the large outcome? + +Armstrong had been known to his associates as a man of splendid and +many-sided vitality. A college classmate, Dr. John Denison, graphically +describes him, "A sort of cataclysm of health, like other cyclones from +the South seas"; what the Tennessee mountaineers call "plumb +survigrous"; an islander, with the high courage and jollity of the tar; +"a kind of mental as well as physical amphibiousness." Extraordinary in +his training and versatility; able to "manage a boat in a storm, teach a +school, edit a newspaper, assist in carrying on a government, take up a +mechanical industry at will, understand the natives, sympathize with the +missionaries, talk with profound theorists, recite well in Greek or +mathematics, conduct an advanced class in geometry, and make no end of +fun for little children." He had had the training of a missionary +station in a Robinson Crusoe-like variety of functions. A knight-errant +to the core, the atmosphere of Williams under Hopkins gave him his +consecration. His comrades recognized him as an intellectual leader, +essentially religious but often startlingly unconventional, "under +great terrestrial headway," "the most strenuous man I ever saw." He said +of himself: "missionary or pirate." + +Now after the sobering of three years of campaigning his immediate +duties brought him face to face with the tremendous problem of the +negro, and the elements of the solution already lay in his own +character, experience, personality. + +What were the assets of the negro? He had, by inheritance and training, +the capacity and instinct of labor. What an advantage that is appears by +the contrast with the Indian, who is perishing for want of just that. +But the negro knew labor only as the hard necessity of his lot,--it had +to him no higher significance. "Education," was the watchword of the +generous spirits of another race who were coming to his help. They found +at first great promise in the freedman's eagerness to learn reading and +writing. But it soon appeared that this was an outreaching toward some +vague social advantage, and that the actual acquisition through speller +and copybook carried him and his children but a little way up. It was a +pressing necessity to provide teachers, and of his own race; so, rightly +and naturally, were founded the normal school and the college. He needed +his own educated preachers, physicians, lawyers; for these, too, there +must be training. So, rightly and naturally, were planted +universities,--Atlanta, Fisk, Howard. It was an unquestioned creed that +the white man's training as preacher, lawyer, physician, teacher, must +begin with years of Latin and Greek; so what other way for the negro? +So, as almost inevitable, the early education of the race began as a +copy of the white man's methods. But sadly inadequate, alas, as we begin +to see, is a classical education for the typical white man of our time; +and immense was the gap between the teaching of which that was the core +and crown, and the wants of the black field-hands and their children. + +Labor, education,--and what of religion? The slave had found in +Christianity, often in rude, half-barbaric forms, a consolation, a +refuge, a tenderness and hope, to which we can scarcely do justice. +Perhaps its most eloquent expression to our imagination is those +wonderful old-time melodies, the negro "spirituals," as they have been +made familiar by the singers of the negro colleges. Their words are +mystic, Scriptural, grotesque; the melodies have a pathos, a charm, a +moving power, born out of the heart's depths through centuries of sorrow +dimly lighted by glimmerings of a divine love and hope. The typical +African temperament, the tragedy of bondage, the tenderness and triumph +of religion, find voice in those psalms. + +Religion is not to be despised because it is not altogether or even +largely ethical. The heart depressed by drudgery, hardship, forlornness, +craves not merely moral guidance but exhilaration and ecstacy. Small +wonder if it seeks it in whisky; better surely if it finds it in hymns +and prayers and transports partly of the flesh yet touched by the +spirit. Further, by faithful masters and mistresses there was given to +the slave's religion, in many cases, a clear and strong sense of moral +obligation. Uncle Tom in his saintliness may be an idealization, but the +elements were drawn from life. + +Yet the slave's and so the freedman's religion was very one-sided and +out of all proportion emotional. Its habitual aim was occasional +transport on earth and rapture in heaven. Of the day's task, of homely +fidelities and services, of marriage and parenthood and neighborhood and +citizenship, it made almost no account. + +Face to face with these impoverished and groping souls, what had +Armstrong, in his experience, knowledge, personality, with which to +meet them? "He was filled through and through"--the quotation is from +the admirable biographical sketch by his daughter--"with a deep sense +that by hard work alone can any of us be saved--a sense based on many +obscure foundations of observation and deduction. Away back in the +corners of his mind were recollections of sundry wood-choppings and +milkings carried on under protest by himself and his companions; and +knowledge, too, of how his father and mother had spent their ambitious +youth in work, the mother spinning by the fireside, the father doing +chores at his home in Pennsylvania. It was the boys who faced and +conquered hard physical jobs that became the men of endurance later." He +had seen and shared the devotion of the missionary spirit, and had seen, +too, how largely it failed of fruit by being spent on supernatural +conversion and mystical emotion. He knew the tropical temperament, +common to Hawaiian and negro,--how accessible to transient fervor, how +deficient in persistence and continuity. He had watched his father's +operations, as minister of public instruction under the Hawaiian king; +his experiments in more practical and prosaic education and religion, +half frowned on by the ecclesiastics of America, but rich in suggestion. +He knew that the Hilo manual labor school, where the boys paid their +expenses by labor, slightly trained, was a marked success. His intensely +active nature had caught from Hopkins the philosophic outlook, and the +human materials were before him in rich abundance. Above all, while +unspeculative in religion, and content to employ its traditional +forms,--"they're imperfect enough," he said, "but they're the best we've +got"--the instincts of his great and disciplined nature sent him +straight to the central realities of character, which are the true +foundations of society. + +His ideal crystallized by that swift and sudden process in which the +long subconscious growth of the mind sometimes comes to fruitage. He +said in later years that before he entered the Bureau's service, while +sailing on a troop-ship to Texas, he saw as in a dream his school much +as it afterward became. Twice afterward the vision came to him. +Stationed at Hampton in 1866, while he was bringing order out of the +chaos around him, his mind was reaching forward surely and swiftly to +his larger project. + +This was the germ thought: Character is to get its direction and energy +in the day's work. Just as man's physical needs drive him to toil, his +spiritual necessities find their best field and cultivation in the same +toil. The freedmen's first need is to earn a living; then to acquire +such a margin as will allow some little ease and comfort and refinement; +and along with these goes the need of good habits, high aims, +disciplined character. Teach the industrial lesson and the moral lesson +together. Train them to work intelligently and cheerfully; teach them at +the same time whatever of book knowledge best fits their need; and +constantly inspire them with the spirit of service to their kind. +Provide in this way for some hundreds of young men and women, who shall +go out as teachers to educate and train their people along these lines. + +That was the ideal,--the germ of Hampton, of Tuskegee, of the new +education of the negro; the suggestion and stimulant of the new +education as it is coming to be for the white. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +ARMSTRONG + + +Armstrong was a man of action, and of words only as far as they helped +action. He reached the starting of his school in 1868, within two years +after he was assigned to duty at Hampton. For external help he had first +the countenance and support of the Freedmen's Bureau. He was in its +service and pay until 1872. He had the warm and practical friendship of +General Howard, who, after inviting him to take charge of the new +university in Washington bearing his own name, skilfully gained for his +Hampton enterprise a moderate appropriation from Congress. If the +Freedmen's Bureau had accomplished nothing else,--and it did accomplish +much, especially in education--it would have been justified merely by +giving Armstrong his opportunity. Next he turned to private benevolence. +Of the various organizations, church and secular, that were devising and +doing for the freedmen, perhaps the most efficient was the American +Missionary Association. From its officers Armstrong won response, +sympathy, contributions. He had to face the difficulties of a pioneer. +There were precedents against him. Experiments somewhat similar had been +tried and failed. At Mount Holyoke seminary for women, created by the +genius and devotion of Mary Lyon, and at Oberlin college, where the best +New England tradition had been transplanted--there had been long and +earnest trial of giving the students work by which to partially pay +their expenses. But it had been given up,--the women students were taxed +beyond their strength; the farmers complained that the boys were +thinking of their books, and the teachers said their pupils came with +half strength to their lessons. But Armstrong knew the material he was +dealing with, and how different from the nervous, high-strung pupils of +Oberlin and Mount Holyoke was the vigorous, sensuous material he was to +mold. + +He began in April, 1868, with small things,--a matron, a teacher, +fifteen pupils and buildings worth $15,000. In a month there were thirty +pupils. Things moved straight on,--they were moved by the assiduity, the +enthusiasm, the inspiration, of Armstrong, and the answering temper +which he woke in pupils, teachers, contributors, observers. Presently a +special effort, an appeal to friends, solicitude, students zealously +making bricks and laying them, help from General Howard--and so, in +1870, a noble building, Academic Hall, and presently again, Virginia +Hall,--and the school kept growing. + +Its moral success was promptly won. The subject answered to the +experiment,--those dark-skinned boys and girls came eager to learn. No +one had believed in them, and they had not believed in themselves, but +they speedily learned self-respect and gained the respect of others. +They did what was asked of them, earned most of their support, showed +good workmanship and scholarship, were blameless in morals, caught the +spirit of the place, and went out to carry light into the dark places. +No holiday task was set them. There was a working day of twelve hours, +between the class-room, the work-shop, the drill-ground and the field, +with rare and brief snatches of recreation. They met the demand with a +resource inherited from their ancestors' long years of patient labor. +The hard toil was a moral safeguard. The African race is sensuous, and +co-education might seem perilous. The danger was completely averted by +the influence of labor, strenuous and constant, but diversified and +interesting. The essentials of character,--industry, chastity, truth and +honesty, serviceable good-will,--were the aim and result of the Hampton +training; and all ran back to the homely root that man should be trained +to earn intelligently and faithfully his daily bread. + +The story of Hampton is a theme not for a chapter but for a volume. How +its founder won favor and friendship by his tact and large-mindedness; +how he established good relations with the Virginians; how the Institute +became the parent of other schools; how Booker Washington was there +fitted for the founding of Tuskegee and the leadership of his race; how +the work was extended to the Indians; how Armstrong's spirit and example +gathered and inspired a company of teachers perhaps unsurpassed,--mostly +women, whose refining influence on the pupils he specially valued; how +he dreamed of what he never reached, some day to give industrial +education at Hampton to the whites; how a worthy successor took his +place, efficient and self-effacing; how deeply the Hampton idea has +permeated the education of the Southern negro, and is coming to +influence white education North and South,--all this can here be +recalled but by a word. + +But on the personality of its leader we must for a moment linger, to +note one or two of its traits. His splendid vitality overflowed at times +in frolic and extravagance. He never lost the spirit of the boy. He +would come into a group of his serious-minded teachers and say, "Oh! +what's the good of saving souls if you can't have any fun?" and start a +frolic or organize an all-day picnic. In his home he introduced "puss in +the corner" and "the Presbyterian wardance" among the very elect. He +delighted his children with romances. "Like Dr. Hopkins, he believed +that the class-room should be a jolly place, and used to say that no +recitation was complete without at least one good laugh. 'Laughter +makes sport of work,' he said." His teaching sometimes came in a droll +story. "Once there was a woodchuck.... Now, woodchucks can't climb +trees. Well, this woodchuck was chased by a dog and came to a tree. He +knew that if he could get up this tree the dog could not catch him. Now, +woodchucks can't climb trees, but he had to, so he did." + +His devotion to his work was so whole-souled that it was joyous and +seemed unconscious of cost. In the touching pages he wrote when death +impended, he said, "I never gave up or sacrificed anything in my life." +Yet he constantly made what most men count heavy sacrifices. His work +involved frequent and laborious trips to the North to arouse interest +and raise money. He did it in as gallant a fashion as he had led a +charge, or as he made appeal to the students hanging reverently on his +words. A glimpse of him on one of these begging tours is given by +Professor Francis G. Peabody: + +"I suppose that every lover of General Armstrong recalls some special +incident which seems most entirely typical of the man's life and heart. +For my part, I think oftenest of one of those scenes in his many begging +journeys to the North. It was at a little suburban church far down a +side street on a winter night in the midst of a driving storm of sleet. +There was, as nearly as possible, no congregation present; a score or so +of humble people, showing no sign of any means to contribute, were +scattered through the empty spaces, and a dozen restless boys kicked +their heels in the front pew. Then in the midst of this emptiness and +hopelessness up rose the worn, gaunt soldier, as bravely and gladly as +if a multitude were hanging upon his words, and his deep-sunk eyes +looked out beyond the bleakness of the scene into the world of his +ideals, and the cold little place was aglow with the fire that was in +him, and it was like the scene on the Mount, that was not any less +wonderful and glistening because only three undiscerning followers were +permitted to see the glory." + +Those frequent and long journeys went far to break up the happy home +life in which he delighted, with the wife whose congenial and intimate +companionship was his for nine years and the little girls to whom he was +the most delightful of fathers. Then for twelve years, until his second +marriage, he was almost a homeless man. He wore out his wonderful +constitution; he suffered from dyspepsia and sleeplessness; a paralytic +stroke crippled him; but for a year and a half he struggled on, +cheerful, self-forgetful,--then the end. + +His countrymen scarcely yet realize all that he was. He was the +successful leader in that real emancipation of the American negro to +which the legal emancipation was but a prelude. Beyond that, it would +hardly be too much to say that he did more than any other man in either +hemisphere to rationalize and Christianize our still half-medieval +system of education. The working ideals of Hampton are to-day higher +than those of Yale and Harvard. It may be questioned whether any +professed preacher has done so much to develop the best modern type of +religion; centered in daily work, reaching out into all human service, +and consciously inspired by the divine life. It would not be extravagant +to say that in the little group--perhaps half a dozen in all--whom +America has contributed to the world's first rank of great men, not one +stands higher in heroic manhood and far-reaching service than Samuel +Armstrong. + +But any comparison seems almost unworthy of his lofty spirit. There is +no rivalry among the saints. Would that Armstrong could here be +portrayed as he appeared in life. The outer man spoke well the inner. To +look upon, he was a thoroughbred; of soldierly bearing, alert, vivid, +noble; with the twinkle of mirth, the flash of resistless purpose,--a +man to love, to revere, to follow. As a sort of mental portrait-sketch, +we may glean a few of his sayings. It was as true of him as of Luther +that his words were half-battles. They were flashed out like sparks +struck from action. As to his special work, these: + +"The North thinks that the great thing is to free the negro from his +former owner; the real thing is to save him from himself." + +On the dissolution of the American Anti-slavery Society, (because +nothing remained for it to do): "It failed to see that everything +remained. Their work was just beginning when slavery was abolished." + +"I cannot understand the prevailing views of the war among pious and +intelligent Americans. It is simply barbaric--to whip the South and go +home rejoicing, to build monuments of victory, leaving one-third of +their countrymen in the depths of distress." + +"The reconstruction measures were a bridge of wood over a river of +fire." + +(In 1878): "Hereafter it will be seen that negro suffrage was a boon to +the race, not so much for a defense, but as a tremendous fact that +compelled its education. There is nothing to do but attempt its +education in every possible way. In their pinching poverty the Southern +States have seized the question of negro education with a vigor that is +the outcome of danger." + +(In 1887): "The political experience of the negro has been a great +education to him. In spite of his many blunders and unintentional crimes +against civilization, he is to-day more of a man than he could have been +had he not been a voter." + +"The war was the saving of the South. Defeat and ruin brought more +material prosperity to the South than to the North, and the future has +untold advantages in store. Education is part of it, but capital and +enterprise, which make men work, are the greater part. The negro and +poor white, and, more than all, the old aristocrat, are being saved by +hard work, which, next to the grace of God, saves our souls." + +"We hew from the raw material, men who have come out of deep darkness +and wrong, without inheritance but of savage nature, the best product we +can, and care as much to infuse it with a spiritual life and divine +energy as with knowledge of the saw, plane, and hoe." + +And, of his broader outlook on life, these: "I am convinced of the +necessity of organizing pleasure as well as religion in order to sustain +Christian morality." + +"The chief comfort in life is babies." + +"Politics and philanthropy are a grind; only when one is at the post of +duty and knows it, there is a sensation of being lifted and lifting (_et +teneo et teneor_) which sometimes comes gradually over one. Detail is +grinding, the whole inspiring. God's kings and priests must drudge in +seedy clothes before they can wear the purple." + +"From the deep human heart to the infinite heart there is a line along +which will pass the real cry and the sympathetic answer--a double flash +from the moral magnetism that fills the universe. Its conditions are not +found in theological belief, but in the spirit of a little child. We can +no more understand our human brother than our Father in heaven without +bringing faith--the evidence of things unseen, the substance of things +hoped for--to our aid." + +"All progress of strong hearts is by action and reaction. Human life is +too weak to be an incessant eagle flight toward the Sun of +Righteousness. Wings will be sometimes folded because they are wings.... +The earthly struggle must be enduring--that is all. There must be no +surrenders; we can't expect much of victory here." + +"The longer I live, the less I think and fear about what the world calls +success; the more I tremble for true success, for the purity and +sanctity of the soul, which is as a temple." + +"Doing what can't be done is the glory of living." + +"What are Christians put into the world for but to do the impossible in +the strength of God?" + +In the contemplation of such a spirit we rest for a little from the +turmoils of politics, the mixture of motives, the half-successes. Here +is what glorified the whole business,--the development of souls like +this; and in such is the promise of the future. Fitly to Armstrong +belongs what Matthew Arnold has written of his father, a kindred soul:-- + + Servants of God!--or sons + Shall I not call you? because + Not as servants ye knew + Your Father's innermost mind, + His, who unwillingly sees + One of his little ones lost-- + Yours is the praise, if mankind + Hath not as yet in its march + Fainted, and fallen, and died! + + See! In the rocks of the world + Marches the host of mankind + A feeble, wavering line. + Where are they tending?--A God + Marshal'd them, gave them their goal-- + Ah, but the way is so long! + + Years they have been in the wild! + Sore thirst plagues them, the rocks, + Rising all round, overawe; + Factions divide them, their host + Threatens to break, to dissolve-- + Ah, keep, keep them combined! + Else, of the myriads who fill + That army, not one shall arrive; + Sole they shall stray; on the rocks + Batter forever in vain, + Die one by one in the waste. + + Then, in such hour of need + Of your fainting, dispirited race, + Ye, like angels, appear, + Radiant with ardor divine. + Beacons of hope, ye appear! + Languor is not in your heart, + Weakness is not in your word, + Weariness not on your brow. + Ye alight in our van! at your voice, + Panic, despair, flee away. + Ye move through the ranks, recall + The stragglers, refresh the outworn, + Praise, re-inspire the brave. + Order, courage, return; + Eyes rekindling, and prayers, + Follow your steps as ye go. + Ye fill up the gaps in our files, + Strengthen the wavering line, + Stablish, continue our march, + On, to the bound of the waste, + On, to the City of God! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +EVOLUTION + + +The story of slavery merges in the stories of the white man and the +black man, to which there is no end. As the main period to the present +study we have taken the beginning of President Hayes's administration in +1877, when the withdrawal of Federal troops from the South marked the +return of the States of the Union to their normal relations, and also +marked the disappearance of the negro problem as the central feature in +national politics. From that time to the present we shall take but a +bird's-eye view of the fortunes and the mutual relation of the two +races. + +The people of the Southern States realized gradually but at last fully +that the conduct of their affairs was left in their own hands. From this +time there was no important Federal legislation directed specially at +the South. The restrictive laws left over from the reconstruction period +were in some cases set aside by the Supreme Court and in general passed +into abeyance. There was rare and brief discussion of a renewal of +Federal supervision of elections. But the Northern people, partly from +rational conviction and partly from absorption in new issues, were +wholly indisposed to any further interference. Without such interference +there was no slightest chance of any restoration of political +preponderance of the negroes over the whites. The specter of "negro +domination" haunted the Southern imagination long after it had become an +impossibility. Then it was used as a bogy by small politicians. But the +only serious attempt at national legislation for the South has been of a +wholly different character. It was the plan of Senator Blair of New +Hampshire, long urged upon Congress, and sometimes with good hope of +success, for national assistance to local education, on the basis of +existing illiteracy, for a term of ten years, to a total amount of +$100,000,000. That is the only kind of special legislation for the South +that has had any chance of enactment for almost thirty years. + +Through the twelve years of political reconstruction, 1865-77, the +Southern people were gradually adapting themselves to the new industrial +and social conditions. Then the body of the whites, finding themselves +fully restored to political mastery, grasped the entire situation with +new clearness and vigor. They thrust the freedmen not only out of +legislative majorities and the State offices, but out of all and any +effective exercise of the suffrage. The means were various, consisting +largely of indirect and technical hindrances, "tissue-paper ballots" and +the like. The intelligent class massed against the ignorant found no +serious difficulty in having their own way at all points. A considerable +number of negroes still voted, and had their votes counted, but their +party was always somehow put in the minority; almost all offices passed +out of their hands; their representatives speedily disappeared from +Congress, and before long from the Legislatures. Negro suffrage was +almost nullified, and that, too, before the legislation of the last +decade. + +But, in asserting their complete political superiority, the whites also +recognized a large responsibility for the race they controlled. A degree +of civil rights was secured to them, short of a perfect equality with +the whites, but far beyond the status intended by the "black codes" of +1865-6. The fundamental rights, of liberty to dispose of their labor and +earnings in their own way, and protection of person and property by the +law and the courts, were substantially secured. And, very notably, the +common school education of blacks as well as whites was undertaken with +fidelity, energy and new success. This great and vital advance, +inaugurated by the Southern Republican governments, was accepted and +carried on, loyally and at heavy cost, by the succeeding Democratic +governments. The figures show a great advance from 1875 to 1880 in the +number of schools and scholars of both races throughout the South. +Political inferiority for the negroes, but civil rights, industrial +freedom, and rudimentary education,--that was the theory and largely the +practice of their white neighbors. + +One clause they added with emphatic affirmation: "I will buy with you, +sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I +will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you." Social +superiority, indicated by separation in all the familiar and courteous +intercourse of daily life, was asserted by the whites with a rigor +beyond that of the days of slavery. When humiliated and stung by the +political ascendency of their former bondmen, they wrapped themselves in +their social superiority with a new haughtiness. The pride of race, of +color, of the owner above the serf, stripped of its old power and +insignia, but no whit weakened in root and core, set an adamantine wall +along the line of social familiarity. Let the black man have his own +place--in school and church, in street and market and hotel; but the +same place, never! Separate schools, churches, cars. And as in a +hospitable country the social meal is the special occasion and symbol of +good fellowship and equal comradeship, right there let the line be +fixed,--no black man or woman shall sit at table with whites. + +The usage came down by tradition, and became only a little more rigid +under the new conditions. At the North the general practice had always +been much the same; but there it was occasionally and growingly +superseded, when people of the two races found a common level of +education and manners. The Southern whites for a while took their own +practice as a matter of course. But then, especially as by degrees some +black men and women acquired mental cultivation and social polish,--then +came question and challenge from the world without and from conscience +within; why this rigid separation? An answer must be found or made,--and +presently the answer appeared: If white and black men and women eat and +drink together, play and work together,--then they will intermarry, and +the white race will become mixed and degenerate. So that became the +conviction, the creed, the shibboleth, of the Southern whites,--race +purity, to be safeguarded by complete prohibition of all social +intimacy, especially as symbolized by the common meal. And the +prohibition was enforced among the whites by the penalty of sure and +stern ostracism. + +Under these conditions, then, the two sections of the Southern people +have been working their way, for almost thirty years. How first have the +negroes fared? Of the prophecies for their future, made when they were +in bondage and in view of possible emancipation, one was that they would +die out,--but in less than half a century they have doubled. Another was +that if freed they would refuse to work,--but the industrial product of +the South has never fallen off, but has steadily and vastly increased, +with the negro still as the chief laborer. Another prediction was that +they would lapse into barbarism. The Southern negroes as a mass have a +fringe of barbarism--a heavy fringe. So has every community, white, +black or yellow, the world over. Have the Southern blacks, as a body, +moved toward barbarism or toward civilization since they were set free? + +The comparative tests between civilization and barbarism are, broadly +speaking, productive industry, intelligence and morality. If we gauge +industry by results, we find that the class which forty years ago +entered into freedom with empty hands now owns more than $300,000,000 of +property by the tax-gatherers' lists. Another estimate--cited by Prof. +Albert Bushnell Hart--puts their entire property holdings at +$500,000,000. Though most of them are tenants or hired laborers, yet +there are more than 173,000 who own their farms. The total number of +farms worked by them in the South--owned, leased, or rented on +shares--is figured at 700,000. The census of 1900 shows that in almost +every profession, trade and handicraft the black race has numerous +representatives--their range of occupation and industrial opportunity +being far wider in the South than in the North. Taking the whole +country, the percentage of adults in gainful pursuits is a trifle higher +among blacks than among whites. Allow for the more frequent employment +in toil of the black woman; allow, too, for the more intermittent +character of black labor,--yet the relative showing is not unfavorable +to the enfranchised race. And this comparison touches, too, the more +difficult problem of morality,--for industry is itself a chief safeguard +of morality. + +As to intelligence, the statistics show that, roughly speaking, about +half the blacks over ten years old can read and write. That is not much +below the status of the people of England half a century ago. In the +higher fields of intelligence, the American negroes,--there are +9,000,000 of them,--supply to-day a large part of their own teachers, +ministers, lawyers and doctors, and in all these professions the +standard is steadily rising. + +In regard to morality, generalization is difficult. There is undoubtedly +a much larger criminal element among the blacks than among the whites. +There are proportionately more crimes against property, crimes of +sensuality, crimes of violence. Materials are wanting for exact +comparison, either with the whites, or among the blacks at different +periods. Yet there are few or no sections at the South, even in the +worst parts of the Black Belt, as to which the public gets the +impression of any general lawlessness. And in any comparison of the +present with the time of slavery, we must remember what Carlyle says in +speaking of the cruelties of the French Revolution as compared with +those of the tyranny which preceded it,--when the high-born suffer the +world hears of it, but the woes of the inarticulate are unheard. Wrongs +at the South which shock us to-day,--or wrongs as great--were +commonplace, were unnoted and unchronicled, under slavery. It is +offenses against women that rouse the hottest resentment. But for +centuries the black woman's chastity had absolutely no protection under +the law, and her woes were pitiful beyond telling. For the Southern +negro, true family life was impossible until within fifty years. With so +brief experience in the best school of character, there is no ground for +doubting that he has won a vast moral advance, and the promise of +greater. + +Of the negroes, as of every race or community, we may consider the +lowest stratum, the great mass, and the leaders. Regarding not morality +only, but general conditions, there is a considerable element of the +Southern blacks whose condition is most pitiable. Such especially are +many of the peasants of the Black Belt; barely able to support +themselves, often plundered with more or less of legality by landlord +and storekeeper, shut up to heavy, dull, almost hopeless lives. +Inheritance weighs on them as well as environment; when these +plantations were recruited from Virginia, it was only the worst of the +slaves whom their masters would sell, and the bad elements propagated +their like. The case of these people to-day presents one of the open +sores, the unanswered questions,--we might say the impossible tasks, +did we not remember Armstrong's attitude toward things "impossible." +Yet, even as to these,--are they not better off than when enslaved? A +part of their trouble is the burden of responsibility--for themselves, +their wives and children. In slavery they had no responsibility beyond +the day's task; the whip and the full stomach were the two extremes of +their possibilities. Now at least they are men--with manhood's burdens, +but with its possibilities, too. + +Of the great middle class, something has already been said, as to +industry, property and education. But statistics are cold and dead, +could we but see the living human realities which they vainly try to +express. The growth of a slave, or a slave's child, into a free man or +woman,--the birth and development of true family life,--could we see +this in its millions of instances, or even distinctly in one typical +instance, with all its phases of struggle, mistake, disappointment, +success, the growth of character, the blossoming of manhood and +womanhood,--it would be a more moving spectacle than any that +Shakespeare has given. Here, again, it is mostly the inarticulate class, +and their story is not told to the world. We especially fail to learn +it, because of the wall of caste by which the white man shuts himself +out from the finest sights and the most brotherly opportunities. More +than farming or carpentry, more than school or church, and taking in the +best fruits of all these, is family life, in its fullest and best. That +is where the negro is coming to highest manhood. + +A necessary test of a race is its power to furnish its own leaders. The +negro race in America is developing a leadership of its own,--small as +yet, but choice and growing. It was part of Armstrong's central idea to +create and supply such a leadership. Hampton has gone steadily on in the +work, and the sisters and the children of Hampton are multiplying their +fruits. It was by an ideal fitness of things that Armstrong attracted, +inspired and started as his worthy successor one of the negro race. At +Tuskegee the black man is doing for himself what at Hampton the white +man is doing for him. Booker Washington is the pupil and successor of +Armstrong, but he has his own distinct individuality, his own word and +work. His constant precept and practice has been that the black man +should make himself so serviceable and valuable to the community that +every door will open as fast as he is fit to enter it. It is the gospel +of wisdom and of peace. Toward all the opportunities denied to the race, +its attitude is one of patience but of untiring persistence. Its +constant word is, Make yourself fit for any function, any place, and +sooner or later it will be yours. Against political exclusion Mr. +Washington on due occasion speaks his calm word, but he does not beat +against the closed gate; he knows that when the black man shows his full +capacity for citizenship it cannot long be denied him. The social +exclusion he accepts with quiet self-respect; let time see to that, let +us only do our full work, learn our full lesson. His teaching goes far +beyond the schoolroom; he gathers in conference the heads of families, +the fathers and mothers; he sets them to study and practice the +curriculum of the family and the neighborhood. In his intense +practicality he lacks something of the spiritual inspiration which +Armstrong had and gave. But his teaching is in no wise narrow or +selfish, for always it is animated by the spirit of brotherhood and +service. His personal story, _Up from Slavery_, is one of the most +moving of human documents; in itself it is an answer to all pessimism. +It is a typical story; even as these sheets are written there comes to +hand another like unto it, the story of another boy, William Holtzclaw, +who groped his way up from a negro cabin, caught the sacred fire at +Tuskegee, did battle with misfortune and adversity, and now in his turn +is carrying on the good work. And for every such story that gets told +there are a hundred that are acted. + +The wider leadership of the negroes by their own men is exemplified,--it +is not measured or exhausted,--by a pregnant little volume of essays +entitled _The Negro Problem_. Seven of its phases are discussed by +Booker Washington, Professor DuBois, Charles W. Chestnutt, Wilfred H. +Smith, H. T. Kealing, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and T. Thomas Fortune. As a +collection, these essays are noteworthy for their cogency and clearness, +for their earnest and self-respectful plea for full justice and +opportunity, and their calmness and candor. The race that can speak for +itself in such tones has an assured future,--if democracy, evolution, +Christianity, are the ruling powers. + +This story is concerned mainly with the slave and the freedman, but it +must also touch on his former master, now his neighbor and +fellow-citizen. The new South is far too ample a theme for a paragraph +or a chapter. But it must be said in a word that its main trait is the +substitution, for a territorial and slave-owning aristocracy, of an +industrial democracy. It is the coming of the new man,--laborious, +enterprising, pushing his way. His development began when the whole +community was set to work its way up from the impoverishment left by the +war. It was accelerated when new resources were found, when coal and +iron mines were started, when cotton manufacturing began where the +cotton is grown. New types of character and society are developing, yet +blending with the remnant of the old. + +Politics, in all its forms, plays a smaller part in to-day's society +than in that of fifty years ago. Not only has the South never regained +its old ascendency at Washington, but it has not stood, and does not +stand, for any distinct set of ideas or principles in the national life. +It has clung closely together, under the influence of old sentiments +and lingering apprehensions. In its fear of a recurrence of "negro +domination," it has lost touch with the living questions of to-day and +to-morrow. "The Solid South" has meant a secure contingent of electoral +votes for the Democratic Presidential candidate,--whether he stood for a +gold or a silver currency, for revenue reform or its opposite, for +radicalism or conservatism,--and a solid array of members in Senate and +House equally without pilotage on living issues. Until the South breaks +away from its fetish of past fears and prejudices, it cannot rise to its +proper opportunities of statesmanship. + +Yet better than the old-time absorption in Federal politics and the +prizes of the Capitol is the more diversified life of the South to-day. +It is being swept into the current of industrialism--with its energies, +its prizes, its perils. In other directions, too, the new life of the +South flows free and strong. It is creating a literature,--a branch of +American literature,--incomparably beyond any product of its earlier +days. After what may be called a literature of statesmanship,--the work +of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall,--the old South was almost +wholly barren of original scholarship and creative genius. Now it bears +a harvest so rich that one cannot here begin to classify or to name. The +war-time is bearing an aftermath, of less importance in its romances, +but admirable and delightful in its biographies and reminiscences. Of +these the most notable feature, full as they are of vivid human interest +and striking personal characteristics,--is the freedom from rancor, the +generosity toward old foes which seems even unconscious of any necessity +to forgive. And in these personal sketches there are disclosed certain +broad yet distinct types of manhood and womanhood, the special Southern +contributions to the composite American. In general literature, too, +the South is doing its full share. In its histories, the note of +provincialism still lingers,--inevitably, and not blamably. The Southern +essayist or historian naturally gravitates to the past of his own +section,--and naturally he seeks to vindicate his comrades or his +ancestors, and to interpret the past from their standpoint. But, +compared with the provincialism of the South of 1860, he is a +cosmopolitan. + +The new South is doing perhaps its best work in education. Its leaders +are both raising and widening their standards,--they are reaching out +toward modern and progressive ways, while they are trying to amplify +their systems so as to include the whole youthful population. Their +intelligence and enthusiasm are seen alike in the ancient universities +like that of Virginia, in the younger colleges such as Roanoke and +Berea, and in the leaders of the public schools. Intelligence, +enthusiasm, devotion,--all are needed, and all will be tasked to the +utmost. For the education of the people's children, everywhere the most +pressing of common concerns, and the most perplexing in the transition +from old to new ideas and methods--bears with especial weight and +importunity upon the South. Its thinly-spread population, its still +limited resources of finance, the presence of the two races with their +separate and common needs,--all set a gigantic task to the South, and +one that calls for sympathy and aid from the nation at large. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +EBB AND FLOW + + +Thus, in broadest outline, have the two races at the South been faring +on their way. And now in recent years, under their separate development +and with their close intermingling, have come new complications and +difficulties. The tendency has been in some ways to a wider separation. +The old relations between the household servants and their employers, +often most kindly, and long continuing to link the two races at +numberless points, have passed away with the old generation. Once the +inmates of mansion and cabin knew well each other's ways. Now they are +almost unacquainted. The aristocracy and its dependents had their mutual +relations of protection and loyalty, and gracious and helpful they often +were. Now comes democracy,--vigorous, jostling, self-assertive,--its +true social ideal of brotherly comradeship being yet far from +realization. The negro is in a doubly hard position; under democratic +competition the weaker is thrust to the wall, yet he has not even the +equality which democracy asserts, but is held in the lower place by +caste. And so there is a new or a newly apparent aggression upon the +weaker race. + +Its most obvious form is the legal limitation of suffrage. The irregular +and indirect suppression of the negro vote which had prevailed since the +close of the Reconstruction period, was not thorough and sure enough to +satisfy the white politicians. And the lawless habit which it fostered, +and whose effects could by no means be confined to one race, alarmed the +better classes. So from two directions there was a pressure toward some +restriction of the negro vote which should be both legal and effective. +The movement became active about the year 1895, and accomplished its end +in the States of Virginia, the Carolinas, Alabama, Mississippi, and +Louisiana, by constitutional amendments. The qualifications thus +prescribed are so various and so variously combined that a full +statement here is forbidden by limits of space, but their general +characteristics are these: The requirement (in Virginia, South Carolina, +Alabama, Louisiana) of $300 worth of property; the payment of a poll tax +(in Virginia, North and South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana); the +ability to read and write (in North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana); the +ability, if not to read, to understand and explain any section of the +Constitution (in Virginia, Mississippi); regular employment in some +lawful occupation, good character, and an understanding of the citizen's +duties and obligations (Alabama).[2] + +These restrictions apply in theory alike to both races. But exemption +from them is allowed, and the suffrage is given, to certain classes: To +all who served in the Civil War (Virginia, Alabama); to all who were +entitled to vote on January 1, 1867, also to the sons (or descendants) +of these two classes (Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana). + +In these States, if these requirements are impartially enforced, the +effect is to impose on the negroes a moderate property or intelligence +qualification, or the two combined; and to give practically universal +suffrage to the whites. This last feature, while essentially unfair, is +a practical grievance to the negroes so long and only so long as the two +races stand as directly opposed forces in politics. Otherwise it is +questionable whether the class who are called on to earn the suffrage by +intelligence or productive industry are not really as well off as the +class to whom it is given regardless of merit. + +But in its practical operation the system is so elastic--and +unquestionably was so designed--that it can be easily applied for the +exclusion of a great part of those who nominally are admitted to the +suffrage. The "character" and "understanding" tests leave virtually full +power with the registration officers. There can be no reasonable doubt +that in these six States the suffrage is virtually denied to negroes to +an extent utterly beyond any fair construction of the law. Mr. Charles +W. Chestnutt, in his paper on _Disfranchisement_, cites the case of +Alabama, where the census of 1900 gave the negro males of voting age as +181,471, while in 1903 less than 3000 were registered as voters. And +even in States like Georgia, where suffrage is by law universal, ways of +practical nullification are often applied,--as for example by exclusion +from the nominating primaries, in which the results are principally +determined. + +Without the need of legal forms, there is a practically universal +exclusion of all negroes from public offices, filled by local election +or appointment, throughout most of the South. Their appointment to +Federal offices in that region, though very rare, is always made the +occasion of vehement protest. + +The theory generally avowed among Southern whites, that the two races +must be carefully kept separate, is apt to mean in practice that the +black man must everywhere take the lower place. At various points that +disposition encounters the natural and cultivated sentiments of +justice, benevolence, and the common good, and now one and now the +other prevails. Thus, there have been efforts to restrict the common +school education of the blacks. It has been proposed, and by prominent +politicians, to spend for this purpose only the amount raised by +taxation of the blacks themselves. There has appeared a disposition to +confine their education to the rudimentary branches and to a narrow type +of industrialism. Strong opposition has developed to the opening either +by public or private aid of what is known as "liberal education" in the +college or university sense. A flagrant instance of injustice is the +enactment in Kentucky of a law prohibiting all co-education of the +races--a law especially designed to cripple the admirable work of Berea +College. + +But the most serious obstacle to the black man, the country over, is the +threatened narrowing of his industrial opportunities. Here has been his +vantage-ground at the South, because his productive power was so +great--by numbers and by his inherited and traditional skill,--that +there was no choice but to employ him. At the North, where he is in so +small a minority as to be unimportant, he has been crowded into an ever +narrowing circle of employments. Precisely the same sentiment, though +not so ingeniously formulated, which makes the white gentleman refuse to +receive the black gentleman in his drawing-room, inclines the white +carpenter or mason to refuse to work alongside of his negro +fellow-laborer. Yet against this we have the accomplished fact, in the +South, of black and white laborers actually working together, +harmoniously and successfully, in most industries. We see the divided +and wavering attitude of the trade-unions; some branches taking whites +and blacks into the same society; others allying white societies and +black societies on an equal footing; others refusing all affiliation; +the earlier declarations of the national leaders for the broadest human +fellowship challenged and often giving way before the imperious +assertions of the caste spirit. + +A race closely intermixed with another superior to it in numbers, +wealth, and intelligence,--a self-conscious and self-assertive +race,--suffers at many points. There are abuses tolerated by law; +infractions and evasions of law; semi-slavery under the name of peonage; +impositions by the landlord and the creditor. There are unpunished +outrages,--let one typical case suffice: a negro farmer and produce +dealer, respected and esteemed by all, in place of a rude shanty puts up +a good building for his wares; the word goes round among the roughs, +"that nigger is getting too biggity," and his store is burned,--nobody +surprised and nobody punished. Then there is the chapter of lynchings: +First, the gross crime of some human brute, then a sudden passionate +vengeance by the community; the custom spreads; it runs into hideous +torture and public exultation in it; it extends to other crimes; it +knows no geographical boundaries but spreads like an evil infection over +the country--but most of its victims are of the despised race. + +Against the worst outrages the best men of all sections are arrayed in +condemnation and resistance. But of its own essential and final social +superiority the white South brooks no question. It expects its social +code to be observed by the nation's representatives. It forgets that the +nation's representatives are cognizant of the general code of the +civilized world,--that breeding, manners, and intelligence, constitute +the gentleman. So when President Roosevelt entertains as his guest the +foremost man of the negro race,--easily one of the foremost half-dozen +men in the country,--the white South indulges in a mood which to the +rest of the world can only appear as prolonged hysteria. + +Before this whole wide range of the unjust treatment of the black race +in America, the observer is sometimes moved to profound discouragement. +"Was it all for nothing?" he asks, "have all the struggle and sacrifice, +the army of heroes and martyrs, brought us to nothing better than this?" +But such discouragement overlooks the background of history, and the +vital undergrowth of to-day. We see the present evils, but we forget the +worse evils that preceded. Turn back sixty years,--read, not _Uncle +Tom's Cabin_ if you distrust fiction, but Fanny Kemble's _Life on a +Georgia Plantation_, or Frederick Law Olmsted's volumes of travels. +Glean from the shelves of history a few such grim facts, and let +imagination reconstruct the nether world of the cotton and sugar +plantations, the slave market, and the calaboose; the degradation of +women; the hopeless lot to which "'peared like there warn't no +to-morrow",--and see how far our world has moved into the light since +those days. A race is not developed in an hour or a decade or a +generation. + +In the present are facts of solid reassurance, in that the best spirit +of the South is facing the besetting ills, is combating them, and being +thus aroused must eventually master and expel the evil spirit. The South +has a burden to carry which the North does not easily realize. There the +negro is not a remote problem of philanthropy; he is not represented by +a few stray individuals; it is a great mass, everywhere present, in its +surface manifestations often futile, childish, exasperating; shading off +into sodden degradation; as a whole, a century or several centuries +behind its white neighbors. To get on with it peaceably, to rightly +apportion with it the opportunities and the burdens of the community, to +keep the common movement directed upward,--this demands measureless +patience, forbearance, wisdom, and persistence. Against the more +flagrant abuses, the leaders of Southern society are making strong +head. Governor Vardaman of Mississippi, though a reactionary as to negro +education, has struck terror to the hearts of the lynchers. The attitude +of the official class in certain peonage cases is thus described by Carl +Schurz: "These crimes were disclosed by Southern officers of the law, +the indictments were found by Southern grand juries, verdicts of guilty +were pronounced by Southern petty juries, and sentence was passed by a +Southern judge in language the dignity and moral feeling of which could +hardly have been more elevated." As to disfranchisement on grounds of +race, representative Southerners are anxious to demonstrate that the +only real disqualification is for ignorance and unfitness; and we must +look to them to give practical effect to their professions, which can be +done if the existing statutes are applied in a spirit of justice. It is +especially as to education that the better sentiment and purpose of the +South is apparent. The heavy cost of maintaining public schools for the +blacks has been steadily met. It is estimated by the United States +Commission of Education that for this purpose since the beginning +$132,000,000 has been spent. The reactionaries in education, like +Governor Vardaman, seem to be overborne by the progressives like +Governor Aycock of North Carolina. There is a notable growth of the +higher order of industrial schools, mainly as yet by private support, +but with a general outreaching of educational leaders toward more +practical and efficient training for the common body at the common +expense. In the general discussion of race matters, in periodicals and +books, the old passionate advocacy is in a degree giving place to +broader and saner views. Such writers are coming to the front as John S. +Wise, with his frank criticism of the political Bourbons and his forward +look; and Edgar Gardner Murphy, whose book _The Present South_ is full +of the modern spirit. There are others, especially among educators, not +less pronounced and serviceable in the forward movement. It is in these +quarters, and not among politicians or party newspapers, that we must +look for the brightening day. + +But it is to be recognized that a right solution of the South's +difficulties will not be reached without a sharp and prolonged +antagonism between the good and the evil tendencies. Mr. Schurz states +the case none too strongly: "Here is the crucial point: There will be a +movement either in the direction of reducing the negroes to a permanent +condition of serfdom--the condition of the mere plantation hand, +'alongside of the mule,' practically without any rights of +citizenship--or a movement in the direction of recognizing him as a +citizen in the true sense of the term. One or the other will prevail." +And he adds, "No doubt the most essential work will have to be done in +and by the South itself. And it can be." + +When President Hayes withdrew the Federal troops from the South, it +marked the formal restoration of that local self-government which is a +vital principle of the American Union. Of slower, deeper growth, has +been the spirit of mutual good-will and confidence, with the free +concession to each member of its individual life. Numberless delicate +cords have been reuniting the severed sections. Railways, commerce, +literature, the tides of business and pleasure travel, the pressure of +common problems, the glory of common achievements, the comradeship of +the blue and the gray on Cuban battlefields, the expositions of +industry, the throb of human feeling as the telegraph tells its daily +story of heroism or tragedy--all have done their part. It is by their +nobler interests that the sections are most closely united. Beyond the +squabbles of politicians is the power of such conferences as those of +the Southern Education Commission where meet the best brains and +consciences, the gifts of the liberal, the plans of the wise, and the +energy of the stout-hearted. + +The education of a slave into a man, the harmonizing of two races, the +common achievement of a great national life,--it is a long work, but it +moves on. + + "Say not, The struggle naught availeth, + The labor and the wounds are vain, + The enemy faints not nor faileth, + And as things have been they remain. + + "For while the tired waves vainly breaking, + Seem here no painful inch to gain, + Far back, through creeks and inlets making, + Comes silent, flooding in, the main. + + "And not through eastern windows only, + When daylight comes, comes in the light, + In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, + But westward, look, the land is bright!" + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 2: In Maryland, an amendment prescribing a series of elaborate +and vexing inquiries, investing the registration officers with judicial +powers, and avowedly aiming at the elimination of the negro vote, was +passed by the Legislature, at the instigation of Senator Gorman and +against the opposition of a Democratic governor, and decisively rejected +by the popular vote in November, 1905.] + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +LOOKING FORWARD + + +It is difficult to write history, but it is impossible to write +prophecy. We can no more tell what lies before us than the Fathers of +the Republic could foresee the future a century ago. They little guessed +that slavery, which seemed hastening to its end, would take new vigor +from an increase of its profits,--that, stimulated by the material gain, +a propaganda of religious and political defense would spring up,--that a +passionate denunciation and a passionate defense would gradually inflame +the whole country,--that meanwhile the absorption of the mass of +citizens in private pursuits would blind them to the evil and peril, and +prevent that disinterested, comprehensive statesmanship which ought to +have assumed as a common burden the emancipation of the slaves,--that +the situation would be exasperated by hostility of the sections and +complicated by clashing theories of the national Union,--that only by +the bitter and costly way of war would a settlement be reached,--and +that emancipation, being wrought by force and not by persuasion, would +leave the master class "convinced against its will," and a deep gulf +between the races, whose spanning is still an uncertain matter,--all +this was hidden from the eyes of the wisest, a century ago. So is hidden +from our eyes the outworking of the century to come. + +But the essential principles of the situation, the true ideals, the +perils,--these were seen of old. Jefferson wrote, "I tremble for my +country when I reflect that God is a God of justice." And Washington +said, "I can already foresee that nothing but the rooting out of +slavery can perpetuate the existence of our Union, by consolidating it +in a common bond of principle." Just so clearly can we read the basal +principles on which depends our national safety. We look forward to-day, +not to predict what will be, but to see what ought to be, and what we +purpose shall be. + +We, the people of the United States, are to face and deal with this +matter. We are all in it together. Secession has failed, colonization is +impossible. Southerner and Northerner, white man and black man, we must +work out our common salvation. It is up to us,--it is up to us all! + +The saving principle is as simple as the multiplication table or the +Golden Rule. Each man must do his best, each must be allowed to do his +best, and each must be helped to do his best. Opportunity for every one, +according to his capacity and his merit,--that is democracy. Help for +the weaker, as the strong is able to give it,--that is Christianity. +Start from this center, and the way opens out through each special +difficulty. The situation is less a puzzle for the intellect than a +challenge to the will and heart. + +First of all, it is up to the black man himself. His freedom, won at +such cost, means only opportunity, and it is for him to improve the +opportunity. As he shows himself laborious, honest, chaste, loyal to his +family and to the community, so only can he win to his full manhood. The +decisive settlement of the whole matter is being worked out in cotton +fields and cabins, for the most part with an unconsciousness of the +ultimate issues that is at once pathetic and sublime,--by the upward +pressure of human need and aspiration, by family affection, by hunger +for higher things. + +On the leaders of the negroes rests a great responsibility. Their ordeal +is severe, their possibilities are heroic. The hardship of a rigid race +severance acts cruelly on those whose intelligence and refinement fit +them for a companionship with the best of the whites, which they needs +must crave, which would be for the good of both races, but which is +withheld or yielded in scanty measure. Self-abnegation, patience, power +alike to wait and to do,--these are the price they are called to pay. +But the prize set before them is worth it all,--the deliverance of their +people, and the harmonizing of the long alienated races. They need to +beware of jealousies and rivalries of leadership such as have made +shipwreck of many a good cause. There is room and need for various +contributions. They have a common bond in that ideal which is the most +precious possession of the American negro. It is the old simple idea of +goodness, set in close relation to this age of productive activity. It +requires that a man be not only good but good for something, and sets +faithful and efficient service as the gateway to all advance. + +But for the right adjustment of the working relations of the two races, +the heavier responsibility rests with the whites, because theirs is the +greater power. They can prescribe what the blacks can hardly do other +than accept. + +What we are now facing is not slavery,--an institution that may be +abolished by statute--but its offspring, Caste--a spirit pervasive, +subtle, sophistical, tyrannic. It can be overcome only by a spirit more +pervasive, persistent and powerful--the spirit of brotherhood. + +Puzzling as the situation is at some points, its essential elements are +far simpler and easier to deal with than slavery presented. There is no +longer a vast property interest at stake,--on the contrary, material +interest points the same way with moral considerations. There are +complexities of the social structure, but nothing half so formidable as +the aristocratic system based on slavery. The gravest difficulty now is +a race prejudice, deep-rooted and stubborn, yet at bottom so irrational +that civilization and Christianity and human progress should be +steadily wearing it away. Let us take heart of grace. If our wills are +true, it should be no great puzzle for our heads to find the way +in this business. Let us test the practical application of our +principle--namely, that each man should do his best, each should be +allowed to do his best, and helped to do his best--let us see how this +should work in industry, education, politics, and social relations. + +First in importance is the industrial situation. Broadly, the negro in +this country shows himself able and willing to work. The sharp spur of +necessity urges him, and his inherited habit carries him on. But he +needs a training in youth that shall fit him to work more effectively. +For that matter, his white brother needs it, too. But here is the +inequality of their situations,--whatever the white worker is qualified +to do he is allowed to do, but how is it with the black worker? Let the +Northern reader of these pages see at his door the palpable instance of +a limitation more cruel than can be found at the South. Let him note, as +the children stream out from the public school, the dark-skinned boy, +playing good-naturedly with his white mates, at marbles or ball or +wrestling,--just as he has been studying on the same bench with +them,--he is as clean, as well-dressed, as well-behaved, as they. Now, +five years hence, to what occupation can that colored boy turn? He can +be a bootblack, a servant, a barber, perhaps a teamster. He may be a +locomotive fireman, but when he is fit to be an engineer, he is turned +back. Carpentry, masonry, painting, plumbing, the hundred mechanical +trades,--these, for the most part, are shut to him; so are clerkships; +so are nineteen-twentieths of the ways by which the white boys he plays +and studies with to-day can win competence and comfort and serve the +community. It is a wrong to whose acuteness we are blunted by +familiarity. It can be changed only as sentiment is changed; and for +that there must be white laboring men who will bravely go ahead and +break the cruel rule by welcoming the black laborer to their side. + +In the South the negro as yet enjoys industrial freedom, in the choice +of an occupation--or a near approach to it--because his labor is so +necessary that he cannot be shut out. But the walls are beginning to +narrow. White immigration is coming in. The industrial training of the +old plantation is no longer given, and industrial schools are yet very +imperfectly developed. Some trades are being lost to the negroes; they +have fewer carpenters, masons, and the like; they find no employment in +cotton mills, and are engaged only in the least skilful parts of iron +manufacture. The trade unions, gradually spreading through the South, +begin to draw back from their early professions of the equality and +brotherhood of all toilers. An instance comes to hand as these pages are +being written--one instance out of a plenty. "The convention at Detroit, +Mich., of the amalgamated association of steel and iron workers has +postponed for a year consideration of a proposition to organize the +colored iron, steel and tin workers of the South. The white employes of +the Southern mills led the opposition. They objected to seeing the +negroes placed on an equality, and it was further argued that once a +colored man obtained a standing in the association, there was nothing to +prevent his coming North. President Shaffer urged that all men who are +competent workers should be members of the association." Now for next +year it is up to President Shaffer, and those of like mind! On this +question, of comradeship between black and white laborers, there is a +call to the leaders of labor organizations to lead right. These chiefs +of labor hold a place of the highest possibilities and obligations. In +their hands largely lies the advance or retrogression of the industrial +community--and that means our entire community. It is one of the most +hopeful signs of the times that stress of necessity is bringing to +labor's front rank men of a higher type, men often of large brain, high +purpose, and strong will. Brains, purpose, will,--all are needed by +these unofficial statesmen. They must look many ways at once, but this +way they ought not to fail to look,--to the industrial harmonizing and +equality of the two races. + +Exclude the colored men from the unions, and what can be expected but +that they serve as a vast reserve for the employers when strikes arise +between the capitalists and the employes? We read now and then of the +introduction of negroes as "strike-breakers," and the bitterness it +causes. But will not this be repeated on the largest scale if the +millions of negroes are to be systematically excluded from the unions? +There may be difficulties in including them,--difficulties partly +running back into other injustices, such as the practice of different +wage-rates for whites and blacks. But it would seem to be the larger +wisdom, in point of strategy, to enroll the two great wings of the host +of labor into a united army. And apart from strategy, that character of +the labor movement which most deeply appeals to the conscience and +judgment of mankind,--the uplift of the great multitude to better and +happier things,--that should rise above the barrier of race-prejudice as +above all other conventional and foolish divisions. Will the labor +leaders see and seize their opportunity at once to strengthen and to +ennoble their cause? + +The education of the negroes presents a hundred special questions, but +its basal principles are not difficult to discern. Here, fortunately, we +have in the main an admirable loyalty and good-will on the part of the +white South. It is proved by deeds more than by words. The sum spent by +the Southern States in the last thirty years for the schooling of the +blacks--it is reckoned at $132,000,000, most of it, of course, from +white taxpayers--is the best evidence of its disposition. The occasional +complaints and protests seem no more significant than the occasional +grumbling at the North against its best-rooted institutions,--everywhere +and always the children of light must keep up some warfare with the +Philistines. The main difficulties at the South are two; limited means +for so great a task,--three or four months of schooling burdens +Mississippi more than ten months burdens Massachusetts; and the grave +puzzle as to what kind of elementary education best fits the negro +child. + +This puzzle applies almost equally to the white child; throughout the +country and the world a reconstruction of education is struggling +forward, through great uncertainties but under strong pressure of +necessity. It is felt that the old-time book-education, and even its +modern revision--all as yet come vastly short of rightly fitting the +child for manhood or womanhood. We have advanced, but we have still far +to go. To rightly educate "the hand, head and heart," (the watchword of +Tuskegee)--to develop strong, symmetrical character and intelligence, +the sound mind in the sound body,--to train the bread-winner and the +citizen, as well as to open the gates of intellectual freedom and +spiritual power,--this is what we have not quite learned. Socrates and +More and Rousseau and Pestalozzi and Froebel and Armstrong have done +much, but they have left abundant room for their successors. The +millionaire's child, as well as the field-hand's, must wait awhile yet. +So it is small wonder if the Southern public school is still a challenge +to the best wits. + +The combined industrial and educational need of the South is excellently +summed up by a sympathetic observer, Ernest Hamlin Abbott: + +"The chief industrial problem of the South is, therefore, that of +transforming an indolent peasantry accustomed to dependence into an +active, independent people. This involves an educational problem. +Industrial education is something very different from training a few +hundred girls to cook and sew for others; it is something, even, very +different from supplying a few hundreds of young men with a trade. +Industrial training is this larger undertaking, namely, to train +hundreds of thousands of young people in habits of industry, in +alertness of mind, and in strength of will that shall enable them to +turn to the nearest opportunity for gaining the self-respect that comes +with being of use to the community." + +One thing is clear. More than the system is the teacher. Now and always +the first requisite must be instructors of devotion, intelligence, +sympathy, inspiration. To train such, and train them in multitudes, +there must be institutions, ample in intellectual resource and high in +their standards. There can be no fit common schools for the blacks +unless there are worthy normal schools and colleges. Atlanta and its +class are necessary as well as Tuskegee and its class,--and Atlanta +reinforces Tuskegee with a large proportion of its teachers. On broader +grounds, too, the need of the higher education for the black man is +imperative. It can hardly be better stated than in the words of +Professor DuBois, in his book of irresistible appeal, _The Souls of +Black Folk_: + +"That the present social separation and acute race-sensitiveness must +eventually yield to the influence of culture, as the South grows +civilized, is clear. But such transformation calls for singular wisdom +and patience. If, while the healing of this vast sore is progressing, +the races are to live for many years side by side, united in economic +effort, obeying a common government, sensitive to mutual thought and +feeling, yet subtly and silently separate in many matters of deeper +human intimacy,--if this unusual and dangerous development is to +progress amid peace and order, mutual respect and growing intelligence, +it will call for social surgery, at once the delicatest and nicest in +modern history. It will demand broad-minded, upright men, both white and +black, and in its final accomplishment American civilization will +triumph. So far as white men are concerned, this fact is to-day being +recognized in the South, and a happy renaissance of university education +seems imminent. But the very voices that cry hail to this good work are, +strange to relate, largely silent or antagonistic to the higher +education of the negro." + +It must be remembered that in the growth of a tree the upper boughs must +have space and air and sunlight, as much as the roots must have earth +and water,--and so with a race. There is need of scholars and idealists, +as well as toilers; and for these there should be their natural +atmosphere. Again let us hear the moving words of Professor DuBois: "I +sit with Shakespeare, and he does not wince. Across the color line I +move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming +women glide in gilded halls. From out the caves of evening that swing +between the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon +Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all +graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell +above the veil. Is this the life you grudge us, O knightly America? Is +this the life you long to change into the dull red hideousness of +Georgia? Are you so afraid lest, peering from this high Pisgah, between +Philistine and Amalekite, we sight the Promised Land?" + +Yet it is not for himself or the cultured few that he makes the +strongest plea: + +"Human education is not simply a matter of schools, it is much more a +matter of family and group life, the training of one's home, of one's +daily companions, of one's social class. Now the black boy of the South +moves in a black world--a world with its own leaders, its own thoughts, +its own ideals. His teachers here are the group leaders of the negro +people--the physicians, clergymen, the trained fathers and mothers, the +influential and forceful men about him of all kinds--here it is, if +anywhere, that the culture of the surrounding world trickles through, +and is handed on by the graduates of the higher schools. Can such +culture training of group leaders be neglected? Can we afford to ignore +it? Do you think that if the leaders of thought among negroes are not +trained and educated themselves, they will have no leaders? On the +contrary, a hundred half-trained demagogues will still hold the places +they so largely occupy now, and hundreds of vociferous busy-bodies will +multiply. We have no choice; either we must help furnish this race from +within its own ranks with thoughtful men, of trained leadership, or +suffer the consequences of a headless misguided rabble." + +Turning now to the political status of the negro, it may be said that +the most pressing need will be substantially met if the South will carry +out in good faith the provisions of her statute-books. By some of those +statute-books, suffrage is still equal and universal. In others, the +negro in required to own $300 worth of property, or to be able to read +and write, or to understand the Constitution when read to him. That the +white man is practically exempt from these tests, by the "soldier" or +"grandfather" clause, whatever be its theoretic injustice or unwisdom, +would be no great practical grievance to the negro if only he were +fairly allowed to cast his own vote when he can meet the statutory +tests. At present, throughout the greater part of the South, the +practical attitude of the election officials, and the social sentiment +enforced in subtle, effectual ways, debars the negro vote almost as +thoroughly as if it were disallowed by law. That this should be so may +be satisfactory enough for those to whom the matter ends with "This is a +white man's country," or "Damn the niggers anyhow." But will the +intelligent, large-minded Southerners,--the men of light and +leading--always allow the theory of their own statute-books to be +nullified? Will they forever maintain a suffrage-test of race rather +than of property and intelligence? + +It is said, no doubt truly enough, that a large part of the negroes are +indifferent to the suffrage, and do not care to vote. But is this a +desirable state of things? Taking the class to whom the law awards the +suffrage,--the men of some modest property qualification and +intelligence,--is it well for the community that they should be +indifferent to questions of taxation, of law-making, of courts and +schools and roads and bridges? Is it not in every sense desirable that +they should be encouraged to take an intelligent and active interest in +such matters? John Graham Brooks tells of his recent observations in +Gloucester county, Virginia, where whites and blacks have been +co-operating for good local government, and the curse of liquor-selling +has been restrained by the votes of a black majority. Surely we should +all like to see that precedent widely followed. That is a very crude +idea of politics which sees in it only a scramble for public offices. +That is an obsolete idea which construes Southern politics as a struggle +for power between whites and blacks. Politics, in a large sense, is the +common housekeeping of the community. It is the administration of the +broadest and highest common interests. The importance to the Southern +negro of the political function was greatly overrated when he emerged +from chattelhood. But is there any wiser course now than to educate and +train and encourage him to a living membership in the body politic? + +In this connection we naturally recur to the relation of the national +government to the negro problem. In general, the let-alone policy of the +last twenty-eight years is likely to continue, and there is every reason +why it should. The termination of Federal interference in 1877 was not +due to criminal indifference or lassitude on the part of the North, or +to political accident. It was essentially the gravitation of the nation +to its normal position, after the shock of war and the adjustment of the +vital changes involved in the abolition of slavery. Those changes +recognized in the national Constitution, and the new order set on its +feet, it was natural, inevitable, and right, that the States should +resume the control of their local affairs. The division of governmental +functions between State and nation was one of the most fortunate +circumstances of our birth-period; it was the ripening of our historical +antecedents, felicitously grasped and molded by a group of great men. It +rests on the fitness of each local community to handle its own affairs, +while only the most general and fundamental interests are intrusted to +the central authority. When the Southern States were left to themselves, +they did some unwise and unjust things,--and there had been something of +unwisdom and injustice in the time of Federal supervision--but on the +whole it was the re-establishment of the normal order. The policy which +naturally followed on the part of the general government was the +avoidance of special legislation, especially of the restrictive kind. + +But within its own sphere, the national government should follow those +principles which are in the best sense American. Thus the executive, in +its appointments to office, ought to recognize an equality of race, like +that which the Constitution affirm as to civil rights and the suffrage. +It is of vital moment that the American nation,--whatever local +communities may do,--should not bar competent men from office because of +race. Here as elsewhere,--the tools to him who can use them, the career +open to the fit talent. This should hold good wherever the national +executive acts, South as well as North. The principle should +be applied with reasonable regard to the sentiments of the local +community,--reasonable but not servile regard. In a city by character +and tradition a stronghold of the white race, it seems unwise to give a +principal office to a black man. But in a community where the black +element is strong in numbers and in character, and where the dark race +offers fit incumbents for office, there should be a fair number of such +appointments. If it is said "This is offensive to the Southern people," +the answer is, Who are the Southern people? Not the white people only, +but the black people also. + +As to legislation, a measure was recently proposed and somewhat +discussed, which has perhaps passed like other bubbles, but the proposal +of which caused natural agitation and apprehension at the South. This +was a scheme for applying the Fourteenth Amendment to the reduction of +Congressional representation in the South in proportion to the negroes +excluded from suffrage by the new State Constitutions. Some such +reduction may be permissible under the amendments,--for the later +Fifteenth Amendment only forbids the States to limit suffrage by "color, +race, or previous condition of servitude." Limitation by a property or +educational test is not forbidden; but under the Fourteenth Amendment it +might be made the ground for reducing a State's representation in +Congress. But when it has been said that the proposed measure of +reduction is permissible under the Constitution, there is nothing more +in its favor. From the standpoint of its proposers, it would be only +half-effective, for it could reach only those debarred by actual want +of property or education; the larger exclusion by the unfair +administration of election officers is an individual matter, beyond the +cognizance of statute-books. But the weighty objection is that it would +recognize, accept and confirm that very exclusion of the negro vote +against which it professes to be aimed. It would only enforce a penalty, +from which the gain would accrue solely to the Republican majority in +Congress and the electoral college. The Republican party, it is safe to +say, has too much virtue and intelligence in its rank and file to accept +such a gain at such a cost. For the cost would be a bitter intensifying +of race and sectional hostility. The Southern negro, his +disfranchisement accepted and ratified by the North, would be freshly +odious to his white neighbors on whom he had unconsciously brought this +humiliation. The fast closing breach between the North and South would +have a sharp and heavy wedge of division driven in. The peaceful forward +movement of the nation--for forward it is, spite of some lurches and +staggers--would be set back by a return to the old methods of sectional +conflict. But indeed the proposal hardly merits so much space as has +here been given it. It is a scheme of politicians and not of the people, +unhopeful even as a political scheme, unsupported by the sober thought +of the North, utterly unlikely to be realized or seriously attempted. + +There is another kind of legislative action which may well be seriously +considered. Would it not be wise, just, and statesmanlike, for the +nation to give financial aid to the tremendous work of public education +with which the South is struggling? The Blair bill for this purpose,--in +a word, an appropriation of $100,000,000, running through ten years, on +the basis of illiteracy,--came very near success in Congress. It was +defeated by an ardent championship in the North of local independence +and self-reliance. It is questionable whether that championship was not +misdirected. Here are States burdening themselves beyond their Northern +neighbors, to give schooling for only a third of a year, and necessarily +sometimes of inferior quality. The deficiency, compared with the +standards of wealthier States, results in a widespread ignorance +detrimental not only to the community but to the nation. The interests +at stake are common to us all. The backlying cause of the +trouble,--slavery and its accompaniments--was in a sense our common +responsibility; we all ought to have united to get rid of it peaceably, +and the North ought to have paid its share. For the dereliction the +South has paid a terrible price. The North, too, suffered wofully, yet +in far less measure. Would it not be the part of patriotism and +statesmanship--of wisdom and good-will--that all should now take some +share in lifting the load which weighs heaviest on the South, but hurts +us all? + +We are spending a hundred millions a year for a navy. Would not some of +that money be put to better use in training our own citizens, who will +otherwise go untaught? Someone has said: "The cost of one battleship +would endow the higher education of the Southern negro for half a +century to come." + +It is not the negro only, it is his white neighbor also, for whom we are +to provide. So to plan the provision that the money be honestly and +wisely spent; to do it with just consideration of local feeling, yet on +firm lines of American democracy--this would take study and sagacity. +But could study and sagacity be better applied than to make this idea +practical? The project seems prompted by wise self-interest and by +justice. The South is carrying more than its share of national expense, +and without complaint. Our tariff system presses far heavier on the +agricultural South than on the manufacturing North. Of our payment of +pensions,--running up to $130,000,000 a year,--the South bears its +proportion, though it is paid to men for fighting against her, and the +South makes no remonstrance. Is it not simple justice, is it not a +matter of national conscience and honor, that the whole nation should +help her in educating the future citizens of the republic? + +From this national aspect, we return to the more personal phases of our +theme. Shall we touch on that subject whose very name seems to prohibit +discussion?--what is called "social equality," or as others would prefer +"social intimacy." Either phrase seems to evoke a phantom before which +consideration and composure flee. But we may, as Epictetus suggests, +say, "Appearances, wait for me a little; let me see who you are and what +you are about, and put you to the test." Social equality--in what sense +does it exist among white men? People find their associates according to +fitness and congeniality. Clean people prefer the society of clean +people, and the dirty must go by themselves or change their habits. Men +and women of refinement and good manners welcome the company of the +refined and well-mannered. They do so no less if these pleasing traits +are found in a Japanese, a Chinese, or, a Hindu. This is the custom of +the civilized world. At the North, as already in Christendom at large, +the same usage is coming to extend to the African. A gentleman, a lady, +by breeding and education and behavior, is admitted to the society of +other ladies and gentlemen, whether in the business office, the +committee-room, or the home. When the Grand Army of the Republic in +Massachusetts this year chose their district commander, the almost +unanimous choice fell on a soldier, a lawyer, and a gentleman, of +African blood. When last fall the students of the Amherst agricultural +college elected the captain of their football team, they took as their +leader a young man of the dark race. A few years since a class in +Harvard awarded their highest honor, the class oratorship, to Mr. Bruce +of Mississippi, of negro blood. When a Springfield lawyer, meeting in +Philadelphia an old classmate in the law school, accepted his invitation +to dinner at his boarding-house, and there found himself among a score +of ladies and gentlemen, all dark-skinned, elegant in dress and manners, +agreeable in conversation, and meeting their guest with entire ease and +composure,--he did not feel that the meeting had injured either him or +them, or shaken the foundations of the social order. Such is the +growing, if not the general, practice in the Northern States; such is +the well-established custom of Christendom. If the white people of the +Southern States, for reasons peculiar to their section, follow a +different rule, they have still no occasion for wonder and dismay at the +practice in other sections, or for indignation when the highest official +in the American capital follows the general usage of the civilized +world. + +The reasons given by the Southern whites for their own course in the +matter call no less for respectful consideration. They say: "We are +encompassed and intermingled with a people of negro and mixed blood. If +we associate with them familiarly, the natural result will be +intermarriage. There is no drawing the line short of that. Meet at the +dining-table and in the drawing-room,--visit, study, play, associate +familiarly and intimately,--and the young people of the two races, in +many instances, will pass through acquaintance and friendship to love +and marriage. Then springs a mixed and degenerate race; then the white +race, with its proud tradition, its high ideals, its grand power, shades +off into an inferior, mongrel breed. Our inheritance, our civilization, +our honor, bid us shut out and forbid that degeneracy at the very +threshold." + +Let it be assumed that for the present the white South resolutely +maintains its attitude of social separation. But let its defenders +consider some of the consequences it involves, and make account with +them as best they may. Does not this social code strongly confirm, and +indeed carry as a necessary implication, that industrial separation +which must work injuriously not only to the negro but to the community? +If the white gentleman will not associate with a black gentleman in a +committee on school or public affairs, if he will not admit him to his +pew or his drawing-room, is it not to be expected that the white +carpenter or mill-hand will refuse to work side by side with the black? +What that means where the black man is in a small minority, we see here +at the North,--it shuts him out. Where he is in stronger force, as at +the South, the refusal of industrial fellowship means growing +bitterness, and the complication and aggravation of labor difficulties. +It all goes along together,--the social separation and the industrial. + +Further, this means that each race is to be ignorant and aloof from the +other, on its best side. The best side of every civilized people is seen +in its homes. The white and the black homes of the South are strangers +to each other. Edgar Gardner Murphy in his admirable book, _The Present +South_, while he does not for a moment question the necessity of the +social barrier, laments that ignorance of each other's best which it +involves. He dwells hopefully on that development of the family life +which marks the negro's best advance,--but what, he asks, can the white +people really see or know of it? Surely it is a very grave matter to +keep two intermingled peoples thus mutually ignorant of each other's +best. + +If it be asked, "What course can reasonably be considered as a possible +alternative to the jealous safeguarding of our race integrity?" the +answer might suggest itself: "Simply deal with every man according to +his fitness, his merits, and his needs, regardless of the color of his +skin. Decide to-day's questions on the broad principles of justice and +humanity. Leave the ultimate relation of the races to those sovereign +powers working through Nature and mankind, which we dimly understand, +but with which we best co-operate by doing the right deed here and now." + +Some things we say--and think, too,--when we are in debate with our +opponents, and some other things we think when we quietly commune with +ourselves. Any social ordinance or usage finds its final test when we +bring it into the companionship of our highest ideal. We may here borrow +an apologue: + +"The other night I fell asleep when soothed by vivid memories of a visit +to Charleston soon after the war. The place was then new to me, and the +warmth of old friends from whom I had long been parted and the cordial +hospitality of those now first met seemed to blend with the delicious +atmosphere which soothed and charmed my senses. The memory prompted a +dream, in which I sat again at that hospitable board, where my host had +summoned a company to meet a special guest. The stranger delighted us +all, partly by his suggestive comments, but still more by some subtle +sympathy which moved us all to free and even intimate speech. Gradually +the company enlarged; presently entered a man, and my host whispered to +me, 'That fellow tried to ruin me, but I can't shut him out now'--and +place was made. Then came in one with marked Jewish features, and the +company drew their chairs together and made room for him. More intimate +and sympathetic grew the talk,--strangely we all felt ourselves in a +region of thought and feeling above our wont, and brought close together +in it. It dawned on me 'this Presence among us is the same that once +walked in Jerusalem and Galilee.' At that moment there appeared at the +door a newcomer of dark hue. A frost fell on the company; they seemed to +stiffen and close their ranks; the host's face turned in trouble and +uncertainty from the newcomer to the guest of honor. The Guest arose +and spoke to the stranger,--'Take my place!' he said." + +Each of us dreams his own dream, and thinks his own thought. Differ as +we may, let us unite wherever we can in purpose and action. The perfect +social ideal will be slow in realization, but it is to-day's +straightforward step along some plain path that is bringing us nearer to +it. The black workman who every day does his best work; the white +workman who welcomes him to his side; the trade-union that opens its +doors alike to both colors; the teacher spending heart and brain for her +pupils; the statesman planning justice and opportunity for all; the +sheriff setting his life between his prisoner and the mob; the +dark-skinned guest cheerfully accepting a lower place than his due at +life's feast; the white-skinned host saying, Friend, come up higher,--it +is these who are solving the race problem. + +Slowly but surely we are coming together. We confront our difficulties +as a people, however we may differ among ourselves, with a oneness of +spirit which is a help and pledge of final victory. We are one by our +most sacred memories, by our dearest possessions, and by our most solemn +tasks. Our discords are on the lower plane; when the rich, full voices +speak, in whatever latitude and longitude, they chord with one another. +When Uncle Remus tells Miss Sally's little boy about Brer Rabbit and +Brer Fox, the children from the Gulf to the Lakes gather about his +knees. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are claimed as comrades by all the boys +between the Penobscot and the Rio Grande. Lanier's verse rests on the +shelf with Longfellow's. The seer of Concord gives inspiration in Europe +and India and Japan. Frances Willard stands for the womanhood of the +continent. When Fitzhugh Lee died, it was not Virginia only but America +that mourned a son. When Mary Livermore passed away, we all did honor to +her heroic spirit. When Dunbar sings his songs, or DuBois speaks in the +tones of scholar and poet, we all listen. The great emancipators of the +successive generations,--Woolman, Lundy, Channing, Mrs. Stowe, Lincoln, +Armstrong, Booker Washington--do we not all claim a share in them? Just +as all Englishmen feel themselves heirs alike of the Puritan Hampden and +the Royalist Falkland, so we Americans all pay our love and reverence to +the heroes of our war,--Grant and Lee, Jackson and Sheridan, Johnston +and Thomas, and all their peers. + +And we are one by the common tasks that confront us. This problem of the +races,--it is a challenge to do our best. "Impossible? What are we put +into the world for, but to do the impossible in the strength of God?" +The rich man and the poor man, the employer and the laborer, must find +some common ground of justice and harmony. The nation must be steered +away from commercial greed and military glory, toward international +arbitration, toward peace, toward universal brotherhood. Knowledge and +faith are to join hands, and the human spirit is to reach nobler +heights. These are the tasks which we Americans are to meet and +master--together. + +The hope of Lincoln is finding its late fulfillment: "The mystic chords +of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot +grave"--Northern and Southern graves alike--"to every living heart and +hearth-stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the +Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels +of our nature." The pathetic melody of the negro spirituals, the brave +and rollicking strains of "Dixie," and the triumphant harmony of "The +Star Spangled Banner," blend and interweave in the Symphony of +America. + + + + +INDEX + + + Abbott, Ernest Hamlin, on industrial problem of South, 397. + + Abolition, see Emancipation. + + Abolitionists (Cf. Anti-slavery men), in England, 38; + opinions of North and South on, 54; + inclusiveness of term, 54 ff; + characterized, 56 ff; + conservatives ally themselves with Republicans, 130; + extremists not opposed to secession, 212; + favor disunion, 217. + + Adams, Charles Francis, joins "Free Soil" party, 81; + nominated for Vice-President, 82; + proposes compromise on slavery, 229; + candidate for Presidential nomination, 328. + + Adams, John Quincy, characteristics, 28; + relations with Clay, 29; + in Congress, 72; + believes abol. of slavery as war measure legal, 253. + + Adams, Nehemiah (Dr.), 141. + + Adams, Samuel, 8. + + Alabama, admitted as slave State, 23; + forbids importation of slaves, later repeals, 36; + secedes, 225; + emancipation in, 260; + gives qualified assent to thirteenth amendment, 262; + provisional govt. formed, 275; + reconstructed, 310; + negro voters in majority in, 311; + Federal interference in election (1872), 323; + Democrats regain control in, 324; + legal limitation of suffrage in, 383, 384. + + Alabama Claims, the, settled, 325. + + Alcorn, J. M., first Republican governor of Mississippi, 336. + + Alcott, Amos Bronson, characterizes John Brown, 160; + futile views of on war, 242. + + Allen, Charles, refuses to support Whig party, 81. + + Amendments, constitutional, Thirteenth, 262; + ratified, 268, 276; + declared adopted, 276; + Fourteenth formulated and discussed, 297 ff; + prob. reason for mistake of exclusion art. in, 301; + disqualifications under removed by Congress, 302; + restoration offered to South upon adoption of, 303; + rejected by South, 304, 310; + Grant against exclusion clauses in, 310; + scheme to apply to reduction of Southern representation, 403 ff; + Fifteenth proposed, 314; + adopted, 315, 403. + + American Missionary Asso'n, labors of for freedmen, 362. + + American Party. (See KNOW-NOTHING PARTY), 115, 151; + death of, 153. + + "American system," 31. + + Ames, Adelbert, governor of Mississippi, 336; + calls for Federal troops; impeached; driven from state, 340. + + Ames, Charles G., characterizes Stroud's Slave Laws, 110. + + Amherst agricultural college, chooses negro foot ball captain, 406. + + Anderson, Major, at Ft. Moultrie, 223; + Buchanan refuses aid to; withdraws to Ft. Sumter; supported, 224; + surrenders, 235. + + Andersonville, terrors of, 245. + + Andrew, John A. (Gov.), denounces slavery, 154; + on John Brown, 165; + strongly opposes secession, 230; + course as war governor, 279; + suggests principles of reconstruction, 280; + endeavors to interest Northern capital in South, 319. + + "Anti-Nebraska" party, 115. + + Anti-secessionists, in North and South, 212. + + Anti-slavery men (Cf. ABOLITIONIST), + distinguished from abolitionists, 55; + disheartened by "Free Soil" nomination, 82; + outbreaks against in South, 169, 186. + + Anti-slavery movement grows, 35 ff, 37, 51, 52, 71, 91; + women and literary men in, 56; + public leaders keep aloof from, 57; + petitions, 71; + documents excluded + from Southern mails, 72, 73; + made political issue, 74; + strong growth of in North, 113 ff; + assumed by Republican party, 127; + tabooed at South, 129. + + Anti-slavery society, American, founded, 44; + purposes of, 45; + dissolution of, 367. + + Arkansas, admitted as slave state, 23; + postpones action on secession, 227; + secedes, 235; + emancipation in, 260; + provisional govt. estab. in, 269, 275; + reconstructed, 310; + relative number of negro voters in, 311; + becomes Democratic, 323; + Grant recommends state govt. be declared illegal, 344; + bill defeated, 345. + + Armstrong, Samuel Chapman (Gen.), birth and early life of, 356; + in Union Army; + begins labors for freedmen in Virginia; characterization of, 357; + special fitness for work, 359; + religious views, 360; + forms ideals of negro education, 360 ff; + founds Hampton Institute, 362 ff; + personality, 364 ff; + labors of for school, 365 ff; + death of; summary of life work; personal appearance, 366; + sayings of, 367; + Booker Washington, pupil and successor to, 378. + + Arnold, Matthew, poem on his father, 369. + + Atchison, Senator, of Missouri, 117. + + Atlanta University, 358, 398. + + _Atlantic Monthly_, begun, 144 + + Aycock, Governor, of N. C., 388. + + + Bacon, Leonard, 36. + + Baltimore, Maryland, Mass. troops attacked at, 237. + + Banks, Nathaniel P., joins "Free Soil" party, 81; + speaker of House, 115; + in Republican party, 127; + refuses nomination of "Know-nothing" seceders, + supports Fremont, 129; + governor of Mass., 193; + in House, 284. + + Baptists, champion cause of freedom, 22. + + "Barnburners," the, 82. + + Barnwell, Senator, advocates secession, 89. + + Bates, Edward, candidate for Presidential nomination (1860), 191; + attitude of on emancipation proclamation, 257. + + Beauregard, Gen., leads attack on Fort Sumter, 235. + + Beecher, Edward, 36. + + Beecher, Henry Ward, characterization of, 141 ff; + active in political discussion, 142; + criticises Lincoln in _Independent_, 254; + labors in behalf of Union, 277; + outlines plan of reconstruction, 277 ff; + views on suffrage, 308. + + Bell, John, nominated for President, 189; + popular vote for (1860), 194; 214. + + Bennett, James Gordon, 141. + + Berea College, beginnings of, 73; + discriminated against by Kentucky educational law, 385. + + Bernard, John, meets Washington, 1 ff. + + "Biglow Papers," Lowell attacks slavery and war in, 77; 144; 254. + + Birney, James G., 36; + incidents in life of, 58 ff; + political ideas of, 59; + nominated for President, 74; + views of on slavery question, 74; + again nominated, 75. + + Black, Jeremiah S., Attorney-General, 222; + Secretary of State, 244; + defends Johnson, 312. + + "Black Codes" of 1865-6, 281 ff, 372. + + Blaine, James G., in House, 284; + proposes amend. to Stevens's reconstruction bill, 306; + on debate of bill, 307; + on negro suffrage, 310; + leader in House, characterized, 331; + speaks against Davis, reputation discredited, Presidential + candidate, 346. + + Blair, Francis P. (Gen.), nominated for Vice-Presidency; defeated, 314. + + Blair, Senator, of N. H., bill of for aid to local education on basis + of existing illiteracy, 372, 404. + + "Border Ruffians," the, 116, 118. + + Border States, severity of war greatest in, 242; + Lincoln's scheme for compensated emancipation in, 252; + slave owners in alienated by emancipation proclamation, 261. + + _Boston Courier_, denounces Republican party in 1860 campaign, 194. + + Bourne, George (Rev.), denounces slavery, 37. + + Boutwell, George S., governor of Mass., 92; + in House, 284; + House prosecutor of Johnson, 311. + + Bowles, Samuel, 124; + "Life and Times of," 124 note; + gives opinion of Johnson imbroglio, 296. + + Bradley, Joseph (Justice), on Hayes-Tilden commission, 349. + + Breckinridge, John C., nominated for President, 188; + scheme for electing, 189; + popular vote for (1860), 194; + declines to repudiate secession, 194. + + Bristow, Benjamin H., Presidential candidate, Sec'y of + Treasury, 346, 347. + + Brooks, John Graham, observations of on Virginia politics, 401. + + Brooks, Preston S., assaults Sumner, 122; + re-elected and honored, effect on North, 123. + + Brown, B. Gratz, leads independent movement in Mo., 327; + aspirant for Presidential nomination, 328. + + Brown, John, sketch of, 119 ff; + leads massacre in Kansas, 120; + schemes for extinction of slavery, 159 ff; + in Springfield, Mass., 159, 162; + aided by leading anti-slavery men, 160; + pen pictures of by Alcott and Emerson, 160; + characterization of, 161 ff; + makes raid on Harper's Ferry, 162; + captured, 163; + hanged, 164; + honored as martyr, 164 ff; + eulogized by Emerson, 165, 167; + characterization of his acts and schemes, 166 ff. + + Bruce, B. K., U. S. Senator, 336. + + Bruce, R. C., of Miss., awarded class oratorship at Harvard, 407. + + Bryant, William Cullen, editor of N. Y. _Evening Post_, 327. + + Buchanan, James, 72; + Democratic Presidential candidate, characterized, 128; + with Mason and Soulé issues Ostend manifesto, 128; + administration of (1857-61), 147; + sends Gov. Walker to Kansas, 150; + supports Lecompton constitution, 151; + announces position on secession, 222; + refuses aid to Ft. Moultrie, 224; + cabinet, 224. + + Burgess, J. W. (Prof), shows effects of John Brown's raid, 170; + comments on laws governing negroes after war, 291. + + Burns, Anthony, fugitive slave, 91. + + Butler, Senator, from S. C., Sumner attacks in Congressional speech, 122. + + Butler, Benjamin F., joins seceding Democratic convention (1860), 188; + candidate for governor of Mass., 192; + declares fugitive slaves "contraband of war," 248; + House prosecutor of Johnson, 311; + in Congress, characterized, 331; + labors for "force bill" (1875), 345. + + Butler, Fanny Kemble. See KEMBLE, FANNY. + + + Calhoun, John C., Vice-President, relations with Jackson, 30; + defends right of nullification, 32; + prophesies concerning relations between North and South, 34; + becomes leader of South, 34, 44; + characterization of, 47 ff; + social theories of, 50; + in Senate, opposes anti-slavery petitions, claims State control of + mails, 72; + in Tyler's cabinet, leader in Texas annexation, 75; + returns to Senate, 76; + politically isolated, 79; + opposes war with Eng., 80; + claims of for nationionalization of slavery, 80; + last speech of, 86; + his opinion of struggle bet. North and South, 87. + + California, taken from Mexico, 79; + admission as free State advocated, 88, 90; + swift settlement of; applies for admission with slavery excluded, + South opposes, 84; + rejects Fifteenth amendment, 315. + + Cameron, Simon, candidate for Presidential nomination; supports + Lincoln, 190. + + Carolinas, the (see also NORTH, SOUTH), + slavery foundation of aristocracy in, 6; + number of slaves in in 1790, 9. + + Carpenter, Frank, Lincoln's conversation with, 256. + + "Carpet-baggers," the, 318, 336, 338. + + Casey, F. F., in government of Louisiana, 341. + + Cass, Lewis, nominated for President, 81; + resigns from cabinet, 224. + + Chamberlain, Daniel H., governor of So. Carolina, 332, 348. + + Chandler, Zachariah, 270; + sketch of, 283; + as radical leader, 285; + party leader, 331; + chairman Republican national committee; disputes Tilden's + election, 348. + + Channing, William Ellery, plan of emancipation, 39; + sketch of, attitude toward anti-slavery movement, 59 ff; + treatise on Slavery, 62. + + Chase, Salmon P., in "Free Soil" convention, 82; + in Senate, 83; + against extension of slavery, 90; + in Lincoln's cabinet, 249; + attitude of on emancipation proclamation, 257; + becomes chief justice, 274; + candidate for Presidential nomination, Lincoln's opinion of, services + of in supreme court, 313. + + Chestnutt, Charles W., 379; + shows discrimination against negro suffrage, 384. + + Child, Lydia Maria, 56; + opinion of Channing, 63. + + Church, the, early, accepts slavery, works toward abolition, 4; + casuistical defense of slavery by, 5; + in America, justifies slavery, 50; + split over slavery, 53; + united in South in defense of slavery in North divided, 141; + labors of in North in behalf of Union, 277. + + Civil rights bill (1866) passed, 296; + vetoed by Johnson, becomes law, 297; + of 1875, 345. + + Civil war, the, causes of, 211 ff; 237 ff; + views on in North and South, 237; + moral results of, 240, 244, 247; + emancipation measures discussed and adopted during, 248 ff; + disappointment over protraction of, 254; + negroes in, 261, 263; + courage of both North and South in, 262; + suffering in, 265; + ended, 270. + + "Civil War and the Constitution, The," 170. + + Clay, Cassius M., opposes slavery, 73; + in founding of Berea College, 73; 170. + + Clay, Henry, votes for slavery in Arkansas, 23; + favors Missouri compromise, aspires to Presidency, dislikes but + supports slavery, 26; + relations of with J. Q. Adams, 29; + advocates protective tariff, 31; + proposed tariff compromise, 33; + Whigs nominate for President, 75; + defeated, 76; + opposed to annexation of Mexico, 79; + disappointed of Presidential nomination, 81; + in Senate (1849-50), frames compromise measures of 1850, 85; + opposes extension of slavery, denies right of secession, last + speech of, 86; + denounces threats of secession, 89. + + Clayton, Powell, in Grant faction, 344. + + Cobb, Howell, 138. + + Coles, Edward (Gov.), 35. + + Colfax, Schuyler, in House, 284; + Vice-President, 314. + + Colonization, Jefferson's schemes for, 18; + Pennsylvania society, 22; + society attacked by New Eng. anti-slavery society, 44. + + Compromise of 1820, see MISSOURI + of 1850, 85; + adopted, 90; + causes dissatisfaction in North and South, 91. + + Confederacy, the Southern (see also SOUTH, the, etc.). + Secessionists propose to form, 215; + convention to organize, 225; + organized, constitution of, 226; + election of officers of, 226, 227; + disregards peace overtures from Republicans, 229; + courage displayed in, 262; + Lee the chief hero of, 263. + + Conkling, Roscoe, in House, 284; + party leader, 331; + favors "force bill," 345; + Presidential candidate, 346. + + Connecticut, passes emancipation law, 21. + + "Conscience Whigs," 82. + + Constitution (See CONVENTION OF 1787), + proposed convention to revise, 229. + Amendments to, see AMENDMENTS. + + "Constitutional Union" party, 153, 189. + + Convention of 1787, personnel, work, and difficulties of, 10 ff; + results of, 14 ff. + + Corwin, Thomas, opposes Mexican war, 77. + + Cotton gin, invention of stimulates cotton growing, 23. + + Credit Mobilier, 344. + + Crittenden, John J., Senator, 151, 214. + + Crittenden, compromise, proposed, refused by Republicans, 228. + + Cuba, emancipation in, 108; + annexation of demanded in Ostend manifesto, 128. + + Curtis, Benj. R., defends President Johnson, 312. + + Curtis, George William, editor _Harper's Weekly_, 330; + leads reform element in Republican convention of 1876, 346. + + Curtis, Justice, dissents from Dred Scott decision, 148. + + Cushing, Caleb, joins seceding Democratic convention, 188; + supports Breckinridge Democracy; bitter words of on Mass. + election, 193. + + + Dabney, Thomas, sketch of, 100 ff; + experiences of after war, 337, 339, 355. + + Davis, David, on Hayes-Tilden commission; in Senate, 349. + + Davis, Henry Winter, favors radical reconstruction, 270. + + Davis, Jefferson, in Senate, 86, 89; + sketch of life and principles of, 132 ff; + active in politics, in Mexican war, in Senate, Sec'y of War, + leader in secession, 134; + hostility toward, 135; + final estimate of, 136; + presents ultimatum of South in Senate (1859), 184; + residence of at North, 193; + defends secession, 215; + opposes immediate secession (1860), 221; + with others withdraws from Congress to organize Confederacy, 225; + elected President of Confederacy, 226; + North's hatred of, 301; + imprisoned by Pres. Johnson, 329; + attacked by Blaine, 346. + + Davis, Rebecca Harding (Mrs.), describes terrors of Civil war in border + states, 242. + + Dawes, Henry L., in House, 284, 331. + + Dayton, William L., Vice-Presidential candidate (1856), 129. + + Declaration of Independence, clause in regarding wrongs of slave + trade suppressed, 9. + + DeForest, J. W., 209. + + Delaware, votes against extension of slave trade, 13; + rejects Thirteenth amendment, 262, 276; + rejects Fifteenth amendment, 315. + + Democratic party (see DEMOCRATS), + power of South in, 185; + extreme South breaks up, 187; + Alex. H. Stephens explains move, 189; + geographical lines of in campaign of 1860, 192. + + Democratic sentiment, growth of, 21, 29. + + Democrats, opposed to strong central gov't, 21; + favor annexing Texas, 75; + nominate Cass for President, 81; + combine with Free Soilers, 92; + nominate Pierce for President, desert Free Soilers, 93; + vote for Kansas-Nebraska bill, 114; + in Republican party, 127; + platform (1856), campaign, Buchanan candidate of, 128; + uphold Ostend manifesto, 129; + divided over Lecompton constitution, 151; + convention of 1860, 185 ff; + delegates from S. C. and Gulf States leave, 187; + adjourns, 188; + regular convention at re-meeting nominates Douglas and Johnson, + seceders nominate Breckinridge and Lane, 188; + inharmonious in North, 253; + gain in 1862, 261; + nominate McClellan for Presidency, defeated, 265; + in Congress of 1865-6, 284; + hold convention of 1868, repudiate reconstruction acts, favor + repudiation, nominate Seymour, 313; + regain control in many Southern States, 323; + join Independent Republicans, 328; + indorse Greeley's nomination, Independent Democrats nominate + O'Conor, 329; + organize resistance to Republicans in South and begin + intimidation, 339 ff; + in Congress of 1875-6, 346; + nominate Tilden for President, 347; + claim election, 348 ff. + + Denison, John, Dr., characterizes Gen. Samuel Armstrong, 357. + + Devens, Charles, Attorney-General under Hayes, 353. + + Dickinson, Edward, helps organize Republican party, 114. + + Dickinson, John, opinion of slave trade, 12. + + "Disfranchisement," paper on, by Charles W. Chestnutt, 384. + + District of Columbia, slavery abolished in, 251. + + Dix, John A. (Gen.), in Buchanan's cabinet, 224. + + Dorsey, Stephen W., in Grant faction, 344. + + Douglas, Stephen A., sketch of, 112; + introduces "Kansas-Nebraska" bill to aid his Pres. candidature, 112 ff; + doctrine of "popular sovereignty," 150; + supports Republicans on Lecompton bill, 151; + returns to Democrats and becomes Senator, 153; + famous debates of with Lincoln, 180; + elected U. S. Senator, 181; + struggle of, with extreme South on Democratic platform (1860), 185; + great power of in convention; principles of; followers defy Southern + Democracy, 186; + nominated for President, 188; + denounces secession; pop. vote for, 194; + assails Lincoln's position, proposes plans to conciliate South, 233; + supports Lincoln, 235. + + Douglass, Frederick, 96. + + "Dred," anti-slavery novel, 123 ff. + + Dred Scott decision, 147 ff. + + DuBois, Prof., 5, 379; + on need of higher education for negroes, 398, 399. + + Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 379. + + Duncan, James, 38. + + Durell, E. H. (Judge), in Louisiana election struggle, 341. + + + Education, of negroes, 37; + urged by Beecher, 279; + nat'l, of negroes neglected, 325, 326; + higher, for negroes, 358, 377 ff, 398 ff; + Blair bill for local aid to, on basis of existing illiteracy, 372, 404; + of negroes undertaken by Southern whites, 373; + standard of in South being raised, 381; + efforts to restrict for negroes, unjust Kentucky law, 385; + estimate of amt. paid out for negro education to date, 388; + improved industrial for negroes, 388; + of negro presents great difficulty, 396-7; + amount spent by South for edu. of negro in past 30 years, 397; + problems of in South, 397 ff; + need of higher for negroes, 398-9; + gov't aid to in South advocated, 404. + + Eggleston, General, Republican leader in Miss., 336. + + Eliot, Thomas D., helps organize Republican party, 114. + + Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln presents to cabinet, decides to + delay promulgation of, 257; + reintroduces, 258; + discussed and approved by cabinet, issued (1862), 259; + goes into effect, immediate results of, 260 ff. + + Emerson, Ralph Waldo, in anti-slavery movement, 56; + in literature, 94; + influence of, 143; + pen picture of John Brown by, 160; 243. + + "End of an Era, The," 169. + + English bill, the, 151. + + Evarts, William M., in Republican convention (1860), 191, 192; + defends President Johnson, 312; + Secy. of State under Hayes, 353. + + Everett, Edward, nominated for Presidency, 189. + + + Federalist Party, principles of, 20. + + Fee, John G., and Berea College, 73, 170. + + Fessenden, William P., in Senate, 114; + in Republican party, 127; + heads reconstruction committee, 281; + in U. S. Senate, 283; + sketch of, 284, 285; + opposes President Johnson's plan of reconstruction, 286; + votes to acquit Pres. Johnson, 312; + death of, 331. + + Fillmore, Millard, becomes President, character of, 90; + candidate for Presidential nomination, 92; + nominated (1856) by "Know-nothings," 129. + + Fish, Hamilton, in Senate, 114; + in settlement of Alabama claims, 325. + + Fisk University, 358. + + Florida, secedes, 225; + emancipation in, 260; + provisional gov't of, 275; + reconstructed, 310; + rel. number of negro voters in, 311; + Presidential vote of contested (1876), 348 ff. + + "Flower de Hundred," 100. + + Floyd, John B., Secy. of War, resigns, 224. + + Foot, Solomon, in Senate, 114. + + Force bill, of 1833, 33; + ---- proposed, of 1875, defeated in Senate, 345. + + Fort Moultrie, commanded by Anderson, 223; + Buchanan refuses to aid, 224; + abandoned by Anderson, 224; + occupied by So. Carolinians, 224. + + Fort Sumter, Anderson removes to, 224; + debate over, 233; + Lincoln sends aid to, 234; + Confederates attack and take, 235. + + Fortune, T. Thomas, 379. + + Fowler, Senator, votes to acquit Pres. Johnson, 312. + + Franklin, Benjamin, 8; + labors against slavery, skill of as a leader, 19. + + Freedmen's Bureau, 287, 289; + Pres. Johnson vetoes bill to increase powers of, 294; + bill amended, passed, 297; + labors of, 357, 362. + + "Free Soil" party, previously "Liberty" party, gains from Whigs + and Democrats, 81. + + "Free Soilers," convention of (1848), nominates Van Buren, 82; + form alliance with Democrats, 92; + nominate John P. Hale for President, lose Democratic allies, 93; + vote against Kansas-Nebraska bill in House, 114; + unite with Whigs in Mich. in formation of Republican party, 115; + in Republican party, 127. + + Free State men, in Kansas struggle, 117 ff; + refuse to vote in Kansas, 150; + give up separate organization, and win, 152; + triumph of, 153. + + Fremont, John C. (Gen.), nominated for President, 126; + sketch of, 126 ff; + declares martial law, and emancipation of slaves in Missouri, 248; + emancipation measure of set aside by Lincoln, results of incident, 249. + + Fugitive slave law, demanded by South, 85; + resisted in North, dissatisfaction over, 91. + + _Galveston Bulletin_, view of reconstruction in, 267. + + Garfield, James A., in House, 284, 331. + + Garrison, Wm. Lloyd, becomes interested in emancipation, 39; + early experiences, founds _Liberator_, principles, 40; + founds New England Anti-Slavery Society, 44; + fight of against slavery, 51 ff; + aims and methods of, 52, 53; + followers of divided, 54; + personality of, 54; + mobbed, 55; + scorns Republican party, 127; + propagandism of inflames North and South, 207; + declares all war unchristian, 210; + favors disunion, 217, 228. + + Geary, John W., governor of Kansas, 117, 121. + + _Genius of Universal Emancipation_, founded, 38, 39. + + Georgia, demands representation in Congress based on slave numbers, 11; + refuses to join Union if slave trade forbidden, 12; + forbids entry of free negroes into State, forbids circulation of + insurrectionary pamphlets, 41; + citizens of characterized, 137; + becomes pivotal point of Southern politics, 138; + considers secession (1860), 221, 225; + secedes, 226; + emancipation in, 260; + provisional govt. formed, 275; + signs of promise in during reconstruction period, 301; + rights of negro conserved in, 302; + readmitted, relative number of negro voters in, 311; + Democrats regain control in, 323; + discrimination against negro suffrage in, 384. + + Giddings, Joshua, in "Free Soil" convention, 82. + + Godkin, E. L., 327. + + Gold, at premium of 250, 264. + + Gorman bill to limit suffrage, defeated (1905), 383, note. + + Grand Army of the Republic, chooses negro commander in Mass., 406. + + Grant, Ulysses S. (Gen.), votes for Buchanan, 130; + refuses to exchange prisoners, 246; + report of on conditions in South after war, 286; + on proper policy toward South, 302; + against exclusion clauses of 14th amendment, 310; + nominated for President, elected, 314; + problems of administration, displays lack of statesmanship, 324 ff; + defeats inflation policy, 325; + personal honesty of, 326; + strong opposition to develops, 327; + prominent men and events of second term, 331 ff; + growth of independence of, 332; + recommends State govt. of Arkansas be declared illegal, 344; + favors "Force bill," 345; + disinclination of to further interference in South, 345; + attitude of in disputed States in 1876, 349; + remarks of to Lee on surrender, 354. + + Greeley, Horace, votes for Taylor, 82; + helps prolong Whig organization in N. Y., 115; + sketch of, 140; + opposes Seward in Republican convention. (1860), 191; + criticises Lincoln, Lincoln's reply to, 255; + supports Independ. Repub. movement, nominated for President, 328; + nomination of indorsed by Democrats, weakness of as candidate, + generous sentiment of toward South, 329; + bitter opposition to, defeat and death of, 330. + + Grimes, Senator, votes to acquit President Johnson, 312. + + + Hale, Edward Everett, in New Eng. Emigrant Aid Society, 116. + + Hale, Eugene, in House, 331. + + Hale, John P., nominated for President, 93. + + Hamlin, Hannibal, nominated for Vice-President, 192. + + Hampton, Wade, nominated for governor of So. Carolina; violence + of campaign, 333; + claims governorship, 348; + governor, 353. + + Hampton Institute, founded, 362; + work at begun, success and growth of, 363 ff; + work of, 377. + + Harper's Ferry, raid on, by John Brown, 162 ff. + + _Harper's Weekly_, opposes Greeley, 330. + + Harrison, Mrs. Burton, personal reminiscences of Virginia before + the war, 100. + + Harrison, William H., campaign of, 74. + + Hart, Albert Bushnell, gives estimate of wealth of negroes, 375. + + Harvard College, awards class oratorship to negro (Bruce of Miss.), 407. + + Hawley, Joseph R. (Gen.), in House, 331. + + Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 242. + + Hayes, Rutherford B., in House, 284; + nominated for President, 347; + election of claimed, 348 ff; + declared elected, 352; + ends military interference in South, inaugurates new régime, 353. + + Hayne, Robert, debate of with Webster, 33. + + Hedrick, Prof., driven from North Carolina for anti-slavery + sentiments, 129. + + Helper, Hinton R., publishes _The Impending Crisis_, 109, 154; + driven from N. C., 157. + + Henderson, Senator, votes to acquit Pres. Johnson, 312. + + Henry, Patrick, 8; views of on slavery, 19. + + Herndon, William H., Lincoln's partner and friend, 179, 180. + + Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, supports John Brown, 160. + + Hilo (Hawaii) Manual School, 360. + + Hoar, George F., characterizes Sumner, 282; + describes polit. methods of Henry Wilson, 283; + in House, 331; + on Louisiana investigation committee, 343. + + Hoar, Samuel, driven from So. Carolina, 73; + joins "Free Soil" party, 81. + + Holt, Joseph, Secy. of War, 224. + + Holtzclaw, William, story of, 378. + + Hopkins, John H. (Bishop), 141. + + Hopkins, Mark, as president of Williams College, 356. + + Hopkins, Samuel (Dr.), denounces slave trade, 9. + + Howard, O. O. (Gen.), chief of Freedmen's Bureau, 289. + + Howard University, 358. + + Howe, S. G. (Dr.), supports John Brown, 160, 168. + + Hunter, David (Gen.), attempts partial emancipation as war measure, 253. + + + ILLINOIS, admitted as free State, 23; + attempt to introduce slavery in, 34; + anti-slavery rioting in, 74; + Abolitionists in, ally themselves with Republicans; Lincoln the + central figure at first State convention, 179. + + _Impending Crisis, The_, 109; + resumé of, 154 ff; + effects of, 157. + + _Independent, The_, criticises Lincoln, 254. + + Indiana, admitted as free State, 23. + + Indians, unfitness of for slavery, 5. + + + Jackson, Andrew, characteristics, administration, 29; + denounces nullification, 33; + opposes circulation of anti-slavery literature through U. S. mails, 72. + + Jackson, Stonewall, 135. + + Jefferson, Thomas, 8; + denounces slave trade in first draft of Decl. of Independ.; + plans of for gradual emancipation, 9, 17-18, + and for exclusion of slavery from unorganized territory, 9; + polit. ideals, views on slavery, 17; + unskillful as President, 21; + fears of for Union; sympathies with slave States, jealous of + State rights, 25, 250; + on dangers of slavery, 391. + + Jenkins, Charles J. (Gov.), pleads for negro rights in inaugural, 301. + + Jerry, fugitive slave, rescued, 91. + + Johnson, Andrew, in Senate, 214; + early life and character of, becomes President, 273; + retains Lincoln's cabinet, Seward's influence on, 274; + issues proclamation of amnesty; appoints provisional governors + in South, 275; + favors qualified negro suffrage, 276; + message (1865), 281; + policy of reconstruction of opposed in Congress, 285 ff; + supported by Democrats, 286; + vetoes Freedmen's Bureau bill, 294, 296; + loses support of party; undignified speech of strengthens + opposition to, 295; + vetoes Civil Rights bill, 297; + strong opposition to reconstruction policy of, 303; + undignified conduct of during tour of North, 304; + impeachment and trial of, 311 ff; + acquitted; in Senate; place of in history, 312. + + Johnson, Herschel V., nominated for Vice-President, 188; + opposes immediate secession, 225. + + Johnson, Oliver, 44. + + Johnson, Reverdy, in U. S. Senate, 284. + + Jones, C. C. (Rev.), on condition of slaves, 49. + + + Kansas, struggle for, 116 ff; + stringent slavery laws in, 117; + forms issue of Repub. party's first campaign, 127; + Walker appointed governor of; struggle in, 150 ff; + admitted to Union, 152. + + Kansas-Nebraska bill, 112; + effects of on election (1854), 115; + results of, 116. + + Kealing, H. T., 379. + + Keitt, Lawrence, with Brooks in assault on Sumner, 122. + + Kellogg, William P., in government of Louisiana, 341. + + Kemble, Fanny, describes slavery in "A Residence on a Georgia + Plantation," 103 ff. + + Kendall, Amos, 72. + + Kentucky, attempt to establish as free State, 22; + refuses to consider secession, but promises to aid South if + invaded, 227; + remains in Union, 235; + Lincoln tries to bind faster to Union, 252; + rejects 13th amendment, 262, 276; + rejects 15th amendment, 315; + law in to prohibit co-education of races, 385. + + Kerr, Michael C., speaker of House, 346. + + Key, David M., Postmaster-General under Hayes, 353. + + "Kitchen Cabinet" of Gen. Grant, 325. + + Knapp, Isaac, partner of Garrison, 40. + + "Know-nothings," 115; + nominate ex-President Fillmore (1856); platform; seceders from + nominate Banks, 129. + + Ku Klux Klan, 322, 326, 327. + + + Lane, Joseph, nominated for Vice-President, 188. + + Lane Seminary, trouble at, over anti-slavery movement, 37. + + Lanier, Sidney, 410. + + Lawrence, Kansas, founded, 116; + attack on, 119. + + Leavitt, Joshua, 44. + + Lecompton constitution framed, scouted by free State men, 150; + urged by Buchanan administration, 151; + defeated, 152. + + LeConte, Joseph, reminiscences of slavery, 49. + + Lee, Fitzhugh, 410. + + Lee, Robert E. (Gen.), 95, 135; + captures John Brown, 163; + opposes secession, 227; + chief hero of Confederacy, 263; + surrenders, 270, 354; + becomes president of Washington Univ., 355. + + _Liberator_, The, founded, 40. + + Liberia, colony estab., 22. + + Liberty, Washington's conception of, 3. + + Liberty party, 75 ff; + becomes "Free Soil" party, 81. + + Lincoln, Abraham, views on Dred Scott decision, 149; + nominated for Senator, defeated, 153; + on endurance of Union, 153; + early life and characteristics of, 172 ff; + political career begins, 177; + attitude of on slavery, 178, 181; + central figure in Ills. Republican convention, 179; + debates with Douglas, 180; + Cooper Inst. address of; proves right of Congress to control slavery in + the Territories; shows stand Republicans must take, 182; + schemes of friends for in Repub. convention (1860), 190; + states principles, 191; + nominated for President, 192; + elected, 194; + answers secessionist arguments, 215; + personal interest of in slavery, 217; + immediate results of election of, 221; + pronounces inaugural, 231; + forms cabinet, difficulties, 233; + sends aid to Ft. Sumter, 234; + issues call for militia, 235; + attitude of toward emancipation, 249, 252, 253, 255; + tact and shrewdness of, 249, 256, 257; + in close touch with people, 249; + his conception of his mission, 249; + difficulties of administration, 249, 251; + his detestation of slavery, 250; + scheme of for compensated emancipation, 252; + announces his power as Commander-in-chief to emancipate slaves + as war measure, 253; + criticism of, 253 ff; + replies to Greeley's criticisms, 255; + lays emancipation proclamation before cabinet, 256; + adopts Seward's advice, to delay promulgation of, 257; + reintroduces to cabinet after McClellan's victory, 258; + issues prelim. proclamation; embodies views on emancipation in + message to Congress, 259; + administration of repudiated in election of 1862, 261; + re-elected, 262, 265; + delivers second inaugural, 266; + offers amnesty to Confederates, 268; + invites return of seceded States; leaves reconstruction bill (1864) + unsigned, 269; + plans of opposed in Congress, 270; + makes public statement of views on reconstruction, 271; + assassination of, 271; + summary of political achievements of, 272. + + Literature, growth of Southern, 380 ff. + + Longfellow, Henry W., work of, 145. + + Longstreet, Gen., advises acceptance of inevitable, acts with + Republicans, denounced and ostracized, 318. + + Louisiana, admitted as free State, 23; + secedes, 226; + emancipation in, 260; + new Constitution and State govt. in, 271; + provisional govt. established in, 269, 275; + applies for admission of U. S. Senators (1864-5), 270; + reconstructed, 310; + negro votes in majority in, 311; + Presidential vote of contested (1876), 348 ff; + State vote of contested, 349; + "carpet-bag" rule in, 341 ff; + "Conservatives" organize opposition in, struggle over governorship + in, 341; + cruelty and corruption in, 342; + Federal intervention in, 343; + legal limitation of suffrage in, 83. + + Louisiana purchase, 2, 24. + + Lovejoy, Elijah P., 74. + + Lowell, attacks slavery and war in "Biglow Papers," 77; + labors of for freedom; edits _Atlantic_, 144; + upbraids Lincoln in "Biglow Papers," 254; + war poems of, 265. + + Lundy, Benjamin, sketch of, 38 ff. + + Lynch, John R., speaker of the House, 336. + + Lyon, Mary, founds Mt. Holyoke Seminary, 362. + + + McClellan, George B. (Gen.), leader of Conservatives, warns Lincoln + not to move against slavery, 255; + success of against Lee, 258; + Democrats nominate for President. + + McCrary, George W., Secy. of War under Hayes, 353. + + McEnery, John, claims governorship of Louisiana, 341, 342. + + McLean, Justice, dissents from Dred Scott decision, 148. + + Madison, James, against strengthening slave power, 11; + as President, 21. + + Mails, U. S., circulation of anti-slavery documents through, 72. + + Marcy, William L., Secretary of State, 128. + + Maryland, forbids importation of slaves, 9; + stops importation, 20; + elects anti-slavery members to House of Delegates, 36; + irregular secession convention in, 227; + remains in Union, 235; + Lincoln tries to bind faster to Union, 252; + rejects amendment against negro suffrage (1905), 383 note; + rejects 15th amendment, 385. + + Mason, George, opposes strengthening of slave power, 11, 12. + + Mason, James M., 89; + with Buchanan and Soulé issues Ostend manifesto, 128. + + Massachusetts, slaves freed in, 9; + negroes granted suffrage in, number of negroes in, 1780; in + slave trade, 9; + aids extreme South to prolong slave trade, 13; + indifferent to slave trade, 20; + "Know-nothings" carry election of 1854 in, 115; + leads North in opposing secession, 229; + Republicans in fail to indorse Pres. Johnson, 276. + + May, Samuel J. (Rev.), 44; + conversation with Dr. Channing on anti-slavery, 61 ff. + + Mexico, war with, 76 ff; + ends, 79; + proposal to annex, Calif. taken from, 79. + + Middle States, in slave trade, 9; + slavery abolished in, 20. + + Mississippi, admitted as slave State, 23; + considers secession (1860), 221; + secedes, 225; + emancipation in, 260; + gives qualified assent to 13th amendment, 262; + provisional gov't formed in, 275; + delays her return to Union, 310; + negro voters outnumber white in, 311; + under martial law, 316; + "carpet-bag" rule in, 333 ff; + statistics on misgovernment in, 334 ff; + misgovt. and corruption in exaggerated, 338; + Democrats organize opposition and practice intimidation in, 339 ff; + legal limitation of suffrage in, 383. + + Missouri, bill to organize as State, 23; + geographical relation of to free States, 24; + debate on admission, 24 ff; + Compromise, 25 ff; + admitted as slave State, 27; + mobs form in struggle for Kansas, 116; + votes not to secede, 227; + remains in Union, 235; + Lincoln tries to bind faster to Union; Republican party breaks + up in, 327. + + Morgan, Edwin P. (ex-Gov.), supports Pres. Johnson, 204. + + Morton, Oliver P., party leader, 331; + favors "Force bill" in Senate, 345; + Presidential candidate, 346. + + Moses, F. J., Jr., governor of So. Carolina, 332. + + Mott, Lucretia, 56. + + Mount Holyoke Seminary, founded, plan for students to earn expenses + fails at, 362. + + Murphy, Edgar G., "The Present South," 388; + on negro problem, 408. + + + Nashville convention, to promote interests of South, 90, 138. + + _Nation_, The, supports Independent Republicans, 327; + refuses to support Greeley, 329. + + Nat Turner insurrection, 41. + + Nebraska, 112. + + Negroes (see also SLAVES, SLAVERY, EDUCATION), + superiority of over Indians as slaves, 5; + advantages and disadvantages of slavery to, 5; + granted suffrage in Mass. and other States, 9; + number of in Mass. in 1780, 9; + number of in other States, see SLAVES; + condition of in North before the war, 37; + (for condition of in South, see SLAVERY, SLAVES); + proposed college for, 37; + violence against in North, 74; + status of in America defined by Dred Scott decision, 147, 148; + citizenship rights of declared in New York, 149; + U. S. army and navy opened to enlistment of, 260; + enlist in Union armies, martial qualities of, 261; + good qualities of displayed in war, 263; + Pres. Johnson favors qualified suffrage for, 276; + Henry Ward Beecher's views on suffrage for, 278; + education of urged by Beecher, 279; + South's estimate of after war, 280, 287; + behavior of after emancipation, 287; + repressive laws against, following war, 287, 288; + their misconception of freedom, 289; + laws governing labor of after war, 290 ff; + law against association of whites with, 290; + abuse of by Southern whites, 292; + their necessities force them to labor, 293; + leaders in Georgia plead for rights of, 301; + suffrage for in South the central feature of Reconstruction bill, 308; + suffrage for favored by North, 308, 309; + broad conception of, 309; + number of voters among in Southern States compared to white + voters, 311; + many Northern States refuse suffrage to, 314; + unfitness of in South for suffrage, choose delegates to const. + conventions, 317; + sudden political power of doubtful benefit to, 318; + as a body lack independence; affiliate with Republican party; become + estranged from old masters, 319; + in high political offices, 321, 333, 336; + not guilty of physical violence, 323; + national education of neglected, 325, 326; + manner of toward whites, 338; + organized resistance to voting of in South, 340; + intimidated at polls, 352; + problem of disposition of, 355; + views on in North and South, 356; + condition and needs of after war, 357, 358; + beginnings of higher education for, 358; + religion of, 359; + Gen. Armstrong's labors in behalf of, see ARMSTRONG, SAMUEL; + problem of disappears as central feature in national politics, 371; + polit. preponderance of in South ended, 371; + suffrage of practically nullified in South, but large degree of civil + rights secured to, 372; + Southern whites undertake education of with energy and success, 373; + refused social equality at South, and often at North, 373 ff; + improved social conditions, and increased numbers of, 374 ff; + present wealth, skill, intelligence, and moral status of, 375 ff; + development of leadership among, 376 ff., 379; + legal limitation of suffrage of in South, 382 ff; + practical disfranchisement of, 384, 388; + threatened narrowing of industrial opportunities the greatest + danger to, 385; + unfortunate social position of, 386; + hopes of future betterment, 387; + estimated amt. paid out for education of to date; better industrial + education for, 388; + necessity for all to face the problem of; great responsibility on + leaders of, 392 ff; + present phase of problem, necessity of abolishing caste spirit, 393; + industrial position of, 394 ff; + attitude of trade unions toward, 385, 395; + dangers consequent upon exclusion from unions, 396; + need of higher education for, 398; + present polit. status of, 400; + attitude of toward suffrage, 401; + should have fair share of public offices, 403; + government aid in education advocated, 404; + growing recognition of in North, 406 ff; + results of social ostracism on, suggested means to avoid, 408. + + _Negro Problem_, The, by Booker Washington and others, 379; + New England (See also NORTH, MASSACHUSETTS,) + Washington's opinion of, 2; + slave labor unprofitable in; industries in, 6; + negroes granted suffrage in, 9; + aids extreme South in extension of slave trade, 13. + + New England Anti-slavery Society, founded, 44. + + New England Emigrant Aid Society, formed, 116. + + New Hampshire, number of slaves in in 1790, 9; + slavery abolished in, 21. + + New Haven, labors in for negroes, 36. + + New Jersey, votes against extension of slave trade, 13; + passes emancipation law, 22; + counted as free State, 23; + declares for emancipation, 35; + rejects 15th amendment, 315. + + New Mexico, South demands permission of slavery in, 84. + + New Orleans, riot in, 303. + + New York _Evening Post_, supports Independent Republicans, 327; + refuses support to Greeley, 329. + + New York _Herald_, 141, 164, 193. + + New York _Times_, 141, 347. + + New York _Tribune_, influence of, 140, 141; + against forcible repression of secession movement, 228; + criticises Lincoln, 255; + supports Independent Republicans, 328; + unearths Hayes-Tilden telegrams, 352. + + New York State, number of slaves in in 1790, 9; + passes emancipation law, 22; + counted as free State, 23; + delegation of to "Free Soil" convention (1848), 82; + declares right of citizenship for negroes, 149. + + Nicholls, Francis T., claims governorship of Louisiana, 349; + becomes governor, 353. + + North, the (see also NEW ENGLAND), + slavery unprofitable in, 5; + aids extreme South in extending slave trade, 13; + slavery abolished in, 20; + surpasses South in population and wealth; increased representation + in House, 24; + its economic advantages over South, 69 ff; + violence against negroes in, 74; + disputes with South over new territory, 80; + dissatisfaction in over Compromise measures of 1850; passes "Personal + Liberty Laws," 91; + outstrips South in industrial, literary, and religious growth, + advantages of South over, 94; + growth of anti-slavery feeling in, 113 ff; + best intelligence of in early Republican party, 127; + resents polit. aggression of South more than slavery, 128; + leaders of (1850-60), 132; + leaders of, 140 ff; + attitude of clergy in toward slavery, 141; + economic conditions in compared with those of South, 156; + John Brown's raid intensifies conviction against slavery in, 167; + growing distrust of South in, 169; + position of on secession, etc., 200 ff; + underlying divergences from South in sentiment and character + of, 205 ff; + religious life in, 206; + inflamed against South; + sources of misunderstanding, 207; + varied occupations in, 208; + secession movement causes consternation in, 209; + strongly inclined to peace; disbelieves in Southern courage, 210; + grounds for resistance of secession in; impatient of Southern + political dominance, 212; + reasons for failure of disunion movement in, 218 ff; + disinclination in to use force against secession movement, 228; + Mass. becomes leader in, 229; + united in resistance to secession, 235; + views on Civil war in, 237; + bitter feeling against South in, 241; + moral effect of war on, 244; + Unionism the absorbing issue in, 248; + party divisions in, 253; + growing sentiment in against slavery, 254; + courage of in war, 262; + advantages of over South, 264; + joy in over prospect of success, 268; + opposes Johnson's reconstruction plans, 288; + current opinion in on cause of secession, 300; + hatred of Jefferson Davis in, 301; + general temper in hostile to Pres. Johnson, 312; + feeling of relief in after Grant's election, 315; + resumption of business in, 316; + immigration from into South, 319; + growing tendency in to accord social equality to negroes, 373 ff, 406. + + North Carolina, emancipation favored in, 36; + right of free speech vindicated in, 129; + votes against secession convention, 229; + secedes, 235; + emancipation in, 260; + provisional govt. formed in, 275; + reconstructed, 310; + relative number of negro voters in, 311; + Democrats regain, 323; + legal limitation of suffrage in, 383. + + Northwestern Territory, slavery prohibited in, 10. + + Nullification, So. Carolina claims right of, 32; + denounced by Jackson, 33; + opposed in "Force bill" of 1833, 33; + question dropped, 34, 214. + + + Oberlin College, becomes anti-slavery stronghold, 37; + plan for students to earn expenses fails at, 362. + + O'Conor, Charles, nominated for President, 329. + + Ohio, admitted as free State, 23; + declares for emancipation, 35. + + Olmsted, Frederic Law, on condition of slaves in South before + the war, 49; + volumes of travels in the slave States, 107 ff. + + Ordinance of 1784, fails to limit slave territory, 10. + + Ordinance of 1787, limits slave territory, 10. + + Oregon, boundary dispute, 80; + rejects 15th amendment, 315; + double returns from in Hayes-Tilden election, 351. + + Ostend manifesto, 128. + + + Packard, S. B., in govt. of Louisiana, 341; + claims governorship, 349. + + Paine, Thomas, 8. + + Parker, Theodore, influence of in church and state, 143; + supports John Brown, 160, 168. + + Peace Congress, proposed, to find means to preserve the Union, 228. + + Pendleton, George H., candidate for Presidential nomination, 313. + + Pennsylvania, number of slaves in in 1790, 9; + votes against extension of slave trade, 13; + passes emancipation law, 21; + counted as free State, 23; + declares for emancipation, 35; + Republicans fail to indorse Pres. Johnson, 276. + + Peonage cases, prosecution of, 388. + + Personal Liberty Laws, passed in North, 91. + + Petigru, James L., 223. + + Petitions to Congress, anti-slavery, 71 ff. + + Pettus, Gov., of Mississippi, 221. + + Philadelphia, convention in behalf of Pres. Johnson at, 303. + + Phillips, Wendell, becomes ally of Garrison, 54; + scorns Republican party, 127; + declares all war un-Christian, 210; + favors disunion, 217, 228; + abuses Lincoln, 254. + + Pierce, Franklin, nominated for, and elected President, 93; + recognizes usurpers in Kansas struggle, 117. + + Pierce, Henry L., in House, 331; + vote of in Hayes-Tilden contest, 352. + + Pinckneys, Charles and Thomas, demand freedom of slave trade, 12 ff. + + Pittsburg, counter convention at, 303. + + Platte country, the, 112. + + Polk, James K., nominated for President, 75; + elected; + declares war with Mexico, 76. + + Poor whites, evil effects of slavery on, 110. + + "Present South, The," by E. G. Murphy, 388, 408. + + Pottawatomie massacre, 120; + results of, 121. + + Presbyterian church, condemns slavery, 35. + + Prisons, military, terrors of, 245 ff. + + Protection. See TARIFF, PROTECTIVE. + + + Quakers, relation of to slavery, 7. + + + Randall, Samuel J., in House, 284; + speaker, 346. + + Randolph, John, his opinion of slavery, 47. + + Randolph, Thos. Jefferson, his scheme of emancipation, 43. + + Rankin, John, 38. + + Rantoul, Robert, joins "Free Soil" party, 81. + + Raymond, Henry J., 141; + in House, 284; + supports Pres. Johnson's plan of reconstruction, 285, 303. + + Reconstruction, 267 ff; + Lincoln's plans for and views on, 268 ff; + congressional bill (1864), rejected by Lincoln, 269; + Lincoln's plans for opposed by Congress, 270; + first Congressional plan of, 274 ff; + President Johnson's plan of, 275; + Henry Ward Beecher's plan of, 277 ff; + John A. Andrew's plan of, 280; + both latter plans too advanced for the time, 280; + action taken on by Congress (1865-6), 281 ff; + Pres. Johnson's plan of opposed in Congress, 285; + second Congressional plan of, 294 ff; + difficulties of question increased by lack of statesmen to handle, 302; + two policies of before the country, South indorses Pres. Johnson's + plan of, 303; + final plan of, 306 ff; bill passed, 306; + results of bill, 307, 310; + verdict of country on work of, 312 ff; + the working out of, 316 ff; + the last act, 344 ff. + + "Reconstruction and the Constitution," by Prof. J. W. Burgess, 290. + + Reeder, Governor, of Kansas, 117. + + Republican party (see also REPUBLICANS), + beginnings of, 114 ff; + components of, 115; + first Presidential convention of, 124 ff; + principles, leaders, constituency, successes, and failures of in first + (1856) campaign of, 127; + opposition to in first campaign, 128; + weakness of in South, 129; + composition of opposition to, and causes of defeat of in first + campaign, 130; + stand of on negro question (1860), 186; + origin of protectionist character of, 190; + geographical lines of in 1860 campaign, 192; + denounced in 1860 campaign, 193 ff; + restriction of slavery the supreme principle of, 212; + Sumner's belief in, 319; + freedmen instinctively turn to, 319; + leaders of in Grant's second term, 331. + + Republicans, hold first (1856) Presidential convention, 124 ff; + nominate John C. Fremont for President, 126; + Wm. L. Dayton for Vice-President, 129; + platform, 126; + denounce Ostend manifesto, 129; + dissent from Dred Scott decision, 148, 149; + gain in numbers, name Lincoln for U. S. Senator, 153; + first Illinois convention of, 179; + campaign, 180 ff; + not in John Brown's raid, 183; + hold convention (1860), 189 ff; + platform, 190; + struggle bet. Seward and Lincoln men in, 190, 191; + nominate Lincoln and Hamlin, 192; + elect candidates (1860), 194; + results of success of, 221; + oppose secession, 223, 224, 225; + oppose schemes for extension of slavery, 228; + vainly concede many points to South, 229; + divide over war questions, 253; + reaction against in elections of 1862, 261; + success of in 1864, 262, 265; + indorse President Johnson, 276; + assert right of Congress to direct reconstruction, leaders oppose + Pres. Johnson's plan of, 286; + opinion of turns against Johnson, 294; + increased strength of in Congress (1866-7), 306; + in Senate vote to acquit Pres. Johnson, 312; + adopt moderate platform, nominate and elect Grant (1868), 314; + in temporary control of South, 323, 327; + change attitude tword South, independent movement among, 327; + Independents hold convention (1872), 328; + in gov't of South, 332 ff; + lose heavily in Congressional elections of 1874, suspected of + maladministration, 344; + many oppose Force bill of 1875, 345; + hold convention (1876), 346; + nominate Hayes, campaign, 347; + claim election of Hayes, 348 ff. + + "Residence on a Georgia Plantation, A.", 103. + + Rhett, Senator, proposes secession, 89. + + Rhode Island, in slave trade, 9; + passes emancipation law, 21. + + Rhodes, "History of the U. S.," quoted, 301, 302. + + Robinson, Chas. S., gov. of Kansas, 117 ff; + his house burned, 119. + + Roosevelt, President, South criticises for entertainment of Booker + Washington, 386. + + Ross, Senator, votes to acquit Pres. Johnson, 312. + + + Sanborn, Franklin B., supports John Brown, 160. + + San Domingo, proposed annexation of, 328. + + "Scalawags," the, 318. + + Schurz, Carl, on conditions in South after war, 286 ff, 292; + favors negro suffrage, 309; + in Republican convention (1868), 314; + leads Independent Republicans in Missouri, 327; + in U. S. Senate, 328; + Sec'y of Interior under Hayes, 353; + on peonage cases in South, 388; + on future of negro question, 389. + + Scott, R. K., governor of S. Carolina, 332. + + Scott, Winfield (Gen.), nominated for President, 92; + against armed repression of secession, 228. + + Secession, Clay denies right of, 86; + Webster declares impossible with peace, 87; + threats of in Congress denounced by Taylor and Clay, 89; + open threats of in South, 193; + not taken seriously at North, 194; + denounced by Douglas, 194; + Southern position on defined, 197 ff; + Northern position on defined, 200 ff; + slavery question the real basis of 211; + grounds for resistance of at North, 212; + extreme abolitionists not opposed to, 212; + arguments for and against, 212 ff, 226; + reasons for success of movement in South and failure of in + North, 218 ff; + sources of movement in South, 219; + action of Southern States on following Lincoln's election, 221 ff; + discussed in Congress (1860), 223; + advised by Southern leaders in Congress, 225; + triumph of movement, 226; + movement halts, 227; + various Southern States take action on; + general sentiment in South against armed + repression of, 227; + disinclination in North to use force against, 228; + West strongly against movement, 228; + Mass. takes strong stand against, 229 ff; + plea of Lincoln against, 232; + current Northern opinion of causes of, 300. + + Secessionists (see SECESSION), + propose disunion, and formation of Southern Confederacy, 215. + + Seelye, Julius H., vote of in Hayes-Tilden contest, 352. + + Senate, State representation in determined, 11; + South strives to keep up numbers in, 24; + stronghold of South, 81. + + Sewall, Samuel, protests against slavery, 7. + + Seward, William H., votes for Taylor, 82; + influence and strength of, 82; + his plan of emancipation, 83; + speaks in Senate against extension of slavery, 89 ff; + helps prolong Whig organization in New York, 115; + in Republican party, 127; + opinion of on Dred Scott decision, 149; + opinion of on future labor conditions in Union, 154; + logical candidate for Presidency (1860), 190; + in Lincoln's cabinet, 233, 249; + Lincoln adopts advice of to delay issuance of emancipation + proclamation, 257; + in Johnson's cabinet, his influence on the President, 274; + supports Pres. Johnson, 303. + + Seymour, Horatio, nominated for President, characterized, 313; + defeated, States carried by, 314. + + Shadrach, fugitive slave, rescued, 91. + + Shaffer, President, urges admission of capable negroes to trade + unions, 395. + + Shannon, Wilson, gov. of Kansas, 117. + + Shaw, Robert Gould, 264. + + Shellabarger, Samuel, in House, 284, 286. + + Sheridan, Gen'l, sent to investigate Louisiana election scandals, 343. + + Sherman, John, in U. S. Senate, 283, 285; + endeavors to stem tide against Pres. Johnson, 296; + defeats Stevens's reconstruction bill, 306; + superiority of over Blaine, 307; + Sec'y of Treasury under Hayes, 353. + + Sherman, William T. (Gen.), his opinion of war, 244, 245. + + Slaveholders, numbers of, characteristics, 95. + + _Slave Laws_, compiled and published by Stroud, 110. + + Slavery. (See also SLAVES, SLAVE TRADE.) + Washington's opinion of, 3; + origin, growth, regulation and defense of, 3 ff; + legally recognized in Judea, Greece, and Rome, by Jesus and the + early church, 4; + supplants free peasantry in Italy, 4; + influence of Christianity on, 4; + absolute, abolished throughout Christendom, supplanted by serfdom, 4; + recrudescence of in 17th and 18th centuries, 4; + economic conditions determine location of in America, 5; + unprofitable in North, 5, 6; + need of in South, 5; + casuistical defense of by church, 5; + advantages and disadvantages of to negro, 5; + responsibility for denied by North and South, 6; + commercial demand for overrides humanity, 6; + unprofitable in New England, 6; + social conscience unawakened to enormity of, 7; + Sewall and Woolman protest against, 7; + relation of Quakers to, 7; + awakening to wrongs of, 8; + abolished in Mass., 9; + Jefferson strives to limit territory of, 9; + limited, 10; + impossible for convention of 1787 to prohibit, 14; + compromised, 14 ff; + views of Washington and other leaders on, 15; + Patrick Henry's views on, Franklin labors against, 19; + early anti-slavery sentiment, 20; + abol. in Northern and Middle States, 20; + question temporarily eclipsed, 21; + estab. in Kentucky, abol. in Spanish America, 22; + question again to the front (1819), 23; + defended in Congress, all ideas of abolishing dropped in South, growth + of sentiment against in North, 24; + Jefferson supports, 25; + Clay supports, 26; growth of question from 1832, 28; + South fully accepts and defends, 46 ff; + views of Jos. LeConte, Frederic Law Olmsted, and C. C. Jones on, 49; + theory of adopted by slave-holders, 50; + abolished in West Indies, 51; + Garrison's fight against, 51 ff; + defense of strengthened in South, 54; + underlying principles of; + tide of public opinion sets against, 70; + question grows in prominence, 71 ff; + freedom of speech on denied in South, 73; + Calhoun's claim for nationalization of, 80; + excluded from new territory acquired by purchase, 80; + opposition of Seward and Chase to, 83; + as it was, depicted by Mrs. Burton Harrison, 100; + depicted in biography of Thomas Dabney, 100 ff; + described by Fanny Kemble, 103 ff; + pictured by Frederic Law Olmsted, 107 ff; + Harriet Beecher Stowe's opinion of embodied in "Uncle Tom's + Cabin," 109; + general view of in South, 133; + attitude of clergy toward, 141; + hostility toward in South, 170; + the great cause of difference between North and South, 207, 211; + restriction of the supreme principle of Republican party, 212; + measures upon during Civil war, 249, 250; + Lincoln's attitude toward, 250; + abolished in Dist. of Columbia, 251; + finally and forever abolished in U. S., 276. + + Slaves (See also NEGROES, SLAVERY, SOUTH, SLAVE TRADE), + Africa source of, 5; + indolence and unthrift of, 5; + Virginia taxes, 6; + foundation of aristocracy in Virginia and Carolinas, 6; + unprofitable as laborers in New Eng., 6; + Virginia and Maryland forbid importation of, 9; + Jefferson proposes plan for gradual emancipation of, 9; + Virginia passes law regulating manumission of, 9; + numbers of in various States in 1790, 9; + counted in determining representation in Congress, 11, 12; + Jefferson's schemes for emancipation and disposition of, 17 ff; + value of increased by invention of cotton gin, 23; + fugitive, overtures made to England for treaty on, 28; + instruction of denied in Virginia, 44; + physical and moral condition of, 48. + + Slave States, 23. + + Slave trade, begun by Europe, brutality of, 5; + maintained by Eng. trading companies, colonists attempt to check, 5; + New Eng. in, 6; + Virginia remonstrates against, 8; + clause in Declaration of Independence denouncing, suppressed; + Mass., R. I., and Middle States in; + denounced by Dr. Hopkins, 9; + Congress refused power to forbid until 1808; North aids extreme South + in fight to prolong; + champions of defend only as necessary evil, 13; + stopped in Virginia and Maryland, 20; + made piracy by Congress (1800), 22; + revival of between Africa and Cuba, 158; + checked, 159. + + Slave-trading companies, English, 5; + oppose tax on slaves, 6. + + Smith, Caleb B., supports Lincoln, 191. + + Smith, Gerritt, characterized by Andrew D. White, 55 ff; + supports John Brown, 160, 168. + + Smith, Wilfred H., 379. + + Soulé, Pierre, in Congress, 89; + with Buchanan and Mason issues Ostend manifesto, 128. + + "Souls of Black Folk, The," an appeal for higher education of negro, 398. + + South. (See also VIRGINIA, etc., SLAVERY, etc.) + Economic conditions in favor slavery, 5; + demands Congress be refused right to forbid slave trade, 12; + all ideas of abolishing slave trade dropped in, 24; + aggrieved by protective tariff, 32; + leadership of passes to So. Carolina, 44, 229; + fully accepts slavery as estab. institution, 46 ff; + strengthens defense of slavery, 54; + economic disadvantages of, 69 ff; + disputes new territory with North, attempts to nationalize slavery, 80; + opposes admission of Calif. as free State, demands allowance of + slavery in Utah and New Mexico, 84; + demands fugitive slave law, 85; + leaders of in Congress (1850), threatens disunion, 89; + denounces "Personal Liberty Laws," 91; + North outstrips in industrial growth; + advantages of over North, 94; + master class in analyzed by Fanny Kemble, 105 ff; + surprised by Kansas-Nebraska bill, 113; + anti-slavery sentiment completely ostracized in, 129; + suppression of free speech in, 130; + leaders of (1850-60), 132; + magnifies State rights; + general view of slavery in, 133; + apprehensive of growing hostility in North, 134; + clergy in united in defense of slavery, 141; + economic conditions in compared with North in _Impending Crisis_, 156; + hostility in toward North increased by Brown's raid, 167, 169-70; + misconceived by abolitionists, 168; + renewed outbreaks in against anti-slavery men, 169; + antagonism toward slave power in, 170; + solidarity against North created by Brown's raid, 170; + presents ultimatum in Senate (1859), 184; + demands protection of slave-holding right in all territories, 185; + power of in democracy and state, 185; + growing hostility in, expulsion of anti-slavery men, 186; + extreme, breaks up Democratic party, conjectural reasons for move, 187; + Alex. H. Stephens explains move, 189; + open threats of secession in, 193; + position of on secession, etc., defined, 197 ff; + underlying divergences North in sentiment and character, 205 ff; + ideal of society in, 205; + religious life and literature in, 206; + inflamed against North, sources of misunderstanding, 207; + plantation life in at best, 208; + concentration of interest in on national politics, 208; + concentrates on secession movement, 209; + duelling and street affrays common in, 209; + men of in Texas, in Mexican war, and as "filibusters," 209-10; + believes all war-spirit extinct in North, 210; + causes of united action in, 211; + North impatient of political dominance of, 212; + patriotic sentiment still powerful in, 214; + disunion sentiment strongest in Gulf and Cotton States, 214; + reasons for success of secession movement in, 218 ff; + leaders of resign from Buchanan's cabinet, 224; + leaders of in Congress favor secession, last formal presentation of + ultimatum of in Senate, 225; + general sentiment in against armed repression of secession, 227; + So. Carolina leader of, 229; + views on Civil war in, 237; + bitterness against North in, 241; + moral effect of war on, 244; + courage of in war, 262; + advantages of North over, 264; + social conditions in after war, 275; + State legislatures and conventions resumed in, 275, 276; + 13th amendment ratified in 276; + Senators from refused admission to Congress, 218; + reports of Gen. Grant and Carl Schurz on conditions in after + war, 286 ff; + views of on negro labor, 287; + laws governing negro labor in after war, association of whites and + negroes forbidden in, 290; + Congressional represent. of conditioned on negro suffrage by 14th + amendment, 298; + proposed to refuse suffrage to leaders of, 299; + mistake of such course, 301; + excepting Tennessee, rejects 14th amendment, 304; + reconstruction of, see Reconstruction; government of under + reconstruction bill begins, 307, 310; + number of negro voters in various States of, 311; + trials and struggles of under new conditions, under martial law, + restored to self-government, 316; + unfitness of negroes in for suffrage, whites refuse to vote, + constitutional conventions held and negro delegates chosen, 317; + typical attitude of whites in; + under "carpet bag" rule, 318, 332; + Northern immigration into, 319; + Northern teachers insulted or disdained in; Northerners in politics in; + legislation in during reconstruction, 320; + extravagance, waste and corruption in under Republican governments; + exaggeration of, 321; + negro rule in, 319, 321; + resumption of white leadership in, 322 ff; + continued interference of Congress in, 326; + growth of Republican opposition to Federal interference in; + repudiation in, 332; + Democrats organize resistance to Republican rule in and practice + intimidation, 339 ff; + Federal troops withdrawn from, 353; + regeneration of, 354; + whites in driven to labor, 355; + end of Federal interference in, 371, 402; + negro suffrage practically nullified in, civil rights secured to + negroes, 372, 382, 388; + refuses social equality to negro, 373, 407-8; + fear of race mixture in, 374, 407; + development of industrial democracy in, 379; + present condition of politics in, 379 ff; + why "solid," 380; + life in diversifying, growth of literature in, 380; + growth of standard of education in, 381; + widening gulf between the races in, 382; + legal and practical limitation of suffrage in, 382 ff, 388; + efforts in to restrict negro education, 385; + negro still has industrial freedom in, 385, 395; + pronounced attitude of on social inferiority of negro, 386; + hopes for better conditions, growth of good-will and confidence + in, 389; + amount spent by for negro education, 397; + educational and industrial problems of, 397 ff; + suffrage laws in, 400; + politics in, no longer a struggle between whites and blacks, 401; + scheme to reduce representation of under 14th amendment, 403; + government aid to education in advocated, 404; + disproportionate share of national expense borne by, 405; + problem of social equal. of races in, 406 ff. + + South Carolina (see also CAROLINAS, THE), + demands representation based on slave numbers, 11; + refuses to join Union if slave trade forbidden, 12; + revolts over tariff, claims right of nullification, 32; + passes law against negro seamen, 73; + considers secession, 221; + passes ordinance of secession, 223; + occupies Ft. Moultrie and Castle Pinckney, 224; + leads South, 229; + emancipation in, 260; + provisional government formed in, 275; + reconstructed, 310; + negro voters in majority in, 311; + under "carpet-bag," rule, 332 ff; + Presidential and State vote of contested (1876), 348 ff; + legal limitation of suffrage in, 383. + + Southern Democracy, asserts universal right of slave-holding, 186. + + "Southern Planter, A," 100. + + "Southern Statesmen of the Old + Régime," 137. + + Speed, Joshua F., 178; resigns + from cabinet, 303. + + Springfield _Republican_, 124 and note, 127; + its opinion of John Brown, 162; + state's issue between Democrats and Republicans in 1864, 265; + favors educational test for suffrage, 308, 310; + prophesies slave-holding class will regain power, 322; + supports Independent Republicans, 328; + on Hayes-Tilden contest, 351. + + Stanton, Edwin M., Attorney-General, 224; + in Lincoln's cabinet, 249; + attitude of on emancipation proclamation, 257; + in Johnson's cabinet, 274; + supports Johnson in reconstruction plans, 276; + becomes bitterly opposed to Johnson, 303; + removed by Johnson, 311. + + "Star of the West," sent with supplies to Anderson, driven from + Charleston harbor, 224. + + State rights, theory of, 133. + + States, relative power of in Congress determined, 11. + + Stearns, George L., supports John Brown, 160. + + Stephens, Alexander H., sketch of his life and views, 137 ff; + political activity of, 138; + in Congress, and Vice-President of Confederacy, 139, 227; + explains defection of Southern Democrats, 189; + supports Douglas in 1860 campaign, 193; + opposes secession, 211, 215; + labors against secession, 219, 221, 225; + Vice-President of Southern Confederacy, 227; + pleads for negro rights, 302. + + Stevens, Thaddeus, Republican leader in Penn., 276; + leader of House, 281; + sketch of, 282; + opposes Pres. Johnson's reconstruction plan, 285; + his drastic reconstruction bill defeated, 306; + House prosecutor of Johnson, 311; + death of, 331. + + Story, Judge, on taxes in Miss., 336. + + Stowe, Harriet Beecher, publishes "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 97; + her views of slavery as pictured therein, 109; + publishes "Dred," 123. + + Suffrage, manhood, adopted, 21; + equal, without test passed in North, 308; + negro, representation of South conditioned on, 298; + proposal to refuse to leaders of South, 299 + see also AMENDMENTS, CONSTITUTIONAL; + Springfield _Republican_ favors educational test for, 308, 310; + unfitness of negroes in South for after war, 317; + of negroes practically nullified in South, 372; + legal limitation of in South, 382 ff; 388. + + Sumner, Charles, opinion of abolitionists, 54; + joins "Free Soil" party, 81; + in Senate, 92; + denounces slavery in Congress, assaulted by Brooks, 122; + in Republican party, 127; + opposes admission of Senators from Confederate States, 270; + Lincoln refuses to quarrel with, 270; + Republican leader in Mass., 276; + sketch of, 282; + in Senate, 284; + opposes Pres. Johnson's reconstruction plan, 286; + belief of in Republican party, 309; + quarrels with Grant, 328; + death of, 331. + + Sumner, Colonel, in Kansas, 118. + + + Taney, Chief Justice, in Dred Scott case, 147. + + Tappan, Arthur, 40, 44. + + Tappan, Lewis, 44. + + Tariff, of abominations, 32; + protective, 31 ff; + compromise on, 33 ff; + supported in Georgia, 21; + adopted by Republican party, 190; + burden of to South, 405. + + Taylor, Zachary (Gen.), 76; + nominated by Whigs, 81; + elected, 82; + denounces threats of disunion as treason, 89; + favors admission of Calif. as free State, 90; + death of, 90; + in North, 208. + + Tennessee, added as slave State, 23; + votes against holding secession convention, 227; + secedes, 235; + provisional govt. estab. in, 267, 275; + rights of negro conserved in, 302; + readmitted under 14th amendment, 303. + + Tenure of office law, passed; Pres. Johnson accused of violating, 311. + + Territories, power of Congress over, 149. + + Texas, annexation of, 74 ff; + slavery re-estab. in, 75; + becomes a state, 76; + emancipation in, 260; + silent on 13th amendment, 262; + provisional govt. of, 275; + reconstructed, 310; + relative number of negro voters in, 311; + under martial law, 316; + becomes Democratic, 323. + + Thayer, Eli, originates New Eng. Emigrant Aid Society, 116. + + Thomas, Lorenzo (Gen.), Sec'y of War, 311. + + Thompson, George, aids Garrison, 51. + + Thompson, Richard W., Sec'y of Navy under Hayes, 353. + + Tilden, Samuel J., leader of Democrats, 313; + nominated for President; + characterized; apparently elected, 347; + election contested, 348 ff. + + Tomlinson, Reuben, Repub. candidate for governor of S. Carolina, 332. + + Toombs, Robert, sketch of, 136 ff; + political activity of, 138; + gives moral support to Preston Brooks, 138; + in Confederate cabinet and army, 139, 227; + supports Breckinridge in 1860 campaign, 193; + advocates secession in Georgia legislature, 211; + supports secession movement, 221; + states South's ultimatum in Congress, 225; + in Confederate cabinet, 227. + + Trade unions, attitude of toward negroes, 385, 395; + danger of excluding negroes from, 396. + + Trumbull, Lyman, elected Senator, 177; + favors admission of Senators from Louisiana, 270; + in Senate, 283, 284, 285; + favors Freedmen's Bureau bill, 294; + votes to acquit Pres. Johnson, 312; + in opposition to administration, 331. + + Tuskegee Institute, 378; function of, 398. + + Truth, Sojourner, 96. + + "Twenty Years of Congress," Blaine's, quoted, 307, 310. + + Tyler, John, becomes President, 71. + + + "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 97 ff; + reception, 98; + "Key to," 99; + criticism of, 99. + + Underground railroad, the, 85. + + Unionism, spirit of strong in white laboring class of South, 214; + strength of at North, 218, 248. + + Unitarians, 143. + + "Up from Slavery," Booker Washington's personal story told in, 378. + + Utah, South demands permission of slavery in, 84. + + + Van Buren, Martin, 30; + becomes President, 71; + receives "Free Soil" nomination, 82. + + Van Winkle, Senator, votes to acquit Pres. Johnson, 312. + + Vardaman, Gov., of Mississippi, 388. + + Virginia, tries to discourage slave trade by tax; + slave labor foundation of aristocracy in, 6; + remonstrates against continuance of slave trade, 8; + forbids importation of slaves, passes law regarding manumission of + slaves, number of slaves in 1790, 9; + against strengthening the slave power, 11; + protests against restraint of Congress to forbid slave trade, 12; + consents (1778) to abolish slave trade, 18; + stops importing slaves, 20; + convention for revis. of constitution, 41; + general emancipation debated, 42 ff; + plans for fail, 43; + passes severe laws against incitement to rebel, instruction of slaves, + etc., loses leadership of South, 44; + Mrs. Burton Harrison's personal reminiscences of before the war, 100; + calls convention to consider secession, 222; + calls peace congress, 228; + secedes, 235; + emancipation in, 260; + loyal State govt. in recognized, 275; + delays her final restoration to Union, 310; + relative number of negro voters in, 311; + under martial law, 316: Democrats regain, 323; + legal limitation of suffrage in, 383; + co-operation of whites and negroes for good govt. in, 401. + + Wade, Benjamin, in Senate, 114; + in Republican party, 127; + favors radical reconstruction, 270; + in U. S. Senate, 283, 285. + + Walker, Boston negro, issues Appeal, 41. + + Walker, Robert J., 117; + appointed governor of Kansas, 150; + defeats fraud in ballot, and is deserted by Buchanan, 152. + + War, terrors of. See CIVIL WAR, 237 ff. + + "War Between the States," by Alex. H. Stephens, 189. + + "War Democrats," 194, 253. + + Warmouth, Henry C., in govt. of Louisiana, 341. + + Warner, Col., in govt. of Miss., 336. + + Warren, Henry W., in govt. of Miss., 336, 337; + on conditions and experiences in Miss. during reconstruction, 337 ff. + + Washburn, Israel, Jr., helps organize Republican party, 114. + + Washington, city of, threatened by Confederates, 237. + + Washington, George, 2; + opinion of New Englanders, 2; + conception of liberty and of slavery, 3; + favors Revolution, 8; + against strengthening slave power, 11; + views of on slavery, 15; + private life and character of, 15 ff; + his treatment of his slaves, frees them, 16; + on necessity of abolishing slavery, 391. + + Washington, Booker T., pupil of and successor to Gen. Armstrong; + his aims and methods; + personal story of, 378; + entertained by Pres. Roosevelt, 386. + + Watterson, Henry, in Hayes-Tilden contest, 352. + + Webster, Daniel, defends protective tariff, 32; + debate with Hayne, 33; + his public life characterized, 64 ff; + 7th of March speech on slavery questions, 87; + defects of speech, 88; + political and moral characteristics of, 88; + in Fillmore's cabinet, 90; + allied with upper classes, 92; + as Pres. candidate defeated in Whig convention (1852), 92; + death of, 93. + + Weed, Thurlow, votes for Taylor, 82; + helps prolong Whig organization in N. Y., 115; + supports Pres. Johnson, 303. + + Weld, Theodore D., 37. + + Whig party (see also WHIGS), + beginnings of, 31; + on verge of dissolution, 93; + end of, 153. + + Whigs, nominate Clay, 75; + gain majority in House, 79; + nominate Taylor, 81; + nominate Gen. Winfield Scott; + defeated by combined Democrats and "Free Soilers," 92; + vote against Kansas-Nebraska bill, 114; + unite with "Free Soilers" to form Republican party; + organization prolonged in N. Y., 115; + in Republican party, 127. + + Whitman, Walt, volunteer nurse, pen picture of war, 247. + + Whitney, Eli, 23. + + Whittier, John G., joins anti-slavery movement, 44, 56; + criticises Webster in poem "Ichabod," 88; + poem on settlement of West, 116; + in first Republican campaign, 130; + his labors for freedom, 144. + + Wilmot proviso, 80. + + Wilson, Henry, joins "Free Soil" party, 81; + elected Senator, 115; sketch of, 283; + opposes Pres. Johnson's plan of reconstruction, 286; + against exclusion clauses in 14th amendment, 302. + + Wilson, Woodrow, "History of the American People," criticised, 334. + + Wise, Henry A., opinion of John Brown, 164. + + Wise, John S., shows effects of John Brown's raid in South, 169; + criticises Bourbonism in Southern politics, 388. + + Women's rights, 56; + cause advanced, 94. + + Wood, Fernando, 352. + + Woolman, John, protests against slavery, 7. + + Woolsey, Theodore D., 36. + + Wright, Elizur, 44. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Negro and the Nation, by George S. 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Merriam. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + + .short {margin-left: 3em; width: 15%;} + + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Negro and the Nation, by George S. Merriam + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Negro and the Nation + A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement + +Author: George S. Merriam + +Release Date: February 14, 2008 [EBook #24613] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEGRO AND THE NATION *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + + + + <h1>THE NEGRO AND THE NATION</h1> + + <h3><i>A History of American Slavery<br /> + and Enfranchisement</i></h3> + + <h4>BY</h4> + + <h2>GEORGE S. MERRIAM</h2> + +<p class="center"> HASKELL HOUSE PUBLISHERS Ltd.<br /> + <i>Publishers of Scarce Scholarly Books</i><br /><br /> + + NEW YORK. N. Y. 10012<br /><br /> + + 1970<br /><br /> + + + + + + + First Published 1906<br /><br /> + + HASKELL HOUSE PUBLISHERS Ltd.<br /> + <i>Publishers of Scarce Scholarly Books</i><br /><br /> + + 280 LAFAYETTE STREET<br /> + NEW YORK, N. Y. 10012<br /><br /> + + Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 75-95441<br /> + + Standard Book Number 8383-0994-1<br /> + + Printed in the United States of America</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" width="70%" cellspacing="0" summary="CONTENTS"> +<tr><td> </td><td align='left'>CHAPTER</td><td align='right'>PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">How Slavery Grew in America</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_1'><b>1</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Acts of the Fathers</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_8'><b>8</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Conflict and Compromise</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_21'><b>21</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Widening Rift</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_28'><b>28</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>V.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Calhoun and Garrison</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_46'><b>46</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Birney, Channing and Webster</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_58'><b>58</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Underlying Forces</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_67'><b>67</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Mexican War</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_71'><b>71</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">How to Deal with the Territories</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_79'><b>79</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>X.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Compromise of 1850</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_84'><b>84</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Lull and a Retrospect</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_92'><b>92</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Slavery as It Was</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_97'><b>97</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Struggle for Kansas</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_112'><b>112</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIV.</td><td align='left'>"<span class="smcap">Fremont and Freedom</span>"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_122'><b>122</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Three Typical Southerners</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_132'><b>132</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Some Northern Leaders</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_140'><b>140</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Dred Scott and Lecompton</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_147'><b>147</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XVIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">John Brown</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_158'><b>158</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XIX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Abraham Lincoln</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_172'><b>172</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Election of 1860</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_185'><b>185</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Face to Face</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_197'><b>197</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">How They Differed</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_205'><b>205</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Why They Fought</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_211'><b>211</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXIV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">On Niagara's Brink—and Over</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_221'><b>221</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Civil War</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_237'><b>237</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXVI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Emancipation Begun</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_248'><b>248</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXVII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Emancipation Achieved</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_258'><b>258</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXVIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Reconstruction: Experiments and Ideals</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_267'><b>267</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXIX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Reconstruction: The First Plan</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_274'><b>274</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Congress and the "Black Codes"</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_281'><b>281</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXXI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Reconstruction: The Second Plan</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_294'><b>294</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXXII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Reconstruction: The Final Plan</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_306'><b>306</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXXIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Reconstruction: The Working Out</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_316'><b>316</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXXIV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Three Troubled States</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXXV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Reconstruction: The Last Act</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_344'><b>344</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXXVI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Regeneration</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_354'><b>354</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXXVII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Armstrong</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_362'><b>362</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXXVIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Evolution</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_371'><b>371</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XXXIX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Ebb and Flow</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_382'><b>382</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>XL.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Looking Forward</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_391'><b>391</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Index</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_413'><b>413</b></a></td></tr> +</table></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><br /><br /><a name="THE_NEGRO_AND_THE_NATION" id="THE_NEGRO_AND_THE_NATION"></a>THE NEGRO AND THE NATION<br /><br /></h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>HOW SLAVERY GREW IN AMERICA</h3> + + +<p>An English traveler, riding along the banks of the Potomac in mid-July, +1798, saw ahead of him on the road an old-fashioned chaise, its driver +urging forward his slow horse with the whip, until a sharp cut made the +beast swerve, and the chaise toppled over the bank, throwing out the +driver and the young lady who was with him. The traveler—it was John +Bernard, an actor and a man of culture and accomplishments, spurred +forward to the rescue. As he did so he saw another horseman put his +horse from a trot to a gallop, and together they reached the scene of +action, extricated the woman and revived her from her swoon with water +from a brook; then righted the horse and chaise, helped to restore the +half-ton of baggage to its place; learned the story of the couple—a New +Englander returning home with his Southern bride—and saw them safely +started again. Then the two rescuers, after their half-hour of +perspiring toil in a broiling sun, addressed themselves courteously to +each other; the Virginian dusted the coat of the Englishman, and as Mr. +Bernard returned the favor he noticed him well,—"a tall, erect, +well-made man, evidently advanced in years, but who appeared to have +retained all the vigor and elasticity resulting from a life of +temperance and exercise. His dress was a blue coat, buttoned to the +chin, and buckskin breeches." The two men eyed each other, half +recognizing, half perplexed, till with a smile<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> the Virginian exclaimed, +"Mr. Bernard, I believe?" and, claiming acquaintance from having seen +him on the stage and heard of him from friends, invited him to come and +rest at his house near by, to which he pointed. That familiar front, the +now wholly familiar face and form,—"Mount Vernon! Have I the honor of +addressing General Washington?" With a charming smile Washington offered +his hand, replying, "An odd sort of introduction, Mr. Bernard; but I am +pleased to find you can play so active a part in private and without a +prompter." There followed a long and leisurely call at Mount Vernon, and +Bernard, in his volume of travels which did not see the light for nearly +a century, has given a most graphic and winning picture of Washington in +his every-day aspect and familiar conversation. To the actor's keen eye, +acquainted with the best society of his time, the near approach showed +no derogation from the greatness which the story of his deeds conveyed. +"Whether you surveyed his face, open yet well defined, dignified but not +arrogant, thoughtful but benign; his frame, towering and muscular, but +alert from its good proportions—every feature suggested a resemblance +to the spirit it encased, and showed simplicity in alliance with the +sublime. The impression, therefore, was that of a most perfect whole."</p> + +<p>The talk ran a various course. Washington incidentally praised the New +Englanders, "the stamina of the Union and its greatest benefactors." The +Englishman acknowledged a tribute to his own country, but Washington +with great good humor responded, "Yes, yes, Mr. Bernard, but I consider +your country the cradle of free principles, not their arm-chair." He had +proceeded a little way in a eulogy of American liberty, when a black +servant entered the room with a jug of spring water. Bernard smiled, and +Washington quickly caught his look<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> and answered it: "This may seem a +contradiction, but I think you must perceive that it is neither a crime +nor an absurdity. When we profess, as our fundamental principle, that +liberty is the inalienable right of every man, we do not include madmen +or idiots; liberty in their hands would become a scourge. Till the mind +of the slave has been educated to perceive what are the obligations of a +state of freedom, and not confound a man's with a brute's, the gift +would insure its abuse. We might as well be asked to pull down our old +warehouses before trade has increased to demand enlarged new ones. Both +houses and slaves were bequeathed to us by Europeans, and time alone can +change them; an event which, you may believe me, no man desires more +heartily than I do. Not only do I pray for it on the score of human +dignity, but I can clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of +slavery can perpetuate the existence of our Union, by consolidating it +in a common bond of principle."</p> + +<p>These words of Washington, with the incident that supplies their +background, are an epitome of the view and attitude of that great man +toward slavery. Before measuring their full significance, and the +general situation in which this was an element, we may glance at the +preliminary questions; how came slaves in Virginia and America; whence +came slavery; what was it?</p> + +<p>Primitive man killed his enemy and ate him. Later, the sequel of battle +was the slaying of all the vanquished and the appropriation of their +goods, including women and other live stock. Then it was found more +profitable to spare the conquered warrior's life and set him to do the +victor's disagreeable work; more profitable, and incidentally more +merciful. Civilization advanced; wars became less general; but in the +established social order that grew up there was a definite place for a +great class of slaves. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> was part of Nature's early law, the strong +raising themselves upon the weak. Morality and religion by degrees +established certain limited rights for the slave. But the general state +of slavery was defended by philosophers like Aristotle; was recognized +by the legislation of Judea, Greece, and Rome; was accepted as part of +the established order by Jesus and the early church. It is beyond our +limits here to measure either its service, as the foundation on which +rested ancient society; or the mischief that came from the supplanting +of a free peasantry, as in Italy. We can but glance at the influence of +Christianity, first in ameliorating its rigor, by teaching the master +that the slave was his brother in Christ, and then by working together +with economic forces for its abolition. By complex and partly obscure +causes, personal slavery—the outright ownership of man—was abolished +throughout Christendom. Less inhuman in theory, less heartless in +practice, though inhuman and harsh enough, was the serfdom which +succeeded slavery and rested on Europe for a thousand years; till by +slow evolution, by occasional bloody revolt, by steady advance in the +intelligence and power of the laborer, compelling for him a higher +status, the serf became a hired laborer and thence a citizen throughout +Europe.</p> + +<p>The recrudescence of slavery came when the expanding energies of +European society, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, dashed +against the weak barbarians of Africa and America. The old story was +retold,—the stronger man, half-savage still under the veneer of +civilization and Christianity, trampled the weaker man under foot. In +Europe there was little need or room for slaves—the labor supply was +sufficient, but on the new continent, in the words of Weeden (<i>Economic +and Social History of New England</i>): "The seventeenth century organized +the new<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> western countries, and created an immense opportunity for +labor. The eighteenth coolly and deliberately set Europe at the task of +depopulating whole districts of western Africa, and of transporting the +captives, by a necessarily brutal, vicious and horrible traffic, to the +new civilization of America." The European was impartial between African +and Indian; he was equally ready to enslave either; but the Indian was +not made for captivity,—he rebelled or ran away or died; the more +docile negro was the chief victim. The stream of slavery moved mainly +according to economic conditions. Soil and climate in the Northern +States made the labor of the indolent and unthrifty slave unprofitable, +but in the warm and fertile South, developing plantations of tobacco, +rice, and indigo, the negro toiler supplied the needed element for great +profits. The church's part in the business was mainly to find excuse; +through slavery the heathen were being made Christians. But when they +had become Christians the church forgot to bid that they be made +brothers and freemen. Some real mitigation of their lot no doubt there +was, through teaching of religion and from other conditions. Professor +Du Bois says that slavery brought the African three advantages: it +taught him to labor, gave him the English language and—after a +sort—the Christian religion. But it ruined such family life as had +existed under a kind of regulated polygamy. Again we must decline to +measure the good and the evil of the system. Probably the negro was in +better condition in America than he had been in Africa, as he certainly +was in far worse condition than he was entitled to be—and was in future +to be.</p> + +<p>The traffic was maintained chiefly by trading companies in England,—at +first a great monopoly headed by the Duke of York, then rival companies. +The colonists made some attempts to check the traffic,—growing alarmed +at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> the great infusion of a servile and barbaric population. Virginia +long tried to discourage it by putting a heavy import tax on slaves, +which was constantly overruled by the English government under the +influence of the trading companies. At a later day every one tried to +put the responsibility of slavery on some one else,—the North on the +South, the South on England. But in truth the responsibility was on all. +The colonists did not hesitate to refuse to receive tea which England +taxed; equally well they could have refused to buy slaves imported by +trading companies if they had not wanted them; but they did want them. +The commercial demand overrode humanity. The social conscience was not +awake,—strange as its slumber now seems. Stranger still, as we shall +see, after it had once been thoroughly roused, it was deliberately +drugged to sleep. But this belongs to a later chapter.</p> + +<p>New England had little use for slaves at home, but for slave ships she +had abundant use. With a sterile soil, and with the sea at her doors +swarming with edible fish and beckoning to her sails, her hardy industry +found its best field on the ocean. The fisheries were the foundation of +her commerce. The thrifty Yankee sold the best of his catch in Europe +(here again we follow Weeden); the medium quality he ate himself; and +the worst he sent to the West Indies to be sold as food for slaves. With +the proceeds the skipper bought molasses and carried it home, where it +was turned into rum; the rum went to Africa and was exchanged for +slaves, and the slaves were carried to the West Indies, Virginia, and +the Carolinas. Rum and slaves, two chief staples of New England trade +and sources of its wealth; slave labor the foundation on which was +planted the aristocracy of Virginia and the Carolinas,—alas for our +great-grandfathers! But what may our great-grandchildren find to say of +us?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> + +<p>The social conscience was not developed along this line; men were +unconscious of the essential wrong of slavery, or, uneasily conscious of +something wrong, saw not what could be done, and kept still. Here and +there a voice was raised in protest. There was fine old Samuel Sewall, +Chief Justice of Massachusetts; sincere, faithful man; dry and narrow, +because in a dry and narrow place and time; but with the capacity for +growth which distinguishes the live root from the dead. He presided over +the court that adjudged witches to death; then, when the community had +recovered from its frenzy, he took on himself deepest blame; he stood up +in his pew, a public penitent, while the minister read aloud his humble +confession, and on a stated day in each year he shut himself up in +solitude to mourn and expiate the wrong he had unwittingly done, and, +almost alone among his people, he spoke out clear and strong against +human slavery.</p> + +<p>A little later, in the generation before the Revolution, came the +Quaker, John Woolman,—a gentle and lovely soul, known among his people +as a kind of lay evangelist, traveling among their communities to utter +sweet persuasive words of holiness and uplifting; known in our day by +his <i>Journal</i>, a book of saintly meditations. Sensitive and shrinking, +he yet had the moral insight to see and the courage to speak against the +wrong of slavery. The Quakers, rich in the virtues of peace and +kindliness, were by no means unpractical in the ways of worldly gain, or +inaccessible to its temptations; they had held slaves like their +neighbors, though we should probably have preferred a Quaker master. But +the seed Woolman sowed fell on good ground; slavery came into disfavor +among the Quakers, and when sentiment against it began to grow they lent +strength to the leadership of the public conscience.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>THE ACTS OF THE FATHERS</h3> + + +<p>The revolt of the colonists from British rule was not inspired +originally by abstract enthusiasm for the rights of man. It was rather a +demand for the chartered rights of British subjects, according to the +liberal principles set forth by Locke and Chatham and Burke and Fox; a +demand pushed on by the self-asserting strength of communities become +too vigorous to endure control from a remote seat of empire, especially +when that control was exercised in a harsh and arbitrary spirit. The +revolutionary tide was swelled from various sources: by the mob eager to +worry a red-coated sentry or to join in a raid under Indian disguise; by +men who embodied the common sense and rough energy of the plain people, +like Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine; by men of practical statesmanship, +like Franklin and Washington, who saw that the time had come when the +colonists could best manage their own affairs; and by generous +enthusiasts for humanity, like Jefferson and Patrick Henry.</p> + +<p>With the minds of thoughtful men thoroughly wakened on the subject of +human rights, it was impossible not to reflect on the wrongs of the +slaves, incomparably worse than those against which their masters had +taken up arms. As the political institutions of the young Federation +were remolded, so grave a matter as slavery could not be ignored. +Virginia in 1772 voted an address to the King remonstrating against the +continuance of the African slave trade.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> The address was ignored, and +Jefferson in the first draft of the Declaration alleged this as one of +the wrongs suffered at the hands of the British government, but his +colleagues suppressed the clause. In 1778 Virginia forbade the +importation of slaves into her ports. The next year Jefferson proposed +to the Legislature an elaborate plan for gradual emancipation, but it +failed of consideration. Maryland followed Virginia in forbidding the +importation of slaves from Africa. Virginia in 1782 passed a law by +which manumission of slaves, which before had required special +legislative permission, might be given at the will of the master. For +the next ten years manumission went on at the rate of 8000 a year. +Afterward the law was made more restrictive. Massachusetts adopted in +1780 a constitution and bill of rights, asserting, as the Declaration +had done, that all men are born free and have an equal and inalienable +right to defend their lives and liberties, to acquire property and to +seek and obtain freedom and happiness. A test case was made up to decide +the status of a slave, and the Supreme Court ruled that under this +clause slavery no longer existed in Massachusetts. Its 6000 negroes were +now entitled to the suffrage on the same terms as the whites. The same +held good of the free blacks in four other States. In all the States but +Massachusetts slavery retained a legal existence, the number ranging in +1790 from 158 in New Hampshire to nearly 4000 in Pennsylvania, over +21,000 in New York, 100,000 in each of the Carolinas, and about 300,000 +in Virginia. Ships of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the Middle States +were still busy in bringing negroes from Africa to the South, though +there were brave men like Dr. Hopkins at Newport who denounced the +traffic in its strongholds.</p> + +<p>Jefferson planned nobly for the exclusion of slavery from the whole as +yet unorganized domain of the nation, a meas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>ure which would have belted +the slave States with free territory, and so worked toward universal +freedom. The sentiment of the time gave success to half his plan. His +proposal in the ordinance of 1784 missed success in the Continental +Congress by the vote of a single State. The principle was embodied in +the ordinance of 1787 (when Jefferson was abroad as Minister to France), +but with its operations limited to the Northwestern territory, the +country south of the Ohio being left under the influence of the slave +States from which it had been settled.</p> + +<p>The young nation crystalized into form in the constitutional convention +of 1787, and the ratification of its act by the people. It was indeed, +as John Fiske's admirable book names it, "the critical period of +American history." To human eyes it was the parting of the ways between +disintegration toward anarchy, and the birth of a nation with fairer +opportunities and higher ideals than any that had gone before. The work +of those forty men in half a year has hardly a parallel. Individually +they were the pick and flower of their communities. The circumstances +compelled them to keep in such touch with the people of those +communities that their action would be ratified. They included men of +the broadest theoretical statesmanship, like Madison and Hamilton; men +of great practical sense and magnanimity, like Washington and Franklin; +and they also included and needed to include the representatives of +various local and national interests. They had been schooled by the +training of many momentous years, and the emergency brought out the +strongest traits of the men and of the people behind them.</p> + +<p>A prime necessity was willingness to make mutual concessions, together +with good judgment as to where those concessions must stop. Large States +against small States, seaport against farm, North against South and East +against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> West, slave society against free society—each must be willing +to give as well as to take, or the common cause was lost. The theorists, +too, must make their sacrifices; the believers in centralization, the +believers in diffusion of power; Madisonians, Hamiltonians, +Jeffersonians—all must concede something, or there could be no nation. +And between principles of moral right and wrong,—here, too, can there +be compromise? Easy to give a sweeping No; but when honest men's ideas +of right and wrong fundamentally differ, when personal ideals and social +utilities are in seeming contradiction, the answer may be no easy one.</p> + +<p>The great difficulty at the outset, as to the relative power in Congress +of the large and small States, was settled at last by the happy +compromise of making the Senate representative of the States in +equality, and the House representative of the whole people alike. But +then came the question, Should the representation be based on numbers or +on wealth? The decision to count men and not dollars was a momentous +one; it told for democracy even more than the framers knew. But now +again, Shall this count of men include slaves? Slaves, who have no voice +in the government, and are as much the property of their owners as +horses and oxen? Yes, the slaves should be counted as men, in the +distribution of political power,—so said South Carolina and Georgia. In +that demand there disclosed itself what proved to be the most determined +and aggressive interest in the convention,—the slavery interest in the +two most southern States. Virginia, inspired and led by Washington, +Madison, and Mason, was unfriendly to the strengthening of the slave +power, and the border and central as well as the eastern States were +inclined the same way. But South Carolina and Georgia, united and +determined, had this powerful leverage; from the first dispute,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> their +representatives habitually declared that unless their demands were +granted their States would not join the Union. Now it had been agreed +that the Constitution should only become operative on the assent by +popular vote of nine of the thirteen States, and it was plain that at +the best there would be great difficulty in getting that number. With +two lost in advance the case looked almost hopeless. South Carolina and +Georgia saw their advantage, and pushed it with equal resolution and +dexterity. The question of representation was settled by a singular +compromise: To the free population was to be added in the count +three-fifths of the slave population. The slave was, for political +purposes, three-fifths a man and two-fifths a chattel. Illogical to +grotesqueness, this arrangement—in effect a concession to the most +objectionable species of property of a political advantage denied to all +other property—yet seemed to the wisest leaders of the convention not +too heavy a price for the establishment of the Union. The provision that +fugitive slaves should be returned had already been made, apparently +with little opposition.</p> + +<p>But the price was by no means all paid. When the powers of Congress came +to be defined, the extreme South demanded that it be not allowed to +forbid the importation of African slaves. With the example of Virginia +and Maryland in view, it was clear that the tide was running so strongly +against the traffic that Congress was sure to prohibit it unless +restrained from doing so. Against such restraint there was strong +protest from Virginia and the middle States. "The traffic is infernal," +said Mason of Virginia. "To permit it is against every principle of +honor and safety," said Dickinson of Delaware. But the two Pinckneys and +their colleague said, "Leave us the traffic, or South Carolina and +Georgia will not join your Union." The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> leading members from the +northern and New England States actually favored the provision, to +conciliate the extreme South. The matter went to a committee of one from +each State. There it was discussed along with another question: It had +been proposed to restrict Congress from legislating on navigation and +kindred subjects except by a two-thirds vote of each House. This went +sorely against the commercial North, which was eager to wield the whole +power of the government in favor of its shipping interests. Of this +power the South was afraid, and how well grounded was the importance +each section attached to it was made plain when a generation later the +North used its dearly-bought privilege to fashion such tariff laws as +drove South Carolina to the verge of revolt. Now in the committee a +bargain was struck: The slave trade should be extended till 1800, and in +compensation Congress should be allowed to legislate on navigation as on +other subjects. The report coming into the convention, South Carolina +was still unsatisfied. "Eight more years for the African trade, until +1808," said Pinckney, and Gorham of Massachusetts supported him. Vainly +did Madison protest, and Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey +vote against the whole scheme. The alliance of New England commerce and +Carolina slavery triumphed, and the African slave trade was sanctioned +for twenty years.</p> + +<p>For the compromise on representation it might be pleaded, that by it no +license was given to wrong; there was only a concession of +disproportionate power to one section, fairly outweighed in the scale of +the public good by the establishment of a great political order. But the +action on the slave trade was the deliberate sanction for twenty years +of man-stealing of the most flagitious sort. It was aimed at the +strengthening and perpetuation of an institution which even its +champions at that time only defended as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> necessary evil. And this +action was taken, not after all other means to secure the Union had been +exhausted, but as the price which New England was willing to pay for an +advantage to her commercial interests.</p> + +<p>At a later day, there were those who made it a reproach to the +convention, and a condemnation of their whole work, that they imposed no +prohibition on slavery as it existed in the States. But if such +prohibition was to be attempted, the convention might as well never have +met. The whole theory of the occasion was that the States, as individual +communities, were to be left substantially as they were; self-governing, +except as they intrusted certain definite functions to the general +government. When only a single State, and that almost without cost, had +abolished slavery within itself, it was out of the question that all of +the States should through their common agents decree an act of social +virtue wholly beyond what they had individually achieved. Any human +State exists only by tolerating in its individual citizens a wide +freedom of action, even in matters of ethical quality; and a federated +nation must allow its local communities largely to fix their own +standard of social conduct. At the point which the American people had +reached, the next imperative step of evolution was that they unite +themselves in a social organism, such as must allow free play to many +divergencies. For the convention to take direct action for the abolition +of slavery was beyond the possibilities of the case. It was in making +provision for the extension of the evil that it was untrue to its ideal, +sacrificed its possibilities, and opened the door for the long +domination of a mischievous element.</p> + +<p>But the main work of the convention was well and wisely done. Not less +fine was the self-control and sagacity with which the people and their +leaders debated and finally adopted the new order. Advocates of a +stronger govern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>ment, like Hamilton, and champions of a more popular +system, like Samuel Adams and Jefferson, sank their preferences and +successfully urged their constituents to accept this as the best +available settlement. Slavery played very little part in the popular +discussions, and only a few keen observers like Madison read the +portents in that quarter. The young nation was swept at once into +difficulties and struggles in other directions.</p> + +<p>A word, before we follow the history, as to the sentiments of the great +leaders in this period. Broadly, they all viewed slavery as a wrong and +evil; they looked hopefully for its early extinction; they recognized +great difficulties in adapting the negro to conditions of freedom; and +they were in general too much absorbed in other and pressing problems to +direct much practical effort toward emancipation. Washington's view is +nowhere better given than in the casual talk so graphically reported by +Bernard. He desired universal liberty, but believed it would only come +when the negroes were fit for it; at present they were as unqualified to +live without a master's control as children or idiots. Washington's way +was to look at facts and to deal with a situation as he found it, and +not to try to order the world by general and abstract ideals. He was +intensely practical, responsive to each present call of duty, and in his +conception of duty taking wider and wider views as he was trained by +years and experience. The incident which brought him and Bernard +together was characteristic; if any chaise was upset in his +neighborhood, trust Washington to have a hand in righting it! The +natural reply to his talk about the negroes might have been: "Since you +desire their freedom, but think them not fit for it, why not make a +business—you and the country—of making them fit?" And the answer +fairly might have been: "The country and I have as yet had too much else +to do." Besides his public<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> services, he was a planter on the largest +scale; thousands of acres and hundreds of slaves had come to him by +inheritance and by marriage. He was most thorough and successful in his +private affairs; through all his cares in the Revolution, scarcely ever +visiting his home, he kept in close touch with his steward and regulated +the plantation's management by constant correspondence. He had the +reputation of a just but strict master. His slaves were well fed and +clothed; they were supported in infancy and old age; they were trained +in work according to their capacity, and taught something of morals and +religion; in point of physical comfort and security, and of industrial +and moral development, they were by no means at the bottom of the scale +of humanity. The slave-holder's position, however unjust by an absolute +standard, and with great possibilities of abuse, was, in the case of the +rightly-disposed man—and such were common—a position which had its +grave duties and often onerous burdens to be conscientiously borne.</p> + +<p>Hardly was the war ended when the country's needs summoned Washington +again to long and arduous service. Retired from the Presidency, his +successor called him, not in vain, to head the army which the threatened +French war would call into action. Who can blame him that he did not +undertake in addition a complete reorganization of the labor system of +his own farms and of Virginia? Inconsistent perhaps it was,—a very +human inconsistency,—that his slaves, who, he told Bernard, were unfit +for freedom, were given their freedom by his will, though not until his +wife's death. That we may take as an imperfect essay of conscience to +deal with a situation so complicated that no ideal solution was +apparent. But we may fairly read as his unspoken legacy to his +countrymen of the next generation: "My associates and I have won +national indepen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>dence, social order, and equal rights for our own race; +deal you as courageously and strongly with the problems which remain."</p> + +<p>Jefferson was an enthusiast for moral ideals, and a warm believer in the +merit and trustworthiness of average humanity. He ennobled the struggle +of the colonies against England by writing on the flag the universal and +undying ideas that the authority of governments rests solely on their +justice and public utility, and that every man has an inalienable right +to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And Jefferson did not +flinch, as did many of his associates, from giving that right a full and +general application to blacks as well as whites. Nor was he a mere +doctrinaire. As he revolted from the abstract injustice of slavery, so +its concrete abuses as he saw them, filled him with horror. He wrote: "I +tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just." He described +what he had seen. "The whole commerce between master and slave is a +perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions,—the most +unremitting despotism on the one part and degrading submission on the +other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it, for man is an +imitative animal.... The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the +lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller +slaves, gives a loose rein to the worst of passions; and thus nursed, +educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it +with odious peculiarities."</p> + +<p>But Jefferson shared a common belief of his time, that it was futile to +hope to "retain and incorporate the blacks into the State." He wrote: +"Deep-rooted prejudices of the whites, ten thousand recollections of +blacks of injuries sustained, new provocations, the real distinction +Nature has made, and many other circumstances, will divide us into +parties and produce convulsions which will probably<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> never end but in +the extermination of one or the other race." So he looked for a remedy +to emancipation followed by deportation. But he hesitated to affirm any +essential inferiority in the negro race. He wrote: "The opinion that +they are inferior in the faculties of reason and imagination must be +hazarded with great diffidence." Later he wrote that "they were gaining +daily in the opinions of nations, and hopeful advances are making toward +their re-establishment on an equal footing with other colors of the +human family."</p> + +<p>Jefferson was more than a theorist; he was skillful to persuade men, and +to organize and lead a party. His general tendency was "along the line +of least resistance,"—the summoning of men to free themselves from +oppressive restraint; and he was highly successful until he called on +them for severe self-sacrifice, when his supporters were apt suddenly to +fail him. Virginia gladly followed his lead in abolishing primogeniture +and entail, and overthrowing the Established Church. She even consented, +in 1778, to abolish the African slave-trade, being then in little need +of more slaves than she possessed. In 1779 he planned a far more radical +and costly project—a general emancipation. All slaves born after the +passage of the act were to be free; they were to dwell with their +parents till a certain age, then to be educated at the public expense in +"tillage, arts, or sciences," until the males were twenty-one years old +and the females eighteen; then they were to be colonized in some +suitable region, furnished with arms, implements, seeds and cattle; +declared a free and independent people, under American protection until +strong enough to stand alone; and meanwhile their place as laborers was +to be filled by whites sent for by vessels to other parts of the world. +It is hardly strange that the Legislature did not even take the measure +into consideration, and it does not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> appear that Jefferson ever returned +to it. Practical legislation was not his forte. But his influence told +nobly, as has been related, in barring slavery from the Northwestern +territory, and, had just a little more support been found in 1784, would +have saved the Southwest also to freedom, with almost certain promise of +result in early freeing of the whole country. Just two or three votes in +the Continental Congress,—on such small hinges does the destiny of +nations seem to turn.</p> + +<p>The inertia which holds men even exceptionally high-minded from breaking +strong ties of custom and convenience is shown by a letter of Patrick +Henry to a Quaker in 1773, in which he declared slavery "as repugnant to +humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible and destructive of +liberty. Every thinking, honest man rejects it as speculation, but how +few in practice from conscientious motives! Would any one believe that I +am a master of slaves of my own purchase? I am drawn along by the +general inconvenience of living without them."</p> + +<p>There is no need to dwell further on the anti-slavery sentiments of the +group of great leaders who were the glory of the nation. It is to be +noted that Franklin took a characteristically active part in aiding to +establish an anti-slavery society in Philadelphia in 1782. Shrewd as he +was high-minded and benevolent, Franklin was always a special master in +organizing men in societies for effective and progressive action. His +tact won France to the American alliance, and decisively turned the +scale in the Revolutionary war; and his conciliatory yet resolute spirit +was a main factor in the constitutional convention. This Pennsylvania +anti-slavery society led the way to the early adoption by the State of +gradual emancipation. Franklin, an optimist by temperament and by his +large faith in mankind, looked confidently for the early end of slavery; +as fast as men ripened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> into honesty and sense, he thought, they would +recognize the folly and wrong of it.</p> + +<p>Looking from the leaders to the mass of the community, in this early +period, we see these broad facts. Slavery was regarded by all as an +evil, and by most as a wrong. Even its champions in the convention +claimed no more for it than that it was a necessary evil; one of the +Pinckneys expressed the hope of its extinction at an early day, and the +other Pinckney dissented only in thinking this too sanguine. Further, +there was a distinct wave of anti-slavery sentiment, sympathetic with +the lofty temper of the Revolution and the genesis of a free nation. +That wave was strong enough to wipe out slavery where its economic hold +was slight; it was plainly destined to sweep at least through all the +Northern and Middle States, and hope was high that it might go farther. +But this moral enthusiasm broke helpless against the institution +wherever a strong property interest was involved with it. Manumission in +the South went no further than a few individuals. Virginia and Maryland, +needing no more slaves, ceased importing them; but South Carolina and +Georgia bargained successfully for a twenty years' supply. +Massachusetts, having almost inadvertently freed her few slaves, was +willing that the stream of misery should still flow on from Africa to +the South. In a word, so far as the negroes were concerned, the supposed +material interest of the whites remained the dominating factor +throughout the country.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>CONFLICT AND COMPROMISE</h3> + + +<p>For thirty years after the Constitution was established, slavery falls +into the background of the national history. Other and absorbing +interests were to the front. First, the strife of Federalist and +Democrat: Should the central government be strengthened, or should the +common people be more fully trusted? Twelve years of conservative +ascendency under Washington and Adams; then a complete and lasting +triumph for the popular party led by Jefferson. Mixed with and +succeeding this came an exasperating and perplexing struggle for +commercial rights, invaded equally by England and France in their +gigantic grapple; an ineffectual defense by Jefferson, who in executive +office proved an unskillful pilot; a half-hearted war under Madison, a +closet statesman out of place in the Presidential chair; a temporary +alienation of New England, exasperated by the loss of her commerce and +suspicious of the Jeffersonian influence; a participation in the general +peace which followed 1815, and a revival of industry. Under this surface +tide of events went on a steady, quiet advance of the democratic +movement. With Jefferson's administration disappeared the Federal party +and the old distrust of the common people. State after State gave up the +property qualification—almost universal in the first period—and +adopted manhood suffrage. Slavery disappeared from the North; in New +Hampshire it was abolished by judicial decision, as in Massachusetts; +Connecticut, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania passed gradual emancipation +laws, and a little later<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> New York and New Jersey did the same. In +Kentucky, settled by hardy pioneers from Virginia, there had been a +vigorous campaign to establish a free State; the Baptist preachers, +strong leaders in morals and religion, had championed the cause of +freedom; the victory seemed decisively won, by three to one it was said, +in the election of May, 1798; but a torrent of excitement over the alien +and sedition laws submerged other issues, and the convention sanctioned +slavery as it existed. The African slave trade was made piracy by act of +Congress in 1808, though the extreme penalty was not inflicted for sixty +years, and a considerable traffic still went on. In furtherance of +emancipation, a colonization society was started in Pennsylvania, and in +a few years it had transported 20,000 freed negroes to Africa, and +established the feeble colony of Liberia. Meanwhile the first French +republic had freed half a million slaves in the West Indies; and Chili, +Buenos Ayres, Columbia, and Mexico, as they gained their independence +from Spain, had abolished slavery. The European reaction against the +French republic and empire had largely spent itself; the English +tradition of constitutional freedom had survived and promised to spread; +the Spanish colonies in America had won their independence.</p> + +<p>The stiller and deeper current of industrial progress had moved on apace +in the United States. A new New England was being swiftly built in the +Northwest. The Southwest, too, was growing fast. The acquisition of the +Louisiana territory,—through an exigency of Napoleon's politics, and +the wise inconsistency of Jefferson—had opened another vast domain. At +the North, commerce, set free again, spread rapidly, and a new era of +manufactures was opening. The South—more diffusely settled, with less +social activity, with a debased labor class—caught less of the spirit +of advance. But on one line it gained. Fol<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>lowing the English inventions +in spinning and weaving, and the utilization of the stationary +steam-engine, a Connecticut man, Eli Whitney, had invented a cotton-gin, +for separating the seed from the fibre, and the cotton plant came to the +front of the scene. The crop rose in value in twenty years from +$6,000,000 to $20,000,000. The value of slaves was trebled, and the +border States began to do a thriving trade in exporting them to the +cotton States—it was said a little later the yearly export reached +50,000.</p> + +<p>As new States were organized and admitted, those from the Northwest came +in without slavery, which had been kept out by the ordinance of 1787, +and those from the Southwest, where slaves had been carried by the +emigrants from the seaboard, were allowed without question to retain the +institution. Of the old thirteen, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, +Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York New Jersey, Pennsylvania (spite of a +few slaves lingering in the last three) were counted as free +States—seven in all; Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, the two Carolinas, +Georgia, were claimed as slave States—six. Speedily were added Vermont +to the one column, and Kentucky and Tennessee to the other, making the +numbers equal. The following acquisitions were free and slave States +alternately: Ohio and Louisiana, Indiana and Mississippi, Illinois and +Alabama, a total, so far, of eleven free and eleven slave. Of the new +Southwestern domain, Arkansas had been organized as a territory, early +in 1819, and a motion that slavery be excluded had been defeated in the +House by the casting vote of the speaker, Henry Clay.</p> + +<p>But in all these thirty years the subject of slavery had little +prominence in public discussion. Now it suddenly came to the front. A +bill was brought into Congress to permit Missouri to organize as a +State. It was part of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> Louisiana purchase, of which the Southern +portion had inherited and retained slavery; but Missouri was +geographically an extension of the region of the Ohio States, in which +free labor had made an established and congenial home. It was moved in +Congress that slavery should be excluded from the new State, and on this +instantly sprang up a fiery debate. On one side it was urged that +slavery was a wrong and an evil, and that Congress had full power to +exclude it from a State as a condition of admittance to the Union. On +the other side slavery was defended not only as an industrial advantage, +but as morally right and a benefit to both blacks and whites. It was +strenuously declared that the people of each incoming State had a right +to determine their own institutions; and it was also urged that to keep +the balance of power between the two sections, it was necessary that +slave States should be admitted equally with free. It was disclosed with +startling suddenness that two systems of labor and society stood face to +face, with different ideals, different interests, and in a mutual +opposition to which no limits could be foreseen. It was plain that with +the increase of profit from slavery all idea of its abolition had been +quietly dropping from the minds of the great mass of the Southern +community. It was equally plain that the sentiment against slavery in +the North had increased greatly in distinctness and intensity. There was +apparent, too, a divergence of material interests, and a keen rivalry of +political interests. The South had been losing ground in comparison. +From an equality in population, the North had gained a majority of +600,000 in a total of 10,000,000. The approaching census of 1820 would +give the North a preponderance of thirty in the House. In wealth, too, +the North had been obviously drawing ahead. Only in the Senate did the +South retain an equality of power, and, to maintain at least this,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> by +the accession of new slave States, was an avowed object of Southern +politicians.</p> + +<p>The debate was so hot, the underlying causes of opposition were so +obvious, and the avowed determination of the contestants was so +resolute, that the unity and continuance of the nation was unmistakably +threatened. State Legislatures passed resolutions for one side or the +other, according to their geographical location; only the Delaware +Legislature was superior to the sectional consideration, and voted +unanimously in favor of holding Missouri for freedom. The alarm as to +the continuance of the Union was general and great. No one felt it more +keenly than Jefferson, startled in his scholarly and peaceful retirement +at Monticello, as he said, as by "a fire-bell in the night." He wrote: +"In the gloomiest movements of the Revolutionary war, I never had an +apprehension equal to that I feel from this source." It was a grave omen +that Jefferson's sympathies were with his section rather than with +freedom; he joined in the opposition to the exclusion of slavery from +Missouri. He had no love for slavery, but he was jealous for the right +of each State to choose its own way, for good or evil; a political +theory outweighed in him the sentiment of humanity.</p> + +<p>A compromise was proposed. Let Missouri have slavery if she will, but +for the Northwest let it be "thus far and no farther"; let it be fixed +that there shall be no more slave States north of the line which marks +Missouri's southern boundary, the line of 36 degrees 30 minutes north +latitude. Present advantage to the South, future security to the North; +and meantime let Maine be admitted, which keeps the balance equal. This +was the solution accepted by both sides after a discussion lasting +through the Congressional session of 1819-20 until March. But the +smothered flame broke out again. Missouri in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> 1820 adopted a +constitution, and asked for admission according to promise; and one +clause in her constitution forbade the entrance of free blacks into the +State. This was too much for the North, already half disgusted with the +concession it had made, and when Congress met for the session of 1820-21 +the whole question was reopened, and the dispute was hotter and more +obstinate than ever. The issue was wholly uncertain, and disunion seemed +to hover near and dark, when Henry Clay, who in the first debate had +taken no very important part, but had supported the Southern claim, now +threw his whole power, which was great, in favor of conciliation and +agreement on the original basis. Clay was a politician, and ambitious +for the Presidency, but he was a patriot and a lover of humanity. As to +slavery he was a waverer, disliking it at heart and sometimes speaking +manfully against it, but at other times respectful toward it as an +established and mighty fact, and even lending himself to its eulogy. In +the first debate he had advocated the Southern side, had extolled +slavery, and declared the black slaves of the South to be better off +than the white slaves of the North. Now he gave all his persuasive and +commanding eloquence, all the influence of his genial nature and winning +arts, to rally the lovers of the Union to the mutual concessions by +which alone it could be preserved. He justified the objection to the +exclusion of free negroes, he divested himself of sectional +partisanship, and pleaded with equal skill and fervor for the +compromise. He did not forget that he was a Presidential aspirant, but +he was a true lover of his country, and seldom have the traits of +politician and patriot worked together more effectively. Though the mass +of the Northern members, strengthened doubtless by the influence of +their constituents at home during the recess, were now opposed to the +whole compromise, and a few Southern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> extremists were against it, yet +the majority of both House and Senate were won to its support, and on +the last day of February, 1821, Missouri was admitted as a slave State, +on condition that she expunge her exclusion of free blacks, which she +promptly did. Maine had already been admitted. The excitement ended +almost as suddenly as it had begun.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>THE WIDENING RIFT</h3> + + +<p>For the next twelve years, slavery was in the background of the national +stage. But during this period, various influences were converging to a +common result, until in 1832-3 the issue was defined with new clearness +and thenceforth grew as the central feature in the public life of +America.</p> + +<p>From the time of the Missouri debate, the slavery interest was +consolidated and alert, even while other subjects seemed to fill the +public mind. To the North, slavery was habitually a remote matter, but +it was perpetually brought home to the business and bosoms of the South. +The whole industrial system, a social aristocracy, and political +ambition, blended their forces. An instance of the subtle power of the +institution was given in a little-marked incident of Adams's generally +creditable administration. By three men as high-minded as President +Adams, Secretary Clay, and Minister Gallatin, overtures were made to +England for a treaty by which the surrender of deserters from her army +and navy should be her compensation for surrendering our fugitive +slaves! The British government would not listen to the proposal.</p> + +<p>The national politics of this period, 1820-32, centred in a group of +strong and picturesque personalities,—Clay, Adams, Calhoun, Jackson, +and Webster. John Quincy Adams was a sort of exaggeration of the typical +New Englander,—upright, austere, highly educated, devoted to the public +service, ambitious, yet not to the sacrifice of conscience, but cold, +angular, repellant. Says Carl Schurz<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> in his <i>Henry Clay</i>—a book which +gives an admirable resumé of a half-century of politics: "He possessed +in the highest degree that uprightness which leans backward. He had a +horror of demagogy, and lest he should render himself guilty of anything +akin to it, he would but rarely condescend to those innocent amenities +by which the good-will of others may be conciliated. His virtue was +freezing cold of touch, and forbidding in its look." When the +Presidential election went into the House in 1824, the influence of +Clay—himself a defeated candidate—was decisively thrown for Adams +against Jackson, and Clay served as President Adams's Secretary of +State. The two men supplemented each other well; Clay less austerely +virtuous, but far more lovable; his personal ideals less exacting, but +his sympathies wider. The co-operation between them was honorable to +both and serviceable to the country; but partisan bitterness stigmatized +it as a corrupt alliance; the air was full of suspicion and jealousy +toward the cultivated and prosperous class that had hitherto supplied +the chiefs of the government, and the rising democratic sentiment found +a most congenial hero in Andrew Jackson.</p> + +<p>He was a rough backwoodsman; a fighter by nature and a passable soldier; +a staunch friend and a patriot at heart; ignorant, wholly unversed in +statesmanship, arbitrary in temper, and inclined to judge all subjects +from a personal standpoint. He easily defeated Adams for the Presidency +in 1828. His election marked the ascendancy, long to continue, of a more +ignoble element in the nation's political life. His administration began +the employment of the spoils system; and it "handled intricate financial +problems as a monkey might handle the works of a watch." Jackson had +small regard for the rights of those who got in the way of himself, his +party, or his country; he had trampled recklessly on the Indian; and his +triumph fell as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> heavy discouragement on the quiet but widespread +movement to elevate the negro. He treated all questions in a personal +way; and the first great battle of his administration was to compel +social recognition in Washington for the wife of one of his cabinet +members whose reputation scandal had breathed upon, unjustly as Jackson +believed. In the revolt against her recognition a leader was the +Vice-President, John C. Calhoun, himself a man of blameless morals and +an advocate of the highest social standards. He thereby lost at once the +favor of Jackson, which was transferred to Martin Van Buren, a wily New +York politician, quite ready to call on any lady or support any policy +that his chief might approve. The breach between Jackson and Calhoun was +widened by the disclosure of an old political secret, probably by +Crawford of Georgia, a disappointed Presidential aspirant. Jackson's +administration naturally fell more and more into the hands of mediocre +men.</p> + +<p>Calhoun had already had a long term of distinguished public service; he +had been one of the group of young men who came to the front in urging +on the war of 1812; he had served with success in the cabinet and twice +been chosen to the Vice-Presidency. He was of high personal character; a +keen logician and debater; a leader who impressed himself by the +strength of his character and depth of his convictions. Adams wrote of +him in 1821: "He is above all sectional and factious prejudices, more +than any other statesman of this Union with whom I have ever acted." He +was ambitious of the Presidency, an ambition which saw itself defeated +when Van Buren became the heir-apparent of the Jackson dynasty. A true +lover of his country, his predominant devotion came to be given to his +own section, and that temper fell in with events to make him the +foremost champion of the South.</p> + +<p>The prominence of the personal element in public affairs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> was connected +with the absence of any clear and deep division upon large questions of +policy. There emerged a group of ideas constituting what was called the +"American system," of which Clay was the foremost advocate, and which +became the basis of the Whig party, as it was organized in the early +'30's. Its general principle was the free use of the Federal +government's resources for the industrial and commercial betterment of +the people; and its prominent applications were a national bank, a +system of national highroads and waterways, and a liberal use of the +protective principle in tariff laws. "Protection to American industry" +was the great cry by which Clay now rallied his followers. The special +direction of this protection was in favor of American manufacturers. By +very high taxes levied on imported goods, the price of those was +necessarily raised to the consumer, and the American maker of clothes, +cutlery, and so on, was enabled to raise his own prices correspondingly. +Naturally, this result was most gratifying to the manufacturer and his +dependents and allies. No less naturally, it was highly objectionable to +the consumer. But to the consumer it was pointed out that by thus +fostering the "infant industries" of his country they would be +strengthened to the point where they could and would supply him with his +goods far more cheaply than would otherwise be possible. But this +pleasing promise, held out now for some seventy-five years, somehow +failed to quite satisfy the consumer; and where whole classes and +sections were consumers only, from the tariff standpoint, and saw +themselves mulcted for the benefit of classes and sections already +richer than they, they grumbled loudly, and did not always stop with +grumbling. So when in 1828 a tariff was enacted imposing very high +duties on most manufactured articles, and which delighted the hearts of +New England and Middle States manufac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>turers, it was so obnoxious to +others that the name was fastened to it of "the tariff of abominations," +and history has never changed that name.</p> + +<p>There were hopes of relief under Jackson, but in the confusion of party +issues, and with the tariff supported by the consolidated strength of +the manufacturers—a consolidation powerful enough to make Webster its +spokesman in Congress; a consolidation as definite and resolute as that +of the slave-holders, and destined to be far longer-lived,—no change in +legislation came till 1832, and then the change was immaterial; the +"tariff of abominations" was substantially re-enacted. The South had +been chafing bitterly, and now South Carolina broke into open revolt. +The whole South felt itself aggrieved by the tariff. Its industrial +system was not suited to develop manufactures; it lacked the material +for skilled labor; it lacked the artisan class who create a demand. Its +staple industry was agriculture, the growth of tobacco, rice, sugar, and +above all, cotton, and it went to the North and to Europe for its +manufactured goods. A system of taxation which doubled the price of its +imports without helping its exports, was resented as unjust, and as +hostile to the spirit if not the letter of the Constitution.</p> + +<p>South Carolina took the lead, and indeed stood alone, in applying a +remedy more drastic than the disease—nullification. Calhoun's logic +welded and sharpened the weapon which had behind it almost the entire +weight of the State. The precise relation of the States to the Union, +left indeterminate in the Constitution, and debated in every crisis +which had strained the bonds, was now asserted by Calhoun to involve the +right of any State to declare null and void any action of the Federal +Congress which impaired its rights. South Carolina now put the theory +into action. She held near the close of 1832 a convention,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> which +declared the tariff law unconstitutional and void; asserted that the +State would no longer pay duties under it, and if coercion was attempted +would secede outright.</p> + +<p>Congress discussed the matter; and in the most memorable and classic of +Senate debates, Hayne of South Carolina vindicated the State's position +with logic, passion, and eloquence; while Webster replied with an equal +logic, a broader and higher ideal of nationality, a vindication of New +England which thrilled all hearts, and a patriotism which gave the +keynote to the ultimate triumph of the Union. Hitherto, Massachusetts +and South Carolina had each stood stiffly at times for her own way, even +at peril of the national bond; but in that hour the individuality of +South Carolina was merged in the slave-holding States, and that of +Massachusetts in a Union, one and indivisible.</p> + +<p>The challenge of South Carolina was promptly answered by Jackson, just +re-elected President. He issued a proclamation, proclaiming +nullification as political heresy, and threatening to treat its +practical exercise as treason. But the situation was not destined to +settlement by the high hand. Webster favored such a settlement; he was +for no concession. As well make the issue now as ever, he said. The +President's friends introduced a bill giving him authority, if +nullification were insisted on, to close ports of entry, collect duties +by military force, and the like; "the force bill," it was called. But +the "tariff of abominations" was not the most satisfactory or promising +ground on which to assert the national sovereignty. And Jackson was +hardly a desirable man to intrust with indefinite military power. So +urged the timid or the moderate, and Clay was again the spokesman of +compromise. He brought in a tariff bill, by which all duties above 20 +per cent. were to be gradually reduced until in 10 years they reached +that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> figure, at which they were to remain. This bill and the force bill +were passed together, and signed the same day. Confronted by the +government with the sword in one hand and the olive branch in the other, +South Carolina retracted—it was not a capitulation—and repealed the +ordinance. Nullification as a theory passed out of sight. But the +willingness of the extreme South to push to all lengths its resistance +to a hostile policy remained, and was felt in all that followed.</p> + +<p>It was a distinct tradition among Calhoun's followers after his +death—and they followed him till Appomattox—that he privately gave as +a reason for making the first battle on the tariff question rather than +on slavery, that on the first the world's sympathies would be with them, +and on slavery against them. The same tradition ascribed to Calhoun the +prediction that the Northern influence would become predominant in the +Union about 1860. Whether or not Calhoun said these things, the tariff +issue certainly was brought on by the North; and the "compromise" on it +was a substantial victory gained by South Carolina for the South. The +final verdict of history may be that it was a just victory, won by +unjust means. Calhoun now stood forth the recognized leader of his +section, while it soon became apparent that of that section slavery was +the special bond, and was to be its avowed creed.</p> + +<p>Almost unobserved for a time amid these exciting events, the debate over +slavery had been going on, transferred mainly from the political field +to the minds and consciences of individuals. Once in State politics it +came to an issue. Illinois, a free State without question at its +admission in 1818, had a majority of its early immigrants from the +South, and a determined effort was made to introduce slavery by law. It +met a still more vigorous resistance, in which the Methodist and Baptist +clergy, mainly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> Southern men, took a leading part. The opposition was +led by a Southerner, Gov. Edward Coles, one of the forgotten heroes. +Inheriting in Virginia some hundreds of slaves, and hindered by the +State laws from emancipating them, he took them all to Illinois, gave +them their freedom, supplied them with land, cabins, stock, and tools, +and watched and befriended them till they became self-supporting. In +each deed of emancipation he gave his testimony: "Whereas, I do not +believe a man can have a right of property in his fellow men ... I do +therefore ... restore to the said —— that inalienable liberty of which +they have been deprived." He led the fight against the introduction of +slavery into Illinois to a decisive victory in 1824. A few more such men +throughout the South, and history would have been different.</p> + +<p>A quiet advocacy of anti-slavery went on throughout the country, except +the extreme South. It was in sympathy with the general revival of +religious activity which began about 1815—a form of the new national +life, disentangled from European complications, and free for home +conquests and widening achievements. Three great evils aroused the +spirit of reform—intemperance, slavery, and war. The general assembly +of the Presbyterian church, representing the whole country, in 1818, by +a unanimous vote, condemned slavery as "a gross violation of the most +sacred and precious rights of human nature, and utterly inconsistent +with the law of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as +ourselves." In 1824-7 the Legislatures of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New +Jersey passed resolutions calling on Congress to provide for compensated +emancipation, and expressing willingness that their States should pay +their share of the burden. This last sentiment was a rare one; the +self-sacrifice it demanded from the non-slave-holding States was very +little in evidence during<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> the long contest that followed; men would +speak and vote for freedom; when angry enough they would fight—to +defeat the master and incidentally to free the slave—but to pay, in +cold blood, and in heavy measure, for the ransom of the slaves, was a +different matter; and few were they who, like Lincoln, favored that way +out. The action of those three Legislatures marked the height of the +early anti-slavery tide, and prompted a hope which was never fulfilled.</p> + +<p>In the decade 1820-30, more than 100 anti-slavery societies were +established in slave States (see <i>James G. Birney and His Times</i>, an +admirable exposition of the conservative anti-slavery movement). The +Manumission Society of North Carolina in 1825 took a kind of census of +the State, and concluded that of its people 60 in 100 favored +emancipation in some form. In the same year a pamphlet published in +Charleston, S. C., on "The Critical Situation and Future Prospects of +the Slave-Holding States," bitterly declared that the whole book and +newspaper press of the North and East teemed with articles on slavery. +In Maryland, an anti-slavery party in 1826 elected two members to the +House of Delegates; but this movement disappeared on the election of +Jackson two years later. In Alabama, Birney, a man of a fine type, and +growing toward leadership, secured in 1827 the passage of a law +forbidding the importation of slaves as merchandise; but this was +repealed two years later. So the wave flowed and ebbed, but on the whole +it seemed to advance.</p> + +<p>Among local societies in the Northern States, one may be instanced in +New Haven, Ct., in which, in 1825, five young men associated themselves; +among them were Edward Beecher, Leonard Bacon, and Theodore D. Woolsey. +They were highly practical; their immediate aims were: First to elevate +the black population of New Haven; secondly, to influence public +sentiment in the city and State;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> and thirdly, to influence the +theological students in Yale college. So faithful were their labors in +their own city for its black population—described as in most wretched +condition, which seems to have been the case with most of the blacks at +the North in this period—that six years later Garrison pronounced them +more comfortable and less injured by prejudice than in any other place +in the Union. The young men of the New Haven and Andover seminaries +united in a project of a college for the blacks; strong support was +obtained; but the fierce wave of reaction following Nat Turner's revolt +swept it away. Lane seminary at Cincinnati, a Presbyterian stronghold, +became a center of enthusiastic anti-slavery effort, with the brilliant +young Theodore D. Weld as its foremost apostle; he was welcomed and +heard in the border slave States. The authorities of the college, +alarmed by the audacity of their pupils, tried to restrain the movement, +and the result was a great secession of students.</p> + +<p>The seceders proposed to form a theological department at Oberlin +College (established two years before) if they could have Charles G. +Finney, the famous revivalist, as their teacher. But Finney declined to +take the place until the conservative trustees consented to admit +colored youths to the College; and thus Oberlin became an anti-slavery +stronghold.</p> + +<p>As the anti-slavery movement developed, the call for immediate +liberation became more insistent and imperative. The colonization method +lost credit. Slavery was coming to be regarded by its opponents not +merely as a social evil to be eradicated, but as a personal sin of the +slave-holder, to be renounced as promptly as any other sin. John Wesleys +words were a keynote: "Instantly, at any price, were it the half of your +goods, deliver thyself from blood-guiltiness!" A Virginia minister, Rev. +George Bourne, pub<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>lished in 1816 <i>Slavery and the Book Irreconcilable</i>, +in which he said: "The system is so entirely corrupt that it admits of +no cure but by a total and immediate abolition." Two other Southern +ministers, James Duncan and John Rankin, wrote to the same effect. In +England, the abolition of slavery in the West India colonies was being +persistently urged; the impulse was a part of the philanthropic movement +that went along with the evangelical revival, and Wilberforce was its +leader. These English abolitionists were coming to "immediatism" from +1824, and their influence told in America.</p> + +<p>Among the most unselfish and devoted laborers for the slave was Benjamin +Lundy. He was a Quaker by birth and training; he overtaxed his strength +and permanently impaired his hearing by prematurely trying to do a man's +work on his father's farm in New Jersey, and settled at the saddler's +trade in Wheeling, Va., in 1808. With the outlawing of the African slave +trade, there was beginning the sale of slaves from Virginia to the +Southern cotton-fields, and the sight of the sorrowful exiles moved +Lundy's heart to a lifelong devotion of himself to pleading the cause of +the slave. Infirm, deaf, unimpressive in speech and bearing, trudging on +long journeys, and accepting a decent poverty, he gave all the resources +of a strong and sweet nature to the service of the friendless and +unhappy. He supported himself by his trade, while he lectured and wrote. +He established in 1821 a weekly <i>Genius of Universal Emancipation</i>, at +Mt. Pleasant, O., starting without a dollar of capital and only six +subscribers; and at first walking twenty miles every week to the +printing press, and returning with his edition on his back. Four years +later he moved his paper to Baltimore. Anti-slavery agitation was still +tolerated in the border States, though once Lundy was attacked by a +bully who almost murdered him. When<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> the impending election of Jackson +in 1828 came as a chill to the anti-slavery cause, the waning fortunes +of his paper sent Lundy to Boston to seek aid. There he found sympathy +in a number of the clergy, though fear of arousing the hostility of the +South kept them cautious. Dr. Channing wrote to Daniel Webster, +expressing the fullest sympathy with Lundy's devotion to freedom, but +also the gravest apprehension that unless the slaveholders were +approached in a spirit of friendliness rather than denunciation, there +would result a sectional strife fraught with the greatest danger. We +should say to the South, wrote Channing, "Slavery is your calamity and +not your crime"; and the whole nation should assume the burden of +emancipation, meeting the expense by the revenue from the sale of public +lands. In this brief letter of Channing's there is more of true +statesmanship than in all the utterances of the politicians of his day.</p> + +<p>But Lundy (himself not given to denunciation) made one convert of a very +different temper from Channing's or his own—William Lloyd Garrison, a +young man educated in a printing-office, fearless, enthusiastic, and +energetic in the highest degree. Quickly won to the emancipation idea, +and passing soon to full belief in immediate and uncompensated +liberation, he allied himself with Lundy as the active editor of the +<i>Genius</i>, while the older man devoted himself to traveling and +lecturing. The <i>Genius</i> at once became militant and aggressive. The +incidents which constantly fell under Garrison's eye—slave auctions and +whippings—fanned the fire within him. One day, for example, a slave +came into the office, told his story, and showed the proofs. His master +had lately died, leaving him his freedom, which was to be legally +effected in a few weeks; but in the meantime the overseer under whom he +worked, displeased at his way of loading a wagon, flogged him with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> a +cowhide so severely that his back showed twenty-seven terrible gashes. +Garrison appealed to the master's heirs for redress, but was repelled +with contumely. Presently he assailed an old fellow-townsman in +Newburyport, Mass., because a ship he owned had been employed to +transport a cargo of slaves from Baltimore to New Orleans. The +denunciation was unmeasured; the ship-owner brought suit, and as some +points in the article were not sustained by the evidence, Garrison was +fined $100. Unable to pay he went to jail, bearing his captivity with +courage and high cheer, till Arthur Tappan, a New York merchant and a +leader in the anti-slavery cause, paid his fine and released him. The +<i>Genius</i> being ruined, Garrison transferred his field of labor to +Boston, where, at the beginning of 1831, he started the weekly +<i>Liberator</i>. He and his partner, Isaac Knapp, did all the work of every +kind, living principally on bread and water, and with only six hours a +week, and those at midnight, for Garrison to write his articles. The +paper's motto was: "Our country is the world, our countrymen are all +mankind." In his salutatory Garrison wrote: "I will be as harsh as truth +and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think +or speak or write with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on +fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife +from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate +her babe from the fire into which it has fallen,—but urge me not to use +moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest—I will not +equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retract a single inch—and I +will be heard!"</p> + +<p>While Garrison's language was constantly such as to arouse passion to +the boiling point, he was always in theory a supporter of peace, opposed +to war under any conditions, and even to resistance of force by force. +But in 1829 there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> appeared a pamphlet of a different tenor; an +<i>Appeal</i>, by Walker, a Boston negro, addressed directly to the slaves. +It was a fiery recital of their wrongs and an incitement to forcible +redress. Its appearance in the South caused great excitement. The +Governors of Virginia and Georgia sent special messages to their +Legislatures about it. Garrison wrote of it, in the <i>Genius</i>: "It +breathes the most impassioned and determined spirit. We deprecate its +publication, though we cannot but wonder at the bravery and intelligence +of its author." Garrison's biographers—his sons—speak of Walker as "a +sort of John the Baptist to the new anti-slavery dispensation." It was +well for the Baptist that his head was out of Herod's reach. The Georgia +Legislature passed in a single day a bill forbidding the entry of free +negroes into the State, and making "the circulation of pamphlets of evil +tendency among our domestics" a capital offense.</p> + +<p>Large as these events loom in the retrospect, they were comparatively +little noticed in their time. Virginia held in 1830 a convention for the +revision of her constitution; among its members were Madison, Monroe, +and Randolph; and emancipation was not even mentioned. Jefferson was +dead, and the spirit of Jefferson seemed dead. Then the unexpected +happened. There was a negro preacher, a slave named Nat Turner. He was a +man of slight figure, reputed among his people a sort of prophet, +addicted to visions and rhapsodies. He planned in 1831 an uprising of +the slaves. He circulated among them a document written in blood, with +cabalistic figures, and pictures of the sun and a crucifix. One night he +and a group of companions set out on their revolt. Others joined them +voluntarily or by impressment till they numbered forty. They began by +killing Turner's master and his family; then they killed a lady and her +ten children; they attacked a girls' boarding-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>school and killed all the +inmates. Houses stood open and unguarded, and most of the white men were +away at a camp-meeting. From Sunday night till Monday noon the band went +on its way unchecked, and killed sixty persons. Then the neighborhood +rallied and overcame them; slew several on the spot; but held the rest +for trial, which was held regularly and fairly, and thirteen were +executed. The origin of the outbreak remained mysterious. Turner said on +his trial that he had not been unkindly treated, and there was no +evidence of provocation by special abuse. There was no trace of any +instigation from the North in any form. It seemed not a stroke for +freedom by men worthy to be free; not even a desperate revolt against +intolerable wrong; but more like an outbreak of savagery, the uprising +of the brute in man, thirsty for blood. The fear at first prevailed that +there existed a widespread conspiracy, and various legislation for +protection and repression was enacted or discussed.</p> + +<p>But the larger mind of Virginia was moved toward a radical treatment of +the disease itself, instead of its symptoms. In the next session of the +Legislature, 1831-2, proposals for a general emancipation were brought +forward, and the whole subject was canvassed in a long and earnest +debate. For slavery on its merits hardly a word of defense was spoken. +The moral condemnation was not frequent or strong, but the economic +mischief was conceded by almost all. It was recognized that labor was +debased; manufactures and immigration were discouraged; the yeomanry +were leaving the State. One bold speaker declared that the masters were +not entitled to compensation, since property condemned by the State as a +nuisance brings no award of damages to the owner. But the general +agreement was that emancipation should be compensated and gradual, and +that the blacks must be removed from the State. One plan was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> that they +should be deported in a body to Africa; another, that the +increase—about 6000 a year—should be so deported; while Thomas +Jefferson Randolph urged a plan which recalled that framed by his uncle, +Thomas Jefferson, half a century before. He proposed that the owner +should maintain the slave-child till the age of eighteen or twenty-one, +his labor for the last six or eight years being regarded as compensation +for the expense of infancy; and that the slave should then be hired out +till he had earned his passage to Africa. But, whatever the method, let +decisive action be taken, and taken now! The Legislature, it is said, +was largely made up of young and inexperienced men. Would not the +courage and hopefulness of Virginia youth essay this great deliverance? +Older voices bade them to the task. Said the Richmond <i>Enquirer</i> (edited +by the elder Ritchie), January 7, 1832: "Means, sure but gradual, +systematic but discreet, ought to be adopted for reducing the mass of +evil which is pressing upon the South, and will still more press upon +her the longer it is put off. We say, now, in the utmost sincerity of +our hearts, that our wisest men cannot give too much of their attention +to this subject, nor can they give it too soon." It was one of the +decisive hours of history:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>But the task was too great, or the life-long habit of the slave-owner +had been too enervating. The apparent expense, the collision of +different plans, the difficulty in revolutionizing the whole industrial +system, the hold of an aristocracy affording to its upper class a +fascinating leisure and luxury—these, and the absence of any high moral +inspiration in the movement, brought it to naught. Instead of decreeing +emancipation, the Legislature fell back on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> the policy of stricter +repression. It enacted that the advocacy of rebellion by writing or +printing should be a penitentiary offense, and to express the opinion +that masters had no rights to their slaves was made punishable by a fine +of $500 and one year in jail. To advise conspiracy was treason and its +punishment death. It had been enacted a year before that no white man be +allowed to assemble slaves to instruct them in reading and writing; and +to this it was now added that neither slaves nor free negroes be allowed +to preach.</p> + +<p>And so Virginia abdicated her old-time leadership in the cause of human +rights, and the primacy of the South passed to South Carolina and to +Calhoun, the champion of slavery.</p> + +<p>In the meantime the organization of the radical anti-slavery force went +on at the North. In 1832 Garrison, Oliver Johnson and ten others +constituted themselves the New England Anti-slavery Society. Almost its +first attack was directed against the Colonization Society, Garrison +being always as fierce against half-way friends as against pronounced +foes. In 1833 a little group of more moderate but resolute men organized +a local association in New York city, and under their call the American +Anti-slavery Society held its first meeting in Philadelphia, in +December. Among the New York leaders were Arthur and Lewis Tappan, +merchants of high standing and men of well-balanced and admirable +character; with them were associated Joshua Leavitt and Elizur Wright. +Among the Massachusetts recruits was Whittier. The sixty-four members +were largely made up of merchants, preachers, and theological students. +Almost all were church members; twenty-one Presbyterians or +Congregationalists, nineteen Quakers, and one Unitarian,—Samuel J. May. +There was a noticeable absence of men versed in public affairs. The +constitution was carefully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> drawn to safeguard the society against the +imputation of unconstitutional or anarchic tendencies. It declared that +the right to legislate for the abolition of slavery existed only in the +Legislature of each State; that the society would appeal to Congress to +prohibit the interstate slave trade, to abolish slavery in the District +of Columbia and the territories, and to admit no more slave States; and +that the society would not countenance the insurrection of slaves. +Garrison, who had been visiting the Abolitionists in England, was not +among the signers of the call to the convention, and the constitution +was hardly in the line of his views; but he wrote a declaration of +principles which after some debate was adopted. It was impassioned and +unsparing; pictured the woes of the slaves and the essential wickedness +of the system; denounced compensation and colonization; declared that +"all laws admitting the right of slavery are before God utterly null and +void" and "ought instantly to be abrogated"; and called for a universal +and unresting agitation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>CALHOUN AND GARRISON</h3> + + +<p>Thus, with the beginning of the second third of the nineteenth century, +the issue as to American slavery was distinctly drawn, and the leading +parties to it had taken their positions. Let us try to understand the +motive and spirit of each.</p> + +<p>In the new phase of affairs, the chief feature was the changed attitude +of the South. In the sentiment of its leading and representative men, +there had been three stages: first, "slavery is an evil, and we will +soon get rid of it"; next, "slavery is an evil, but we do not know how +to get rid of it"; now it became "slavery is good and right, and we will +maintain it." To this ground the South came with surprising suddenness +in the years immediately following 1833. What caused the change? The +favorite Southern explanation has been that the violence of the +Abolitionists exasperated the South, checked its drift toward +emancipation, and provoked it in self-defense to justify and extend its +system. This may be effective as a criticism of the extreme +Abolitionists, but as regards the South it is rather a confession than a +defense. On a subject involving its whole prosperity, its essential +character, its relation to the world's civilization, did it reverse its +course at the bitter words of a few critics? If that were true, it would +bespeak passionate irritability, an incapacity for the healthy +give-and-take of practical life, in keeping with the worst that could be +said of the effect of slavery on the master. In truth the violence of +Garrison and his few followers was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> but a minor element in the case. +Slavery had become immensely profitable; it was the corner-stone of a +social fabric in which the upper class had an extremely comfortable +place; it was involved with the whole social and political life of the +section. It was too important to be dealt with half-heartedly: it must +be accepted, justified, believed in,—or it must be abandoned. John +Randolph of Roanoke had said of slavery: "We are holding a wolf by the +ears; it is perilous alike to hold on or to let go." But one or the +other must be done, and the South elected to keep on holding the wolf.</p> + +<p>The better to understand the developments of the following years, it +will be well to consider a group of representative men,—Calhoun, +Garrison, Birney, Channing, and Webster.</p> + +<p>Calhoun had many of the elements of high statesmanship—clear views, +strong convictions, forcible speech. He was ambitious, but in no ignoble +fashion; he often served his country well, as in his efficient +administration of the war department under Munroe, his protest against +the spoils system and the personal government of Jackson, and his +influence in averting war with England over the Oregon boundary in +1845-46. After the Presidency was clearly out of his reach—from +1832—he was growingly identified with and devoted to the interests of +his own section, yet always with a patriotic regard for the Union as a +whole. He had that fondness for theories and abstractions which was +characteristic of the Southern statesmen, fostered perhaps by the +isolated life of the plantation. With this went a kind of provincialism +of thought, bred from the wide difference which slavery made from the +life of the world at large. When Calhoun, in one of his Senate orations +was magnifying the advantage of slave over free labor, Wade of Ohio, who +sat listening intently, turned to a neighbor and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> exclaimed: "That man +lives off of all traveled roads!" He had neither the arts nor the +magnetism of the popular politician; he won no such personal following +as Clay and Jackson; but the South more and more accepted him as the +most logical and far-seeing champion of its peculiar interests.</p> + +<p>His personality had much in common with Jonathan Edwards. There was in +both the same inflexible logic and devotion to ideas, the same personal +purity and austerity. The place of the mystic's fire which burned in +Edwards was taken in Calhoun by a passionate devotion to the +commonwealth. In both there was a certain moral callousness which made +the one view with complacence a universe including a perpetual hell of +unspeakable torments; while the other accepted as the ideal society a +system in which the lowest class was permanently debased. Each was the +champion of a cause destined to defeat because condemned by the moral +sentiment of the world,—Edwards the advocate of Calvinism, and Calhoun +of slavery.</p> + +<p>Calhoun is to be regarded as a typical slave-holder of the better class. +He owned and cultivated a plantation with several hundred slaves; spent +much time upon it; made it profitable, and dispensed a generous +hospitality. Such a plantation was a little community, organized and +administered with no small labor and skill; with house servants, often +holding a friendly and intimate relation with the family; with a few +trained mechanics and a multitude of field hands. As to physical comfort +the slaves were probably as well or better provided than the bulk of +European peasantry,—this on the testimony of witnesses as unfriendly to +slavery as Fanny Kemble and Dr. Channing. Order and some degree of +morality were enforced, and religion, largely of the emotional type, +prevailed widely. So much may be said, perhaps, for the average +plantation, certainly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> for the better class, and a very large class. +Joseph Le Conte, the eminent scientist, a writer of the highest credit, +in his pleasing autobiography describes his boyhood on a Georgia +plantation, and characterizes his father as a man of rare excellence to +whom he owed the best of his mental inheritance. He writes of him: "The +best qualities of character were constantly exercised in the just, wise, +and kindly management of his 200 slaves. The negroes were strongly +attached to him, and proud of calling him master.... There never was a +more orderly, nor apparently a happier working class than the negroes of +Liberty county as I knew them in my boyhood."</p> + +<p>Against this description are to be set such statements as this made by +Frederick Law Olmsted, after many months of travel in the South: "The +field hand negro is on an average a very poor and a very bad creature, +much worse than I had supposed before I had seen him and grown familiar +with his stupidity, indolence, duplicity, and sensuality. He seems to be +but an imperfect man, incapable of taking care of himself in a civilized +manner, and his presence in large numbers must be considered a dangerous +circumstance to a civilized people." Olmsted saw no resource but gradual +emancipation with suitable training. A resident of this same Liberty +county, Rev. C. C. Jones, himself a staunch supporter of slavery, but +urgent for giving better religious instruction to the slaves, wrote in +1842; "That the negroes are in a degraded state is a fact, so far as my +knowledge extends, universally conceded.... Negro marriages are neither +recognized nor protected by law. Uncleanness—this sin may be considered +as universal.... They are proverbial thieves." But how could "religious +instruction" produce chastity in those for whom the law did not +recognize marriage, or honesty in those who themselves were stolen?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the bright side of the medal, which had so dark an obverse, was the +interpretation on which Calhoun and the slave-holding class took their +stand. They resolutely ignored the frequent abuses and the essential +degradation of manhood. They fashioned the theory—it was the old +familiar theory of past ages, but had fallen out of sight in the +enthusiasm of the revolutionary period—that society rightly and +properly is constituted with a servile class as its base. Calhoun +declared: "I hold that there never has yet existed a wealthy and +civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in +point of fact, live on the labor of the other." And generally, he adds, +the condition of the laborer has been worse than it now is in the South. +In advance of civilization, he declares, there always comes a conflict +between capital and labor; and this conflict the South avoids by +unflinchingly holding the laborer in his subject condition.</p> + +<p>Calhoun is dead, and slavery is dead, but the ideas he then avowed are +still powerfully, if more latently, asserting themselves in our social +order.</p> + +<p>For these theories the slave-holders now found justification from the +ministers of religion. The South held more tenaciously than any other +section to the old-fashioned type of Christianity. In earlier days, +religious teachers—as in the unanimous vote of the Presbyterian General +Assembly in 1818—had held slavery to be "utterly inconsistent with the +law of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves." But +now the Southern ministers of all denominations appealed for ample +justification to slavery as it was permitted under the Jewish law, and +as it existed in the time of Christ and the Apostles, and was unrebuked +by them. They went further back, and in the curse pronounced by Noah +upon the unfilial Ham and his posterity, they found warrant for holding +the African in perpetual bondage. So<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> the South closed up its ranks, in +Church and State, and answered its critics with self-justification, and +with counterattack on what it declared to be their unconstitutional, +anarchic, and infidel teachings.</p> + +<p>The agitation against slavery took on a new phase with the appearance of +Garrison and his founding of the <i>Liberator</i> and the New England +Anti-slavery Society in 1831. Garrison was filled and possessed with one +idea—the wrongs of the slave, and the instant, pressing, universal duty +of giving him freedom. It was in him an unselfish and heroic passion. +For it he cheerfully accepted hardship, obloquy, peril. He saw no +difficulties except in the sin of wrongdoers and their allies; the only +course he admitted was immediate emancipation by the master of his human +property, and the instant coöperation and urgency of all others to this +end. His words were charged with passion; they kindled sympathetic souls +with their own flame; they roused to a like heat those whom they +assailed; and they sent thrills of alarm, wonder, and wrath, through the +community. Wherever the <i>Liberator</i> went, or the lecturers of the new +anti-slavery societies were heard, there could be no indifference or +forgetfulness as to slavery. Hitherto, to the immense mass of people +throughout the North, it had been a far-away and unimportant matter. Now +it was sent home to the business and bosoms of all men.</p> + +<p>The anti-slavery movement changed its character. Garrison entered on a +very active campaign, lecturing and establishing local societies. +Prominent among his assistants was George Thompson, one of the English +Abolitionists, who, after the emancipation of the West India slaves by +the British government at a cost of £20,000,000, came to this country +and acted as Garrison's ally, winning some converts by his eloquence, +but heightening the unpopularity of the movement through the general +hostility to foreign<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> interference. The early societies had been largely +in the border States, and their efforts had an immediate object in the +political action of their own communities. Now, the resentment and fear +of the slave-holding interest soon drove them out of those communities. +They spread faster than ever,—in a few years it was said that they were +1300,—but were confined to the free States. What immediate and +practical aim could they pursue? It was the question of practical action +that brought Garrison's views to a sharp test, and soon divided him from +the great body of anti-slavery people.</p> + +<p>In Garrison's mind there was room for only one idea at a time. Slavery +was a crime, a sin, an abomination,—that to him was the first, the +last, the whole truth of the matter. He had little education, and he had +not in the least a judicial or an open mind. It was to him clear and +certain that the blacks were in every way the equal of the whites. Of +the complexity of human society; of the vital necessity of a political +bond uniting communities, and of the inevitable imperfections and +compromises which are the price of an established social order; of the +process of evolution by which humanity slowly grows from one stage into +another; of the fact that the negro was in some ways better as a slave +in America than as a savage in Africa, and that there must be other +intermediate stages in his development; of the consideration due to +honest differences of opinion and to deeply-rooted habits—of all this +Garrison was as ignorant as a six-years-old child. When facts came in +his way, he denied them; when institutions stood across his path, he +denounced them; when men differed from him, he assailed them.</p> + +<p>As to a practical course of action by Northern people, he was absolutely +without resource. How were they to free the slaves? Not by force—force +was to Garrison as wicked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> as slavery itself. By their votes? That was +only possible under the government as ordained by the Constitution; and +the Constitution allowed no action against slavery except by each State +for itself. The worse then for the Constitution! Ere many years Garrison +declared, and put as a standing heading to the <i>Liberator</i>: "The United +States Constitution Is a Covenant with Death and an Agreement with +Hell." He went further; for a time at least he held that all human +governments, as resting on force, were sinful, and to be ignored, or +passively submitted to, without taking active part. He declared the +Union, as a compact with slave-holders, was worthy only to be dissolved. +But how even dissolve it, since he counselled his followers not to vote? +And if it were dissolved, how would the slaves be any nearer freedom? +Was there any possible good outcome to non-voting and dissolution of the +Union, except that there would then be no complicity with slave-holders? +And would such escape from complicity be any help to the slave, any +service to humanity, anything more than an egotistic separation from +political society, a mere refined selfishness?</p> + +<p>Such questions never troubled Garrison. Instead of answering them, he +found something else to denounce. The churches he thought were derelict, +in that they did not bear testimony against slavery. True, most of the +great religious bodies of the country were soon rent asunder on the +question: Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, were divided between +North and South, because neither side could tolerate the other's +position on slavery. But nothing satisfied Mr. Garrison. To him the +churches were "cages of unclean birds and synagogues of Satan."</p> + +<p>But if the gun was ill-aimed, at least the recoil was prodigious. It is +unreasonable to attribute principally to the violence of the <i>Liberator</i> +the new and determined rally of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> the South in defense of +slavery,—Calhoun and his followers had far wider grounds for their +action than that,—but undoubtedly that violence helped to consolidate +and intensify the Southern resistance. The Abolitionist papers were at +first sent all over the South. The Southerners saw little difference +between such papers as the <i>Liberator</i> and such direct incitements to +insurrection as Walker's <i>Appeal</i>; and the horrors of Nat Turner's +rising were fresh in mind. They put all Abolitionist teaching under a +common ban. At the North, the anti-slavery cause became associated in +the popular mind with hostility to the government, to the churches, to +the established usages of society. It was Charles Sumner who said: "An +omnibus load of Boston Abolitionists had done more harm to the +anti-slavery cause than all its enemies."</p> + +<p>Garrison's own following was soon divided, and a large part drew away +from him. The most important division came on the question of political +action, when, in the Presidential election of 1840, the practical wing +entered into the political field, as the inevitable and only arena for +effective action; nominated a candidate, and laid the foundation for the +election of Lincoln twenty years later. In the American Anti-slavery +Society there came a contest; Garrison triumphed by a narrow vote, but a +secession followed. Of his immediate and permanent allies the most +important was Wendell Phillips. He threw himself heart and soul into the +cause; he gave to it an educated and brilliant mind, and a fascinating +oratory; he was as uncompromising and censorious as Garrison.</p> + +<p>Garrison always held a place of honor and friendship among the +Abolitionists, even those who refused to follow his leadership. In +private life his genial and winning traits were as marked as was his +fierceness on the platform. The term "Abolitionist" is somewhat +indefinite, but it may best<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> be defined as denoting a person to whom the +supreme interest in public affairs was the extinction of slavery. It +included not only those who shared Garrison's ideas of non-voting and +peaceable disunion, but those, too, like Birney and Whittier, who +respected the Constitution and worked for their cause through a +political party. The term also applied to the few who, like John Brown, +would attack slavery by force of arms. On the other hand, the name +Abolitionist did not properly belong to those who were opposed to +slavery, but held that opposition along with other political tenets and +not as a supreme article of faith. These were best included under the +general term of "anti-slavery men," a designation accepted by many of +the Free Soil, Whig and Democratic parties, and later by the Republican +party. The classification cannot be made exact, but the word +"Abolitionists" generally designated the men and women to whom the +extinction of slavery was a primary interest, and who gave to it their +habitual and earnest attention, through the anti-slavery societies and +otherwise. In this broader sense, the Abolitionists were a notable +company. They were bound together by a disinterested and noble +sentiment, and by sacrifices to the cause. The hostility aroused by +Garrison, Phillips, Pilsbury, and a few like-minded associates, extended +to many who went to no such extremes. The anti-slavery speakers were +sometimes mobbed: once in Boston a rope was round Garrison's neck and +his life was in peril; meetings were broken up; and the respectable part +of the community sometimes encouraged or tolerated these assaults. +Actual physical injury was very rare, but a hostile social atmosphere +was the frequent price of fidelity to conscience.</p> + +<p>Among the most notable of the leaders was Gerritt Smith. He took active +part in politics, and was for a time in Congress. He is finely +characterized by Andrew D. White:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Of all tribunes of the people I have ever known he dwells in my memory +as possessing the greatest variety of gifts. He had the prestige given +by great wealth, by lavish generosity, by transparent honesty, by +earnestness of purpose, by advocacy of every good cause, by a superb +presence, and by natural eloquence of a very high order. He was very +tall and large, with a noble head, an earnest yet kindly face, and of +all human voices I have ever heard his was the most remarkable for its +richness, depth, and strength."</p> + +<p>Women took a prominent and honorable part; the venerable and beautiful +Lucretia Mott gave her benign presence to the gatherings; Lydia Maria +Child made heavy sacrifices in the good cause. In the common ardor, and +with a Quaker precedent, women took part as speakers. Women's rights was +closely united with anti-slavery; and hence came a fresh odium from +conservative quarters, while the admirable bearing of the leading women +won growing favor for both lines of emancipation. The makers of the new +American literature were friends of the anti-slavery cause. Emerson gave +to it his words of serene inspiration. Whittier was among its ardent +apostles, shared in its political activity, and sang lyrics of freedom. +Bryant was its strong advocate in journalism. Lowell, drawn by his noble +wife, came as a strong ally, and the Biglow Papers gave what had been +greatly lacking,—the salt of humor.</p> + +<p>The Abolitionists might be compared to a comet,—a body with a bright +head and a nebulous tail. Like all radicals and reformers they had a +fringe of unbalanced and crotchety folk. It must be said, too, that +absorption in a topic remote from the concerns of one's daily life is +apt to be somewhat distracting and demoralizing. Dr. Joseph Henry +Allen—an admirable and too little known writer—has in an eloquent and +beautiful passage described the Abolitionists (though he was not one of +them) as the devotees of a genuine and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> heroic religion. But any +adequate religion must find its main application in the duties and +services of the immediate present; and the men and women who were +possessed day and night by the wrongs of those to whom they could render +little service, were apt to be thrown out of touch with near and homely +relations, and become what are now called "cranks."</p> + +<p>But to appreciate the service of the Abolitionists we must remember that +up to the birth of the Republican party in 1854 almost all of the +political leaders and men of public affairs, as well as most of the +churches, colleges, and professional educators, held aloof from the +anti-slavery cause. With a few exceptions, they left the work of +educating public sentiment, and shaping some policy on the supreme +question, to be done by this little company,—of lecturers, ministers, +literary men and women. These did loyally and bravely according to their +lights; and they had their reward, outwardly in unpopularity and +sometimes persecution, but inwardly in a social atmosphere within their +own body, warm, joyful, and religious; and the sense of alliance with +the Divine Force in the universe. Said Wendell Phillips: "One man with +God is a majority."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>BIRNEY, CHANNING, AND WEBSTER</h3> + + +<p>Of the moderate wing of the anti-slavery men, a good representative was +James G. Birney. With the fine physical presence and genial manhood of +the typical Kentuckian, he had a well-balanced mind and a thorough +loyalty to the sense of duty, which broadened as he grew. Removing to +Alabama, he became anti-slavery in his sentiments, and he was a friend +not only of the negro, but of all who were oppressed. As the legal +representative of the Cherokee nation he stood for years between the +Indians and those who would wrong them. He identified himself for a time +with the colonization cause; and, finding himself growing powerless in +Southern communities, he removed to Ohio, where there was a strong and +vigorous anti-slavery propaganda. One incident of his life in Cincinnati +illustrates the concrete form which slavery sometimes took. A Missourian +owned a slave girl who was his own daughter, a cultivated and refined +woman. He took her to the East for a visit, treated her habitually as +one of his own family, but refused her prayers for freedom. Dreading the +possibilities of her lot, she made her escape in Cincinnati; and, +concealing her identity and history, she got a situation as a servant in +Mr. Birney's family. One day when he was absent from the city she came +home in terror; she had been recognized on the street by two +professional slave-catchers; now she told her story and implored +protection. In vain,—the officers of the law dragged her from the +house; a judge gave speedy sentence that she was a slave; she was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> taken +sobbing to jail; and the next day she was carried down the river to New +Orleans, where she was sold on the auction block,—and never heard of +again.</p> + +<p>Birney took part in the work of the new anti-slavery societies, but he +did not follow Garrison's no-government theories. He favored for a while +the policy of throwing the anti-slavery strength for such congressional +nominees of the regular parties as favored their views, and several +candidates were chosen in this way. But when Clay became pronounced +against the Abolitionists, and even John Quincy Adams, after championing +the right of petition, voted against the abolition of slavery in the +District of Columbia, Birney and his sympathizers gave up hope of help +from existing parties, and organized their own party for the election of +1840. Its principles were resistance to slavery extension, and +opposition to slavery so far as was practicable under the +Constitution,—the principles later of the Republican party. Birney was +nominated for President, and this handful of voters was the seed of the +harvest twenty years later. He was again the candidate in 1844, with an +increased support, and the party now was named "The Liberty Party."</p> + +<p>A leader and type of the moderate anti-slavery sentiment was William +Ellery Channing. In Channing was a blending of high moral ideals, +intelligent views of human nature and society, an apostle's earnestness +wedded with "sweet reasonableness," and a personal character of rare +symmetry and beauty. He was an evolutionist and not a revolutionist. +Foremost among the group of New England ministers who broadened and +ripened out of the orthodoxy of their day, and were ostracized by their +former brethren, he was forced into the position of leader of a new +sect, but his utterances and spirit were always those of a minister of +the church universal. He was the early advocate of most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> of the +religious and social reforms which have since come to the front. By +preference, he always used the methods of peace and persuasion. He had +made early acquaintance with slavery in a two-years' residence in +Richmond while a young man. He was always opposed to it, but his +attention was long absorbed by the immediate needs of his own people. He +spent half a year in Santa Cruz, for his health, in 1830-1,—just when +Garrison was starting the <i>Liberator</i>,—and slavery came home to him +with new force. The plantation on which he lived was one of the best in +the West Indies. The proprietor had taken a pride in the character and +condition of his slaves. But he had fallen into bankruptcy, his estate +had been sold, and the new proprietor left it in charge of an overseer +who was a passionate and licentious man, under whom the slaves suffered +a very different treatment. Most pathetic incidents came under Dr. +Channing's notice. But from all he saw about him he concluded that the +physical sufferings of the slaves had been exaggerated by report; that, +with occasional cruelties, they were better off as to physical comfort +than most of the European peasantry. He writes to an English +correspondent, "I suspect that a gang of negroes receive fewer stripes +than a company of soldiers of the same number in your army"; that they +are under a less iron discipline and suffer incomparably less than +soldiers in a campaign. But he adds, and always insists, that their +condition degrades them intellectually and morally, lowers them toward +the brutes, and in this respect the misery of slavery cannot be +expressed too strongly. Marriage is almost unknown; family life, with +its mutual dependence and the resulting tenderness, scarcely exists; and +thus "the poor negro is excluded from Nature's primary school for the +affections and the whole character." "The like causes are fatal to +energy, foresight, self-control."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p> + +<p>The inspiration of Channing's creed, the soul of the new movement in +religion, was the potential nobility of human nature—a nobility to be +made real by utmost effort of the individual, and by all wisest +appliances of society. It was from this standpoint that he judged +slavery, and in this spirit that while still in Santa Cruz he began to +write his treatise upon it.</p> + +<p>Returning to Boston, he spoke with clearness and weight to his +congregation: "I think no power of conception can do justice to the +evils of slavery. They are chiefly moral, they act on the mind, and +through the mind bring intense suffering to the body. As far as the +human soul can be destroyed, slavery is that destroyer." Having borne +his testimony, he devoted himself to the general work of his ministry. +The violence of the men who had come to the front in Abolitionism was +not only against his taste and feeling, but against his deep +convictions; as he had written years before to Webster, he saw in these +denunciations of the slave-holder seeds of a harvest of sectional hate +and national disaster.</p> + +<p>A characteristic conversation with him is recorded by Rev. Samuel J. +May, himself in full alliance with the Abolitionists, but a man of great +sweetness and sanity, never diverted from his religious ministry or +losing his mental balance. Dr. Channing dwelt on the excesses of the +Abolitionists until Mr. May was aroused, and broke out: "Dr. Channing, I +am tired of these complaints! The cause of suffering humanity, the cause +of our oppressed, crushed, colored countrymen, has called as loudly upon +others as upon us, who are known as the Abolitionists. But the others +have done nothing. The wise and prudent saw the wrong, but did nothing +to remove it. The priest and Levite passed by on the other side; the +children of Abraham held their peace, until 'the very stones have cried +out' against this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> tremendous wickedness. The people who have taken up +the cause may lack the calmness and discretion of scholars, clergy, and +statesmen,—but the scholars, clergy, and statesmen, have done nothing. +We Abolitionists are just what we are,—babes and sucklings, obscure +men, silly women, publicans, sinners; and we shall manage the matter we +have taken in hand just as might be expected of such persons as we are. +It is unbecoming in able men, who stood by and would do nothing, to +complain of us because we manage this matter no better."</p> + +<p>And so the torrent of words dashed upon the silent listener, until the +speaker suddenly bethought himself and stopped in abashment,—this man +he was rebuking had been to him as a father in God, his kind friend from +childhood, and first among the great and good. Almost overwhelmed by his +own temerity, he watched the agitated face of his hearer and waited in +painful suspense for the reply. At last, in a very subdued manner and in +his kindest tones of voice, he said, "Brother May, I acknowledge the +justice of your reproof; I have been silent too long."</p> + +<p>May's appeal had only quickened a little the sure work of Channing's +conscience. A few months later, in December, 1835, he published his +short treatise on <i>Slavery</i>. No weightier word on the subject was ever +spoken. If mankind were moved by their higher reason the North would not +have waited twenty years to be converted to anti-slavery by <i>Uncle Tom's +Cabin</i>. And if the South had been wise in her day, she would have +listened to this noble and persuasive utterance. No passion sullied its +temper; slave and slave-holder were held in equal regard; the case was +pleaded on irresistible grounds—of facts beyond question and rooted in +the very constitution of human nature. The needed, the righteous, the +inevitable reform, was shown as part of the upward movement of humanity, +and as appealing to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> every consideration of practical wisdom and of +justice. The little book of 150 pages deserves to be held as a classic +in American history.</p> + +<p>Channing never lost the sense of proportion in his own work. He went on +giving inspiration and leadership to religious thought and to social +advance. It was neither necessary nor possible for him to be in close +sympathy or habitual alliance with the extreme Abolitionists. But he +vindicated the right of free speech when it was denied them, and he was +recognized by the best of their number as a friend of the cause. Mrs. +Lydia Maria Child,—like Mr. May, one of the finest spirits among the +Abolitionists—wrote: "He constantly grew upon my respect, until I came +to regard him as the wisest as well as the gentlest apostle of humanity. +I owe him thanks for preserving me from the one-sidedness to which +zealous reformers are so apt to run. He never sought to undervalue the +importance of anti-slavery, but he said many things to prevent me from +looking upon it as the only question interesting to humanity."</p> + +<p>Side by side with the anti-slavery sentiment was growing another +sentiment—distinct from it, at first often in practical hostility to +it, but at last blending with it for a common triumph. It was the +sentiment of American nationality—the love of the Union. The separate +colonies were brought together in the Revolution by a common peril and a +common struggle. Then their tendency to fall apart was counteracted by +the strong bond of the Constitution and the Federal government. Diverse +interests and mutual distrust still tended to draw them asunder. With +the continuance of the Union, the strengthening of the tie by use, the +hallowing of old associations under the glamour of memory, and the +growth of the new bonds of commerce and travel, the sense of a common +country and destiny began to take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> root in the hearts of men, and on +occasion disclosed itself with the strength and nobility of a heroic +passion. True, a new rift was appearing, in the doctrine of +nullification and the question of slavery, but this evoked at times a +more militant and again a more appealing aspect in the sentiment of +union. Jackson seemed to rise from the rough frontiersman to the +guardian of the nation when he gave the word, "The Federal Union—it +must be preserved!" Clay found the noblest exercise of his eloquence and +his diplomacy in evoking the national spirit and in harmonizing the +differences which threatened it. But the most stirring voice and +effective leadership was that of Daniel Webster.</p> + +<p>As Webster is judged in the retrospect, we see that he was not so much a +statesman, still less a moral idealist, as an advocate. His lucidity of +statement and emotional power were not matched by constructive ability. +His name is associated with no great measure of administration, no large +and definite policy. He was luminous in statement rather than sagacious +in judgment, an advocate rather than a judge. On the platform or in the +Senate he was still pre-eminently the lawyer, in that, like a lawyer, he +was the representative and exponent of established interests,—not the +projector of new social adjustments. Civil law represents a vast +accumulated experience and tradition of mankind; it has been slowly +wrought out, as a regulation and adjustment of existing interests; with +an effort toward equity, as understood by the best intelligence of each +period, but always with immense regard for precedent and previous usage. +It was in this spirit, highly conservative of what has already been +secured, and extremely cautious toward radical change, that Webster +habitually dealt with political institutions. It was characteristic of +him that in the Massachusetts constitutional convention in 1820 he +pleaded strongly for the retention of the property qualification of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +voters for State senators. But when the tide moved irresistibly toward +manhood suffrage, he acquiesced.</p> + +<p>But conservative as he was by nature, he was in profound sympathy with a +sentiment which while rooted in the past was yet in the '20s and '30s a +young, plastic, growing idea,—the idea of American Union, indissoluble, +perpetual. No voice was so powerful as Webster's to fill the minds and +hearts of man with this lofty passion. His orations at Plymouth Rock, at +Bunker Hill, and upon the simultaneous deaths of Adams and Jefferson, +his vindication of the national idea against the localism of Hayne and +Calhoun,—were organ-voices of patriotism. They thrilled the souls of +those who listened; they went over the country and printed themselves on +the minds of men; school-boys declaimed passages from them; they became +part of the gospel of the American people.</p> + +<p>We may quote a single passage from the address inspired by that dramatic +circumstance, the death at once of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, on +the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence: "It cannot +be denied, but by those who would dispute against the sun, that with +America and in America a new era commences in human affairs. This era is +distinguished by free representative governments, by entire religious +liberty, by improved systems of national intercourse, by a newly +awakened and an unconquerable spirit of free inquiry, and by a diffusion +of knowledge through the community, such as has been before altogether +unknown and unheard of. America, America, our country, +fellow-countrymen, our own dear and native land, is inseparably +connected, fast bound up, in fortune and by fate, with these great +interests. If they fall, we fall with them; if they stand, it will be +because we have maintained them.... If we cherish the virtues and the +principles of our fathers, heaven will assist us to carry on the work +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> human liberty and human happiness. Auspicious omens cheer us. Great +examples are before us. Our own firmament now shines brightly upon our +paths. Washington is in the upper sky. These other stars have now joined +the American constellation; they circle round their center, and the +heavens beam with new light. Beneath this illumination let us walk the +course of life, and at its close devoutly commend our beloved country, +the common parent of us all, to the Divine Benignity."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>THE UNDERLYING FORCES</h3> + + +<p>Two master passions strove for leadership in the mind and heart of +America. One was love of the united nation and ardor to maintain its +union. The other was the aspiration to purify the nation, by removing +the wrong of slavery. Unionist and Abolitionist stood face to face. +After many years they were to stand shoulder to shoulder, in a common +cause. In a larger sense than he gave the words, Webster's utterance +became the final watchword: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and +inseparable."</p> + +<p>In the retrospect of history, our attention naturally fastens on the +conspicuous and heroic figures. But we must not forget the underlying +and often determining forces,—the interests, beliefs, and passions, of +the mass of the community. And, while listening intently to the +articulate voices, the impressive utterances, we are to remember that +the life of the community as of the individual is shaped oftenest by the +inarticulate, unavowed, half-unconscious sentiments:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Below the surface stream, shallow and light,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of what we say we feel,—below the stream,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As light, of what we think we feel, there flows</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With noiseless current, strong, obscure and deep,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The central stream of what we feel indeed.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The underlying human force in the slavery question was the primitive +instinct in man to keep all he has got; the instinct of the man who +lives at another's expense to keep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> on doing so. That underlay all the +fine theories about differences of race, all the theological deductions +from Noah's curse upon Canaan. Another great and constant factor was the +absorption of men and communities, not personally concerned in a social +wrong, in pursuits and interests of their own which shut out all outlook +beyond. In our day we hear much about the crowding rush of material +interests, but that crowd and rush was felt almost as much in the +earlier generations, when hardly less than the most strident tones of +the agitator could pierce the absorption of the street and market-place. +There was the inertia of custom; there were the commercial interests +closely interwoven of the Southern planter and the Northern +manufacturer; there was the prejudice of color and race; and all these +influences, open or latent, told powerfully for keeping slavery as it +was.</p> + +<p>The great default, the fatal failure, was the omission of the Southern +whites, especially their leaders by education and by popular +recognition, to take deliberate and systematic measures for the removal +of slavery. Difficult? Yes, very. Impossible? Why, almost every other +country of North and South America,—including the Spanish-Americans on +whom the English-Americans look down with such superiority,—these all +got rid of slavery without violence or revolution. Whatever the case +required,—of preparation, compensation, new industrial +arrangement,—the Southern whites had the whole business in their hands, +to deal with as they pleased. Whatever cries might be raised by a few +for instant and unconditional emancipation, there never was a day when +the vast mass of the American people, of all sections, were not avowedly +and unmistakably committed to letting the Southern States treat slavery +as their own matter, and deal with it as they pleased, provided only +they kept it at home. Excuses for non-action there were, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> +course,—the perplexities of the situation, the irritation of criticism +from without,—but Nature has no use for excuses. If there is a cancer +in the system it is useless to plead the expense of the surgery or the +pain of the knife. The alternative is simple—removal or death.</p> + +<p>It is always impossible to distinguish closely in the causes of events +between the action of human will and the wider forces which we call +Nature or Providence. But in some eras we distinguish more clearly than +in others the effect of human personalities. For example, in the making +of the Constitution we see a difficult situation taken wisely and +resolutely in hand by a group of strong men; they made themselves a part +of Fate. But in the fluctuating history of slavery, with its final +catastrophe, we seem to be looking at elemental movements; masses of men +drifting under impulses, with no leadership adequate to the occasion. +The men who seemingly might have mastered the situation, and brought it +to a peaceful and right solution, either could not or would not do it.</p> + +<p>What happened was, that two opposite social systems, existing within the +same political body, came into rivalry, into hostility, and at last into +direct conflict. In the early stages, slavery had on its side the +advantage of an established place under the law, the support of its +local communities becoming more and more determined, the long-time +indifference and inertia of the free States, custom, conservatism, +timidity, race prejudice. But against all this were operating steadily +two tremendous forces. In the race for industrial advantage which is at +last the decisive test, free society was superior to slave society by as +much as the freeman is superior to the slave. The advantage of the +Northern farmer or mechanic over the negro slave was the measure of the +advantage of the North over the South. In increase of wealth; in +variety, intensity, and productiveness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> of social life; in immigration; +in intellectual progress, the free States outstripped the slave States +by leaps and bounds. And, again, in the conscience of humanity,—in +mankind's sense of right and wrong, which grows ever a more potent +factor in the world's affairs,—the tide was setting steadily and +swiftly against slavery. To impatient reformers who, as Horace Mann +said, were always in a hurry, while God never is,—the tide might seem +motionless or refluent, as to him who looks hastily from the ocean +shore; but as the sea follows the moon, the hearts of men were following +the new risen luminary of humanity's God-given rights.</p> + +<p>And so, under each special phase of the conflict, slavery had against it +that dominant force which acts on one side in the material progress of +society, and on the other side in the human conscience; that +force—"some call it Evolution, and others call it God."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>THE MEXICAN WAR</h3> + + +<p>We have seen that about 1832-3 a new distinctness and prominence was +given to the slavery question by various events,—the substantial +victory of the South Carolina nullifiers, and the leadership thenceforth +of the South by Calhoun; Nat Turner's rising, and the rejection by +Virginia of the emancipation policy; the compensated liberation of the +West India slaves by the British Government; and the birth of aggressive +Abolitionism under the lead of Garrison. We have now to glance at the +main course of history for the next twenty years. Party politics had for +a time no direct relation to slavery. The new organizations of Whigs and +Democrats disputed on questions of a national bank, internal +improvements, and the tariff. The Presidency was easily won in 1836 by +Jackson's lieutenant, Van Buren; but the commercial crash of 1837 +produced a revulsion of feeling which enabled the Whigs to elect +Benjamin Harrison in 1840. His early death gave the Presidency to John +Tyler of Virginia, who soon alienated his party, and who was thoroughly +Southern in his sympathies and policy.</p> + +<p>The newly aroused anti-slavery enthusiasm in the North found expression +in petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. +It was not intrinsically a great matter, but it was the one point where +the national authority seemed clearly to have a chance to act—questions +of new territory being for the time in abeyance. Petitions poured in on +Congress with thousands of signatures—then with tens, then hundreds of +thousands. There was a hot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> struggle as to whether the petitions should +be received at all by the Senate and House. John Quincy Adams, willing +after his Presidency to serve in the humbler capacity of congressman, +was the champion of the right of petition. Calhoun had entered the +Senate in 1832 and remained there with a brief intermission until his +death in 1850. He stood independent of the two great parties, with his +own State always solidly behind him, and with growing influence over the +whole South. He was the leader in opposing the admission of the +petitions. He maintained that any discussion in Congress of such a topic +was injurious and incendiary; he voiced the new sentiment of the South +that all agitation of slavery was an invasion of its rights. "Hands +off!" was the cry. The question was settled in 1836, after long debates, +by another compromise, proposed by James Buchanan of Pennsylvania; the +petitions were given a formal reception, but instantly rejected without +debate.</p> + +<p>Another burning question was the circulation of anti-slavery documents +through the Southern mails. In 1835 a mob in Charleston broke open the +post-office, and made a bonfire of all such matter they could find. The +social leaders and the clergy of the city applauded. The +postmaster-general under Jackson, Amos Kendall, wrote to the local +postmaster who had connived at the act: "I cannot sanction and will not +condemn the step you have taken." Jackson asked Congress to pass a law +excluding anti-slavery literature from the mails. Even this was not +enough for Calhoun; he claimed that every State had a right to pass such +legislation for itself, with paramount authority over any act of +Congress. But the South would not support him in this claim; and indeed +he was habitually in advance of his section, which followed him +generally at an interval of a few years. Congress refused to pass any +law on the subject. But the end was reached without law; Southern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> +postmasters systematically refused to transmit anti-slavery +documents—even of so moderate character as the New York <i>Tribune</i>—and +this was their practice until the Civil War. "A gross infraction of law +and right!" said the North. "But," said the South, "would you allow +papers to circulate in your postoffices tending directly to breed revolt +and civil war? If the mails cannot be used in the service of gambling +and lotteries, with far more reason may we shut out incitements to +insurrection like Nat Turner's."</p> + +<p>On a similar plea all freedom of speech in Southern communities on the +question of slavery was practically denied. Anti-slavery men were driven +from their homes. In Kentucky, one man stood out defiantly and +successfully. Cassius M. Clay opposed slavery, advocated its compensated +abolition, and was as ready to defend himself with pistols as with +arguments. He stood his ground to the end, and in 1853 he settled Rev. +John G. Fee at Berea, who established a group of anti-slavery churches +and schools, which was broken up after John Brown's raid, but after the +war was revived as Berea College. But as a rule free speech in the South +was at an end before 1840. No man dared use language like that of +Patrick Henry and Madison; and Jefferson's <i>Notes on Virginia</i>, if newly +published, would have been excluded from the mails and its author +exiled.</p> + +<p>South Carolina passed a law under which negro seamen on ships entering +her ports were put in jail while their vessel remained, and if the jail +fees were not paid, they were sold into slavery. When Massachusetts +seamen suffered under this law, the State government in 1844 dispatched +an eminent citizen, Samuel Hoar, to try to secure a modification of the +enactment. Arriving in Charleston, accompanied by his daughter, Mr. Hoar +was promptly visited in his hotel by a committee of prominent men and +obliged to leave the city and State at once.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> + +<p>The North had its share of violence. In Connecticut a school for negro +children, kept by two white women, was forcibly broken up. In Illinois +in 1837 an anti-slavery newspaper office was destroyed by a mob, and its +proprietor, Elijah P. Lovejoy, was murdered.</p> + +<p>In the Presidential election of 1840 slavery was almost forgotten. The +Whigs were bent on overthrowing the Democratic administration, to which +they attributed the hard times following 1837; and they raised a popular +hurrah for the candidate of the "plain people," William Henry Harrison +of Indiana, who had won a victory over the Indians at Tippecanoe. In a +canvass where "log-cabins" and "hard cider" gave the watchwords and +emblems, national politics played little part. But now first those +resolute anti-slavery men who were determined to bring their cause +before the people as a political issue, and fight it out in that arena, +with solid ranks be their forces ever so small,—came together and +nominated for the Presidency James G. Birney. They could give him but a +handful of votes, but it was the raising of a flag which twenty years +was to carry to victory. Birney, never an extremist, had grown to a full +recognition of all that was at stake. He wrote in 1835: "The contest is +becoming—has become—not one alone of freedom for the blacks, but of +freedom for the whites.... There will be no cessation of the strife +until slavery shall be exterminated or liberty destroyed."</p> + +<p>For a dozen years there had been only skirmishing. Now came on a battle +royal, or rather a campaign, from 1844 to 1850,—the annexation of +Texas, the war with Mexico, and the last great compromise. Texas, a +province of Mexico after Mexico became free from Spain, received a +steady immigration from the American Southwestern States. These +immigrants became restive under Mexican control, declared their +independence in 1835, and practically secured it after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> sharp fighting. +Slavery, abolished under Mexico, was re-established by the republic of +Texas. From the character of its population, it seemed to gravitate +toward the United States. The keen eyes of the Southern leaders were +early fixed upon it. Annex Texas, and a great field of expansion for +slavery was open. Its votes in the Senate and House would be added to +the Southern column, and from its immense domain future States might be +carved. As early as 1829 Lundy's and Garrison's <i>Genius</i> had protested +against this scheme. The time was now ripe for carrying it out. Calhoun +was again the leader. He claimed to be "the author of annexation," and +with good reason. He exchanged the Senate for Tyler's cabinet as +Secretary of War in 1844, the change being engineered by Henry A. Wise, +one of the rising men in Virginia,—for the express purpose of bringing +in Texas. A treaty of annexation was negotiated with Texas, and sent to +the Senate. There were difficulties; the Texans had cooled in their zeal +for annexation; and the American Senate was not over-favorable. To give +the necessary impetus, Calhoun,—so says Van Holst, in his excellent and +not unfriendly biography,—fell below his habitual sincerity, and +misrepresented a dispatch of the English Foreign Secretary, Lord +Aberdeen, as showing a disposition on England's part to get hold of +Texas for herself. It was a Presidential year; the Democratic convention +nominated James K. Polk of Tennessee, and passed a resolution favoring +annexation. But Calhoun had now shown his motive so plainly that the +country took alarm, and the Senate rejected the treaty. The Whigs +nominated Clay. He was believed to be opposed to the annexation scheme, +but his hunger for the great prize betrayed him into an equivocal +expression, which lost him the confidence of the strong anti-slavery +men. Again they nominated Birney,—taking now the name of the Liberty +party—and gave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> him so many votes that the result was to lose New York +and Michigan for Clay, and Polk was elected. The administration now +claimed—though in truth the combined Whig and Liberty vote put it in a +minority—that it had received a plebiscite of popular support on its +annexation policy. Thus emboldened, its friends,—knowing that they +could not yet count on the two-thirds vote necessary for a senatorial +confirmation,—dropped the treaty altogether, and brought into Congress +a joint resolution affirming the annexation of Texas to the Union. This +won the necessary majority in both houses, and as the last act of +Tyler's administration Texas was declared a State.</p> + +<p>Calhoun now returned to the Senate,—his temporary substitute promptly +vacating at his word. Thus far he had triumphed. But his associates in +their elation were eager for another conquest. Texas is ours, now let us +have California and the Pacific! But to that end, Mexico, reluctant to +yield Texas, and wholly unwilling to cede more territory, must be +attacked and despoiled. At that proposal Calhoun drew back. It does not +appear that he had any scruples about Mexico. But, keener-sighted than +his followers, he knew that any further acquisitions to the West would +be stoutly and hopefully claimed by the North. His warning was in vain; +he had lighted a fire and now could not check it. The next step was to +force Mexico into a war. She claimed the river Nueces as her boundary +with Texas, while Texas claimed the Rio Grande. Instructions were +quietly given to General Taylor, in January, 1846, to throw his small +force into the disputed territory, so near the Rio Grande as to invite a +Mexican attack. The Mexican force did attack him, and President Polk +instantly declared that "war existed by the act of Mexico"—thus +allowing Congress no chance to pass on it. As is the way of nations, +fighting once begun, every consideration of justice was ig<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>nored and the +only word was "our country, right or wrong." Congressmen of both parties +voted whatever supplies were needed for the war; and the Whigs, trying +to throw the blame on the President, put no obstacles in the way of his +conquest of Mexico. Only one man in Congress spoke out for justice as +higher than party or country. Thomas Corwin of Ohio, in a powerful +speech, denounced the whole iniquitous business, and declared that were +he a Mexican facing the American invaders of his home, "I would welcome +them with hospitable hands to bloody graves!"</p> + +<p>The war called out another voice that went home to the heart of the +people,—the voice of James Russell Lowell in the "Biglow Papers." In +the homely Yankee vernacular he spoke for the highest conscience of New +England. The righteous wrath was winged with stinging wit and lightened +with broad humor. He spoke for that sentiment of the new and nobler +America which abhorred slavery and detested war, and saw in a war for +the extension of slavery a crime against God and man. The politician's +sophistries, the respectable conventionalities current in church and +state, found no mercy at his hands:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ez fer war, I call it murder,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There you hev it plain and flat:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I don't want to go no furder</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Than my Testyment fer that:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">God hez sed so plump an' fairly,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">It's ez long ez it is broad,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An' you've got to git up airly</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ef you want to take in God.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Tain't your eppyletts an' feathers</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Make the thing a grain more right;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Tain't a follerin' your bell-wethers</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Will excuse ye in his sight;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ef you take a sword and draw it,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">An' go stick a feller thru,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Guv'ment ain't to answer for it,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">God'll send the bill to you.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Massachusetts, God forgive her,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She's a kneelin' with the rest,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She, that ought to hav' clung forever</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In her grand old eagle-nest.</span><br /> +</p> + +<hr class='short' /> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let our dear old Bay State proudly</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Put the trumpet to her mouth,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let her ring this messidge loudly</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In the ears of all the South:</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"I'll return ye good fer evil</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Much ez we frail mortals can,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But I won't go help the Devil</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Makin' man the cus o' man;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Call me coward, call me traitor,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Jest ez suits your mean idees,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Here I stand a tyrant-hater,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">An' the friend o' God and Peace."</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>HOW DEAL WITH THE TERRITORIES?</h3> + + +<p>Meanwhile, the American army,—accepting as its sole part to obey +orders, not questioning why,—though such officers as Grant and Lee had +no liking for the task set them,—and reinforced by volunteer regiments +from the Southwest,—was steadily fighting its way to the Mexican +capital; Taylor's force advancing from Texas, while Scott moved from +Vera Cruz. The Mexicans resisted bravely, but were beaten again and +again, and upon the capture of the city of Mexico they gave up the +contest.</p> + +<p>Spite of the <i>éclat</i> of victories, the war had been so little popular in +the North that the congressional election of 1846 displaced the +administration majority in the House and gave the Whigs a preponderance. +But, with the excitement of the complete victory over Mexico in the next +year, came a fresh wave of the aggressive temper. It was freely +advocated that Mexico should be annexed bodily. Against this madness +Henry Clay spoke out with his old-time power. Clearly the country would +tolerate no such extreme, and the annexationists contented themselves +with mulcting Mexico, upon the payment of $6,000,000, of the vast +territory known as California.</p> + +<p>Then set in with full vigor the controversy over the new territory which +Calhoun had foreseen. Calhoun had been left in a sort of isolation by +his defection from the administration upon the war, but he did not break +with President Polk; for the reason, says Von Holst, that he wanted to +save his influence to oppose the tendency to a war with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> England. Oregon +had been held in joint occupancy by the two nations for many years; now +a line of demarcation was to be drawn, and there was a loud popular +demand for maintaining at any cost the extreme northern line of +latitude—it was "Fifty-four-forty or fight." But the sense of the +country was against coming to extremities, and Calhoun—a statesman when +slavery was not concerned—threw his influence with the moderate +sentiment which secured the acceptance of the line of 49 degrees. But he +looked with foreboding eyes on the deepening conflict of the sections +and the advantage which gravitated toward the North;—from political +causes, he declared, unwilling or unable to recognize that the +industrial superiority lay inevitably with free labor. He met the danger +with a bolder and more advanced claim. The South, he declared, had had +enough of compromise over territory; it must now fall back on its +ultimate right under the Constitution; and that right was that slaves, +being lawful property, might be taken into any territory of the United +States, and Congress had no right to forbid their introduction; neither +had Congress a right to refuse admission of any State whose people +desired to retain slavery. This was a claim for the nationalization of +slavery; and it was not until after Calhoun's death that the South came +to this position, staked its cause upon it, and when it was rejected by +the popular vote broke with the Union.</p> + +<p>But Calhoun's logic and passion had not yet brought his section up to +his own position, and over the division of the newly acquired territory +North and South disputed as before. While the war was still waging, +President Polk asked for an appropriation to be expended as compensation +for new territory; and David Wilmot, a Democratic member from +Pennsylvania, moved that a proviso be added, stipulating that from any +new territory acquired by purchase<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> slavery should be excluded. This was +passed by the House, but rejected by the Senate. The Senate was long the +stronghold of the South, the States having an equal representation, +while in the House the greater increase of free State population gave +them a fresh advantage at each new census and apportionment. The "Wilmot +proviso" was for some years the watchword of the anti-extensionists. To +the typical Northerner, it seemed monstrous that slavery should be +introduced by law in territory where it had no previous existence. To +the typical Southerner it seemed no less unjust that his peculiar +institutions and usages should be excluded from the common domain, for +which his section had paid its share of money and more than its share of +blood.</p> + +<p>While the question of the new territory had scarcely taken definite +form, there came the Presidential election of 1848. In the Whig +convention Clay's ambition received its final disappointment; Webster +had hardly a chance; all the statesmen of the party were set aside in +favor of General Zachary Taylor of Louisiana, an upright, soldierly man, +a slaveholder, entirely unversed in civil affairs, and his claim resting +solely on successful generalship in the war. The Democrats nominated +Lewis Cass of Michigan, a mediocre politician, regarded by the South as +a trustworthy servant. The third party displayed new strength, and +exchanged the name of "Liberty" for "Free Soil." Under the stimulus of +recent events recruits of power and promise came to its standard. In +Massachusetts it gained such men as Samuel Hoar, Charles Sumner, Charles +Francis Adams, and Henry Wilson from the Whigs; and from the Democrats, +Robert Rantoul and N. P. Banks. Wilson and Charles Allen, delegates to +the Whig convention, declared,—when that body in its resolutions +absolutely ignored the question of slavery extension, and sank all +principles in a hurrah for "Old Rough and Ready,"—that they would no +longer support<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> the party. They went home to work with their old +friends, the "Conscience Whigs," for the success of the Free Soil party, +whose convention was to meet at Buffalo. To that convention came strong +allies from Ohio. There were Joshua Giddings, for years one of the few +congressmen classed distinctly as anti-slavery, and Salmon P. Chase. New +York State offered a reinforcement strong in numbers, but in some +respects questionable. The anti-slavery Democrats in the State, +nicknamed "Barnburners"—because "they would burn the barn to get rid of +the rats"—were ready to break with their party, but their quarrel was +partly a personal one. They were welcomed, however, and from their ranks +was selected the Presidential candidate—of all men, ex-President Martin +Van Buren, known of old as "the Northern man with Southern principles," +but willing now to Northernize his principles with the Presidency in +view. Such a nomination went far to take the heart out of the genuine +anti-slavery men; and the strong name of Charles Francis Adams for +vice-president could not make good the weakness of the head of the +ticket. Should a real Free Soiler vote for Van Buren,—the probable +effect being to improve Cass's chances over Taylor, just as the Birney +vote four years earlier had beaten Clay and brought in Polk and all his +consequences—or vote for Taylor, trusting to his personal character and +the influences surrounding him for a practical advantage to the side of +freedom? The latter alternative was the choice of many, including Horace +Greeley and his associates, Thurlow Weed and William H. Seward. With +such help, and mainly on his strength as a military hero, Taylor was +elected. In the result there was considerable hope for the anti-slavery +cause. For Seward, who had been chosen to the Senate from New York, was +very influential with the new President, and Seward was one of the +coming men, clearly destined to be a leader<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> among those who were to +succeed the great triumvirate of Clay, Calhoun, and Webster. He was +high-minded, cultivated, and united lofty ideals with practical wisdom. +A thorough constitutionalist, he believed there were legitimate ways of +advancing freedom under the Constitution; and in a speech at Cleveland +he had declared: "Slavery can be limited to its present bounds; it can +be ameliorated; it can be abolished; and you and I must do it." Ohio +sent to the Senate another of the coming men, Salmon P. Chase, +resembling Seward in his broad and philosophical views and his firm but +constitutional opposition to slavery.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>THE COMPROMISE OF 1850</h3> + + +<p>To win California as slave territory the Southern leaders had forced the +war on Mexico. The territory was won, and no political force had +developed strong enough to halt their progress. But now came a check +from the realm which could not be cajoled or brow-beaten,—the world of +natural and industrial forces. Gold was discovered in California. There +was a rush of immigrants, and a swift opening and settlement of the +country. The pioneers—hardy, enterprising and democratic—had no use +nor room for slaves. They held a convention, with the encouragement of +President Taylor; framed a Constitution in which slavery was excluded +from the future State—this by unanimous vote, including the 15 +delegates who had come from slave States; and the popular vote ratified +the proposed Constitution by 10 to 1. Then they asked for admission to +the Union.</p> + +<p>The Southern faction was wrathful. The extremists were for excluding the +new State unless slavery was permitted. But it was clear that slavery +could not be forced on a State against the wish of its entire people. +Then compensation was sought in concessions to be made by the North. The +remainder of the new domain, Utah and New Mexico, was not ripe for +Statehood; but let slavery, it was urged, be established as a +territorial condition. Then came up another grievance of the South. Its +fugitive slaves, escaping over the border line, were systematically +helped, either to make their way to Canada and the protection of the +British flag, or to safe homes in the Northern States. Naturally the +slaves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> who dared the perils of escape were either the most energetic or +the most wronged, and sympathy for them at the North was active and +resourceful. Along their most frequented routes of flight were +systematic provisions of shelter and help, known as "the underground +railroad." The Federal Constitution required their return, but this task +had been left to State laws and courts, and was performed slackly, if at +all. The total number of fugitives was not large nor the pecuniary loss +heavy, but the South was exasperated by what it considered a petty and +contemptible depredation. So there was a demand that the Federal +government should undertake and enforce the return of fugitive slaves.</p> + +<p>Congress opened the session of 1849-50 amid great excitement and +confusion. Once more Clay came forward to reconcile the disputants. Clay +in these last days was at his best. He was no longer swayed by +Presidential aspirations. When in 1849 the Kentucky Constitution was to +be revised, he wrote a letter strongly favoring a gradual emancipation +and colonization. This had no effect, but Clay's unshaken hold on his +State was shown by his unanimous re-election to the Senate. There he at +once entered upon his last great effort at national reconciliation. He +introduced a bill providing for a series of concessions on both sides. +California was to be admitted as a free State; and New Mexico and Utah +were to be organized as territories, leaving the question of slavery for +future settlement. Slavery was to continue in the District of Columbia, +but the slave trade was to be forbidden there. Texas was to cede to New +Mexico a disputed strip of territory, which presumably would ultimately +become free; and was to be compensated by a large grant from the Federal +territory. A law was to be passed for the return of fugitive slaves by +Federal authority.</p> + +<p>Over these measures the debate was long and hot. Clay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> pleaded that by +his scheme the advantages were fairly balanced between North and South. +He urged that the rising spirit of disunion at the South should be +disarmed by reasonable concessions. He appealed to the North for +concessions and to the South for peace. When Jefferson Davis, Senator +from Mississippi, declared that the plan conceded nothing to the South, +and demanded that the Missouri compromise line be extended to the +Pacific (bisecting California), with the express establishment of +slavery south of that line, Clay declared that no earthly power should +make him vote for the establishment of slavery anywhere where it had had +no previous existence. To do so, he said, would be to incur from future +inhabitants of New Mexico the reproach which Americans justly applied to +their British ancestors for fastening the institution on them. But he +would spare Southern sensibilities by withholding an explicit exclusion +of slavery from New Mexico; Nature and the future would attend to that. +Against any right of secession, against any possibility of peaceful +secession, he declared with strongest emphasis: "War and dissolution of +the Union are identical; they are convertible terms; and such a war!" +Fighting for the extension of slavery, the sympathies of all mankind +would be against the South.</p> + +<p>The venerable old man, speaking with all the sincerity and warmth of his +heart and with all the powers of his mind, was heard, says Schurz, by a +great and brilliant audience. His first faltering words were followed by +regained power; the old elevation of sentiment, the sonorous flow of +words, the lofty energy of action, were enhanced by the pathetic sense +that this was the final effort.</p> + +<p>More pathetic, tragic even, was the last speech of Calhoun, read for him +while he sat in his senatorial chair; the tall form bowed by age and +weakness, the gaunt, impressive face furrowed by the long strife for a +doomed cause, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> the old fire still alight in the dark eyes and in the +resolute spirit. He recognized that the strife of the sections was +radical, and that the proposed compromises and palliatives were weak and +temporary. He declared that the South had been thwarted in its rights +from the ordinance of 1787 until now; that the equilibrium would be +destroyed past hope if California and New Mexico were to become free +States; and that the only effective resource lay in some constitutional +amendment to safeguard the rights of the South. What amendment could +effect this, he did not say. But it transpired later that he had in mind +the election of two Presidents, one from each section,—a fantastic and +impossible scheme. In truth, Calhoun in this last utterance was less a +statesman aiming to guide events than a prophet predicting an inevitable +woe. He was too wise to share the elation with which hot-heads talked of +an independent South, and it was with sad forebodings that he sank to +his grave.</p> + +<p>When on the 7th of March Webster rose to speak, the Senate and the +country hung on his words. He too was drawing toward the end, but his +powers were unabated. Hope was strong that in him would be found the +champion of freedom. But the key of his speech was a view of the +situation, not as a contest between freedom and slavery, but as an +opposition of geographical sections, inflamed by extremists on both +sides. The mischief, he declared, was due to Southern disunionists and +Northern Abolitionists. The remedy was a calm, patriotic temper; the +rebuke of fanaticism of both kinds, and the acceptance of reasonable +accommodations and adjustments. He approved substantially the scheme +proposed by Clay. The formal exclusion of slavery from New Mexico was an +unnecessary affront to the South; natural conditions would prevent +slavery there. A fugitive slave law was fairly required by the +Constitution and the South had a right to claim it. He, like Clay, +declared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> peaceable secession an impossibility, and his speech, +impressive throughout by the power of a lucid and massive intellect, +rose at its close to lofty eloquence in a plea for the maintenance of +the Union and a warning of the catastrophe which secession would +precipitate.</p> + +<p>The defect of the speech was its complete failure to recognize the wrong +and mischief of slavery. Webster had rarely shown himself a moral +idealist, except as to the sentiment of patriotism. He was identified +with the prosperous and "respectable" classes, and the sufferings of the +poor and oppressed woke little sympathy in him. These limitations had +always been apparent, and while Clay seemed to grow finer and gentler +with advance of years, Webster's course was the other way. That imperial +and commanding presence, with its imposing stature and Jove-like visage, +was the tenement of a richly dowered nature. He had not only great +powers of intellect, but warm affections, generous sentiments, and +wholesome tastes for humanity and the outdoor world, but his moral +fiber, never of the stanchest grain, had been sapped by prosperity. He +was self-indulgent in his personal habits and heedless of homely +obligations. His ambition was strong, and as the favor of the South had +come to be the almost necessary condition of the Presidency, he could +not escape the suspicion of courting that favor. He was in substantial +agreement with Clay as to the compromise measures, but the Kentuckian +rose higher than his section and his look was forward; while Webster was +distinctly below the characteristic temper of New England, and his +movement was retrograde. The anti-slavery men mourned his 7th of March +speech as a great apostasy, and Whittier branded it in his poem of +"Ichabod," which fell with Judgment-day weight. Yet it was not an +apostasy, but the natural culmination of his course; and in spite of its +error, he still was true to the char<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>acteristic sentiment of his best +period, the love of the Union. His voice like Clay's gave +inspiration—it may well have been a decisive inspiration—to the cause +which triumphed at Gettysburg and Appomattox. Whittier himself, in a +later poem, recognized the patriotic service of the man whom, in the +heat of conflict, he had so scathingly denounced.</p> + +<p>Congress, and especially the Senate, was at this time full of brilliant +men. Among the leaders of the extreme South were Mason of Virginia, +Butler of South Carolina, Davis of Mississippi, and Soule of Louisiana. +From this element came plentiful threats of disunion. But these threats +were met with stern answers. When President Taylor heard of them the +stout old soldier answered that such language was treasonable, and if +necessary he would himself take command of the army that should put down +rebellion. Disunion, he said, is treason; and to one questioning him, he +answered with a soldier's oath that if anyone really attempted to carry +it out, they should be dealt with by law as they deserved, and executed. +Clay's language was no less explicit. When Senator Rhett in Charleston +proposed to raise the flag of secession, and his colleague, Barnwell in +the Senate, half indorsed his words, Clay said, with a lightning flash +that thrilled the audience, that if Senator Rhett followed up that +declaration by overt acts "he will be a traitor, and I hope he will meet +the fate of a traitor!" Clay went on to say that if Kentucky should ever +unfurl the banner of resistance unjustly against the Union, "never, +never will I engage with her in such a cause!"</p> + +<p>There was in Congress a new element, of the smallest in numbers, but +with the promise and potency of a great future. Four days after Webster, +Seward spoke in the Senate. He advocated the admission of California as +a free State, with no additions or compromises. No equilibrium between +free<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>dom and slavery was possible; if established to-day it would be +destroyed to-morrow. The moral sentiment of the age would never permit +the enforcement of a law requiring Northern freemen to return slaves to +bondage. The entire public domain was by the Constitution devoted to +union, justice, defense, welfare, and liberty; and it was devoted to the +same noble ends by "a higher law than the Constitution." The extension +of slavery ought to be barred by all legal means. Threats of disunion +had no terrors for him. The question was "whether the Union shall stand, +and slavery, under the steady, peaceful action of moral, social, and +political causes, be removed by gradual voluntary effort and with +compensation; or whether the Union shall be dissolved and civil war +ensue, bringing on violent but complete and immediate emancipation."</p> + +<p>Salmon P. Chase of Ohio spoke to similar effect. If, he said, the claims +of freedom are sacrificed here by forms of legislation, "the people will +unsettle your settlement." "It may be that you will succeed in burying +the ordinance of freedom. But the people will write upon its tomb, 'I +shall rise again.'"</p> + +<p>The disunionists found that they had little popular support behind them. +A convention at Nashville, held to promote the interests of the South, +refused to countenance any extreme measures. General Taylor steadily +favored the admission of California as a free State, with no +qualifications or accompaniments. Then, while the result in Congress +hung doubtful, in the summer of 1850, President Taylor died. His +successor, Vice-President Millard Fillmore of New York, was a man of +fair ability and cautious or timid disposition; an opponent of Seward in +the politics of their State. He favored the compromise, and called +Webster to his cabinet. The administration's influence seemed to turn +the scale, and Clay's series of measures were adopted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> one by one. There +was dissatisfaction at the South and indignation at the North. The +territorial settlement was substantially in the North's favor. But the +exasperating fact, and pregnant with consequences, was the Fugitive +Slave law. Its provisions were intolerable to the popular conscience. +All citizens were liable to be called to aid in the pursuit and arrest +of a fugitive. He was to be tried before a United States commissioner, +whose decision was final. A man accused of a crime punishable by a small +fine or a brief imprisonment was entitled to a verdict from an impartial +jury of twelve; but a man whose freedom for life was at stake was at the +mercy of a single official.</p> + +<p>Most of the Northern States sooner or later passed "Personal Liberty +laws," which, without directly assuming to nullify the Federal statute, +aimed to defeat its enforcement. They contained such provisions as the +exemption of State officials and State buildings from service in the +rendition of fugitives, and the right of alleged fugitives to be taken +by <i>habeas corpus</i> before a State tribunal. So against the charge of +inhumanity in the Fugitive Slave law, the South brought the +counter-charge of evasion bordering on defiance of a Federal statute. +Few renditions were attempted. Sometimes they were met by forcible +resistance. An alleged fugitive, Jerry, was rescued by the populace in +Syracuse. A negro, Shadrach, arrested as a fugitive in Boston in 1851, +was set free and carried off by a mob. There was a spasm of excitement +in Congress, but it was brief and resultless. Later, in 1854, when the +anti-slavery tide was swiftly rising, came the rendition of Anthony +Burns, who was taken through the streets of Boston under a strong guard +of Federal troops and State militia, while the popular wrath and grief +at the sight swelled the wave which the repeal of the Missouri +compromise had started on its inevitable way.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>A LULL AND A RETROSPECT</h3> + + +<p>After the half-year's debate over the compromise of 1850 came a time of +political quiet. "The tumult and the shouting died." It seemed more than +a temporary lull. In a great tide of material prosperity, the country +easily forgot the slaves; if out of sight, they were, to most, out of +mind. Webster's speech had a deep significance. He was identified in +Massachusetts with the classes representing commercial prosperity, +social prominence, and academic culture. In these classes, throughout +the North, there was a general apathy as to slavery. The temper of the +time was materialistic. There was indeed enough anti-slavery sentiment, +stirred by the 7th of March speech and the Fugitive Slave law, to change +the balance of power in Massachusetts politics. The Democrats and the +Free Soilers made a coalition, and it triumphed over the Whigs. The +Democrats took the State offices, with George S. Boutwell as Governor; +and Charles Sumner—a scholar, an idealist, an impressive orator, and a +pronounced anti-slavery man, though never an Abolitionist,—was sent to +the Senate to reinforce Seward and Chase.</p> + +<p>The Presidential election of 1852 came on. In the Whig convention +Fillmore had some support, especially from the South; Webster had most +of the Massachusetts votes and scarce any others; and choice was made of +General Winfield Scott, in the hope of repeating the victory of 1848 +with another hero of the Mexican war. It was to Webster a blow past +retrieval; in bitterness of spirit he turned his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> face to the wall, in +his old home at Marshfield, and died. The Democratic convention +hesitated between several Northern politicians of trustworthy +subserviency to the South,—Cass, Douglas, and Buchanan—and its choice +fell upon Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire, an amiable man, of fair +ability, but easy to manage; he, too, the winner of a trifle of military +glory in the Mexican conquest. Both conventions professed entire content +with the settlements of the compromise. The Free Soilers nominated John +P. Hale of New Hampshire, and made their familiar declaration of +principles. But they had lost their Democratic allies of four years +earlier, and threw only 150,000 votes—less by 100,000 than at the +previous election. The Whig party proved to be on the verge of +dissolution. It had lost its hold on the "conscience vote" of the North, +and was less trusted than its rival by the South. Pierce was chosen by a +great majority; he carried every State except Vermont, Massachusetts, +Kentucky, and Tennessee.</p> + +<p>Party politics were dull; commercial and material interests seemed +wholly in the ascendant, and the anti-slavery cause was at a low ebb. +But many things had happened in two decades, below the surface current +of public events, and, just on the threshold of a new era, we may glance +back over these twenty years. All the European world had been full of +movement. France had passed through three revolutions. Germany, Austria, +and Italy had undergone a political upheaval and subsidence; and the +liberal reverses of 1848 were the precursors of national unity and +constitutional freedom in the near future.</p> + +<p>England had gone steadily on in the path of conservative progress; had +widened its suffrage by the Reform Act of 1832; had relieved distress +and disarmed discontent by the free trade policy of Sir Robert Peel; her +factory legislation had met a crying need of the new industrial epoch, +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> she had pacified and energized Canada by giving her +self-government. Meanwhile American progress had been along lines of its +own. The country had grown at a tremendous rate, and mainly at the North +and West. Immigration had poured in from Europe, and the stream of +native stock from the seaboard States to the West had hardly slackened. +It was the epoch of the railroad and the telegraph. Manufactures had +increased and multiplied; acres fell under cultivation by the million. +In this industrial growth the North had far outstripped the South. +Calhoun had urged the construction of railroads to link the eastern and +western parts of the South, but the political motive could not supply +the want of industrial force. The figures of the census of 1850 were +more eloquent than any orator as to the relative effects of free and +slave labor. Intellectually the period had been prolific. Emerson had +risen, the bright morning star of American literature. Bryant, +Hawthorne, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, were telling their stories or +singing their songs. Theology was fruitful of debate and change. The +Unitarian movement had defined itself. Presbyterians and +Congregationalists were discussing the tenets of old school and new. For +"women's rights" a strong and promising advance had been made, in the +face of unpopularity and derision. Religious revivals, foreign missions, +social reforms, were making active way. From all this intellectual and +social movement, unless we except the emotional revivals of religion, +the South stood apart. Literature it had virtually none; its theology +was only conservative and defensive; at most so-called reforms it looked +askance.</p> + +<p>In two respects the South had an advantage. Its social system was +aristocratic; above the slaves came the non-slave-holding whites, +including a great mass of the ignorant and degraded; but at the summit +the slave-holding class had a social life in many ways attractive and +delightful.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> The slave-holders, all told, numbered some 350,000. The +controlling element consisted of the large planters, with the affiliated +members of the liberal professions. Plantation life at its best had a +great deal of beauty and charm. A degree of improvidence and +"shiftlessness," by Northern standards, was not inconsistent with free +hospitality, a generous outdoor life, an old-time culture with an +atmosphere of leisure and courtesy, superior in its way to what the busy +and bustling North could show. The charming and chivalrous "Colonel +Carter of Cartersville" had many a prototype in real life. A higher type +was sometimes bred in Southern society; it was not without some reason +that Virginians claimed that the mold which produced Washington was not +broken when it could yield a Robert Lee. There was a somber side; +plantation life was often a rank soil for passions of tyranny and +license. But its better fruitage added an element to the composite +American type which could not and cannot be spared.</p> + +<p>The other advantage the South possessed was the devotion of its +strongest men to political life. The loss of commerce and literature was +the gain of politics. The typical Southern leader was apt to be both a +planter and a lawyer, with a strong and active interest in public +affairs. Political oratory was a favorite resource in the +sparsely-settled districts. The personal force which in the North was +scattered among twenty fields was here centered mainly in one. This +feature of Southern society worked together with the fact that the +section had in slavery a common interest and bond. That interest of the +entire section, led by its ablest men, came naturally to be the dominant +factor in American public life. When it could not rule through its own +men, it found agents in subservient Northern politicians. And so it came +about that in the early '50s the South, while outstripped altogether in +population, wealth, industrial and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> intellectual achievement, was yet in +substantial control of the governmental power. In the North, by the very +magnitude of the commercial and industrial development the moral +sentiment in public affairs seemed submerged or at least eclipsed.</p> + +<p>It was during such a period of apathy that there was held an +anti-slavery meeting at which two negroes were present, Sojourner Truth, +an old woman whose shrewdness matched her fervor, and Frederick +Douglass. Douglass was the son of a white father and a slave mother; he +taught himself to read and write, made his escape into freedom, gained +an education, and became an effective speaker for the anti-slavery +cause. On this occasion he spoke with power and passion of the gloomy +prospects of their people; government, wealth, social advantage, all +were on the side of their oppressors; good people seemed indifferent to +their wrongs; was there indeed any help or hope? Then rose Sojourner +Truth, and looking at him said only, "Frederick! Is God dead?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>SLAVERY AS IT WAS</h3> + + +<p>And now, in the year 1852, there befell an event perhaps as momentous in +American history as any between the establishment of the Constitution +and the Civil War. A frail little woman, the wife of an obscure +theological professor in a Maine village, wrote a story, and that story +captured the heart of the world. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say +that <i>Uncle Tom's Cabin</i> converted the North to the cause of the slave. +The typical Union volunteer of 1861 carried the book in his memory. It +brought home to the heart of the North, and of the world, that the slave +was a man,—one with mankind by that deepest tie, of human love and +aspiration and anguish,—but denied the rights of a man.</p> + +<p>The book was a birth of genius and love. It is absolutely +sweet-spirited. Its intense and irresistible plea is not against a class +or a section, but against a system. It portrays among the Southern +slave-holders characters noble and attractive,—Mrs Shelby, the faithful +mistress, and the fascinating St. Clare. The worst villain in the story +is a renegade Northerner. Its typical Yankee, Miss Ophelia, provokes +kindly laughter. The book mixes humor with its tragedy; the sorrows of +Uncle Tom and the dark story of Cassy are relieved by the pranks of +Black Sam and the antics of Topsy. With all its woes, the story somehow +does not leave a depressing effect; it abounds in courage and action; +the fugitives win their way to freedom; the final impulse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> is to hopeful +effort against the wrong. Its basal motive was the same as that of the +Abolitionists, but its spirit and method were so different from +Garrison's that it won response and sympathy where he had roused +antagonism. Against pharisaical religion it uses effective +satire,—which was intensified in its successor, <i>Dred</i>,—but the +Christianity of faith and life is its animating spirit. No book is +richer in the gospel of love to man and trust in God. Its rank is high +in the new literature which has stimulated and led the great modern +movement for the uplifting of the poor and oppressed. Its place is with +Victor Hugo's <i>Les Miserables</i> and Tolstoi's <i>War and Peace</i>.</p> + +<p>The motive of <i>Uncle Tom's Cabin</i> was an appeal to the heart of the +American people. There was no reference to political action, far less +any suggestion of servile insurrection, and there was no discussion of +methods of emancipation. The book set forth an organized, monstrous +wrong, which it was in the power of the American nation, and above all, +of the Southern people, to remove. The effect at the North was +immeasurably to widen and deepen the conviction of the wrong of slavery, +and the desire to remove it. But the way to practical action did not +open; and strangely enough there was at first no visible effect on +politics. The political logic of the situation led straight, as a first +step, to the support of the Free Soil party. But though <i>Uncle Tom's +Cabin</i> appeared (as a book) in April, 1852, and its popularity was +instant, the Presidential election seven months later showed a Free Soil +vote less by 100,000 than four years before. The political effect of the +book was to appear only when public events two years later gave a sudden +spur to the hesitating North.</p> + +<p>The South turned a deaf ear to the appeal. It shut the book out from its +borders as far as it could, and one who inquired for it in a Southern +bookstore would probably be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> offered <i>Aunt Phillis's Cabin</i> or some +other mild literary anti-toxin. The South protested that the book's +picture of slavery was untrue and unjust. It was monstrous, so they +said, that their labor system should be shown as having its natural +result in the whipping to death of a saintly negro for his virtuous +conduct. Another reply was: "If the book is true, it is really a eulogy +of slavery, for it depicts slavery as producing in Uncle Tom a perfect +character."</p> + +<p>To the objections to the fidelity of her portraiture Mrs. Stowe replied +with <i>A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin</i>,—a formidable array of proved facts, +as to the laws of the slave States, and specific incidents which +paralleled or exceeded all she had told. As now judged, the novel has +some serious imperfections as a picture of slavery. Probably the most +important of these was expressed by Judge Tourgee, para-phrasing the +proverb about the Russian and the Tartar: "Scratch one of Mrs. Stowe's +negroes, and you will find a white man." She failed adequately to +differentiate the two races, and described the negro too much from such +specimens as Uncle Tom and George and Eliza Harris. She had never lived +in the South, and her knowledge was obtained from observation in the +border town of Cincinnati, from acquaintance with fugitives, and from +the reports of Northern travelers—all interpreted with the insight of +genius and the impulse of philanthropy. Her avowed purpose was not to +make a literal or merely artistic picture, but to show the actual wrongs +and legalized possibilities of wrong which called for redress. It did +not lessen the justice of her plea, that the mass of negroes were more +degraded than she knew, or that their average treatment was kinder than +her portrayal showed.</p> + +<p>But a true historical judgment of slavery must rest on a comparison of +documents. The story told from the master's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> standpoint should be heard. +Among the faithful and graphic narrations of this sort may be named Mrs. +Burton Harrison's <i>Flower de Hundred</i>,—a volume of personal +reminiscences of Virginia before the war. It is a charming story, +without motive other than the pleasure of recalling happy memories, and +it describes a society of various and vivid charm. The mention of the +slaves is occasional and incidental; but the description of the +plantation hands, and especially the household servants, trusted and +beloved, gives a sunny and doubtless a real side of slavery. Another +book is fuller and more impressive in its treatment. It might be said +that every American ought to read <i>Uncle Tom's Cabin</i> as a part of his +education, and to follow it with two other books of real life. One of +these is <i>A Southern Planter</i>,—a biography of Thomas Dabney, of +Virginia and later of Mississippi, written by his daughter. It is a +story amply worth reading for its human interest, and for its +presentation of a man of noble and beautiful character. One is enriched +by the acquaintance, even through a book, of a man like Thomas Dabney. +And it is most desirable for the Northerner to vivify his impression of +the South by the knowledge of men like him. We are misled by general and +geographical terms: "an Englishman" is a vague and perhaps unattractive +term to an American until he knows, in books or in flesh and blood, a +few Britons of the right stamp. And so South and North need mutual +interpretation not alone through their historic heroes, but through the +best of their everyday people. And of those best, surely Thomas Dabney +was one,—a strong, tender, noble man, fulfilling each relation in +family and society with loyal conscience and sympathetic heart.</p> + +<p>From the book we can give but a few instances of plantation life as such +a man made it. When he was to move from Virginia to Mississippi he +called together all his slaves,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>—some hundreds—and told them he wanted +to take none of them against their will, and especially he would not +break up any families. If any of them had wives or husbands on other +plantations, he would sell or buy, just as they wished, so that every +family should stay or go together. Every one of them elected to go with +their old master. Settled in Mississippi, his cotton plantation became +the admiration and envy of the neighbors, for the size of the crops as +well as the condition of the workers. Their comfort was amply secured. +The general rule was three hours' rest at midday and a Saturday +half-holiday. At the height of the season hours were longer, but there +was a system of prizes, for four or five months in the year, from $1 a +week to a picayune; with an extra prize of a $5 gold piece for anyone +picking 600 pounds a day; and these prizes roused such interest and +excitement that some of the ambitious ones had to be compelled to leave +the field at night, wishing to sleep at the end of their row. The +inefficient were gently tolerated; severe punishment was held to be +alike cruel and useless; an incompetent servant was carried as a burden +from which there was no escape. Such endurance was the way of all good +masters and mistresses at the South,—"and I have known very few who +were not good," adds the writer. The plantation trained and kept its own +mechanics; two each of carpenters, blacksmiths, millers, with five +seamstresses in the house. In the house, under the mistress's eye, were +cut and made the clothes of all the negroes, two woolen and two cotton +suits a year, with a gay calico Sunday dress for each woman. The women +were taught sewing in the house. When their babies were born a nurse was +provided, and all the mother's work done for her for a month, and for a +year she was allowed ample leisure for the care of the baby. The sons of +the family taught reading to those who wished to learn. Some of the +house servants<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> were very fine characters; the sketch of "Mammy Maria" +one would gladly reproduce. When secession came on, Thomas Dabney +altogether disapproved, and foresaw the ruin of the South. He proposed +to his wife that they close up their affairs, and go to live in England. +Her reply was: "What will you do with Abby? and with Maria and Harriet, +and their husbands and children, and the rest of our people?" That was +unanswerable. So he stayed, and with his family shared the +fighting,—for, the war begun, Dabney gave his hearty support to the +Southern cause, and his sons went to the field,—shared the hardships of +a devastated country, the social chaos that followed, and the slow +reconstruction,—a more intrepid and lovable figure in adversity than +before.</p> + +<p>His daughter writes: "In the family of Thomas Dabney the first feeling +when the war ended was of joy that one dreadful responsibility at least +was removed. Gradual emancipation had been a hope and a dream not to be +realized." "A hope and a dream,"—it does not appear that it had ever +been seriously considered as a purpose or a duty. "Not an intelligent +white man or woman in the South," says the writer, "would now wish +slavery restored." But why,—it is impossible not to return to the +question,—why had the South done nothing to rid itself of the evil? Why +had it centered its political energies in maintaining and extending it? +Why had it revolted from the Union and invited war and ruin, for a +system which when once removed it recognized as a burden and a curse? No +right minded man can ponder that question without taking a step further, +and asking whether the evils in our present industrial system shall be +allowed to go on till they bring down the temple on our heads, or be met +with deliberate and resolute cure. And the good and conscientious man +who does his best under the existing system—as Thomas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> Dabney did under +slavery—is yet derelict unless he gives his thought and effort to such +radical amendment as the system may need.</p> + +<p>There is yet another book in illustration of slavery which ought to be +read by every American. It is Fanny Kemble Butler's <i>A Residence on a +Georgia Plantation</i>. She was a woman of unusual genius, character, and +sensibility; the inheritor of a great dramatic talent, and a brilliant +actress until she married Mr. Butler of Georgia, and left the stage to +live with him on the plantation owned by himself and his brother. After +no long period she left her husband, not taking the world into her +confidence as to her domestic affairs, but returning to the stage as a +dramatic reader, and passing into honored private life. After the +outbreak of the Civil War she published, with some reserves and some +additions, the journal she had kept during her life on the plantation. +As to her personal relations, except as touching the slaves, the book is +entirely reticent, but it is plain that slavery as she saw it made life +under those conditions literally intolerable. Below all special +cruelties, she writes, she felt the ever-present, vivid wrong of living +on the unpaid labor of servants. The special wrongs were constant. Thus +she describes the parting of a family of slaves, and the husband's awful +distress. She tells of the head-driver, Frank, an every way superior +man, left at some seasons in sole charge of the plantation; but his wife +was taken from him and made the mistress of the overseer. There was +Engineer Ned, intelligent and capable, and himself not badly treated, +but with a wife broken down by being driven to field work too soon after +the birth of a child. Half the women on the plantation were diseased +from the same cause. One woman brought to her mistress a pitiful tale of +such suffering. A little later the mistress learned that the woman, on +the ground that this visit had caused her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> day's labor to come short, +had received a flogging. She appealed to her husband, but he refused to +interfere. "To Mr. ——'s assertion of the justice of poor Theresa's +punishment, I retorted the manifest injustice of unpaid and enforced +labor; the brutal inhumanity of allowing a man to strip and lash a +woman, the mother of ten children; to exact from her toil which was to +maintain in luxury two idle young men, the owners of the plantation. I +said I thought female labor of the sort exacted from these slaves, and +corporal chastizement such as they endure, must be abhorrent to any +manly or humane man. Mr. —— said he thought it was disagreeable, and +left me to my reflections with that concession." Presently he refused to +listen to any more such petitions from her. She writes: "A wild wish +rose in my heart that the river and the sea would swallow up and melt in +their salt waves the whole of this accursed property of ours."</p> + +<p>The principal physical hardships, she writes, fell to the women. The +children and the old people are idle and neglected; the middle-aged men +do not seem over-worked, and lead a mere animal existence, in itself not +peculiarly cruel or distressing, but with a constant element of fear and +uncertainty, "and the trifling evils of unrequited labor, ignorance the +most profound (to which they are condemned by law), and the unutterable +injustice which precludes them from all the merits and all the benefits +of voluntary exertion, and the progress that results from it."</p> + +<p>Her eye notes closely the faces about her. When she gathers the slaves +to read prayers to them, she observes "their sable faces, so many of +them so uncouth in their outlines and proportions, and yet all of them +so pathetic, and some so sublime in their expression of patient +suffering and religious fervor." She says: "Just in proportion as I have +found the slaves on this plantation intelligent and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> advanced, I have +observed this pathetic expression of countenance in them, a mixture of +sadness and fear." The plantation, she writes, was well reputed, and its +management was considered above the average.</p> + +<p>Her analysis of the master class in the South is keen and striking. "The +shop is not their element, and the eager spirit of speculation and the +sordid spirit of gain do not infect their whole existence, even to their +very demeanor and appearance, as they too manifestly do those of a large +proportion of the inhabitants of the Northern States. The Southerners +are infinitely better bred men, according to English notions, than the +men of the Northern States. The habit of command gives them a certain +self-possession, the enjoyment of leisure a certain ease. Their +temperament is impulsive and enthusiastic, and their manners have the +grace and spirit which seldom belong to the development of a Northern +people; but upon more familiar acquaintance the vices of the social +system to which they belong will be found to have infected them with +their own peculiar taint; and haughty, over-bearing irritability, +effeminate indolence, reckless extravagance, and a union of profligacy +and cruelty which is the immediate result of their irresponsible power +over their dependents, are some of the less pleasing traits."</p> + +<p>She gives another and darker picture of the planter class. It goes +without saying that it is only a part of the class to which it fairly +applies: "A nation, for as such they should be spoken of, of men whose +organization and temperament is that of the southern European, living +under the influence of a climate at once enervating and exciting, +scattered over trackless wildernesses of arid sand and pestilential +swamp, intrenched within their own boundaries, surrounded by creatures +absolutely subject to their despotic will; delivered over by hard +necessity to the lowest excitements of drink<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>ing, gambling, and +debauchery for sole recreation; independent of all opinion; ignorant of +all progress; isolated from all society—it is impossible to conceive a +more savage existence within the border of any modern civilization." The +picture of the poor whites is graphic and somber, but space must limit +these quotations.</p> + +<p>She gives credit for the habits of courage and command, which are bred +in the upper class, as when she tells of a heroic rescue from a +shipwreck: "The devil must have his due, and men brought up in habits of +peremptory command over their fellowmen, and under the constant +apprehension of danger and awful necessity of immediate readiness to +meet it, acquire qualities precious to themselves and others in hours of +supreme peril."</p> + +<p>She touches repeatedly on the social restrictions on free speech; thus, +speaking of two gentlemen, one a clergyman: "They seem good and kind and +amiable men, and I have no doubt are conscientious in their capacity of +slave holders; but to one who has lived outside this dreadful +atmosphere, the whole tone of their discourse has a morally muffled +sound which one must hear to be able to conceive." She observes that +whenever she discusses slavery with people she meets, they waive the +abstract right or wrong of the system. Now and then she gets a bit of +entire frankness, as when a very distinguished South Carolinian says to +her, "I'll tell you why abolition is impossible; because every healthy +negro can fetch $1000 in Charleston market at this moment."</p> + +<p>She generalizes as to the effects of emancipation in a way which later +events completely justified. Unlike the West Indies, she says, the South +is not tropical, and will not yield food without labor, and necessity +would compel the liberated blacks to work. That they would not work, and +the ground would lie idle, was, as we know, the bogy which was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> held up +to scare away from emancipation—just as in our own day the danger of +race mixture is made a bogy to scare away from social justice. But the +event proved that Fanny Kemble was right in her predictions, in which +indeed she was at one with other candid observers at the time. As to +gradual emancipation, she believed it unwise—the system, she writes, is +too absolutely bad for slow measures. Had she owned her husband's +plantation, she would at once have freed the slaves, and hired them, if +only as a means of financial salvation.</p> + +<p>She pronounces <i>Uncle Tom's Cabin</i> to be no exaggeration. Her own story +of facts gives a darker impression than Mrs. Stowe's novel. It may be +asked, why, at this distance, revive the tragic tale? The answer is, +that the truth of history is precious, and our present problems cannot +be understood if we shut our eyes to their antecedents. Just now there +is a fashion, among many Southern writers on the negro question, of +beginning their story with the wrongs and sufferings of the +reconstruction period. Now, it was indeed deplorable, and a thing not to +be forgotten, that ignorant negroes sat in the Senate chambers of South +Carolina and Mississippi, that taxes were excessive, and the public +business mismanaged. But, in the broad view, it is well to remember that +a few years earlier very much worse things than these were happening, +and that a system which made cattle of men and women might be expected +to avenge itself.</p> + +<p>Another work may be merely mentioned as illuminating the facts of +slavery. It is Frederic Law Olmsted's three volumes of travels in the +slave States. He studied them with the eyes of a farmer and a practical +man; a well-equipped, fair, and keen observer. His testimony, already +touched on in these chapters, is very strong as to the economic mischief +of the system, its frequent cruelties, its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> demoralization of both +master and slave, and the absolute need of its ultimate extinction. From +his pages we can borrow but one or two passages. The contrasts of +slavery are epitomized in two plantations he found side by side in +Mississippi. On one the slaves had good food and clothes, were not +driven hard, were given three stops in the day for meals, and had the +time from Friday night till Monday morning for themselves. In this time +the men cultivated gardens and the women washed and sewed. They were +smartly dressed, and seemed very contented; many could read and write; +on Sundays there was a church service and a Sabbath school taught by +their mistress, both of which they could attend or not as they pleased. +On the other plantation, owned by a religious woman, the working hours +were from 3.30 <span class="smcap">A. M.</span> to 9 <span class="smcap">P. M.</span> The slaves had only Sunday free from +labor, and on that day there were three services which they had to +attend under penalty of a whipping. They were never allowed off the +plantation, and were whipped if they talked with slaves from other +plantations. Said a neighbor, "They can all repeat the catechism, but +they are the dullest, laziest, and most sorrowful negroes I ever saw."</p> + +<p>As to the possibilities of gradual emancipation, which he favored, +Olmsted wrote that in Cuba every slave has the right of buying his own +freedom, at a price which does not depend on the selfish exaction of his +master, but is either a fixed price or is determined in each case by +disinterested appraisers. "The consequence is that emancipations are +continually going on, and the free people of color are becoming +enlightened, cultivated, and wealthy. In no part of the United States do +they occupy the high position which they enjoy in Cuba." So much for the +despised Spanish-American.</p> + +<p>From a still different standpoint—that of the non-slave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>holding +Southern white—the system was reviewed and scathingly judged in +Helper's <i>The Impending Crisis</i>. But that, like <i>Uncle Tom's Cabin</i>, was +not merely a book, but an event, and as such is to be mentioned in its +place among events. The general survey of the slave system in itself +need not here be carried further. As to its essential character and +basal principle, no truer word was ever spoken than that which Mrs. +Stowe puts in the mouth of the slaveholder St. Clare:</p> + +<p>"The short of the matter is, cousin, on this abstract question of +slavery there can, as I think, be but one opinion. Planters, who have +money to make by it,—clergymen, who have planters to +please,—politicians, who want to rule by it,—may warp and bend +language and ethics to a degree that shall astonish the world at their +ingenuity; they can press Nature and the Bible, and nobody knows what +else, into the service; but, after all, neither they nor the world +believe in it one particle the more. It comes from the devil, that's the +short of it,—and to my mind, it's a pretty respectable specimen of what +he can do in his own line. You seem to wonder; but if you will get me +fairly at it, I'll make a clean breast of it. This cursed business, +accursed of God and man, what is it? Strip it of all its ornament, run +it down to the root and nucleus of the whole, and what is it? Why, +because my brother Quashy is ignorant and weak, and I am intelligent and +strong,—because I know how, and can do it,—therefore I may steal all +he has, keep it, and give him only such and so much as suits my fancy. +Whatever is too hard, too dirty, too disagreeable, for me, I may set +Quashy to doing. Because I don't like work, Quashy shall work. Because +the sun burns me, Quashy shall stay in the sun. Quashy shall earn the +money, and I will spend it. Quashy shall lie down in every puddle, that +I may walk over dry-shod. Quashy shall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> do my will, and not his, all the +days of his mortal life, and have such chance of getting to heaven, at +last, as I find convenient. This I take to be about what slavery is."</p> + +<p>St. Clare goes on to say that "for pity's sake, for shame's sake, +because we are men born of women and not savage beasts, many of us do +not and dare not—we would scorn to—use the full power which our savage +laws put into our hands." In truth, a compilation of the slave laws was +one of the most convincing arguments against the whole system.</p> + +<p>This book is characterized by Charles G. Ames,—whose long life of noble +service to humanity included earnest work among the anti-slavery +pioneers: "To my mind, the heaviest blow, though probably not the most +telling one, ever struck against our slave system as a system was the +compilation and publication of Stroud's <i>Slave Laws</i>—a codification +from the statute-books of the Southern States of their own barbarous +methods of legislation, made necessary for the protection of the +peculiar institution. All the recent sentimental defenses of it, as +gentle, humane, and patriarchal, seem utterly to ignore the rugged +facts, which Lawyer Stroud's book made as plain as the stratification of +the rocks to the eye of the geologist."</p> + +<p>In its actual administration, the system was in a measure softened and +humanized. It was more humane in the border than in the cotton and sugar +States, and it was generally better when a plantation was managed by its +owner than when left to an overseer,—as the plantation of Fanny +Kemble's husband had been left. But in one respect its disastrous effect +was everywhere felt. By associating manual labor with the stigma of +servitude, it bred, in free men, a strong disrelish for work,—a most +demoralizing and ruinous influence. Inefficiency and degradation were +the marks of the non-slaveholding whites. The master class missed the +wholesome regimen of toil. Nature is never more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> beneficent than when +she lays on man the imperative command "Thou shalt work." Of all ways of +evading it the worst is to shift the burden to another man. In being +driven to do other men's work as well as his own the negro found some +compensation, but his enslaver paid a constant and heavy penalty.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS</h3> + + +<p>The foremost politician of the Northwest, in the early '50s, was Stephen +A. Douglas, United States senator from Illinois. He was a native of +Vermont, and had early gone West and pushed his fortunes with energy, +audacity, and shrewdness. He was an effective, popular speaker; and his +short and stout frame and large head had won for him the nickname of +"The Little Giant." He was a leader in the Democratic party, and a +prominent Presidential candidate, but never identified with any great +political principle or broad policy. He was chairman of the Senate +committee on Territories, and early in the session of 1853-4 he +introduced a bill for the organization of a vast section hitherto known +as "the Platte country," a part of the Louisiana purchase, lying next to +the western tier of States, and stretching from Indian Territory to +Canada; all of which was now to constitute the Territory of Nebraska, +or, as it was soon divided, the two Territories of Nebraska and Kansas. +This region had as yet been scarcely touched by permanent settlers, but +it was the next step in the great onward march toward the Pacific. It +lay north of the line of 36 degrees 30 minutes, above which it had been +declared by the compromise act of 1820 slavery should never be extended. +Douglas incorporated in his "Kansas-Nebraska" bill, a clause declaring +that the prohibition of slavery north of 36 degrees 30 minutes, by the +act of 1820, had been "superseded by the principles of the legislation +of 1850," and was "inoperative and void." Later he added the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> +explanatory clause: "It being the true intent and meaning of this act, +not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it +therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and +regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to +the Constitution of the United States." On its face, this was a proposal +to withdraw the congressional prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern +territory, and remand the question to the territorial population. But +the latent purpose to distinctly favor slavery was proved when Senator +Chase moved an additional clause: "Under which (the Constitution) the +people of the Territory, through their appropriate representatives, may, +if they see fit, prohibit the existence of slavery therein"; and Douglas +and his followers, in defiance of consistency, instantly threw this out. +The meaning of the whole business was unmistakable; under the pretext of +"popular sovereignty,"—Douglas's favorite watchword—the bars were +thrown down and slavery was invited to enter.</p> + +<p>The proposal took the country completely by surprise. The South was not +asking for any such advantage as was offered, but was prompt to accept +it. This of course Douglas had expected, and in this lay his personal +gain as a Presidential candidate. But he had utterly misjudged the +temper of the North. The general acquiescence in the compromise of 1850 +might seem to indicate a weariness or indifference as to the slavery +question. But just as in 1820 and in 1850, again there sprung up a wide +and deep hostility to any extension of slavery, and now the old +restraints on that hostility were gone, and its sources were newly +filled. For now Clay and Webster were dead, and the case itself offered +no room for compromise; no offset was possible. And the anti-slavery +feeling had strengthened immensely throughout the North. Under the +stimulus of <i>Uncle Tom's Cabin</i>, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> inhumanity of the system had made +the deepest impression on the popular imagination and conscience. To +this system it was now proposed to throw open all the fair and fertile +Northwest, in effect from the Mississippi to the Pacific. The North +awoke like a giant from sleep. The old party organizations went down in +the shock; a new party came instantly to birth; and the last triumph of +slavery in Congress gave the signal for a six-years' campaign, ending in +the triumph of the Republicans and the appeal of the South to +revolution.</p> + +<p>The debate in Congress was hot through the winter and spring of 1854. In +the Senate, Seward and Sumner and Chase had been reinforced by such +allies as Benjamin Wade of Ohio, Hamilton Fish of New York, Solomon Foot +of Vermont, and William P. Fessenden of Maine. The supporters of the +bill, with such leaders as Douglas and Cass from the North and Mason and +Benjamin from the South, proved finally to number three-fourths of the +Senate. In the House, party lines were completely broken, and the +division was almost equal,—the bill passed by 113 to 110. Its +supporters included all the Southern and just half of the Northern +Democrats, and two-thirds of the few Southern Whigs. Its opponents were +all the Northern and a third of the Southern Whigs, with half of the +Northern Democrats and the four Free-Soilers in the House.</p> + +<p>The bill finally passed on the 25th of May, 1854, and there instantly +began a hot battle for the congressional election. On the very next +morning,—so Henry Wilson relates,—a meeting of about twenty members of +the House was held; among their leaders were Israel Washburn, Jr., of +Maine, and Edward Dickinson and Thomas D. Eliot of Massachusetts; and it +was agreed that the best hope lay not in the Whig organization, but in a +new party, for which the name "Republican" was chosen; and of which +this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> occasion might now be considered the birth and christening. It +came to its earliest maturity in Michigan, where the Whigs and Free +Soilers united in the new party and carried the autumn election. But in +most Northern States there was political confusion, heightened by the +sudden appearance of the "American" party. This was the political +development of the "Know-nothing" secret society, which came into +existence the year before, on the basis of the exclusion of recent +immigrants from political power. Its special animus was hostility to the +Irish Catholics, and in various parts of the country it had for a year +or two a mushroom growth. In Massachusetts, where the Whigs clung +obstinately to their tradition and their social prestige, and the +Republican party was at first only a continuance of the Free Soil, the +Know-nothings won in 1854 a sweeping victory, carrying the State by +almost two to one and electing all the members of Congress. That shrewd +politician, Henry Wilson, contributed to the result; was elected to the +United States Senate; and led the anti-slavery element which controlled +the American party in Massachusetts and a year or two later divided its +national organization. In other States, the term "anti-Nebraska" was the +basis of a temporary union, such as in Ohio had a majority of 70,000. In +New York the influence of Greeley, Seward, and Weed prolonged the Whig +organization as an anti-Nebraska party. The roster of the new Congress +was a jumble of Democrats, Whigs, Republicans, Americans, and +anti-Nebraskans. But the general result was clear; Douglas's bill had +turned an overwhelming administration majority into a minority of the +popular vote; and the political revolution had carried the House in the +first engagement. The result crystallized a year later, when an +obstinate battle of many weeks for the House speakership ended in the +election of Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + +<p>The immediate practical effect of the Kansas-Nebraska Act was to throw +the political destiny of those Territories into the hands of the future +settlers. There were men at the North who were prompt to see and seize +the opportunity. In February, 1854, three months before the bill became +law, the New England Emigrant Aid Society was incorporated in +Massachusetts. Its originator was Eli Thayer of Worcester, and among its +active promoters was Edward Everett Hale. In the following July it sent +to Kansas a colony of twenty-four, speedily followed by another of +seventy, which founded the town of Lawrence. Other colonies followed +from various Northern States, and other settlements were made. The +natural westward movement of an active population seeking new homes and +personal betterment was augmented and stimulated by a propaganda of +freedom. Whittier gave the colonists a marching song:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We cross the prairies as of old</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Our fathers crossed the sea,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To make the West as they the East</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The home of liberty.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>A counter movement was started from the South. Missouri was its natural +base. But Missouri furnished the material and leadership for another +kind of crusade. The rough and lawless element of a border community was +brought out in its worst character by the appeal to champion the cause +of slavery. Men high in political life were ready to utilize such +forces. The first settlers of Lawrence, before they had time to raise +their houses, were visited by a ruffianly mob from Missouri, who tried +by threats and show of force to drive them from the Territory, but +failed. When in November the first election was held for Territorial +delegate to Congress, there was a systematic invasion by bands of +Missourians, who captured the polling-places and elected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> their +candidate by 3000 votes; though it was afterward proved that there were +only half that number of voters resident in Kansas.</p> + +<p>In 1855 the first Territorial Legislature was elected by a similar +invasion of armed men, which chose the entire body. A foremost leader in +these operations was United States Senator Atchison of Missouri. +President Pierce's administration recognized the usurping faction. It +sent a succession of governors—Reeder, Shannon, Geary, Walker (the last +was sent by President Buchanan)—who, with the exception of the +incompetent and worthless Shannon, were by the inexorable facts of the +situation won to the side of the Free-State men, and accordingly lost +favor and their office. Meantime the usurping Legislature had enacted an +extraordinary code of laws. By these statutes, decoying a slave from his +master was punishable by death or hard labor for ten years; the +circulation of writings inciting to revolt was made a capital offense; +and the assertion by speech, writing, or the circulation of any book or +paper, that slavery was not lawful in the Territory, was punishable by +two years' hard labor.</p> + +<p>It was not in the blood of free men to submit to such usurpation and +tyranny. In the autumn of 1855 the Free State party held a convention, +adopted a State constitution, and petitioned for admission to the Union. +They elected State officers with Charles S. Robinson as Governor. This +organization had really no legal standing; in form it was revolutionary. +But the Free State party were not only resolute, but adroit. They had no +mind to actively rebel against the United States Government, or come +into collision with its forces. Governor Robinson, their foremost +leader, was a man of New England birth, who had served a profitable +apprenticeship in the settlement of California, and learned a lesson +amid the complications of Federal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> authority and pioneer exigencies. +Counseled by him and men of like mind, the Free State party, while +maintaining the form of a State government, and disavowing the +Territorial Legislature as fraudulent, always deferred to any express +mandate of Federal authority. The Federal troops in the Territory were +commanded by Colonel Sumner, afterward a distinguished commander in the +Union army, and Governor Robinson (<i>The Kansas Conflict</i>), credits him +with a loyal and generally successful purpose to preserve order and +peace. In the mixed population there was much bad blood, many threats, +and occasional violence, but no general conflict. The "border ruffians" +were often insulting, and some murders were committed, but the Free +State men kept steadily on the defensive, though there was among them a +faction which favored more aggressive measures.</p> + +<p>At last, a Free-State man was wantonly murdered; then an eye-witness of +the murder was got away on an apparently trumped-up charge; this was +followed by a bloodless rescue and the witness was carried off to +Lawrence. Then a sheriff with his posse went to Lawrence to arrest one +of the rescuers. In the night the sheriff was fired at and wounded. He +retreated; and immediately afterward a formidable demonstration was made +against the town of Lawrence. The situation was peculiar. Many of the +Free-State men were armed; contributions had been openly taken in the +North for this purpose, and "Sharpe's rifles" was one of the familiar +words of the day. But this policy was fixed—to disown and disobey the +authority of the Territorial Legislature, but never to oppose or resist +a United States official. In this way, says Robinson, the entire odium +of all oppressive proceedings was fixed on the Federal administration; +"the more outrages the people could get the government to perpetrate +upon them the more victories they would gain, and this simply because +the field of battle em<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>braced the entire country, and the chief +victories at this stage were to be moral, political, and national."</p> + +<p>The Territorial authorities were bent on breaking down, if possible, the +passive resistance of the Free-State men. Indictments were found, by a +Federal grand jury, against a number of members of the Free-State +government for "constructive treason," and they were put under arrest. +Indictments were also found against two printing offices in Lawrence, +and the principal hotel in the town. A large force of Missourians, led +by a United States marshal, advanced on the town. The inhabitants +protested, but agreed to respect the United States authority. The hotel +and the two printing offices were accordingly destroyed. A considerable +amount of lawless pillaging was done, and Governor Robinson's house was +burned. Then the force was withdrawn.</p> + +<p>The Free-State leaders, as Robinson states, were in no wise cast down by +the course of events. Their actual losses had not been great; the +temporary confinement of a few of their men did not seriously disturb +them; and they considered that by their self-restraint and +non-resistance they had put their enemies thoroughly in the wrong, and +gained a most valuable vantage-ground for the ensuing Presidential and +congressional elections—an estimate which the result fully justified.</p> + +<p>But in their party were some spirits to whom these peaceful tactics were +distasteful. Chief in this number was John Brown—little known to the +world at large till a later time. He and his family of sons had made +their homes in Kansas, impelled partly by the hostility to slavery which +in him was a master passion. He was a man personally upright and kindly, +of only moderate interest and capacity for the ordinary practical +affairs of life, given to brooding on public events and ideal causes, +and viewing them with a fanatic's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> narrowness and a fanatic's +absorption. He was a belated Puritan, and his natural place would have +been with Cromwell's Ironsides. His ideas were largely influenced by his +reading of the Bible, especially of the Old Testament. Of the modern +State and the duties of the modern citizen he had no rational idea. +Following the Old Testament analogy, he conceived of the slaveholders as +the enemies of God—like the Canaanites; and he came to imagine for +himself a mission like one of the Hebrew leaders. His favorite hero +seems to have been Gideon, and to assail and overcome the Midianites, a +handful against a host, became his dream.</p> + +<p>How the peaceful tactics of the Free-State party suited his temper may +be easily guessed, and four days after the attack on Lawrence (which was +May 20, 1856), he acted on a plan of his own. At the head of a small +group of men, including two of his sons and a son-in-law, he went at +night down Pottawatomie creek, stopping at three houses. The men who +lived in them were well-known pro-slavery men; they seem to have been +rough characters; their most specific offense (according to Mr. Sanborn, +Brown's biographer and eulogist), was the driving from his home by +violent threats an inoffensive old man. John Brown and his party went +down the creek, called at one after the other of three houses; took five +men away from their wives and children; and deliberately shot one and +hacked the others to death with swords.</p> + +<p>Mr. Sanborn's defense of this act is: "Brown long foresaw the deadly +conflict with the slave power which culminated in the Civil War, and was +eager to begin it, that it might be the sooner over." He begins his +chapter on "The Pottawatomie Executions": "The story of John Brown will +mean little to those who do not believe that God governs the world, and +that he makes his will known in advance to certain chosen men and +women,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> who perform it consciously or unconsciously. Of such prophetic +heaven-appointed men, John Brown was the most conspicuous in our time, +and his life must be construed in the light of that fact." He also +declares that the "execution" of these five men was an offset to the +killing of five Free-State men by various persons during the preceding +twelve-month, and that it was calculated to strike wholesome terror into +evil-doers. The ethics, theology, and statesmanship of this defense are +possible only to one bent on making Brown a hero at any cost.</p> + +<p>The natural result of the Pottawatomie "executions,"—in which John +Brown's complicity was for a time concealed—was a series of +retaliations on both sides, and a state of affairs far more anarchic +than Kansas had known before. This lasted through the summer of 1856. +The general impression on the country was to strengthen the opposition +to the usurpation of the Territorial Legislature, and to the +administration which sustained it. In September there came a crisis. +Another and graver attack on Lawrence was threatened, and this time a +vigorous resistance was probable. But a new and able governor, John W. +Geary of Pennsylvania, had been dispatched by President Pierce, with +imperative instructions to pacify the Territory, as a pressing political +necessity. Geary met Robinson—the treason prisoners had already been +released—and as the two men had been near each other in the California +troubles and thus had the advantage of a mutual acquaintance, an +understanding was soon reached; Geary called off the dogs of war, and a +time of quiet followed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>"FREMONT AND FREEDOM"</h3> + + +<p>The Congress of 1855-6, divided between an administration Senate and an +opposition House, accomplished little but talk. One chapter of this talk +had a notable sequel. Charles Sumner, in an elaborate and powerful +oration in the Senate, denounced slavery, "the sum of all villainies," +and bitterly satirized one of its prominent defenders, Senator Butler of +South Carolina. He compared Butler to Don Quixote, enamored of slavery +as was the knight of his Dulcinea, and unconscious that instead of a +peerless lady she was but a wanton. The response to the speech was made +by a nephew of Senator Butler and member of the House, Preston S. Brooks +of South Carolina. He entered the Senate chamber during a recess, +accompanied and guarded by a friend and fellow member, Lawrence Keitt; +approached Sumner as he sat writing at his desk, and without words +felled him to the ground with a heavy cane, and beat him about the head +till he was insensible. Sumner, a man of fine physique, was for a long +time an invalid from the assault, and was unable for years to resume his +place in the Senate.</p> + +<p>It was not so much the individual act of Brooks as its treatment by his +party and section that gave the deepest significance to the deed and +produced the most lasting effect. A friendly magistrate sentenced Brooks +to a nominal fine and so forestalled further prosecution. His party +friends in Congress left all public rebuke of the deed to Republicans. A +motion to expel Brooks and Keitt from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> the House failed of the necessary +two-thirds vote. They resigned, and were promptly and triumphantly +re-elected. Noisy applause of the attack came from all parts of the +South, with a stack of canes marked "Hit him again." That better class +of Southerners by whom the assault was felt, as one of them expressed it +long afterward, "like a blow in the face," made no demonstration. So far +from losing caste, as a gentleman or a public man, Brooks not only kept +his place in society, but was honored a few months later with a public +banquet, at which such men as Butler and Toombs and Mason joined in the +laudations, and gave a background to the scene by free threats of +disunion if the Republicans elected their President.</p> + +<p>This treatment of Brooks made an impression at the North far beyond the +first hot indignation at his brutal outrage. The condonation and +applause of that outrage was taken as sure evidence of a barbaric state +of opinion, the natural accompaniment of slavery. What made the matter +worse was that the assault had a technical justification under the code +of honor which it was Brooks's pride as a Southern gentleman to observe. +The code called on a man who had given offense by his words to meet the +offended man in a duel, and if he refused, he was fairly subject to +public disgrace or even physical chastisement. Such a theory and +practice, and the sentiments associated with it, stamped slavery with a +heavier condemnation than orator or novelist could frame.</p> + +<p>This one week in May, 1856, was dark with omens of impending +catastrophe. On May 20 Lawrence was devastated; on the 22d, Sumner was +assaulted; and on the 24th took place the Pottawatomie massacre. A +shadow as of impending doom was reflected in Mrs. Stowe's second +anti-slavery novel, <i>Dred</i>, which appeared about this time. While +lacking the inspiration and power of <i>Uncle Tom's</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> Cabin, it had in the +main a similar tone of humanity, sympathy and fairness. Again the better +element of the Southern whites was portrayed, in the benevolent +slave-holder Clayton; the brave Methodist preacher, Father Dickson; and +the book's heroine, Nina Gordon. There were realistic and graphic +pictures of the negro at his best, in Old Tiff and Milly. The +sophistries and time-serving of ecclesiastics were fairly pictured. The +fundamental attitude of the law in regarding the slave as the creature +of his master's convenience was shown with historic fidelity. But the +book took its name from a negro, half-prophetic, half-crazed, who +maintained in the Dismal Swamp a refuge for slaves, and purposed an +uprising to conquer their freedom. To Southern imaginations it might +well recall Nat Turner and the horrors of his revolt. Mrs. Stowe +inevitably idealized everything she touched; and to idealize the leader +of a servile insurrection might well be regarded as carrying fire into a +powder magazine. The moving expostulation of the Christian slave Milly +with Dred, the death of Dred, the frustration of his plans, and the +pitiful wrongs he sought to redress, veiled from the Northern reader the +suggestion of other dangers and tragedies to which the Southern reader +was keenly alive. As we read the book now, the glimpses of coming terror +and disaster in Dred's visions seem like a presage of the war which in +truth was only four years away.</p> + +<p>But the prevailing temper of the time was as yet little clouded by any +such forebodings. It was a great wave of popular enthusiasm, sane, +resolute, and hopeful, which moved forward in the first Presidential +campaign of the Republican party in 1856. The convention met at +Philadelphia in June. Its temper was well described in a letter from +Samuel Bowles to his paper, the <i>Springfield Republican</i>,—which which +from moderate anti-slavery Whig had become<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> ardently Republican when the +Missouri compromise was repealed.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>"Certainly we never saw a political convention in which there was so +much soul as in that at Philadelphia. It was politics with a heart and a +conscience in it. Cincinnati (the Democratic convention) gathered the +remains of a once powerful national party and contributed to its further +sectionalization and destruction. Philadelphia called together the +heart, the independence, and the brains of all parties, to establish a +broader and juster nationality. Such a fusion of contradictory elements +was never witnessed in this country before since the times of the +Revolution. Nor could it happen now save under a great emergency, and +from a controlling necessity. Such a combination of the material and +mental forces of the republic as was represented in the Philadelphia +convention, and united in its enthusiastic and harmonious results, has +more power than any political combination ever formed before in this +country, and cannot in the nature of things be long kept in the +background. There is no law more certain than that which will throw such +a union of the moral strength, intellectual activity, and youth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>ful +energy of the nation into supremacy, and that right speedily. It may be +delayed for a season, but its course is onward and its victory is +certain."</p> + +<p>The declaration of principles dealt wholly with the slavery issue. It +asserted that under the Constitution, as interpreted by the Declaration +and the ordinance of 1787, slavery had no right to exist in any of the +national Territories. It called on Congress to prohibit in the +Territories "the twin relics of barbarism, slavery and polygamy." It +dwelt with great emphasis on the wrongs of the Kansas settlers; the +establishment of a Territorial Legislature by a fraudulent vote; its +outrageous statute-book; the sustaining of the usurpation by the Federal +government; the resulting disorder and violence. Congress was asked to +admit Kansas to the Union under its Free State organization. Nothing was +said as to the fugitive slave law. There was an express disclaimer of +any interference with slavery in the States. The doctrine of the party +was embodied in a phrase which became one of its mottoes: "Freedom +national, slavery sectional."</p> + +<p>For its Presidential candidate the convention passed by all the +well-known political leaders, and chose Col. John C. Fremont of +California. Fremont, after a scientific and military education, had +distinguished himself by a series of brilliant exploring expeditions in +the farthest Northwest, marked by scientific achievement and stirring +adventure. Arriving in California at the outbreak of hostilities with +Mexico, he rallied and led the American settlers and drove the Mexicans +from the territory. He took a leading part in organizing the State, and +establishing freedom in its Constitution; and was elected to the United +States Senate as a Free-Soil Democrat. His term as Senator was too brief +to win eminence, but his career as a whole had been singularly various +and distinguished. He was young; he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> had manly beauty, and a rare +personal fascination. His brilliant and charming wife won favor for him. +Even his name gave aid to the cause, and "Fremont and freedom" became +the rallying cry of the campaign.</p> + +<p>But Fremont's personality was an altogether minor element in the +strength with which the Republican party first took the field, and won, +not yet the country, but the strongholds of the North. The new party +gave expression and effect to the anti-slavery sentiment which had +become so deep and wide. It was wholly dissociated from the extremists +who had shocked and alarmed the conservatism of the country; and +Garrison and Phillips had only impatience and scorn for its principles +and measures. Its leadership included many men experienced in +congressional and administrative life, men like Seward and Sumner and +Chase and Wade and Fessenden and Banks, who had matched themselves +against the best leaders of the South and the South's Northern allies. +It brought together the best of the old Whig, Democratic, and Free Soil +parties. In its rank and file it gathered on the whole the best +conscience and intelligence of the North. After the election the +<i>Springfield Republican</i> pointed out that the party's success had been +exactly along the geographical lines of an efficient free-school system, +and it had been defeated where public schools were deficient, as in +Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, and the solid South.</p> + +<p>The immediate and burning issue of the campaign was Kansas. Whatever the +exact right and wrong of its local broils, there was no question of the +broad facts—the fraudulent election of the Legislature, the character +of its statute-book, and its support by President Pierce's +administration. It was the wrongs of the Kansas settlers far more than +the wrongs of the Southern slaves on which the Republican speakers and +newspapers dwelt. In truth the animus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> of the party was quite as much +the resentment by the North of Southern political aggression as it was +regard for the slaves or thought of their future condition. The policy +of excluding slavery from the Territories, and thus naturally from the +new States, tended ultimately to its discouragement and probable +extinction where it already existed. But any such result appeared very +remote.</p> + +<p>The opposition to the Republican party was weighty in numbers, but +inharmonious and with no definite creed. The Democratic platform was an +equivocation. It declared for "non-interference by Congress with slavery +in State or Territory." But this left it an open question whether any +one could "interfere." Could the people of a Territory exclude slavery +if they wished? Or did the Constitution protect it there, as Calhoun and +his followers claimed? An ambiguity was left which permitted Calhoun men +and Douglas men to act together against the common foe.</p> + +<p>The Democratic candidate was James Buchanan of Pennsylvania. He was one +of those men, decent and respectable, who go through a life of +office-seeking and office-holding without a particle of real leadership, +and are forgotten the moment they leave the stage unless circumstance +throws them into a place so responsible as to reveal their glaring +incompetence. He had escaped the odium which Pierce and Douglas had +incurred, through his absence as Minister to England. There he had +distinguished himself chiefly by his part in a conference at Ostend, in +1854,—incited by President Pierce and his Secretary of State, William +L. Marcy of New York,—where he had met Mason of Virginia and Soule of +Louisiana, ministers respectively to France and Spain; and they had +issued a joint manifesto, declaring that the possession of Cuba was +necessary to the peace and security of the United States, and the island +should be obtained from Spain, with her consent if possible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> but without +it if necessary. This became a recognized article in the Democratic and +Southern policy. The Republican platform of 1856 denounced the Ostend +manifesto, as the doctrine that "might makes right," "the highwayman's +plea." It was left for a latter-day Republican to give to the same +doctrine the politer name of "international eminent domain."</p> + +<p>The American or Know-nothing party nominated ex-President Fillmore and +adopted a platform inclining toward the Southern position. There was a +secession of a Northern element, which nominated Banks, but he declined +and supported Fremont. All the opponents of the Republican party laid +stress on its sectional character. Both its candidates (for +vice-president, William L. Dayton of New Jersey), were from the North; +its creed aimed solely at the restriction of the South's peculiar +institution; south of Mason and Dixon's line, it had an electoral ticket +in four States only—Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Kentucky—and +cast hardly 1000 votes. But the South itself had so completely +ostracized even the most moderate anti-slavery sentiment that free +political action was impossible. Thus, Professor Hedrick of the +University of North Carolina said in reply to a question that he favored +Fremont for President; and being denounced for this by a newspaper, he +wrote to it a letter, saying in a modest and straightforward way that he +had made no attempt to propagate his views, but he did desire to see the +slaves free. The students burned him in effigy; the college authorities +forced him to resign; a mob attacked him and he was driven from the +State. It was in the same State that a college professor's right to free +speech on a burning social question was vindicated by his students, his +colleagues, and the community, in 1903, and that Trinity College became +a leader in courageous and progressive sentiment on the questions of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +the hour. Few were the men bold enough even to try the question of +personal independence in 1856. The suppression of free speech was in +itself one of the strongest possible arguments for the Republican cause. +The liberty of white men was at stake.</p> + +<p>Conservatism, apprehension, timidity, in various phases, told against +the new party and its candidate. Northern commerce was largely bound up +with Southern interests. The threat of disunion weighed with some; +Grant, in his memoirs, says it was this that led him to vote for +Buchanan. Others shrank from trusting the helm in a tempest to hands as +untried as Fremont's. The mob who hated "niggers" swelled the opposition +vote. Taking advantage of the Know-nothing feeling, the fiction was +persistently circulated that Fremont was a Catholic. The disorder in +Kansas was pacified by the dispatch of a new Governor, Geary, to +reassure the North. Finally, money was spent on a scale unknown before +to defeat the Republican party,—itself in the stage of poverty and +virtue,—and spent probably with decisive effect in the critical October +election in Pennsylvania.</p> + +<p>Against these disadvantages the young party made head gallantly. It +fired the youth of the North with an ardor unknown since the early days +of the republic. It inspired the poets of the people. Great crowds sang +the strains of the Marseillaise, with the refrain:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Free speech, free press, free soil, free men, Fremont and victory!</p></div> + +<p>The older heads were satisfied by the moderation and wisdom of the +party's principles. The reasonable element among the Abolitionists +hailed this first great popular advance, and allied themselves with it. +Whittier was the chief minstrel of the campaign. Of those to whom "the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +Union" had been the talismanic word, that part which cared for nothing +better than the Union as it was, with slavery and freedom mixed, +supported Buchanan or Fillmore. The part that loved the Union as a means +to justice and freedom were for Fremont.</p> + +<p>The October elections in Pennsylvania and Indiana showed that the first +Presidential battle was lost. November confirmed that verdict. New +England, New York, Ohio, Illinois, and the Northwest, had been +outweighed by the South and its allies, and Buchanan was the next +President. But never was defeat met with better courage or higher hopes +for the next encounter. Some unknown poet gave the battle-song:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beneath thy skies, November,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thy skies of cloud and rain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Around our blazing camp-fires</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">We close our ranks again.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then sound again the bugle!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Call the battle roll anew!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If months have well nigh won the field</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What may not four years do?</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> A word should be said as to the frequency with which the +<i>Springfield Republican</i> is quoted in this work. The author wrote an +earlier book, <i>The Life and Times of Samuel Bowles</i>, (Century Co.)—the +founder of the Republican. As the background of his life, a careful +study was made of the political events during his years of editorial +activity, 1844-77. The original matter for this was largely drawn from +the files of the <i>Republican</i>. In studying the whole ground afresh for +the present history, advantage was taken of this material, and further +citations were drawn from the same paper. The interpretation of current +events by an independent and sagacious newspaper yields invaluable +material for the historian; and my study of the <i>Republican</i>, from the +repeal of the Missouri compromise in 1854 to the present, has heightened +my respect for the breadth, sobriety, and moral insight with which it +judged the questions of the day.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>THREE TYPICAL SOUTHERNERS</h3> + + +<p>In the group of leaders of public sentiment in the '30s and '40s, as +sketched in Chapter V, some of the foremost—Clay, Webster, and +Birney—were influential in both sections of the country. But in the +next decade the division is clear between the leaders of the South and +of the North. Let us glance at two separate groups.</p> + +<p>Jefferson Davis was in many ways a typical Southerner. He was a sincere, +able, and high-minded man. The guiding aim of his public life was to +serve the community as he understood its interests. Personal ambition +seemingly influenced him no more than is to be expected in any strong +man; and, whatever his faults of judgment or temper, it does not appear +that he ever knowingly sacrificed the public good to his own profit or +aggrandizement. But he was devoted to a social system and a political +theory which bound his final allegiance to his State and his section. +After a cadetship at West Point and a brief term of military service, he +lived for eight years, 1837-45, on a Mississippi plantation, in joint +ownership and control with an older brother. In these early years, and +in the seclusion of a plantation, his theories crystallized and his +mental habits grew. The circumstances of such life fostered in Southern +politicians the tendency to logical and symmetrical theories, to which +they tenaciously held, unmodified by the regard for experience which is +bred from free and various contact with the large world of affairs. +Davis fully accepted the theory of State sovereignty which won general +favor in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> South. In this view the States were independent powers, +which had formed with each other by the Constitution a compact, a +business arrangement, a kind of limited partnership. If the compact was +broken in any of its articles, or if its working proved at any time to +be unsatisfactory and injurious, the partners could withdraw at will. +This theory found more or less support among the various utterances and +practices of the framers of the Constitution and founders of the +government. In truth, they had as a body no consistent and exact theory +of the Federal bond. Later circumstances led their descendants to +incline to a stronger or a looser tie, according to their different +interests and sentiments. The institution of slavery so strongly +differentiated the Southern communities from their Northern neighbors, +that they naturally magnified their local rights and favored the view +which justified them in the last resort in renouncing the authority of +the Union if it should come to be exercised against their industrial +system. State sovereignty was the creed, and the slavery interest was +the motive.</p> + +<p>To a man living like Davis on his own plantation, the relation of master +and slave seemed a fundamental condition of the social order. Not only +his livelihood rested on it, but through this relation his practical +faculties found their field; his conscience was exercised in the right +management and care of his slaves; there was a true sentiment of +protection on his side and loyalty on theirs. His neighbors and friends +were situated like himself. The incidental mischiefs of the system, the +abuses by bad masters, the ignorance and low morality of the +slaves,—these things they regarded, let us say, as an upright and +benevolent manufacturer to-day regards the miseries of sweatshops and +the sufferings of unemployed labor. Such things were bad, very bad, but +they were the accidents and not the essen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>tials of the industrial +system. They resented the strictures of their critics; they were +apprehensive of the growing hostility in the North to their +institutions; if the national partnership was to last they must have +their rights under it; and one of those rights was an equal share in the +national domain.</p> + +<p>Davis entered into active politics when he was elected to Congress in +1844. Repudiation was then in favor in Mississippi, and he opposed and +denounced it. He supported the Mexican War in the most practical way, by +taking command of a volunteer regiment from Mississippi. He served with +distinguished gallantry, and was severely wounded at Buena Vista. After +the war he entered the United States Senate. He supported the compromise +of 1850, regarding it as substantially a continuance of the truce +between the sections, and not now sympathizing with those who threatened +disunion. Later, President Pierce made him Secretary of War; in the +Cabinet he was the leading spirit; and this, with a weak President, +meant large power and responsibility. He showed the extent of his +partisanship by supporting with the full power of the administration the +Territorial government imposed on Kansas by a palpably fraudulent vote.</p> + +<p>In 1856 he returned to the Senate, and came to be recognized as the +foremost champion of the Southern interest. He was not a leader in any +such sense as Jefferson or Clay or Calhoun; but he was a representative +man, thoroughly trusted by his associates, their most effective +spokesman, and going by conviction in the midstream of the dominant +tendency. He had that degree of ambition which is natural and normal in +a strong man. He was an effective and elegant orator. When secession +came he was not its originator, but one of a set of men—on the whole +the most considerate and influential men of the Gulf and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> cotton +States—who took the responsibility of leading their section into +revolution, in the interest of slavery.</p> + +<p>In this typical Southern leader, as in his class, were blended the +elements of a disposition and will that would halt before no barrier to +its claim of mastery. A slaveholder, accustomed to supremacy over his +fellowmen as their natural superior; a planter, habituated to the +practical exercise of such supremacy over hundreds of dependents; a +member of an aristocracy, the political masters of their section, and +long the dominant force in the nation; a theorist, wedded to the dogma +of State sovereignty, and convinced of the superiority of Southern +civilization; the self-confident and self-asserting temper bred by such +conditions—here was a union of forces that would push its cause against +all opposition, at the cost if need be of disunion, of war, of all +obstacles and all perils.</p> + +<p>By a natural exaggeration, at a later time the President of the +Confederacy was regarded at the North as the very embodiment of its +cause. To the unmeasured hostility on this account was added the +opprobrium of deeds in which he had no part. He was charged for a time +with complicity in the murder of Lincoln. He was branded with +responsibility for the miseries in Andersonville and the other +prison-pens in the war,—but without a particle of evidence. Admiration +was yielded by the North to Stonewall Jackson even in his life-time; +there was early recognition of Lee's magnanimous acceptance of defeat; +but the bitterest odium was long visited upon Davis. It was heightened +by the tenacity with which his intense nature clung to "the lost cause" +as a sentiment, after the reality was hopelessly buried. The South +itself gave its highest favor to Lee, its most effective defender, and a +man of singularly impressive character; while Davis's mistakes of +administration, and his reserved and over-sensitive temper chilled a +little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> the recognition of his disinterested and loyal service. But in +the retrospect of history he stands out as an honorable and pathetic +figure. The single warping influence of his whole career was the mistake +he shared with millions of his countrymen,—the acceptance and +exaltation of slavery. He was faithful to his convictions; he was free +from covetousness and meanness; and in his personality there were high +and fine elements of manhood. "A very intense man and a very lovable +man" was the judgment of one who was his intimate associate through the +war.</p> + +<p>"Love of power was so much weaker in him than love of his theories that +when Congress passed laws enlarging his prerogatives he wrote long +messages declining them on constitutional grounds." A friend described +him as "a game-cock—with just a little strut." Said one who stood in +close relations with him: "He was so sensitive to criticism and even to +questioning that I have passed months of intimate official association +with him without venturing to ask him a question." Pure in his personal +morals, but never having made a religious profession, under the +responsibilities of the Presidency he turned for support to religion, +and was confirmed in the Episcopal Church. Under imprisonment, +indignities, obloquy, long seclusion with the memories of a ruined +cause, he bore himself with manly fortitude and dignity. Schooled by +inexorable reality, he finally acquiesced in the established order, and +his last public words were of fidelity and faith for the new America.</p> + +<p>Before the war, Robert Toombs of Georgia played some such part to the +Northern imagination as Phillips or Sumner to the Southern. He was +regarded as the typical fire-eater and braggart. He was currently +reported to have boasted that he would yet call the roll of his slaves +at the foot of Bunker Hill monument. But in truth this ogre was made of +much the same human clay as the Massachusetts Aboli<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>tionists. He is well +pictured, together with Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, in Trent's +<i>Southern Statesmen of the Old Regime</i>,—a book admirable in its spirit +and its historic fidelity. Both Toombs and Stephens represented, as +compared with Davis, the more moderate sentiment of the South, until +they parted company with each other on the question of secession. Trent +prefaces the companion portraits with a sketch of the typical Georgian; +his State, like the other Gulf States, less civilized and orderly than +Virginia and South Carolina, less critical and more enthusiastic; the +Georgian, "the southern Yankee," "loving success, strength, +straightforwardness, and the solid virtues generally, neither is he +averse to the showy ones; but above all he loves virtue in action." +Among Southerners, says Trent, the Georgian is nearest to a normal +American. Toombs inherited property; grew up like other Southern boys of +the prosperous class; rode and hunted and studied a little in the +interims. As a lawyer, he would not take a case unless satisfied of its +justice. He was of robust physique, vigorous intellect, and high +spirits; and he was happy in his family life.</p> + +<p>Stephens worked his way up from poverty, and never lost an active +sympathy with the struggling. He helped more than fifty young men to get +an education. He was of a slight and fragile frame, and had much +physical suffering, which he bore with indomitable courage. His +conscientiousness was almost morbid. His temperament was melancholy, and +his life was lonely. In early life he was twice in love, but poverty +forbade his marriage. He was a clear and logical thinker, much given to +refined exposition of constitutional theories, but deficient in large +culture and philosophy. He held the doctrine of State sovereignty, but +from first to last he opposed secession as against the true interest of +the States. At the beginning of his career he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> was active in opposing +the vigilance committees organized to harry anti-slavery men. He +supported the annexation of Texas, though objecting to doing it in the +interest of slavery,—slavery, he said, was a domestic matter, which the +Federal government had no call to take care of. He and Toombs generally +stood together, as Whigs and Unionists. They opposed the Mexican War, on +the ground that the Union was not to be extended by force; neither, they +both said later, was it to be maintained by force. But they opposed the +exclusion of slavery from the Territories by the Wilmot proviso; and in +the debate Stephens declared that the morality of slavery stood "upon a +basis as firm as the Bible," and as long as Christianity lasted it could +never be considered an offense against the divine laws. The two men did +yeoman's service in carrying through the 1850 compromise, and afterward +in persuading Georgia not to take part in the Nashville convention—a +disunionist scheme which proved abortive. They, with Howell Cobb, held +Georgia for the compromise and for the Union, and thus fixed the pivotal +point of Southern politics for the next decade. They became leaders in +the Constitutional Union party, which, in Georgia, succeeded the Whig. +They made vigorous and successful fights against the Know-nothing folly. +They accepted the gains which came to the South through Douglas's +breaking down of the Missouri compromise, and, a little later, the Dred +Scott decision of the Supreme Court; but they diverged from Davis, by +not favoring the active intervention of Congress to protect slavery in +the Territories. Toombs was accused of abetting Brooks's attack on +Sumner, which he disclaimed; but he found nothing to hinder his taking +part in a banquet in Brooks's honor a few months later, and on this most +ill-omened occasion he joined in the threats of disunion if Fremont +should be elected. But still the catastrophe lingered,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> and seemed +improbable. Stephens left Congress in 1858. Two years more, and +secession became a burning question; Stephens and Toombs took opposite +sides, but, the issue decided, they both made common cause with their +State. Toombs served in the Confederate Cabinet and Army. Stephens, +vice-president of the Confederacy, seven years after the close of the +war again became a member of the House; an attenuated figure, confined +to a wheel-chair, but still vital and vigorous; respected by all; his +presence a visible symbol of the spanning of "the bloody chasm."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h3>SOME NORTHERN LEADERS</h3> + + +<p>Turning now to the North, the principal leaders in its political life +have already been mentioned, except Lincoln, whose star had not yet +risen; but it is worth while to glance at some of those who, apart from +Congress and public office, were molding public sentiment. Perhaps the +man of the widest influence on public opinion was Horace Greeley. +Through his <i>New York Tribune</i> he reached an immense audience, to a +great part of whom the paper was a kind of political Bible. His words +struck home by their common sense, passion, and close sympathy with the +common people. A graduate of the farm and printing office, he was in +close touch with the free, plain, toiling, American people, and in no +man had they a better representative or a more effective advocate. There +was in him something of John Bright's sturdy manhood, direct speech and +devotion to human rights; something, too, of Franklin's homely +shrewdness,—though little of Franklin's large philosophy or serenity. +He was at first a Henry Clay Whig, and always a zealous protectionist; +then in alliance with the anti-slavery element in the party, and soon +the leading Republican editor. He was a lover of peace, in active +sympathy with social reforms, sometimes betrayed into extravagances, but +generally guarded by his common sense against extremists and +impracticables. His limitations were a want of large culture, a very +uncertain judgment in estimating men, and a temperament liable to such +sudden ebb and flow that he fell sometimes into rashness and sometimes +into panic. But he was disinterested<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> and great-hearted. Other men +broadened the <i>Tribune's</i> scope; its editorial tone was for its audience +persuasive and convincing; and the <i>Tribune</i> was one of the great +educational influences of the country. Beside it stood the <i>New York +Times</i>, edited by Henry J. Raymond, an advocate of moderate anti-slavery +and Republican principles, with less of masterful leadership than the +<i>Tribune</i>, but sometimes better balanced; and the <i>Herald</i>, under the +elder James Gordon Bennett, devoted to news and money-making, and +pandering to Southern interests.</p> + +<p>The clergy at the South were by this time generally united in the +defense of slavery. At the North, there was great variety among them. +Many ministers ignored slavery as apart from their province. Many spoke +of it occasionally as a sin, but regarded it as little concerned with +that daily life of their people which was their main concern. A few +treated it as a great national wrong, speaking such denunciation as the +Hebrew prophets gave to the national sins of their people; and of these +some were driven from their pulpits. A few expressed open sympathy or +apology for slavery,—such as Dr. Nehemiah Adams, of Boston, and Bishop +Hopkins, of Vermont.</p> + +<p>The foremost preacher in America was Henry Ward Beecher. He was above +all things a preacher,—charged with a great spiritual message; of +extraordinary and various eloquence, dramatic, inspiring, thrilling; +impelled and sometimes controlled by a wonderful imagination. He was +taking a leading part in transforming the popular belief. Theology has +radically altered under two influences,—the new view of facts given by +science, and a higher ethical and spiritual feeling. It was under the +ethical and spiritual impulse that Beecher so altered the emphasis of +the traditional theology, so dwelt on the love of God, on Christ's +character as the revelation of God, on the opportunities and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> +incitements of daily life, on all the hopeful and joyful aspects of +existence,—that in the minds of his hearers the harsher elements, not +only of Calvinism, but of the whole traditional orthodoxy, melted as +imperceptibly and steadily as icebergs melt when they drift southward. +He always avoided any avowed or precipitate break with the old system of +dogma,—partly from a personal sentiment associated with the faith of +the fathers; partly from an instinctive preference of practical and +emotional over intellectual methods; and partly from a studied regard to +the most effective results,—a shrewdness which tempered his +impetuosity.</p> + +<p>In these stirring days Beecher began to take active part in political +discussion,—rarely in his pulpit, but as an occasional speaker at +political meetings, or as a writer in the New York <i>Independent</i>. His +ground was that of moderate anti-slavery and Republicanism. Shut off on +the political platform from the highest flights of his pulpit oratory, +he yet had large scope for his ideality, his common sense, his rich and +abounding humor, his marvelous range of illustration from all things in +earth and heaven. As the public questions of the day came still closer +home to the business and bosoms of men, he dealt with them more freely +in his preaching, though never to the subordination of the personal +religious life as the paramount interest. One scene in his church comes +vividly to mind; after the sermon, he stated the case of a little slave +girl, allowed to come North on the chance of her being ransomed; and +after a few moving words, he set her beside him—a beautiful, +unconscious child—and money rained into the contribution boxes till in +a few minutes the amount was raised, and the great congregation joined +in a triumphant closing hymn.</p> + +<p>Of a different type was Theodore Parker. He stood in his pulpit, the +embodiment of courageous attack on every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> falsehood and abuse as it +appeared to the lofty and luminous mind of the preacher. With his +prophecy there mingled no expediency. He spoke the truth as he saw it, +and let consequences take care of themselves. For a generation, the +Unitarian ministers had denied the doctrine of the Trinity, but they +held the founder of Christianity in such reverence that they would +scarcely define his divine or semi-divine nature. Parker spoke frankly +of Jesus as a man, and a man liable to imperfections and mistakes, while +he honored him as the greatest leader of humanity. The +Unitarians,—their intellectual radicalism kept well in check by the +conservatism natural to their social and ecclesiastical traditions,—had +held to a decided supernaturalism. Parker put religion on a purely +natural basis, and sent home to men's consciousness the ideas of God and +immortal life. His sermons were iconoclastic, but his prayers were full +of reverence, aspiration, and tenderness. He was ostracized by most of +the Unitarian churches, and dreaded by the orthodox, but he was a power +in Boston and in America. He attacked social wrongs as fearlessly as he +discussed theology. Against slavery he struck as with a battle ax. He +was not greatly concerned with constitutions or tolerant of compromises. +When a fugitive slave was seized in Boston, Parker took active part in a +project of rescue. He roused the conscience of New England and the +North. He died at fifty, just before the Civil War, consumed by his own +fire.</p> + +<p>The fable of the traveler who clung the closer to his cloak when the +wind tried to strip it off but cast it aside when addressed by the sun's +genial warmth, had an illustration in the many who surrendered their +prejudice and selfishness, not at the bidding of the stormy reformers, +but touched by the serene light of Emerson. Emerson's specific influence +on slavery or any other social problem is hard to measure, for his power +was thrown on the illumination and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> inspiration of the individual man. +But in the large view his was an incomparable influence in diffusing +that temper of mingled courage and sweetness, the idealist's vision and +the soldier's valor, which is the world's best help and hope. He spoke +out against slavery whenever he saw that his word was needed; he +vindicated the right of the Abolitionists to free speech, whether they +spoke wisely or not; and in some of his poems, as the "Concord Ode," and +"Boston Hymn," he thrillingly invoked the best of the Puritan and +Revolutionary temper to right the wrongs of the present. It was said of +him that he gave to the war for the Union, "not one son, but a +thousand." But he also gave watchwords that will long outlast the issues +of the war and our issues of to-day. The homely yet soaring idealism of +the true American will always answer to the word, "Hitch your wagon to a +star."</p> + +<p>The group of writers who gave brilliancy to this period have already +been cited as champions of freedom. Most effective in his advocacy was +Whittier, who, in early days, took active part in politics as a Free +Soiler, and afterward did greater service by the lyrics of freedom, +which like his songs of labor and poems of home life and religion, went +to the heart of the common people as no other American voice has done. +One who reads Whittier to-day may be allowed to wish that he had known +the sunny as well as the shady side of Southern life; and that, as in a +later poem he softened his fierce criticism on Webster, so he had +celebrated the virtues and graces of his white countrymen below the +Potomac and the Ohio, as well as the wrongs of his black countrymen. +Lowell, usually a scholarly poet, spoke to the common people nobly for +peace and freedom in the Biglow Papers. In 1857 the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i> +was started under his editorship, the organ at once of the highest +literary ability of New England, and of pronounced anti-slavery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> and +Republican sentiment. After he gave up the editorship in 1862, he wrote +at intervals of a few years the second series of Biglow Papers, and his +"Commemoration Ode" was the noblest literary monument of the triumph of +Union and freedom.</p> + +<p>Longfellow's main vocation was away from the turmoils of the hour. He +interpreted to America the art, the culture, the legends of Europe and +the Middle Ages; he found the poetry in the early soil of America, as in +"Hiawatha" and "Evangeline." He was not deaf to the wrongs of the slave, +and gave to them some touching poems. But his finest contribution to the +national idea was the apostrophe to the Union which crowns "The Building +of the Ship." It was written in 1849, in the stress of the struggle over +California, and it may well last as long as the nation lasts. The poem +is an idyl of the ship-building folk and the sea; the consummation is +the bridal of the captain and the builder's daughter, and the launching +of the ship, christened "The Union"—emblem of the wife's and husband's +voyage begun together on the sea of life; then,—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sail on, O Union, strong and great!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Humanity with all its fears,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With all the hopes of future years,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is hanging breathless on thy fate!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We know what Master laid thy keel,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What anvils rang, what hammers beat,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In what forge and what a heat</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fear not each sudden sound and shock,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Tis of the wave and not the rock;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Tis but the flapping of the sail,</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And not a rent made by the gale!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In spite of rock and tempest's roar,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In spite of false lights on the shore,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Are all with thee,—are all with thee!</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>DRED SCOTT AND LECOMPTON</h3> + + +<p>Under Buchanan's administration, 1857-61, three events befell which were +like wedges riving farther and farther apart the national unity. They +were the Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court, the Lecompton +constitution in Kansas, and John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry.</p> + +<p>President Buchanan declared in his inaugural that the people of a +Territory had a right to shape their institutions in their own way, but +as to how far that right extended before they organized as a State, the +United States Supreme Court was the proper arbiter. Two days after the +inaugural, the Supreme Court announced its decision, in a case made up +expressly to test the status of slavery in the Territories. Suit was +brought before it to obtain freedom for Dred Scott, who being held as a +slave in Missouri had been taken by his master to reside for a time in +Illinois, and afterward at Fort Snelling in unorganized territory north +of 36 degrees 30 minutes, and so free under the Missouri compromise. It +was claimed that by being taken upon free soil, in State or Territory, +he became free. The court, in an elaborate opinion delivered by +Chief-Justice Taney, dismissed the case for want of jurisdiction, on the +ground that no person of slave descent or African blood could be a +citizen of the United States or be entitled to sue in its courts. The +court affirmed that the sweeping language of the Declaration, that "all +men are born free," had no application to negroes, because at that time +they were generally regarded "as so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> far inferior that they had no +rights which the white man was bound to respect." The case being thus +thrown out of court, all further discussion of its merits was +superfluous—a mere <i>obiter dictum</i>, without legal force. Nevertheless, +the court through its chief-justice went on to pronounce upon the +plaintiff's claim and declare it baseless; on the ground that inasmuch +as a slave was lawful property, and the Constitution decreed that no man +should be deprived of his property without due process of law, therefore +an act of Congress declaring in effect that when carried beyond a +certain line a slave was lost to his master, was unconstitutional and +void. Thus the court set aside as invalid the exclusion of slavery from +the Territories by Congress. As to the effect of a slave's residence in +a free State by his master's act, followed by a return to a slave +State,—the court held that this question belonged properly to the +Missouri courts, which had decided against the slave's claim.</p> + +<p>Two of the justices, McLean and Curtis (Northern Whigs), dissented +emphatically from the decision. Justice Curtis pointed out, as to the +alleged incapacity of the negro for citizenship at the era of the +Constitution, that at that period free negroes had the right of suffrage +in five of the thirteen States. As to the argument against depriving a +man of his property, the contention of the Republicans was that slaves +were property, not by the common usage of mankind, but only by local +law, and that when a slaveholder moved into a Territory he did not carry +with him that local law by which alone a man could be held as a chattel. +But the authoritative voice of the highest court in the land had +proclaimed these amazing propositions,—that the guarantee of freedom to +the Northwest, which the nation had accepted for a third of a century, +was invalid, and that no person with negro blood had any civil rights as +a citizen of the United States.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> + +<p>When, forty years later, a law of Congress establishing an equitable +income tax was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and a +Democratic national convention protested against that decision, the +Republican papers of the day denounced the protest as hardly less than +treason. But the Republicans of an earlier day were not so reverential +toward the Supreme Court as an infallible authority. Could the court as +a finality outlaw the negro from the common rights of man, and prevent +Congress from establishing freedom in the national domain? Not so +thought the men who led the Republican party and the sentiment of the +North. The New York Legislature, for example, promptly enacted that +African descent should not disqualify from State citizenship; that any +slave brought into the State by his master became free, and any attempt +to hold him was a penal offense. It passed a resolution declaring that +the Supreme Court had lost the confidence and respect of the people. +Lincoln said in his dry way that the Republican party did not propose to +declare Dred Scott a free man (by the way, he was soon manumitted by his +former master's daughter)—but neither did they propose to accept the +court's decision as a political rule binding the voters, or Congress, or +the President; and they intended so to oppose it as to have it reversed +if possible, and a new judicial rule established. Seward was very +outspoken. He said a year later, in the Senate, "The people of the +United States never can and never will accept principles so +unconstitutional, so abhorrent. Never, never! Let the court recede. +Whether it recede or not, we shall reorganize the court, and thus reform +its political sentiment and practices, and bring them in harmony with +the Constitution and the laws of Nature."</p> + +<p>The court's decision, <i>obiter dictum</i> and all, extended only to the +power of Congress over the Territories. What a Territorial Legislature +might do by way of excluding slavery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> had not been passed on; and +Douglas thus found room for his doctrine of "popular sovereignty." But +as to just what that meant, he was adroitly non-committal, till the more +adroit Lincoln in the joint debate in 1858 drew from him the statement +that a Territorial Legislature might by "unfriendly legislation" +practically exclude slavery—a committal which ended his favor from the +South.</p> + +<p>But meanwhile attention was focused on a different and more concrete +question. Buchanan began his administration with an effort to pacify +Kansas, by sending a new governor, Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi, +with strong pledges from the President that the people should have fair +dealing. But the situation was badly complicated. The Legislature had +provided for a convention to frame a State Constitution. This was to be +elected on the basis of a census taken by the county officials. But the +Free State men having never recognized this Territorial Legislature, and +having kept up the form of a State government of their own, there were +no officials to take the census and register the votes in fifteen out of +the thirty-four counties, and the registration was confined to the part +of the Territory lying convenient for invasion from Missouri. Under +these circumstances the Free State party resisted all Governor Walker's +appeals to take part in the election, and the convention was chosen by a +small vote. It met at Lecompton, and drew up a constitution. One article +provided for the exclusion of free negroes, and another forbade any +amendment for seven years. One section affirmed ownership of slaves as +an inviolable right of property, and forbade any adverse legislation; +and this section alone of the Constitution was submitted to the popular +vote. A vote of the people was ordered, as between "constitution with +slavery" and "constitution without slavery." The Free State men scouted +the whole proceeding, and refused to vote. So, by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> the form of a popular +election, the "constitution with slavery" was adopted.</p> + +<p>The administration now gave its whole strength to the admission by +Congress of Kansas with the Lecompton constitution. The same election +that made Buchanan President had made the House as well as the Senate +Democratic. But it was no longer the disciplined and docile Democracy of +old. The proposal to admit a State under a constitution of which only a +single article had been submitted to even the form of a popular vote, +was too obnoxious for any but the most unflinching partisans. It was +impossible to a leader whose watchword was "popular sovereignty."</p> + +<p>Douglas broke squarely with the administration, and acted with the +Republicans against the bill. He came in close touch with their leaders, +and his open accession to their party seemed probable. Meanwhile in the +Democratic party he had a small following in Congress and a large +following among the people. The struggle in Congress over the Lecompton +bill was obstinate. Senator Crittenden of Kentucky,—belonging nominally +to the remnant of the American party, which sheltered some of the +moderate Southerners, and himself one of their best leaders—proposed a +bill submitting the entire Constitution to a direct popular vote. This +was defeated in the Senate, but passed by the House, with the support of +the Republicans. A committee of conference sought for some agreement, +and found a singular one: a bill proposed by and named from Mr. English, +a Douglas Democrat from Illinois. It provided that the Constitution +should be submitted to a popular vote; if accepted, Kansas was at once +to become a State and receive an immense land grant; if rejected, it was +to remain a Territory until it had the population requisite for one +representative in the House,—93,340,—and get no land grant. The +combination of a bribe and a threat gave an almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> grotesque air to the +proposition. Party lines were broken in the vote; Douglas and a part of +his associates joined with the bulk of the Republicans in opposing the +bill; but enough of both sides saw in it the best they could get, to win +a majority in both houses, and the English bill became law, in April, +1858.</p> + +<p>In the previous summer, the assurances of Governor Walker and the advice +of sagacious politicians like Henry Wilson had induced the Free State +men to give up their separate organization and take part in the election +of the Territorial Legislature. They carried the election by two to one. +But again fraud was attempted. From a hamlet with eleven houses was sent +in a return of 1624 votes,—the names, it was found, copied in +alphabetical order from a Cincinnati directory; and from another +district an equally dishonest return was made; and the two would have +changed the majority in the Legislature. This catastrophe was averted by +the firmness of Walker, who threw out the fraudulent returns. In this he +was vainly opposed by the Territorial chief justice, a servile partisan. +After this the President turned against Walker and in the following +December drove him into resignation. He protested in an indignant letter +that the President had betrayed and deserted him, and that his policy +had saved the Territory from civil war and brought the entire people +together for the first time in a peaceable election.</p> + +<p>Indeed the troubles of Kansas were practically ended. The people +rejected the Lecompton constitution and its land grant by a heavy +majority. They framed and ratified a Constitution of their own at +Wyandotte, and came into the Union as a free State when secession had +left the Republicans in full control of Congress in the winter of +1860-1.</p> + +<p>The accession of Kansas to the Free States was full of significance. It +was fresh evidence that in the actual settle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>ment of the new country the +inevitable preponderance lay with free labor. Its industrial advantage +could not be overborne by a hostile national administration, nor by the +inroads of aggressive and lawless neighbors. The management of their +affairs by the Free State settlers was a great vindication of the +methods of peace. The guerrilla warfare undertaken by Brown and his +party had won no real advantage. The decisive triumph came from the +habitual self-control of the Free State men, their steady refusal to +resist the Federal authority, and the sympathy they thus won from the +peaceful North, turning at last the scales of Congressional authority in +their favor. Thus far, peace and freedom moved hand in hand.</p> + +<p>The tide in the country was running strongly with the Republicans. The +alliance with Douglas failed, because his price was the Senatorship from +Illinois, and the Republicans of that State were "willing to take him on +probation, but not to make him the head of the church." They named +Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for the Senatorship, and these two +men held a series of joint debates which fixed the attention of the +country; with the result that Lincoln won the popular majority, but +Douglas the Legislature and the Senatorship. In the country at large, +the Republicans made such gains, in this election of 1858, that they won +the control of the National House. The Whigs were defunct, the Americans +were a dwindling fraction; the "Constitutional Union" party held a +number who sought peace above all things; but the great mass divided +between the Republicans and the Democrats. Douglas, the most dextrous of +rope-dancers, had regained his place as the foremost man in his old +party. The Republicans held firmly to their constitutional principles; +but the depth of the antagonism of the two industrial systems grew ever +more apparent. Lincoln had declared: "A house divided against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> itself +cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half +slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not +expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. +It will become all one thing or all the other." Seward, too, had said: +"The United States must and will, sooner or later, become either +entirely a slave-holding or entirely a free-labor nation." Between the +two systems there was an "irrepressible conflict." But he added that he +desired and expected the triumph of freedom "not otherwise than through +the action of the several States, co-operating with the Federal +Government, and all acting in conformity with their respective +constitutions." Yet over these utterances of Lincoln and Seward some +conservatives in the party shook their heads, as liable to be +misinterpreted and to needlessly alarm the South. But men more radical +than Lincoln and Seward were coming to the front. Sumner was silenced +for the time, but among the leaders of Massachusetts now appeared John +A. Andrew, her future war Governor, large-brained and large-hearted. In +this year, 1858, at the State convention of which he was president, he +said, "I believe in the Republican party because I believe that slavery, +the servitude of humanity, has no business to exist anywhere; because it +has no business to exist and no right to be supported where the sun +shines or grass grows or water runs."</p> + +<p>One of the sensations of the time was a book, dated 1857, which showed a +rift in the solid South. It was <i>The Impending Crisis</i>, by Hinton Rowan +Helper, a North Carolinian by long descent, birth, and residence; the +son of "a merciful slave-holder"; writing at the age of twenty-seven. +His standpoint was that of the non-slave-holding Southern white. "Yankee +wives"—so he begins—"have written the most popular anti-slavery +literature of the day. Against this I have nothing to say; it is all +well enough for women<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> to give the pictures of slavery; men should give +the facts." His method is largely the comparison of the industrial +progress of the two sections, and his chief arsenal is the United States +census. North and South started, he says, with the establishment of the +government and the North's abolition of slavery, with advantage in soil, +climate, rivers, harbors, minerals, forests, etc., on the side of the +South, but in sixty years she has been completely outstripped. He +brackets Virginia and New York; at the start, Virginia had twice the +population of New York; now New York's population doubles Virginia's. +Virginia's exports have been about stationary at $3,000,000; New York's +have risen from $2,500,000 to $87,000,000. New York almost trebles +Virginia in valuation, even including slaves. So he compares North +Carolina and Massachusetts; the empty port of Beaufort and the teeming +one of Boston; the northern State with a production from manufactures, +mines, and mechanic arts double the whole cotton crop of the South. So +he compares South Carolina and Pennsylvania. Again: Sail down the Ohio, +and you will find the lands on the right bank worth double and treble +those on the left bank,—slavery makes all the difference. The hay crop +of the free States is worth more in dollars and cents than all the +cotton, tobacco, rice, hay, and hemp, in the slave States. The marble +and free-stone quarries in New England yield more wealth than all the +subterranean deposits in the slave States. And so for many pages he goes +on piling Pelion upon Ossa with his figures. He pictures the South's +economic dependence: "In infancy we are swaddled in Northern muslin; in +childhood we are humored with Northern gewgaws; in youth, we are +instructed out of Northern books; at the age of maturity, we sow our +wild oats on Northern soil.... In the decline of life we remedy our +sight with Northern spectacles, and support our infirmities with +Northern canes;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> in old age we are drugged with Northern physic; and +finally, when we die, our inanimate bodies, shrouded in Northern +cambric, are stretched upon the bier, borne to the grave in a Northern +carriage, entombed with Northern spade, and memorized with a Northern +slab!"</p> + +<p>Land in the Northern States averages $28.07 an acre in value, and in the +Southern States it is $5.34. The difference measures the robbery +committed on a community of 10,000,000 by the 350,000 slave-holders. +These "chevaliers of the lash" he arraigns with a rhetoric compared to +which Sumner's and Phillip's words were pale. The slave-holders are +worse, he declares, than thieves, for they steal from all. They are +worse than common murderers, for they issue to themselves licenses to +murder; the slave who resists may be killed. He is for no +half-measures,—he avows himself a free-soiler, an emancipationist, an +abolitionist, a colonizationist. "The liberation of five millions of +'poor white trash,' from the second degree of slavery, and of three +millions of miserable kidnapped negroes from the first degree, cannot be +accomplished too soon." The process is simple and easy; emancipation +will be followed by such an instant rise in all values and in general +prosperity that the slave-owners themselves will be recouped. Let each +of these, he says, give to each slave his freedom and $60 in money; half +that sum will transport him to Liberia, whither all should go. He +foresees the tempest which his book will arouse. "What are you going to +do about it? Something dreadful as a matter of course? Perhaps you will +dissolve the Union. Do it, if you dare! Our motto, and we would have you +understand it, is the abolition of slavery and the perpetuation of the +American Union. If by any means you do succeed in your treasonable +attempt to take the South out of the Union to-day, we will bring her +back to-morrow,—if she goes away with you, she will return without +you." In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> his closing paragraph he predicts the election to the +Presidency in 1860 of some anti-slavery Southerner, of the type of +Cassius M. Clay, or James G. Birney, and in 1864, of a Northerner like +Seward or Sumner. And he thus concludes: "Furthermore, if in these or in +any other similar cases the oligarchy do not quietly submit to the will +of a constitutional majority of the people, as expressed at the +ballot-box, the first battle between freedom and slavery will be fought +at home—and may God defend the right!"</p> + +<p>The book raised a tempest of denunciation. The more it was denounced the +more it was read. It was easily "the best-selling book" of the time. The +concrete reply of the party criticised was first to drive Helper out of +North Carolina. Next his book was condemned in a resolution proposed at +the opening of Congress in 1859-60, and aimed especially at John +Sherman, of Ohio, the Republican candidate for speaker, who had signed a +qualified recommendation of the book. After a long contest the +Republicans dropped Sherman for Pennington, of New Jersey, whom they +elected. <i>The Impending Crisis</i> was a portent and an impulse of the +coming catastrophe.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h3>JOHN BROWN</h3> + + +<p>About this time there was a revival of activity in the slave trade +between Africa and Cuba. The American Government had always acted +half-heartedly in its co-operation with the British Government for the +suppression of this traffic. Now it happened that some British cruisers +in the West Indies stopped and examined some vessels under the American +flag, suspected of being slavers. This was resented by the American +Government, which sent war ships to the scene and took the British +Government to task. In Congress both parties joined in denunciation of +British aggression. The right of search, exercised by England for the +reclamation of her seamen from American vessels, had been one of the +grounds of war in 1812. It had been left unmentioned in the treaty of +peace, but England had silently relinquished the practice. Now, at the +demand of the United States, she expressly relinquished the right of +search in the case of supposed slave ships under the American flag, +unless the result should justify the suspicion. Thus the honor of the +Stars and Stripes was vindicated,—and the flag was made a great +convenience to slavers. The administration, however, bestirred itself +toward doing its own share in the work of sea-police, and several slave +ships were captured. The crew of one of these were acquitted, by a +Charleston jury, against the clearest evidence. There was some open talk +in the Southern papers of legalizing the traffic. But the trade was +destined to a discouraging check a year or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> two later, when President +Lincoln signed the first death warrant of the captain of a slaver.</p> + +<p>After the Kansas troubles had subsided, John Brown sought some way to +make a direct attack on slavery. For many years he had brooded on the +matter, in the light of his reading of the Old Testament, and he felt +himself called to assail it as the Jewish heroes assailed the enemies of +Jehovah and his people. As early as 1847 he had disclosed to Frederick +Douglass, during a visit to Brown's home in Springfield, Mass., a plan +for freeing the slaves. He did not contemplate a general insurrection +and slaughter. But he proposed to establish a fugitive refuge in the +chain of mountains stretching from the border of New York toward the +Gulf. "These mountains," he said, "are the basis of my plan. God has +given the strength of the hills to freedom; they were placed here for +the emancipation of the negro race; they are full of natural forts, +where one man for defense will be equal to one hundred for attack; they +are full also of good hiding-places, where large numbers of brave men +could be concealed, and baffle and elude pursuit for a long time.... The +true object to be sought is, first of all, to destroy the money-value of +slave property; and that can only be done by rendering such property +insecure. My plan, then, is to take at first about twenty-five picked +men, and begin on a small scale; supply them arms and ammunition, and +post them in squads of five on a line of twenty-five miles. The most +persuasive and judicious of them shall then go down to the fields from +time to time, as opportunity offers, and induce the slaves to join them, +seeking and selecting the most restless and daring."</p> + +<p>It was substantially this plan to which Brown now returned, and he +sought aid among those men at the East who had backed the Free State +cause in Kansas. He was not known to them, as he has been presented to +the reader, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> the chief actor in the Pottawatomie massacre, but as a +bold guerrilla chief, who had lost a son in the Kansas strife. Even so, +he was a recognized dissenter from the peace policy which had finally +won success for freedom in the Territory. But there were men in the +anti-slavery ranks who were impatient of the whole policy of peace, and +the impressive personality of Brown won some of these to active support +of his project. Among them were Theodore Parker, Gerritt Smith, Dr. S. +G. Howe, George L. Stearns, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Franklin B. +Sanborn, who formed a secret committee to forward this plan. They were +not informed of its details, but knew its general scope. To a +considerable number Brown was known as a hero of past fights and not +averse to fresh ones. He visited Concord, where he spoke at a public +meeting, and made a great impression on Emerson, Alcott, and Thoreau. +Alcott made a pen-picture of him. "I think him equal to anything he +dares,—the man to do the deed, if it must be done, and with the +martyr's temper and purpose. Nature obviously was deeply intent in the +making of him. He is of imposing appearance personally,—tall, with +square shoulders and standing; eyes of deep gray, and couchant, as if +ready to spring at the least rustling, dauntless yet kindly; his hair +shooting backward from low down on his forehead; nose trenchant and +Romanesque; set lips, his voice suppressed yet metallic, suggesting deep +reserves; decided mouth; the countenance and frame charged with power +throughout."</p> + +<p>Emerson, from his own observation and from hearsay, drew his spiritual +portrait: "For himself, Brown is so transparent that all men see him +through. He is a man to make friends wherever on earth courage and +integrity are esteemed,—the rarest of heroes, a pure idealist, with no +by-ends of his own. Many of us have seen him, and everyone who has heard +him speak has been impressed alike by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> his simple, artless goodness and +his sublime courage. He joins that perfect Puritan faith which brought +his ancestor to Plymouth Rock, with his grandfather's ardor in the +Revolution. He believes in two articles—two instruments, shall I +say?—the Golden Rule and the Declaration of Independence; and he used +this expression in a conversation here concerning them: 'Better that a +whole generation of men, women, and children should pass away by a +violent death, than that one word of either should be violated in this +country.'... He grew up a religious and manly person, in severe poverty; +a fair specimen of the best stock of New England, having that force of +thought and that sense of right which are the warp and woof of +greatness.... Thus was formed a romantic character, absolutely without +any vulgar trait; living to ideal ends, without any mixture of +self-indulgence or compromise, such as lowers the value of benevolent +and thoughtful men we know; abstemious, refusing luxuries, not sourly +and reproachfully, but simply as unfit for his habit; quiet and gentle +as a child, in the house. And as happens usually to men of romantic +character, his fortunes were romantic."</p> + +<p>But the romance in this portrait is due quite as much to the imagination +of the artist as to the character of the subject. Emerson seems to have +entirely overlooked in his estimate of Brown that he had no rational +idea of the moral obligations of the citizen to the civil government and +to the peace of society; and that his conscience in its apparent +simplicity was really in dire confusion. The sentence he quotes from +Brown's conversation has its practical commentary in Brown's acts. He +was as ready to take the sword, to redress what he considered a breach +of the Golden Rule or the Declaration of Independence, as if mankind had +not for thousands of years and with infinite cost been building up +institutions for the peaceful settlement of diffi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>culties. In Kansas he +saw in the political struggle simply an issue to be tried out by force +between good men and bad men; and he made himself executioner of a group +of men he considered bad, thereby plunging into a series of murders +utterly repugnant to his natural humanity. He afterward justified the +deed, without avowing his own part in it, which was not fully known till +twenty years later. After Harper's Ferry, the <i>Springfield Republican</i> +(which judged him very favorably), speaking partly from personal +knowledge gained during his residence in Springfield, said: "He is so +constituted that when he gets possessed of an idea he carries it out +with unflinching fidelity to all its logical consequences, as they seem +to him, hesitating at no absurdity and deterred by no unpleasant +consequences to himself personally. He is a Presbyterian in his faith, +and feels that it is for this very purpose that God has reared him up."</p> + +<p>When a man is so possessed by the conviction that he is God's instrument +as to set himself outside of ordinary human morality, he is presumably +on the verge of shipwreck. The <i>Republican</i>, while emphasizing the +popular estimate of John Brown as "a hero," coupled with this the +characterization of him as "a misguided and insane man."</p> + +<p>The project he was now pressing—the establishment of a mountain refuge +for fugitive slaves, working toward the depreciation of slave property, +and the ultimate extinction of the system—had a certain superficial +plausibility; and it seemed to avoid the inhumanity of general +insurrection. But it was at the best hardly more than a boy's romance, +and at the last moment Brown abandoned it for a still more impracticable +plan.</p> + +<p>On the morning of October 17, 1859, the little town of Harper's Ferry, +on the upper Potomac, awoke to the amazing discovery that in the night +the buildings of the United<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> States armory had been seized and held by a +company of armed men, white and black; that they had gathered in a +number of prisoners, including some prominent citizens; and that their +design was to free the slaves. Brown had struck his blow. With eighteen +faithful associates, including three of his sons, he had lurked near the +town till all was ready; then in the night he had marched in and seized +the armory, and brought in as prisoners some of the neighboring planters +who were told they were held as hostages. Other citizens were captured +almost without resistance in the early morning hours, till the prisoners +were twice the number of their captors. But there was no rising of the +negroes. Brown, after his first easy success, stayed still as if +paralyzed. Either he had no further plan, or his judgment and will +failed him at the crisis. His complete failure to improve his first +advantage—whether the weakness lay in his plan or the +execution—indicated the radical unsoundness which underlay his +impressive exterior. The town rallied its forces, surrounded the armory, +and a fight was kept up through the afternoon. At night Colonel Robert +E. Lee with a force of troops arrived from Washington, and the next +morning they easily stormed the armory, which had lost half its +garrison, including two of Brown's sons, and Brown and the rest of his +party were made prisoners.</p> + +<p>The country was in a state of profound peace; Kansas had fallen out of +mind; the Presidential election was a year away; and even political +discussion was languid. The news of the raid came as an utter surprise. +Brown was unknown to the general public, and beyond the patent fact of +an attempted slave insurrection there was at first general bewilderment +as to the meaning of the event. Brown's secret committee,—ignorant of +his exact plan, most of them having had but little to do with him, and +none of them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> expecting the blow when it fell,—were in no haste to +enlighten the public, or acknowledge their responsibility. But Brown +became his own interpreter. The ubiquitous <i>New York Herald</i> reporter +was instantly on the ground, and never were interviews more eagerly read +and more impressive in their effect than Brown's replies to his various +examiners. A prisoner, wounded, in the shadow of a felon's death, the +old man bore himself with perfect courage and composure. Asked on what +principle he justified his acts, he replied: "Upon the Golden Rule. I +pity the poor in bondage, that have none to help them; that is why I am +here; not to gratify any personal animosity, revenge, or vindictive +spirit. It is my sympathy with the oppressed and wronged, that are as +good as you and as precious in the sight of God." The Virginians +recognized his sincerity and integrity. The Governor of the State, Henry +A. Wise—an extreme Southerner in his politics—visited Brown, and said +publicly: "They are mistaken who take Brown to be a madman. He is a +bundle of the best nerves I ever saw,—cut and thrust and bleeding and +in bonds. He is a man of clear head, of courage, fortitude, and simple +ingenuousness. He is cool, collected, and indomitable, and it is but +just to him to say that he was humane to his prisoners, and he inspired +me with great trust in his integrity as a man of truth. He is a fanatic, +vain and garrulous, but firm, truthful, and intelligent."</p> + +<p>For Brown and his associates there could be but one conclusion to the +business. They were put on trial for treason and murder. They had a fair +trial, and indeed the case admitted of no doubt. They were sentenced to +be hanged, and the sentence was carried out, within six weeks of their +act.</p> + +<p>At the North, Brown was widely honored as a hero and a martyr. No one +defended his act,—a slave insur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>rection, in whatever form, found no +public justification. Probably a considerable majority of the community, +including all the more conservative political elements, condemned the +man and his deed, and perhaps justified his execution. But wherever +anti-slavery feeling was strong, and with a multitude who, apart from +such feeling, were sensitive to striking qualities of manhood, there was +great admiration and sympathy for Brown and sorrow for his fate. John A. +Andrew spoke a common feeling when he said: "Whatever may be thought of +John Brown's acts, John Brown himself was right." Emerson eulogized him +in daring words. If, he said, John Brown is hung, he will glorify the +gallows as Jesus glorified the cross. On the day of his death the church +bells were tolled in many a Northern town. Said the <i>Springfield +Republican</i> the next morning: "There need be no tears for him. Few men +die so happily, so satisfied with time, place, and circumstance, as did +he.... A Christian man hung by Christians for acting upon his +convictions of duty,—a brave man hung for a chivalrous and +self-sacrificing deed of humanity,—a philanthropist hung for seeking +the liberty of oppressed men. No outcry about violated law can cover up +the essential enormity of a deed like this."</p> + +<p>Never was a man dealt with more generously by posthumous fame. In the +Civil War, two lines of verse, fitted to a stirring melody, became the +marching song of the Union armies:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">His soul is marching on!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>This was the last touch of the apotheosis; John Brown became to the +popular imagination the forerunner and martyr of the cause of Union and +freedom.</p> + +<p>At the North, one immediate and lasting effect of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> tragedy was to +intensify the conviction of the essential wrong of slavery. However +mistaken was Brown's way of attack, it was felt that nothing short of an +organized system of injustice and cruelty could have inspired such a man +to such an attempt. The very logic of facts, which compelled Virginia in +self-defense to hang him, showed the character of the institution which +needed such defense. Yes, it was necessary to hang him,—but what was +the system that made necessary the sacrifice of such a life?</p> + +<p>But Andrew's words "whatever may be thought of John Brown's acts"—call +for further consideration. What were his acts, and what were their +consequences? A part of the answer was seen in the bodies of men of +Harper's Ferry, lying in the streets, peaceful men with wives and +children, slain for resisting an armed invasion of their quiet little +village. The first man to fall was a negro porter of a railway train, +who, failing to halt when challenged by one of Brown's sentinels, was +shot. The second man killed was a citizen standing in his own doorway. +The third was a graduate of West Point who, hearing of trouble, came +riding into town with his gun, and was shot as he passed the armory.</p> + +<p>Among the letters that came to Brown in prison was one from the widow of +one of the Pottawatomie victims, with these words: "You can now +appreciate my distress in Kansas, when you then and there entered my +house at midnight and arrested my husband and two boys, and took them +out in the yard, and in cold blood shot them dead in my hearing. You +can't say you did it to free our slaves; we had none and never expected +to own one; but it only made me a poor disconsolate widow with helpless +children."</p> + +<p>Brown's first plan, of drawing off the slaves to a mountain +fortress,—peaceable only in semblance, and involving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> inevitable +fighting,—he exchanged at last for a form of attack which was an +instant challenge to battle. In a conference with Frederick Douglass, on +the eve of the event, Douglass vainly urged the earlier plan, but found +Brown resolved on "striking a blow which should instantly rouse the +country." On the day of his death, Brown penned these sentences and +handed them to one of his guards: "I, John Brown, am now quite certain +that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with +blood. I had, as I now think vainly, flattered myself that without very +much bloodshed it might be done." But no man so directly and +deliberately aimed to settle the difficulty by bloodshed as he. It is +thus that men make God responsible for what themselves are doing.</p> + +<p>The Civil War when it came brought enough of suffering and horror. But +it was mild and merciful compared to what a slave insurrection might +have been. And it was essentially a slave insurrection that Brown aimed +at. The great mass of the Northern people would have recoiled with +abhorrence from a servile revolt. But who could wonder if the Southern +people did not believe this, when they saw honors heaped on a man who +died for inciting such an insurrection? How could they nicely +distinguish between approval of a man's acts and praise for the man +himself? If the North had one thinker who set forth its highest ideals, +its noblest aims, that man was Emerson. Yet Emerson passed Brown's acts +almost unblamed, and named his execution together with that on Calvary. +Not all the disclaimers of politicians, the resolves of conventions, +could reassure the South, after that day of mourning with which Northern +towns solemnized John Brown's death. What wonder that an ardent +Southerner like Toombs, speaking to his constituents a few months later, +called on them to "meet the enemy at the door-sill." And what wonder<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> +that the Southern people were inclined as never before to look upon the +Northern people as their foes?</p> + +<p>The more deeply we study human life, the more do we realize that as to +individual responsibility "to understand is to forgive." Half a century +after the event, we may well have forgiveness—not of charity, but of +justice—for John Brown, and for the Governor who signed his +death-warrant; we can sympathize with those who honored and wept for +him, and with those who shuddered at his deed. But, for the truth of +history and for the guidance of the future, we must consider not only +the intentions of men, but the intrinsic character of their deeds; not +only John Brown himself, but John Brown's acts. And in that long series +of deeds of violence and wrong which wrought mutual hatred and +fratricidal war between the two sections of a people, that midnight +attack on the peaceful Virginia village must bear its heavy +condemnation. Hitherto aggression had been almost entirely from the +South; this was a counter-stroke, and told with dire force against the +hope of a peaceable and righteous settlement.</p> + +<p>Probably most readers of to-day will wonder at the degree of admiration +and praise which Brown received. It must be ascribed in part to some +quality in his personality, which cast a kind of glamour on some of +those who met him, and inspired such highly idealized portraiture as +Emerson's. But there remains the extraordinary fact that men like +Theodore Parker and Gerritt Smith and Dr. S. G. Howe gave countenance +and aid to Brown's project. Before history's bar, their responsibility +seems heavier than his; they, educated, intelligent, trained in public +service; he an untaught, ill-balanced visionary, who at least staked his +life on his faith. Their complicity in his plot illustrates how in some +moral enthusiasts the hostility to slavery had distorted their +perception of reality. Such men saw the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> Southern communities through +the medium of a single institution, itself half-understood. They saw, so +to speak, only the suffering slave and his oppressor. They failed to see +or forgot the general life of household and neighborhood, with its +common, kindly, human traits. They did not recognize that Harper's Ferry +was made up of much the same kind of people, at bottom, as Concord. They +did not realize that a slave insurrection meant a universal social +conflagration. Indeed, Brown's original scheme of a general flight of +slaves to a mountain stronghold had a fallacious appearance of avoiding +a violent insurrection, and it was with the background of this plan that +Brown, a wounded prisoner with death impending, appealed to the Northern +imagination as a hero and martyr.</p> + +<p>But this glorification of him wrought a momentous effect in the South. +It is best described by those who witnessed it. John S. Wise, son of the +Governor who signed Brown's death-warrant, writes in his graphic +reminiscences, <i>The End of an Era</i>: "While these scenes were being +enacted"—the trial and execution of Brown and the Northern comments—"a +great change of feeling took place in Virginia toward the people of the +North and toward the Union itself. Virginians began to look upon the +people of the North as hating them, and willing to see them assassinated +at midnight by their own slaves, led by Northern emissaries; as flinging +away all pretense of regard for laws protecting the slave-owner; as +demanding of them the immediate freeing of their slaves, or that they +prepare against further attacks like Brown's, backed by the moral and +pecuniary support of the North. During the year 1860 the Virginians +began to organize and arm themselves against such emergencies."</p> + +<p>The spirit of proscription against all anti-slavery men broke out +afresh. At Berea, Kentucky, a little group of anti-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>slavery churches and +schools had been growing for six years, championed by the stalwart +Cassius M. Clay, and with the benignant and peaceful John G. Fee as +their leader. A month after Brown's foray a band of armed horsemen +summoned twelve of their men to leave the State. Governor Magoffin said +he could not protect them, and with their families they went into +exile—stout-heartedly chanting at their departure the 37th Psalm: "Fret +not thyself because of evil-doers."</p> + +<p>In the South itself there had been developing recently an antagonism to +the slave power. Its strength lay not in the moral opposition to +slavery, which indeed always existed, but was quiet and apparently +cowed; but rather in the growing class of city residents,—merchants and +professional men,—whose interests and feelings were often antagonistic +to the large planters. The hostility to slavery on economic grounds, and +in the white man's interest, found passionate expression in Helper's +<i>Impending Crisis</i>, and in a milder form was spreading widely. But at +the menace of invasion and servile insurrection all classes drew +together. Especially the women of the South became suddenly and +intensely interested in the political situation. The suggestion of +personal peril appealed to them, and to the men who were their natural +defenders. The situation is well described in Prof. J. W. Burgess's <i>The +Civil War and the Constitution</i>,—a generally impartial book, written +with personal appreciation of the Southern standpoint: "No man who is +acquainted with the change of feeling which occurred in the South +between the 16th of October, 1859, and the 16th of November of the same +year can regard the Harper's Ferry villainy as anything other than one +of the chiefest crimes of our history. It established and +re-established the control of the great radical slaveholders over the +non-slaveholders, the little slaveholders, and the more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> liberal of the +larger slaveholders, which had already begun to be loosened. It created +anew a solidarity of interest between them all, which was felt by all +with an intensity which overbore every other sentiment. It gave thus to +the great radical slaveholders the willing physical material for the +construction of armies and navies and for the prosecution of war."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>ABRAHAM LINCOLN</h3> + + +<p>Every American may be presumed to be familiar with the external facts of +Abraham Lincoln's early life,—the rude cabin, the shiftless father, the +dead mother's place filled by the tender step-mother; the brief +schooling, the hungry reading of the few books by the fire-light; the +hard farm-work, with a turn now of rail-splitting, now of flat-boating; +the country sports and rough good-fellowship; the upward steps as +store-clerk and lawyer. But the interior qualities that made up his +character and built his fortune will bear further study.</p> + +<p>He was composed of traits which seemed to contradict each other. In a +sense this is true of everyone. Dr. Holmes says (in substance): "The +vehicle in which each one of us crosses life's narrow isthmus between +two oceans is not a one-seated sulky, but an omnibus." Sometimes, as +depicted in that wonderful parable, <i>Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde</i>, one +inmate ejects the others. But in Lincoln the various elements were +wrought as years passed by into harmony.</p> + +<p>He was prized among his early companions as a wit and story-teller. The +women complained because at their parties all the men were drawn off to +hear Abe Lincoln's stories. When he came to be a public speaker, he +feathered the shafts of his argument with jest and anecdote. The vein of +humor in him was rich and deep; it helped him through the hard places. +When as President he announced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> to his cabinet the Emancipation +Proclamation, he first refreshed himself by reading to them a chapter +from Artemus Ward.</p> + +<p>His early growth was in rough soil, and some of the mud stuck to +him,—his jests were sometimes broad. But if coarse in speech he was +pure in life, and neither the rancor of political hate nor the research +of unsparing biographers ever charged him with an unchaste act.</p> + +<p>Along with this rollicking fun he had a vein of deepest melancholy. In +part it was temperamental. The malarial country sometimes bred a strain +of habitual depression. His mother was the natural daughter of a +Virginia planter, and had the sadness sometimes wrought by such +pre-natal conditions; it was said she was never seen to smile. Lincoln's +early years had hardships and trials, over many of which he triumphed, +and triumphed laughing; but there were others for which there was +neither victory nor mirth. Some of his early letters of intimate +friendship (as given in Hay and Nicolay's biography), show a singular +capacity for romantic affection, and gleams of hope of supreme +happiness. But death frustrated this hope, and the disappointment +brought him to the verge of insanity. In his domestic life,—it was an +open secret,—he had some of the experience which disciplined Socrates. +Perhaps we go to the root of his sadness if we say that in his deepest +heart he was a passionate idealist, and by circumstances he was long +shut out from the natural satisfaction of ideality. His partner Herndon +said of him, "His melancholy dripped from him as he walked."</p> + +<p>Out of these experiences he brought a great power of patience and a +great power of sympathy. These armed him for his work. He became +invincible against the perversities and follies of men, and the blows of +fate. He ripened into a tenderness such as prompted him, when bur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>dened +with cares beyond measure, to give a sympathetic hearing to every mother +who came to the President with the story of her boy's trouble.</p> + +<p>To take another brace of qualities, he was at once a powerful fighter +and an habitual peace-maker. His long, gaunt, sinewy frame, and his +tough courage, made him a formidable antagonist, but it was hard to +provoke him to combat. Lamon,—whose biography is a treasury of good +stories, sometimes lacking in discretion, but giving an invaluable +realistic picture,—relates an encounter with the village bully, Jack +Armstrong. The "boys" at last teased Lincoln into a wrestling match, and +when his victory in the good-natured encounter provoked Jack to unfair +play, Abe shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. Then he made peace with +him, drew out the better quality in him; and the two reigned "like +friendly Cæsars" over the village crowd, Abe tempering Jack's +playfulness when it got too rough, and winning the boys to kindly ways.</p> + +<p>In that day and region, men were very frank about their religious +beliefs and disbeliefs. The skepticism or unbelief which lies unspoken +in the hearts of a multitude of men,—silent perhaps out of regard to +public opinion, perhaps from consideration for mother or wife—found +free and frequent utterance in the West, long before Robert Ingersoll +gave it eloquent voice. Lincoln, though we have called him an idealist +at heart, habitually guided himself by logic, by hard sense, and by such +evidence as passes in a court of law. He was one of the class to whom +books like Tom Paine's <i>Age of Reason</i> appealed strongly. In early life +he wrote a treatise against Christianity. A politic friend to whom he +showed his manuscript put it in the stove, but the writer was not +changed in his opinions. To Christianity as a supernatural revelation he +never became a convert, but the belief in "a Power that makes for +right<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>eousness" grew with his growth and strengthened with his strength.</p> + +<p>With deepening experiences, the awe and mystery of life weighed heavily +on him. When travelling on circuit, his days spent in law-cases, +diversified with sociability and funny stories, he would sometimes be +seen in the early morning brooding by the fire-place with hands +outspread, and murmuring his favorite verses,—a soliloquy on the +mournfulness and mystery of life: "Oh, why should the spirit of mortal +be proud!"</p> + +<p>In his early youth he read eagerly and thoroughly such few books as came +in his way. Later, his taste for reading seemed to grow less. He had a +keen instinct for reality, and perhaps he found little in books that +satisfied him. For poetry and philosophy he had small aptitude, and in +science he had no training. What books he read he seemed to digest and +get the pith of. Once, made suddenly conscious by defeat of his lack of +book-culture, he took up Euclid's geometry, and resolutely studied and +re-studied it. Doubtless that helped him in the close logic which often +characterized his speeches. The strength of his speeches lay in their +logic, their close regard to fact, their adaptation to the plain people +of whom he was one, their homely illustrations, and, as the years +developed him, an appeal to some high principle of duty. His chief +library was men and women. From them, and from his own experience, he +drew the elements of his politics, history, philosophy.</p> + +<p>He had the ambition natural to a man of high powers. With all his genial +sociability, he was in a way self-centered. His associates often thought +him,—and Lamon shares the opinion—not only moody and meditative, but +unsocial, cold, impassive; bent on his own ends, and using other men as +his instruments. Partly we may count this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> as the judgment of the crowd +to whom Lincoln's inner life was unimaginable. He shared their social +hours, and then withdrew into thoughts and feelings and purposes which +he could share with no one. Doubtless, too, he was in fault for some of +that neglect of the small courtesies and kindnesses which besets men +whose own thoughts fascinate them too strongly. There is a graphic +touch, in the story of his love affairs, of a girl who rejected his +advances because she had seen him on a hot day walk up a hill with a +woman and never offer to relieve her of the baby she was carrying.</p> + +<p>As a lawyer he won more than ordinary success, making good his lack of +erudition by shrewdness and knowledge of human nature. It was observed +that he always tried a case honestly and fairly; that he was not fond of +controversy, and always preferred to settle a case out of court; that he +never argued well or strongly unless his conviction was fully on his +client's side; that, if unconvinced himself, he simply brought forward +the proofs which fairly counted on his side, and left the decision to +others; and that he was so little attentive to gain that, although he +became one of the leading lawyers of Illinois, he never accumulated much +money.</p> + +<p>His fairness as a lawyer, and his integrity in politics, won his popular +nickname of "Honest Abe." Perhaps honesty, in its fullest sense, was his +central quality. He was always true to the truth as he saw it—true in +thought and word and deed. One feels in his printed speeches that he is +trying to see and to say things as they are. He had not the aid of the +mystic's vision, in which the moral universe is revealed in such +splendor that to accept and obey it is pure joy. But he saw and felt and +practiced the homely obligations of honesty and kindness. His education +came largely as at successive epochs there were disclosed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> to him new +heights of moral significance in the life of the nation; and as fast as +such disclosures came to him he set himself to obey them with absolute +loyalty.</p> + +<p>His conscience was not of the self-contemplating and self-voicing kind. +He was chary of words about duty. It has been alleged that the typical +New Englander is afflicted with "a chronic inflammation of the moral +sense." Such a malady does exist, though many a New Englander is bravely +free from it, while it is not unknown in Alaska or Japan. From such an +over-conscientious conscience, and from its incidents and its +counterfeits, there is bred a redundancy of verbal moralising. That was +not a foible of Lincoln. The sense of moral obligation underlies his +weightier utterances, as the law of gravitation underlies scientific +demonstrations,—not talked of, but assumed.</p> + +<p>Lincoln's political career gave high promise at the start. He seemed to +have the qualities for success,—ambition, shrewdness in managing men, +power as a speaker, integrity which won general confidence, ideals not +too high above the crowd. Yet his success was so moderate that in +contrasting himself with Senator Douglas, at the outset of their debate +in 1858, he declared that, "With me the race of ambition has been a +failure,—a flat failure; with him it has been one of splendid success." +There were reasons for it: Douglas had given himself without reserve to +his personal advancement, and Lincoln had been hampered by regard for +other men and for larger ends. After one term in Congress as a Whig, +1847-8, he retired in deference to the fashion of "rotation" between +localities. When roused to new activity by the anti-Nebraska campaign in +1854, he was the favorite candidate of his party for the senatorship; +but seeing that the knot of men who held the balance of power were +gravitating to the other side, he insisted on withdrawing in favor of +Lyman Trumbull, as a stronger candidate,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> who accordingly won the day. +Before the revival of the slavery issue, there had been nothing in the +old-time Whig and Democratic contests to appeal to the deeper elements +in Lincoln's nature, and personal ambition alone was not strong enough +to push him to eminence. Though he could handle men skillfully, he had a +distaste for the petty arts of the politician's trade. "Politics," he +said, "is the combination of individual meannesses for the general +good." And he had small relish for the game, until "the general good" +loomed clear and large.</p> + +<p>His attitude on slavery was typical of the men at the North who were at +once humane and regardful of the established order. He gave his general +position, in homely and graphic fashion, in a letter to his old friend, +Joshua F. Speed, of Kentucky, in 1855. This was at the time he referred +to when he wrote: "I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of +the Missouri Compromise roused me again." To Speed he wrote: "I +acknowledge your rights and my obligations under the Constitution in +regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted +down and caught, and carried back to their stripes and unrequited toils; +but I bite my lips and keep quiet. In 1841, you and I had together a +tedious low-water trip in a steamboat from Louisville to St. Louis. You +may remember, as well as I do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the +Ohio there were on board ten or a dozen slaves shackled together with +irons. That sight was a continued torment to me; and I see something +like it every time I touch the Ohio or any other slave border. It is not +fair for you to assume that I have no interest in a thing which has, and +continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought +rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do +crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the +Constitution and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> the Union. I do oppose the extension of slavery, +because my judgment and feelings so prompt me; and I am under no +obligations to the contrary."</p> + +<p>It was this strong regard for the established law of the land which set +the moderate anti-slavery men apart from the Abolitionists of the +extreme type. And up to this time, Lincoln, though hostile to slavery, +had not been especially concerned as to the nation's dealing with it. +But now came the opportunity and call to resist its extension into the +territories, and with the response to that call came the sense that a +great contest was impending between right and wrong, between the good of +the many and the selfishness of the few.</p> + +<p>Lincoln had close at hand a friend to spur him on. His law-partner, +William H. Herndon, was an enthusiastic radical in politics and +religion. He was an Abolitionist, and a follower of Theodore Parker. He +had long plied Lincoln with Parker's sermons and with anti-slavery +literature. When in 1856 Herndon and his friends began to organize to +support armed resistance in Kansas, Lincoln remonstrated with them +successfully. Then came the parting of the ways,—Republican, Democrat, +or Know-nothing? The Illinois Abolitionists threw themselves heartily +into the Republican movement. At its first State convention, at +Bloomington, Lincoln was the great figure. The faithful Herndon, his +missionary zeal rewarded at last by such a convert, describes in glowing +language the speech of Lincoln,—which so carried him away that after +trying for fifteen minutes to take notes as usual, he threw away his +pencil. "Heretofore, and up to this moment, he had simply argued the +slavery question on grounds of policy,—on what are called the +statesman's grounds,—never reaching the question of the radical and the +eternal right. Now he was newly baptized and freshly born; he had the +fervor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> of a new convert; the smothered flame broke out; enthusiasm +unusual to him blazed up; his eyes were aglow with an inspiration; he +felt justice; his heart was alive to the right; his sympathies, +remarkably deep for him, burst forth, and he stood before the throne of +the eternal Right, in presence of his God, and then and there unburdened +his penitential and fired soul. This speech was fresh, new, genuine, +odd, original; filled with fervor not unmixed with a divine enthusiasm; +his head breathing out through his tender heart its truths, its sense of +right, and its feeling of the good and for the good. If Lincoln was six +feet four inches high usually, at Bloomington he was seven feet, and +inspired at that."</p> + +<p>But the prairie fire was slow to light. Five days after the convention, +Herndon and Lincoln got up a ratification meeting in Springfield. There +were posters, illuminations, a band of music,—and at the appointed +hour, one man in the hall besides Lincoln and Herndon! Lincoln took the +platform, began with words half-sad, half-mirthful, and concluded: "All +seems dead, dead, dead; but the age is not yet dead; it liveth as sure +as our Maker liveth. Under all this seeming want of life and motion, the +world does move nevertheless. Be hopeful. And now let us adjourn, and +appeal to the people."</p> + +<p>The prairie caught fire at last. The Republicans carried Illinois that +autumn for Fremont. Two years later, Lincoln and Douglas traversed the +State in their famous series of joint debates. The main issue was +slavery in the territories; the background was the general attitude of +the white man toward the negro. Douglas held that the whole business was +a question for white men only. If they wanted slavery in any Territory, +let them have it. If they did not want it, let them keep it out—unless +the Supreme Court forbade. Lincoln summed up this "popular sove<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>reignty" +doctrine: "If one man wants to make another man a slave, a third man has +no right to prevent him!" His position was that the nation's duty was to +hold the common domain for freedom, and that this was the business of +Congress. Douglas constantly twitted Lincoln with belief in negro +equality. This Lincoln disclaimed; he did not believe in the negro's +equality with the white man; did not believe in making him a voter or a +juror; but because an inferior, had a negro no rights? Lincoln's +anti-slavery position was very moderate; in reply to Douglas's +challenge, he disclaimed any disposition to agitate against the fugitive +slave law; as to practical restriction, he had nothing to urge except +exclusion from the territories. Here he was emphatic, and he protested +earnestly against Douglas's "not caring whether slavery was voted up or +voted down."</p> + +<p>The best test which the debate gave of his quality was the memorable +passage in which he declared his conviction that "A house divided +against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot +permanently endure half slave and half free." In this he rose above his +wonted level, and spoke with a prophet's forecast. He read this passage +in advance to a group of the party leaders. Though, after this bold +opening, the speech was only a calm and weighty argument that the +interest of slavery was being deliberately and systematically promoted +by all branches of the Democracy,—yet all, except Herndon, were alarmed +at this passage, and besought Lincoln to withhold it. But he answered +soberly and half-mournfully that it expressed his full conviction, and +he would face defeat rather than suppress it. In the immediate result, +it injured his cause; a general comment of Republicans, through the +campaign, says Herndon, was "Damn that fool speech!"</p> + +<p>Douglas won the Legislature and the senatorship, though Lincoln won the +popular majority. When he was asked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> how he felt about his defeat, he +answered: "I feel as the boy did when he stubbed his toe,—he was too +big to cry, and it hurt too bad to laugh!" The country at large, which +had closely watched the debate, forgot him for two years. Early in 1860 +he was invited to lecture in New York. He was not regarded as a +Presidential candidate; and when he appeared,—in clothes full of +creases from his carpet-bag, with no press copy of his speech and not +expecting the newspapers to report it—he was such a figure as to his +audience in Cooper Institute seemed to give little promise. But he +carried them with him completely, and the next morning the seven-column +report in the <i>Tribune</i> told the country that in this man there was a +new force to reckon with. The speech ranks with the great historical +orations of the country. The first part was a careful review of the +position which the signers of the Constitution took in their individual +capacity as to the right of Congress to regulate or exclude slavery from +the territories. He showed by specific proof that of the thirty-nine +signers twenty-one voted definitely on various occasions for +Congressional Acts which did so exclude or regulate slavery; and that of +the remaining eighteen almost all were known to have held the same +opinion. This was a masterly refutation of the claim of Douglas and the +Democracy that the fathers of the nation were on their side as to the +territorial question. Lincoln then passed to a broader view, and +inquired: What can we do that will really satisfy the South? Every word +is sober, temperate, well-weighed. The South, he showed, is really +taking very little interest now in the Territories. It is excited about +the John Brown raid, and accuses the Republican party of responsibility +for that. But not a single Republican was implicated in the raid—not +one. You, said Lincoln, addressing the South—interpret your +constitutional rights in a different way from what we do,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> and say if we +do not admit your interpretation,—if we elect a Republican +president,—you will break up the Union. But this is simply the +highwayman's plea. What, then, can we Republicans do to satisfy the +South? We must not only let them alone, but somehow convince them that +we do let them alone. In a word, this and this only will convince them; +we must cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. +And this must be done thoroughly,—done in acts as well as in words. +Silence will not be tolerated; we must place ourselves avowedly with +them. "Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, +suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in +politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and +return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our +Free-State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from +all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe +that all their troubles proceed from us."</p> + +<p>Thus he concludes: "If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand +by our duty fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of +those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied +and belabored,—contrivances such as groping for some middle ground +between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should +be neither a living man nor a dead man,—such as a policy of 'don't +care' on a question about which all true men do care,—such as Union +appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to disunionists, reversing +the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous, to +repentance,—such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay +what Washington said and undo what Washington did. Neither let us be +slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened +from it by menaces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> to +ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith, +let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."</p> + +<p>In behalf of the South, Jefferson Davis, at about this time, presented +in the Senate, as their ultimatum, a set of resolutions. These called +for the recognition of slave-property as an indefeasible right of +territorial settlers, entitled to congressional protection; for the +enforcement of the fugitive slave law, and the repeal of the "personal +liberty laws" by which it was hindered or nullified in many States; and +in general, for the rebuke of all anti-slavery agitation. This was an +exact equivalent of Lincoln's interpretation of the South's demand; the +North must say that slavery is right, and act accordingly. And this was +indeed an ultimatum, with the distinct intimation: "This, or we dissolve +the Union."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<h3>THE ELECTION OF 1860</h3> + + +<p>Now came on the battle in the Presidential convention. The Democratic +convention was dramatic and momentous. It met at Charleston, S. C., in +the last days of April, 1860. The struggle was between Douglas and the +extreme South. The contest was not over the nomination, but on the +resolutions. The Douglas party proposed the reaffirmation of the +Cincinnati platform of 1856, of which the kernel lay in the words: +"Non-intervention by Congress with slavery in State or Territory"; and +to this they would now add only a clause referring doubtful +constitutional points to the Supreme Court. But the Southern party would +accept nothing short of an affirmation that in the Territories until +organized as States, the right of slave-holding was absolute and +indefeasible, and Congress was bound to protect it. On this issue the +dispute in the convention was obstinate and irreconcilable.</p> + +<p>The South had long held unbroken sway in the Democracy and in the +nation. It had absolutely controlled the last two administrations, +though headed by Northern men. Its hold on the Senate had been unbroken, +and temporary successes of the Republicans in the House had borne no +fruit. The Supreme Court had gone even beyond the demands of the South. +Only in Kansas had its cause been lost, because the attempt to coerce a +whole territorial population had at last provoked revolt in the Northern +Democracy. The breach had been in some sort healed, but the leader of +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> revolt was not forgiven or trusted. Meantime the alarm at John +Brown's raid had intensified the South's hostility to all opponents or +critics. All through the winter there had been constant expulsion of +anti-slavery men from that section. And now the Southern forces mustered +in the convention of the party they had so long controlled, insistent +and imperious, rejecting anything short of the fullest affirmation of +their claims in the territories.</p> + +<p>Douglas was not on the ground, but through his lieutenants, and still +more through the spirit he had infused into his followers, he was a +great and decisive power. In the Senate he had been almost isolated +among the Democrats; of late only Senator Pugh of Ohio had stood with +him against the administration. But he had appealed to the people, and +they had answered the call of the sturdy, audacious leader. However he +might at times court the favor of the South, he really stood for a broad +and simple principle,—the right of the majority of white men to rule. +For the negroes he cared nothing. But, in the territories, the majority +of white men should have slavery or not as they pleased. In the +Democratic party, the majority should control. And, in the last resort, +in the nation itself the majority should rule. Douglas thus stood +squarely for the rule of the majority within the white race. The +Republicans coupled with the supremacy of the legal majority in the +nation the right and obligation of the majority to maintain the personal +freedom of the negro, except where the Constitution allowed the States +to maintain slavery. The Southern Democracy asserted as its paramount +principle the right of slave-holding wherever the flag flew, except +where the State constitution forbade. If that right was denied or +limited—by a majority in the Democracy, or by a majority in the +nation—then beware!</p> + +<p>The Douglas men met the threat with a defiance,—not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> wordy, but +resolute. In Charleston, the stronghold and citadel of the South, with +their leader absent, with the disruption of the party impending, they +stood their ground. The majority should rule, or they would know the +reason why! They decisively outvoted their opponents as to the platform. +Then the delegates from South Carolina and the Gulf States deliberately +and solemnly marched out of the hall, and organized a separate +convention. With that act the rift began to open which was to be closed +only after four years of war.</p> + +<p>With what expectation did the extreme South thus break up the party? Did +they believe that their Northern associates would again capitulate, as +they had done so often before? Failing that, did they not know that a +divided Democracy meant victory for the Republicans? and had they not +committed themselves in that event to dissolve the Union? Were they +deliberately courting disunion, and wilfully throwing away the large +chance of continued dominance within the Union which a united Democracy +might have? Did they really attach supreme importance to this dogma +about the territories, when Kansas had shown how inevitably the local +population must determine the question, even against the efforts of the +Federal Government? Did the Southern leaders prefer the election of a +Republican, their open opponent, to Douglas, their friend and half-ally? +To such questions as these there can be little more than a conjectural +answer. It would be most interesting to know the true thoughts and +purposes of the leading delegates. We shall see a little later the +interpretation given by one of their defenders. But the strong +presumption is that their action was the fruit less of a policy than of +a temper. They had long been growing into a disposition which could +brook no resistance and no contradiction. The irresponsible power of the +master over his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> slaves; the domination of the slave-holding class over +the local communities, and the expulsion of their opponents; the control +of the government by a united South over a divided North,—these things +had bred a self-confidence and self-assertion which would stop at +nothing. The slave-holding principle, in full flower, was a principle +which recked nothing of legal majorities or governments. Its basis was +force, and it would use whatever force was necessary to maintain itself.</p> + +<p>The Douglas Democrats were still patient. Left with the original +convention in their hands, they declined to press their advantage. The +traditional rule required a two-thirds vote to nominate; and it was +agreed that for this purpose the seats left vacant by the seceders must +be counted,—which would prevent the nomination of Douglas. +Administration men from the North had stayed in the convention when +their Southern friends left. The body adjourned, to meet in Baltimore in +the last of June. The rival convention met in Richmond only to adjourn +to the same time and place. But any hopes of reunion were vain. Neither +side would yield. In the regular convention, to some of the vacant seats +Douglas delegates had in the interim been chosen. They were admitted, +against the protest of the administration minority, who found in this a +pretext for withdrawing and joining the seceding convention. With these +went a majority of the Massachusetts delegates, including Benjamin F. +Butler and Caleb Cushing; Cushing had been president of the Charleston +body. The two conventions now made their respective nominations. With +Douglas was joined for Vice-President Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia. +The seceders nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky and Joseph Lane +of Oregon. Breckinridge was Vice-President under Buchanan; a man of +character and ability, of fine presence and bearing, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> typical +Kentuckian, afterward a general in the Confederate service.</p> + +<p>Alexander H. Stephens in his <i>War Between the States</i>—perhaps the best +statement of the Southern side of the whole case that has ever been +made,—says that this secession from the party was made (against his own +judgment) not recklessly, nor to provoke disunion, but with the +expectation of electing Breckinridge. The calculation was that with four +Presidential candidates there would be no choice by the people, and, the +election being thrown into the House, Breckinridge would be chosen; or, +if the House could not choose, Lane would surely be elected by the +Senate. This, says Stephens, was the view of President Buchanan, of +Breckinridge, Davis and a great majority of the Charleston seceders. +Stephens himself considered this a most precarious and hazardous +calculation, wholly insufficient for so grave a step. So obviously sound +was this judgment, that we inevitably recur to the belief that the +Southern secession was inspired not by calculation, but by a temper of +self-assertion, which fitted its hopes to its wishes.</p> + +<p>The "Constitutional Union" party—legatee of the Whig and American +parties—held a convention at Baltimore in May; resolved simply for the +maintenance of the Union and Constitution and the enforcement of the +laws; and nominated John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of +Massachusetts. It was the refuge of those who disliked the whole +sectional controversy, and were indifferent to both pro-slavery and +anti-slavery claims in comparison with peace and union. It held a middle +position, geographically as well as in sentiment, and was strong in the +border States.</p> + +<p>The Republican convention met in Chicago in May. It was a more +sophisticated body than its predecessor of 1856; with less of youthful +and spontaneous enthusiasm for a principle, and more of keen maneuvering +for the candidates.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> But it represented a disciplined and powerful +party, clear and strong in its essential principles, and looking +confidently to a national victory as almost within its grasp. The +platform affirmed its familiar doctrines as to slavery, and threw out +various inviting propositions as to foreign immigrants, a homestead law, +a Pacific railroad, etc. The vote of Pennsylvania being important and +doubtful, a bait was thrown out in a high-tariff resolution. When a year +or two later the exigencies of the war demanded a large revenue, this +was obtained partly by a high tariff. In these circumstances originated +the Protectionist character of the Republican party; a character +confirmed by the natural alliance of the favored interests with the +favoring power.</p> + +<p>The most prominent and in a sense logical candidate was William H. +Seward. As Governor and then Senator of New York, as a polished and +philosophic orator, as a man whose anti-slavery and constitutional +principles were well understood,—he was easily in the popular estimate +the foremost man of the party. Lincoln was in comparison obscure; his +fame rested mainly on his achievements as a popular debater; he was +wholly unversed in executive work and almost equally so in legislation; +highly esteemed in his own State, but little known beyond its borders. +He had been proposed for the Presidency only a week before in the State +convention, with great hurrahing for "the rail-splitter," "honest old +Abe." It seemed hardly more than one of the "favorite son" candidacies +which every canvass knows in plenty. But he was supported by a group of +very skillful Illinois politicians. They worked up the local sentiment +in his favor; they filled the galleries of the Wigwam at daylight of +the decisive day, and they took quieter and effective measures. Simon +Cameron claimed to control the vote of Pennsylvania in the convention, +and a bargain was made with him that if Lincoln were elected he should +have a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> seat in the Cabinet. Lincoln was not a party to the compact, but +when informed of it afterward he reluctantly made good his part. The +same thing was done with the friends of Caleb B. Smith of Indiana, and +with a like sequel.</p> + +<p>Meantime, Seward met such difficulties as always beset the first +favorite in a race. The old alliance between Seward, Weed and Greeley, +had been broken, with anger and resentment on Greeley's part, and he was +now on the floor of the convention actively opposing his old ally. +William M. Evarts led the New York delegation for Seward. Edward Bates +of Missouri had some support, as more moderate than Seward in his +anti-slavery principles, but he was too colorless a candidate to draw +much strength. One of Seward's friends, in seeking to win over the Bates +men, declared that Lincoln was just as radical as Seward. A newspaper +containing this being shown to Lincoln, he penciled on the margin a +reply which was forwarded to his supporters, "Lincoln agrees with Seward +in his irrepressible-conflict idea, and in negro equality; but he is +opposed to Seward's higher law." The "irrepressible conflict" was the +exact counterpart of the "house divided against itself." "Negro +equality" marked a distinct advance since the Douglas debate two years +before, and such advance, gradual but steady, was characteristic of +Lincoln. It was no less characteristic of him to disclaim the "higher +law" doctrine,—an obligation recognized by the individual conscience as +paramount to all human enactments. Indeed Seward, though the phrase was +his, was as little an idealist of the individual conscience as was +Lincoln.</p> + +<p>Of the circumstances just mentioned, a part belongs to the undercurrents +which few spectators at the time discerned. What the crowd and the world +saw was three successive ballots. First, Seward, 173-1/2; Lincoln, 102; +Cameron, 50-1/2; Chase and Bates following close. Then Cameron's name<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> +was withdrawn, and Lincoln shot up abreast of Seward. A third ballot, +and Lincoln went up, up till he touched the line of a clear majority. +Then the Wigwam roared; the guns boomed; in the first subsidence of the +cheering Evarts gallantly moved that the choice be made unanimous,—and +the tall, homely Illinois lawyer was the Republican candidate for the +Presidency. If the result was not without its illustrations of his own +definition of politics—"the combination of individual meannesses for +the general good,"—he at least had sacrificed nothing of his +convictions, had not worked for his own elevation, or smirched his +hands. And, unproved though he was as to administrative power and +seamanship in a cyclone, there was yet a singular and intrinsic fitness +in his candidacy. His recognized quality was that which is basal and +dear to the common people, honesty; honesty in thought, word and act. In +his convictions, he was near to the great mass of the party of freedom +as it actually was; frankly opposed to slavery, but reverent and +tenacious of the established order, even though it gave slavery a +certain standing-ground. He had, too, that intimate sympathy with the +common people, that knowledge of their thoughts and ways, that respect +for their collective judgment and will as the ultimate arbiter—which +are the essential traits in a great leader of democracy.</p> + +<p>In the four-sided canvass which followed, the lines were not strictly +geographical. The Republican party indeed took its Vice-Presidential +candidate from the North—Hannibal Hamlin of Maine; for no Southern man +was likely to invite exile or worse by taking the place; and the +Republican electoral tickets had no place or only a nominal one south of +Mason and Dixon's line, except in Missouri, where the emancipation idea +was still alive. But the three other parties contested with each other +in all the States. In Massachusetts, the Breckinridge party had as its +candidate for Gov<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>ernor the unscrupulous Butler; and among its +supporters was Caleb Cushing, erudite, brilliant, conscienceless, and a +pro-slavery bigot. At the South, the Douglas party had considerable +strength. The hot-heads who had split the Democracy and were ready to +divide the nation had by no means an undisputed ascendency. Stephens and +Toombs parted company; they headed respectively the Douglas and +Breckinridge electoral tickets in Georgia. Davis spent part of the +summer in privacy at the North; he saw enough to convince him that the +North would fight if challenged, but the warning was in vain.</p> + +<p>The special interest of the campaign centered in the menace of disunion. +The territorial question in itself had grown almost wearisome, and had +no immediate application. The fugitive slave law had fallen into the +background; renditions were so uncertain and dangerous that they were +seldom attempted. John Brown's foray was to the North a bygone affair, +with no dream of its repetition. The few promoters of his project had +shrunk back at the catastrophe; the mass of the people had always looked +on it as a crazy affair; and with personal sympathy or honor for him, +the raid was almost forgotten,—but the South could not so easily +forget. But the living and burning issue was the threat of secession if +Lincoln should be elected,—a threat made openly and constantly at the +South. The campaign was full of bitterness. "Black Republicans" was a +term in constant use. The violent language was not all at the South. +Cushing declared, when in the preceding autumn Massachusetts reëlected +Banks as governor, "A band of drunken mutineers have seized hold of the +opinion of this commonwealth—the avowed and proclaimed enemies of the +Constitution of the United States,"—with further hysteric talk about +the ship of state, with the pirate's flag at the masthead, drifting into +the gulf of perdition. The New York <i>Herald</i> was full of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> wild and +inflammatory words. Papers of a different character—like the Boston +<i>Courier</i>, representative of the party which included Everett and +Winthrop—habitually charged the Republican party with John Brownism and +disunionism. The South not unnaturally believed that the North was +seriously divided, and could never hold together against its claims. But +most Northern people regarded the disunion threats as mere +gasconade,—meant only to carry an election, and then to be quietly +dropped. But if they were meant in earnest—well, there would be +something to be said, and done too, on the other side.</p> + +<p>Douglas, with almost no chance of success, made a bold and active +canvass. Through this year he showed a courage far higher than the mere +dexterity which had been his chief distinction before. In part, it was +an expression of a changing temper in the people. He stood openly and +stoutly for the principle of majority rule. While speaking at Wheeling, +Va., he was questioned as to whether he held that the election of +Lincoln would justify secession. He answered promptly that it would not, +and if secession were attempted, he would support a Republican President +in putting it down by force. That pledge to the country he redeemed, +when at the outbreak of the war he gave his immediate and full adherence +to President Lincoln,—representing and leading the "War Democrats" who +practically solidified the North, and insured its victory. At Wheeling, +he passed on the question answered by him for Breckinridge to answer. +But Breckinridge ignored the challenge,—a silence which was what the +lawyers call a "pregnant negative."</p> + +<p>November brought victory to the Republicans. In the popular vote, +Lincoln had about 1,860,000; Douglas, 1,370,000; Breckinridge, 840,000; +and Bell, 590,000. The electoral votes stood—or would have stood, if +the electoral conventions had all met—Lincoln, 180; Breckinridge, 72; +Bell, 39;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> Douglas, 12. Lincoln carried every Northern State except New +Jersey; Douglas, only part of New Jersey and Missouri; Bell, Virginia, +Kentucky and Tennessee; Breckinridge, all the rest of the South. The +successful candidate was thus in a popular minority,—no new thing. The +distinctively Southern candidate was doubly in a minority. The +supporters of Lincoln, Douglas and Bell, were all to be counted against +the extreme Southern claim, and much more against any assertion of that +claim by secession. Unitedly, their support outnumbered that of +Breckinridge by more than four to one. If ever a party was fairly and +overwhelmingly out-voted, it was the party whose central doctrine was +that slavery must be protected in the United States territories.</p> + +<p>Now the question was, would that party acquiesce in the decision of the +majority? At every previous election in the nation's history the +minority had acquiesced promptly and loyally. When Jefferson was +elected, New England looked on the new President as a Jacobin in +politics and an infidel in religion. But New England acquiesced without +an hour's hesitation. When Jackson was chosen, his opponents saw in him +a rude and ignorant demagog. But the anti-Jackson people accepted the +new President as they had accepted Monroe and Adams. In the choice of +Buchanan, the Republicans saw an assertion of the nationalism of +slavery, and a menace of the subjugation of Kansas. But the supporters +of Fremont recognized Buchanan as unhesitatingly as if he had been their +own choice. What was the meaning of popular government, except that the +minority should submit to the legitimate victory of the majority? On +what did the nation's existence rest, but the loyalty of its citizens to +the nation's self-determination in its elections? And now, would the +minority resist the decision of the majority? Would the Southern States +attempt to break up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> the Union? The North could not and would not +believe it. But there was a strong party at the South which was fully +convinced that the election of Lincoln was the crown of a series of +grievances which justified the South in withdrawing from the Union; that +such withdrawal was a clear constitutional right; and that the honor and +interest of the South demanded that it be made.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>FACE TO FACE</h3> + + +<p>To understand the meaning of secession and the Civil War which followed +it, we must fathom the thoughts and feelings of the opposing parties. +Let us suppose two representative spokesmen to state their case in turn.</p> + +<p>Let the Secessionist speak first. The Secessionists were not at first a +majority of the people of the Southern States, but it was their view +which prevailed. What that view was we know certainly and from abundant +evidence,—the formal acts of secession, the speeches of the leaders in +Congress and at home, the histories since written by the President and +Vice-President of the Confederacy, and countless similar sources. This, +substantially, was the Secessionist's position:—</p> + +<p>"This Union is a partnership of States, of which the formal bond is the +Constitution; the vital principle is the enjoyment by each section and +community of its rights; and the animating spirit is the mutual respect +and good-will of all members of the Union. The Northern people have +violated the provisions of the Constitution; they have infringed the +essential rights of the Southern communities, and threatened to invade +them still further; and they have displaced the spirit of mutual +good-will by alienation, suspicion, and hostility. The formal bond of +the Union being thus impaired, and its vital spirit lost, we propose +explicitly and finally to dissolve this partnership of States, and +reorganize our Southern communities in a new Confederacy.</p> + +<p>"We charge you of the North with explicit violation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> the Constitution +in the matters of the territories, the Supreme Court and the fugitive +slaves.</p> + +<p>"You deny our right to carry a part of our property,—our unquestioned +property under the Constitution,—into the territories which belong +equally to the whole nation, and which have been acquired by our +treasure and our blood not less than by yours. You prevent slave-holders +from participating in the colonization of this domain, and thus +determine in advance that its future States shall exclude our +institutions. You thus unfairly build up a political preponderance, +which you use for the discouragement and injury of our industrial +system.</p> + +<p>"Against this wrong we have appealed to the Supreme Court, and secured +its express affirmation of the right to carry slave property, equally +with any other property, into the territories. This solemn decree of the +highest judicial authority you set at naught and defy. You say you will +reorganize the court and reverse the decision. You do not even wait for +that; you assume in party convention to reverse the mandate of the +Supreme Court. You not only contradict its declaration that slavery in +the territories is protected by the Constitution; you go farther, and +affirm that Congress has no authority to protect it there.</p> + +<p>"The Constitution affirms that fugitives from labor must be returned to +their masters. A Federal statute provides for such return. That statute +is not only decried by your orators and resisted by your mobs; it is +contravened and practically nullified by statutes in all the free +States.</p> + +<p>"These specific wrongs against us are inspired by a disposition which in +itself dissolves the bond of friendship between you and us,—a spirit of +open and avowed hostility to our social and industrial system. The Union +as our fathers established it, and as alone it has any value, is not a +thing of mere legalities,—it must be a true union of hearts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> and hands, +a spirit of mutual confidence and respect among the various communities +of one people. But for many years our most characteristic Southern +institution has been widely and loudly denounced among you as wicked and +inhuman. It has been proclaimed as 'the sum of all villainies.' We have +been held up to the reprobation of the world as tyrants and +man-stealers. Those at the North who disapproved of such abuse have +failed to silence or repress it. This denunciation has spread until +apparently it has won the preponderating sentiment of the North. A +national household in which we are thus branded as sinners and criminals +is no longer a home for us.</p> + +<p>"This hostility has borne its natural fruit in open attack. A peaceful +Virginia village has been assailed by armed men, its citizens shot down +while defending their homes, and the summons given for servile +insurrection with all its horrors. The leader in this crime, justly +condemned and executed under Virginia's laws, has been widely honored +throughout the North as a hero and martyr. By the light of that applause +we must interpret the real feeling of the North, and its probable future +course toward us.</p> + +<p>"The Presidential election has now been won by a party whose avowed +principle is the restriction of slavery, while its animating spirit is +active hostility to slavery. We cannot trust the Republican party in its +profession of respect for the Constitution. Even in its formal +declaration it ignores a Supreme Court decision, and advances a +revolutionary doctrine as to slavery in the territories. Its elected +candidate has declared that 'this government cannot endure permanently +half slave and half free.' The party's only reason for being is +opposition to slavery, and there is every probability that this +opposition will, with growing power and opportunity, be directed against +the system as it now exists in our Southern States.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The spirit of the American Union is dissolved already, when its chief +magistrate has been elected by the votes of one section and by a party +animated solely by hostility to the industrial and social system of the +other section. The formal bond of the Union can hereafter be only an +instrument to harass and destroy our liberties. We therefore propose +that that bond be at once and finally cancelled. It is and has been from +the beginning the right of any State to withdraw from the national +partnership at its own pleasure. We call on our brethren of the South to +take prompt action for the deliberate, legal and solemn withdrawal of +their States from the Union, and their organization in a new +Confederacy."</p> + +<p>So in effect spoke the leading spirits of the Gulf and Cotton States as +soon as Lincoln was elected in November, 1860. Less promptly, coming +only gradually into unison, but with growing clearness and emphasis, +spoke the dominant spirit of the North in the months between Lincoln's +election and inauguration. This in substance was the Northern reply to +the Secessionist:—</p> + +<p>"We deny that we have violated the Constitution, that we have wronged +you, or that we intend to wrong you. We have taken no advantage of you +beyond the legitimate victories of political controversy. We are loyal +to the Constitution, and to that which is deeper and higher than the +Constitution,—the spirit of American nationality.</p> + +<p>"Taking up your specific charges,—the status of slavery in the various +territories has been debated and battled in Congress and among the +people for seventy years, and as now one decision and now another has +been reached it has been accepted by all until peaceably changed. For +six years past it has been the cardinal question in national politics. +Within that period three views have been urged,—that slavery goes by +natural and constitutional right into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> all the territories, that the +matter is to be settled in each territory by the local population, and +that slavery should be excluded by national authority from all the +territories. For this last view we have argued, pleaded, waited, until +at last the supreme tribunal of all—the American people in a national +election—has given judgment in our favor.</p> + +<p>"You cite the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court as establishing +slavery in the territories. But you wrest from that decision a force +which it does not legally carry. The best lawyers are with us as to +this. The court at the outset dismissed the case for want of +jurisdiction, because Dred Scott, being a negro, could not be an +American citizen, and therefore had no standing before the court. This +being said, the court by its own decision could go no farther with the +case. When a majority of the judges went on to discuss the status of +slavery in the territories,—as it might have come up if they had gone +on to try the case on its merits—they were uttering a mere <i>obiter +dictum</i>,—a personal opinion carrying no judicial authority. The attempt +to make these side-remarks a decisive pronouncement on the supreme +political question of the time is beyond law or reason. It is +preposterous that the court's incidental opinion, on a case which it had +disclaimed the power to try, should invalidate that exclusion of slavery +by national authority which had been affirmed by the great acts of 1787 +and 1820, and had been exercised for seventy years.</p> + +<p>"As to fugitive slaves, the Personal Liberty laws are designed to +safeguard by the State's authority its free black citizens from the +kidnapping which the Federal statute, with its refusal of a jury trial, +renders easy. If they sometimes make difficulty in the rendition of +actual fugitives,—you must not expect a whole-hearted acceptance of the +rôle of slave-catchers by the Northern people. You have the Federal +statute, and may take what you can under it,—but if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> under the bond +Shylock gets only his pound of flesh, there is no help for him.</p> + +<p>"Come now to your broader complaint, that the spirit of the Union has +been sacrificed by Northern hostility toward your peculiar institution. +True, you have had to put up with harsh words, but we have had to put up +with a harsh fact. You have had to tolerate criticism, but we have had +to tolerate slavery under our national flag. It is an institution +abhorrent to our sense of right. We believe it contrary to the law of +God and the spirit of humanity. We consider it unjust in its essential +principle, and full of crying abuses in its actual administration. Its +existence in one section of the Union is a reproach to us among the +nations of the earth, and a blot on the flag. Yet we so thoroughly +recognize that our national principle allows each State to shape its own +institutions that we have not attempted and shall not attempt to hinder +you from cherishing slavery among yourselves as long as you please. If, +for the vast and vital interests bound up with the unity of this nation, +we can tolerate the presence within it of a system we so disapprove, +cannot you on your part tolerate the inevitable criticism which it calls +out among us?</p> + +<p>"If mutual grievances are to be rehearsed, we have our full share. What +has become of the constitutional provision which guarantees to the +citizens of every State their rights in all the States? When black +seamen, citizens of our commonwealths, enter South Carolina ports, they +are thrown into jail or sold into slavery. If we send a lawyer and +statesman to remonstrate, he is driven out. Our newspapers are excluded +from your mails. You have extinguished free speech among your own +citizens. If the Republican party is sectional, it is because any man +who supports it, south of the Ohio, is liable to abuse and exile. You +have shaped our national policy in lines of dishonor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> With your +Northern allies you have forced war on a weak neighbor and despoiled her +of territory. You have poured thousands of fraudulent voters into +Kansas, have supported their usurping government by Federal judges and +troops, and have tolerated the ruffians who harried peaceful settlers. +One of your congressional leaders has answered a senator's arguments by +beating him into insensibility, and you have honored and reëlected the +assailant. And now, when we have fairly won the day in a national +election, and for purposes peaceful, constitutional, and +beneficent,—you propose to break up the nation, and reorganize your +part of it expressly for the maintenance and promotion of slavery.</p> + +<p>"With such complaints on your part, and such complaints on ours, what is +the manly, the patriotic, the sufficient recourse? That which we offer +is that you and we, the whole American people, go forward loyally and +patiently with the familiar duties of American citizens. Let Time and +Providence arbitrate our controversies. Let us trust the institutions +under which for seventy years our nation has grown great; let us, now +and hereafter, acquiesce in that deliberate voice of the people which +our fathers established as the sovereign authority. For thirty years you +have had in the Presidency either a Southerner or a Northern man with +Southern principles,—and we acquiesced. Now we have chosen a genuine +Northerner,—will not you acquiesce? Four years ago the Presidential +contest was held on the same lines as this year; you won, and we +cheerfully submitted,—now we have won, will not you loyally submit? We +disclaim any attack on your domestic institutions. The invasion by John +Brown was repudiated by practically the entire North. Honor for a brave, +misguided man meant no approval of his criminal act. For the advance of +our distinctive principles,—inimical, we own, to your system of slave +labor,—we look only to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> gradual conversion of individual opinion, +and to the ultimate acceptance by your own people of the principles of +universal liberty. We believe that civilization and Christianity must +steadily work to establish freedom for all men. On that ground, and in +that sense, do we believe that 'this government cannot permanently +endure half slave and half free.' Pending that advance, we propose only +to exclude slavery from the common domain; to tolerate slavery as +sectional, while upholding freedom as national. If you are still +dissatisfied, yet is it not better to bear the evils that we have than +fly to others that we know not of? Nay, do we not too well know, and +surely if dimly foresee, the terrific evils which must attend the +attempted disruption of this nation?</p> + +<p>"A nation it is, and not a partnership. A nation, one and inseparable, +we propose that it shall continue. We deny that the founders and fathers +ever contemplated a mere temporary alliance dissoluble at the caprice of +any member. To the Union, established under the Constitution, just as +earnestly as to the cause of independence, they virtually pledged 'their +lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.' With every year the +nation has knitted its texture closer, as its benefits increased and its +associations grew. A nation is something other than a pleasure party, or +a mutual admiration society,—it includes a principle of rightful +authority and necessary submission. The harmony vital to national unity +is not merely a mutual complacence of the members,—at its root is a +habitual, disciplined obedience to the central authority, which in a +democracy is the orderly expressed will of the majority. You cannot +leave us and we cannot let you go. And if you attempt to break the bond, +it is at your peril."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<h3>HOW THEY DIFFERED</h3> + + +<p>If the typical Secessionist and the typical Unionist, as just described, +could rally a united South and a united North to their respective views, +there was no escape from a violent clash. Whether the two sections could +be so united each in itself appeared extremely doubtful. But below these +special questions of political creed were underlying divergences of +sentiment and character between North and South, which fanned the +immediate strife as a strong wind fans a starting flame. There was first +a long-growing alienation of feeling, a mutual dislike, rooted in the +slavery controversy, and fed partly by real and partly by imaginary +differences. Different personal and social ideals were fostered by the +two industrial systems. The Southerner of the dominant class looked on +manual labor as fit only for slaves and low-class whites. His ideal of +society was a pyramid, the lower courses representing the physical +toilers, the intermediate strata supplying a higher quality of social +service, while the crown was a class refined by leisure and cultivation +and free to give themselves to generous and hospitable private life, +with public affairs for their serious pursuit. He regarded the +prominence of the laboring class in Northern communities as marking the +inferiority of their society, and in the absorption of the wealthier +class in trade he read a further disadvantage. The virtues he most +honored were courage, courtesy, magnanimity,—all that he delighted to +characterize as "chivalry." He was inclined to consider the North as +materialistic and mer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>cenary, and even its virtues as based largely on +"honesty is the best policy."</p> + +<p>This low opinion was heartily reciprocated by the Northerner. He +believed the very foundation of Southern society to be injustice,—the +unpaid labor of the slave,—and the superstructure to correspond. He +looked on the slave-holders as cruel to their slaves and arrogant +toward the world at large, especially toward himself. The popular +opinion of slavery fastened on its abuses and ignored its mitigations. +On the average reader of <i>Uncle Tom's Cabin</i>, Legree made a deeper +impression than St. Clare or Mrs. Shelby.</p> + +<p>Even the religious and intellectual life of the two sections had grown +unsympathetic and often antagonistic. The South held tenaciously to the +traditional orthodox theology. In the North there was free discussion +and movement of thought. Even the conservative Presbyterian church had +its New School and Old School; and in New England the Congregational +body was divided by the birth and growth of Unitarianism. At all this +turmoil the South looked askance, and was genuinely shocked by the +disintegration of the old creed. The North in turn looked with something +like suspicion, if not scorn, on a Christianity which used the Bible as +an arsenal to fortify slavery. The Northern brood of reforms and +isms,—wise, unwise, or fantastic,—moved the South to a hostility which +made little discrimination between the idealism of Emerson, the +iconoclasm of Parker, and the vagaries of "free love." The group of +literary lights,—Bryant, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Holmes, and +their compeers,—won Southern dislike by their hostility to slavery. The +South itself, singularly barren of original literature,—its prolific +new births in our own day are one of the most conspicuous fruits of +emancipation,—clung fondly to the classical and feudal traditions, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> +hardly admitted any literary sovereign later than Scott and Byron.</p> + +<p>In a national union, as in marriage, there may be long continuance and +even substantial happiness in spite of many differences. So was it with +England and Scotland, so is it with Germany and with Italy. But in +slavery there was so profound an incompatibility with the fact and idea +of personal freedom as held by the American people at large, that the +inevitable opposition of the two systems was desperate almost beyond +cure. That opposition, and all the attendant circumstances of +divergence, were aggravated in their divisive effects by the extreme +bitterness of the foremost debaters on both sides. The very nature of +the subject tempted to vehement criticism, and defense of equal +vehemence. But there was a great aggravation of bitterness when, in the +van of the attack on slavery, the temper of Woolman and Lundy, of +Jefferson and Franklin and Channing, was replaced by the temper of +Garrison and his followers. Their violence inflamed alike the North and +the South, and, with the answering violence it provoked, worked the two +peoples into a largely false and unjust conception of each other's +character. The South's retort was no less passionate in words, while in +act it took form in expulsion of citizens and suppression of free +speech. Garrison's burning words, and the polished invective of +Phillips, live in literature; the wrath which answered them in Southern +orators and newspapers has left less of record; but on both sides the +work was effectually done of sowing mutual suspicion and hate.</p> + +<p>If only North and South could have known each other's best, as they knew +each other's worst! They were kept apart by the want of any stream of +migration between them, like that which united East and West, with the +resulting network of family connections and friendly intercourse.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> +Sometimes a Northern visitor, or an English traveler like Thackeray, saw +and appreciated the cultivated society of Charleston or Richmond, or +plantation life at its best,—a hospitable, genial, outdoor life, with +masters and mistresses who gave their best thought and toil to the care +of their servants. Sometimes a Southerner had a revelation like that of +General Zachary Taylor, when, looking from one of the heights in +Springfield, "the city of homes," on a landscape thick dotted with the +cheerful abodes of an industrial community, he exclaimed: "You can see +no such sight as that in a Southern State!" And always there were some +men and women who out of wide knowledge or a natural justice recognized +and loved the people of the whole land. But too frequently, in those +days, the Southerner saw in the North only a mass of plebeian laborers +excited by political and religious fanaticism; while the Northerner +looked south to a group of tyrannical and arrogant slaveholders lording +it over their victims. To the one, the typical figure of the North was +John Brown; to the other, the representative of the South was Brooks of +South Carolina.</p> + +<p>There were two other marked differences between the sections. The first +was the greater concentration of interest in the South on national +politics, and the leadership conceded to the political class. In the +North, the general occupation in laborious and gainful pursuits, and the +wide variety of social interests which competed for +attention,—education, reform, the debating society, the +town-meeting,—all acted to hold men in other fields than those of +national politics. The best brains were invited by commerce, the +factory, the railroad, the college, the laboratory, the newspaper,—as +well as by the Capitol. But to the Southern planter and his social +compeer no pursuit compared in attraction with the political field, and +above all the public life of the nation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> The mass of the people, +especially in the country districts, found in the political meeting an +interest whose only rival was the camp-meeting. Besides, when the +burning political question was slavery, it came home to the business and +bosoms of the South, while to the North it was remote. And thus, when +the secession movement broke upon the land, the Southern people grasped +it with a concentration, energy, and response to their habitual leaders, +in strongest contrast to the surprise, hesitation, and division, which +at first characterized the North.</p> + +<p>And, as the last distinction to be here noted, one section was far more +habituated than the other to methods of physical force in private and +public affairs. It was an instance of this that the duel was in common +practice at the South up to the Civil War, while at the North it had +disappeared sixty years earlier, after the encounter of Burr and +Hamilton. At the South the street affray was common. There is a picture +of Southern life which ought to have a wide reading, in <i>Kate Beaumont</i>, +a story of South Carolina, written by J. W. De Forest, a Northerner and +a Union soldier. Its tone is sympathetic, and neither the negro nor the +sectional question plays a part. It portrays admirable and delightful +people; old Judge Kershaw is indeed "the white rose of South Carolina +chivalry," and the Beaumonts and McAllisters, with all their foibles, +are a strong and lovable group. But the pistol is the ready arbiter of +every quarrel; the duelist's code is so established that it can hardly +be ignored even by one who disapproves it; and the high-toned gentleman +is no whit too high for the street encounter with his opponent. Old-time +Southerners know how faithful is that picture. So, too, the Southern +people turned readily to public war. They supplied the pioneers who +colonized Texas and won by arms its independence of Mexico. They not +only supported the Mexican war by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> their votes, but many of the flower +of their youth enlisted for it. From their young men were recruited the +"filibusters" who, from time to time, tried to revolutionize or annex +Cuba or some Central American State. The soldier figured largely in the +Southern imagination. But the North inclined strongly to the ways of +peace. That is the natural temper of an industrial democracy. It is the +note of a civilization advanced beyond slavery and feudalism. And of the +moral leaders of the North, some of the foremost had been strong +champions of peace. Channing had pleaded for it as eloquently as he +pleaded for freedom. Intemperance, slavery, and war had been the trinity +of evil assailed by earnest reformers. Sumner had gone to the length of +proclaiming the most unjust peace better than the justest war,—an +extreme from which he was destined to be converted. Garrison and +Phillips, while their language fanned the passions whose inevitable +tendency is toward war, had in theory declared all warfare to be +unchristian. And, apart from sentiment or conviction, the industrial and +peaceful habit was so widely diffused that it was questionable how much +remained of the militant temper which can and will fight on good +occasion. The South rashly believed that such temper was extinct in the +North, and the North on its part doubted how far the vaunts of Southern +courage had any substance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<h3>WHY THEY FOUGHT</h3> + + +<p>Now, when the issue was about to be joined, let it be noted that +Secession based itself, in profession and in reality, wholly on the +question of slavery. There lay the grievance, and for that alone a +remedy was to be had even at the price of sundering the Union. Later, +when actual war broke out, other considerations than slavery came into +play. To unite and animate the South came the doctrine of State rights, +the sympathy of neighborhood, and the primal human impulse of +self-defense. But the critical movement, the action which first sundered +the Union and so led to war,—was inspired wholly and solely by the +defense and maintenance of slavery. The proposition is almost too plain +for argument. But it receives illustration from the great debate in the +Georgia Legislature, when Toombs advocated Secession and Stephens +opposed it. Toombs, evidently unwilling to rest the case wholly on +slavery, alleged three other grievances at the hands of the North—the +fishery bounties, the navigation laws, and the protective tariff. +Stephens easily brushed aside the bounties and navigation laws as bygone +or unimportant. As to the tariff, he showed that the last tariff law, +enacted in 1857, was supported by every Massachusetts member of Congress +and every Georgia member, including Toombs himself. What further he said +belongs to a later chapter. But he was unquestionably right, and all +rational history confirms it, that the one force impelling the South to +Secession was the imperilled interest of slavery.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the resistance which Secession encountered from the North was from +the outset other and wider than hostility to slavery. Anti-slavery +feeling was indeed strong in the Northern heart; the restriction of +slavery was the supreme principle of the Republican party; the +resentment that the national bond should be menaced in the interest of +slavery gave force to the opposition which Secession instantly aroused. +But, on the one hand, the extreme opponents of slavery, Garrison and his +followers, were now, as they had always been, willing and more than +willing that the South should go off and take slavery with it. And on +the other hand, the anti-secessionists of the nation included a +multitude, North and South, who were either friendly to slavery or +indifferent to it. Even of the Republican party the mass were more +concerned for the rights of the white man than of the black man. They +were impatient of the dominance of the government by the South, and +meant to unseat the Southern oligarchy from the place of power at +Washington.</p> + +<p>They intended that the territories should be kept for the free +immigrant, who should not be degraded by slaves at work in the next +field. Only a minority of the party,—though a minority likely in the +long run to lead it—looked with hope and purpose to ultimate +emancipation. And when the question of Secession was at issue by the +people's votes and voice, and had not yet come to the clash of arms, the +rights and interests of the slave fell into the background. The supreme +question of the time was felt to be the unity or the division of the +nation.</p> + +<p>The Secessionists' plea was in two clauses; that their States were +aggrieved by Northern action, and that they had a legal right to leave +the Union without let or hindrance. A double answer met them, from their +fellow-Southerners that it was impolitic to secede, and from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> North +that secession was illegal, unpermissible, and to be resisted at all +costs.</p> + +<p>The Secessionists were fluent in argument that the framers of the +Constitution intended only a partnership of States, dissoluble by any at +will. However difficult to prove that the original builders purposed +only such a temporary edifice, there was at least ground for maintaining +that they gave no authority for coercing a State into obedience or +submission, and indeed rejected a proposal to give such authority. If +there were no legal or rightful authority to keep a State in the Union +by force, then for all practical purposes its right to go out of the +Union was established. But against that right, as ever contemplated by +the fathers, or allowable under the Constitution, there was strong +contention on legal and historic grounds.</p> + +<p>But deeper than all forensic or academic controversy was the substantial +and tremendous fact, that the American people had grown into a nation, +organic and vital. That unity was felt in millions of breasts, cherished +by countless firesides, recognized among the peoples of the earth.</p> + +<p>There had developed that mysterious and mighty sentiment, the love of +country. It rested in part on the recognition of material benefits. From +the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes to the Gulf, the tides of +commerce flowed free, unvexed by a single custom-house. The Mississippi +with its traffic united the Northern prairies and the Louisiana delta +like a great artery. Safety to person and property under the laws, +protection by an authority strong enough to curb riot or faction at +home, and with a shielding arm that reached wherever an American +traveler might wander,—these benefits rooted patriotism deep in the +soil of homely usefulness. And the tree branched and blossomed in the +upper air of generous feeling. Man's sympathy expands in widening +spheres, and his being enlarges<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> as he comes into vital union, first +with wife and children, then successively with neighborhood, community, +country, and at last with humanity. The Russian peasant, in his +ignorance and poverty, or facing the foe in war, is sublimated by his +devotion to the White Czar and Holy Russia. Still more inspiring and +profound is the patriotism of a citizen whose nation is founded on equal +brotherhood. Deeper than analysis can probe is this passion of +patriotism. Gladstone characterized it well, when, writing in August, +1861, he recognized among the motives sustaining the Union cause, "last +and best of all, the strong instinct of national life, and the +abhorrence of Nature itself toward all severance of an organized body."</p> + +<p>This sentiment, though strained and weakened in the South, was still +powerful even in that section. This was especially true of the border +States, where slavery was of less account than in the Gulf and Cotton +States. The spirit of Clay was still strong in Kentucky, and was +represented by the venerable John J. Crittenden in the Senate. Of a like +temper was John Bell of Tennessee, Presidential candidate of the Union +and Constitutional party in 1860. From the same State Andrew Johnson, in +the Senate, stood for the sturdy and fierce Unionism of the white +laboring class. Virginia was strongly bound to the Union by her great +historical traditions. North Carolina, Missouri, and Arkansas were, +until the war broke out, attached to the Union rather than the Southern +cause. It was in the belt of States from South Carolina to Texas, in +which the planter class was altogether dominant, that the interest of +slavery, and the pride of class and of State, had gradually loosened the +bonds of affection and allegiance to the national idea. Calhoun himself +had been an ardent lover of the Union. The clash between the national +and sectional interests had been to him a tragedy. Nullification was his +device for perpetuating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> the Union while allowing its members relief +from possible oppression,—but nullification had failed, in fact as in +logic.</p> + +<p>Now the Secessionists went further than Calhoun had ever found occasion +to go. They proposed to break up the nation, at first by the withdrawal +of their separate States, to be followed by the organization of a +Southern Confederacy. Their grievance was the restriction of their +industrial system, and its threatened destruction, and the failure of +the Union to serve its proper ends of justice and fraternity. But they +wholly disclaimed any revolutionary action. They maintained that the +withdrawal of their States was an exercise of their strictly legal and +constitutional right. This is the plea which is insistently and +strenuously urged by their defenders. Their foremost actors in the +drama, Davis and Stephens, became at a later day its historians, not so +much to record its events, as to plead with elaboration and reiteration +that Secession was a constitutional right. But all their fine-spun +reasoning ran dead against a force which it could no more overcome than +King Canute's words could halt the tide,—the fact of American unity, as +realized in the hearts of the American people.</p> + +<p>The mass of men live not by logic, but by primal instincts and passions. +Where one man could explain why the nation was an indestructible +organism rather than a partnership dissoluble at will, a thousand men +could and would fight to prevent the nation from being dissolved. But +here and there on this planet is a man who must think things through to +the end, and have a solid reason for what he does. Such a man was +Abraham Lincoln. He never could rest contented till he had worked the +problem out clearly in his own head, and then had stated the answer in +words that the common man could understand. Such an answer to the whole +Secessionist argument, quite apart from the slavery question, he gave in +one brief paragraph of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> inaugural. "There is no alternative for +continuing the government but acquiescence on the one side or the other. +If the minority in such a case will secede rather than acquiesce, they +make a precedent which in turn will ruin and divide them; for a minority +of their own will secede from them, whenever a majority refuses to be +controlled by such a minority. For instance, why not any portion of a +new Confederacy, a year or so hence, arbitrarily secede again, precisely +as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who +cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper +of doing this. Is there such perfect identity of interests among the +States to compose a new Union as to produce harmony only, and prevent +renewed Secession? Plainly, the central idea of Secession is the essence +of anarchy." That was the key-word of the situation, in the court of +reason and conscience,—"the central idea of Secession is the essence of +anarchy."</p> + +<p>The system which the Secessionists proposed to break up had a part of +its highest value in that very division of authority between State and +nation which gave them their pretext for a separation. The Federal plan +was the special contribution of America to the evolution of popular +self-government. Until that step had been taken, not only did the +practical difficulties of democracy increase enormously with the +increase of area and population, but a vast centralized democracy was +liable to be itself an oppressive despotism, as France has learned at +bitter cost. The Federal plan, like most other great advances, came not +as the conception of an ingenious brain, but from the growth of social +facts. The thirteen colonies started and grew as individual offshoots +from Great Britain. Under a common impulse they broke loose from the +mother-country; then, by a common necessity, they bound themselves +together in a governmental Union, each member retaining jurisdiction in +such affairs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> as were its special concern. The resulting Federal Union +was a combination of strength and freedom such as the world had never +seen. With this for its organic form, with its spiritual lineage drawn +from the Puritan, the Quaker and the Cavalier, with Anglo-Saxon stock +for its core, yet with open doors and assimilating power for all races, +and with a continent for its field of expansion,—the American people +became the leader and the hope of humanity. This was the nation which +the Secessionists proposed to rend asunder.</p> + +<p>All government implies a principle of authority, and requires the +occasional sacrifice of the individual's pleasure. The national bond has +one strand in mutual good-will, but another strand is personal +sacrifice, and another is stern command. The Union required some +sacrifices, not only of material price,—as when a man pays just taxes, +or acquiesces in a fiscal system which he considers unjust,—but +sacrifices sometimes even of moral sentiment. Lincoln, explaining his +position in 1855 to his old friend Speed, of Kentucky, repelled the +suggestion that he had no personal interest in slavery. He says that +whenever he crosses the border he sees manacled slaves or some similar +sight which is a torment to him. "You ought to appreciate how much the +great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings in order to +maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union."</p> + +<p>That acquiescence,—a costly sacrifice to the higher good; and the +typical attitude of the Republicans and the moderate anti-slavery +men,—seemed to Garrison and Phillips and their school a sinful +compliance with evil. The extreme Abolitionists, as much as the +extremists of the South, were opposed to the Union. They had no +comprehension of the interests and principles involved in the +preservation of the national life. One of the pleasant traits told of +Garrison's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> private life is this: He was fond of music, especially +religious music, but had little cultivation in that direction; and he +would sit at the piano and pick out the air of the good old hymn-tunes +with one hand, not knowing how to play the bass which makes a harmony. +That was typical of his mental attitude,—he knew and loved the melody +of freedom, but the harmony blended of freedom and national unity he did +not comprehend.</p> + +<p>The Southern disunionists finally carried their section, but the +Abolition disunionists never made the slightest approach to converting +the North. It was not merely that many at the North were indifferent to +slavery, while to the whole community its interest was remote compared +to what it was to the South. There was another reason for the failure of +the Northern disunionists. Among the class to whom the appeal for +freedom came closest home, the idealists, the men of moral conviction +and enthusiasm, were many to whose ideality and enthusiasm American +unity also spoke with powerful voice. Patriotism was more to them than a +material interest, more than an enlarged and glowing sentiment of +neighborhood and kinship,—it was devotion to moral interests of which +the national organism was the symbol and the agent. They saw, as Webster +saw, that "America is inseparably connected, fast bound up, in future +and by fate, with these great interests,"—of free representative +government, entire religious liberty, improved systems of national +intercourse, the spirit of free inquiry, and the general diffusion of +knowledge. They looked still higher than this,—they saw that America +rightly tended toward universal personal liberty, and full opportunity +and encouragement to man as man, of whatever race or class. That was +what America stood for to those moral enthusiasts whose sanity matched +their ardor. They saw that this ideal was still in the future, and that +progress might be slow and difficult,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> but they were pledged in their +souls to pursue it. And, with that purpose at heart, they were ready to +maintain the national unity at whatever cost.</p> + +<p>This was the composite and mighty force against which the Secessionists +unwittingly set themselves,—the love of country, strong alike in the +common people and the leaders, a love rooted in material interest and +flowering in generous sentiment; and beyond that the moral ideals which, +born in prophets and men of genius, had permeated the best part of the +nation. With this, too, went the preponderance of physical resources +which free labor had been steadily winning for the North. Judging even +in the interest of slavery, was it not wise to acquiesce in the +election, to remain under the safeguards with which the Constitution +surrounded slavery in the States, to have patience, and to make the best +terms possible with the forces of nature and society? So urged the +wisest counselors, like Stephens of Georgia. But men rarely act on a +deliberate and rational calculation of their interests. They are swayed +by impulse and passion, and especially by the temper and habit which +have become a second nature. The leaders in Secession acted in a spirit +generated by the very nature of slavery, and fostered by their long +defense of slavery. That genesis of the movement is all the more +impressive when we recognize the high personal character of its leaders, +and acquit them of conscious motives of personal ambition. Slavery was +their undoing. The habit of absolute control over slaves bred the habit +of mastery whenever it could be successfully asserted. There grew up a +caste, its members equal and cordial among themselves, but +self-assertive and haughty to all besides. They brooked no opposition at +home, and resented all criticism abroad. They misread history and +present facts, misconceived their place in the order of things, and set +themselves against both the finest and the strongest forces of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> +time. When the political party which had been their most effective tool +became difficult to handle, they broke it in two. When they could no +longer rule the nation, they set out to sunder it.</p> + +<p>Thus, after forty-five years, we try to trace the springs of +action,—action which at the time moved swiftly, in cloud and storm and +seeming chaos. We have endeavored to see a little of how the men of the +North and of the South thought and felt. Now let us see what they did.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<p>ON NIAGARA'S BRINK—AND OVER</p> + + +<p>The election of Lincoln in November, 1860, found South Carolina +expectant and ready for action. The Legislature was in session, and +immediately ordered an election to be held December 6 for a convention +to meet December 17, and pass on the question of Secession. The action +of the convention was in no doubt.</p> + +<p>Governor Pettus of Mississippi summoned a group of leading men to +consider the question of immediate Secession. In the conclave the +principal opponent of instant action was Jefferson Davis. His grounds +were prudential; he knew that the arsenals, foundries, and military +supplies were chiefly at the North; he foresaw a long and bloody war; he +advised that further efforts be made at compromise, or at least that +united action of the South be insured. This counsel prevailed, and the +convention was deferred until mid-January.</p> + +<p>In the Georgia Legislature it was proposed that the question of +Secession be at once submitted to a popular vote. Toombs and Stephens +threw each his whole weight respectively for and against Secession. +Stephens has preserved his own speech in full. He emphasized the gravity +of the South's grievances, and the need of redress from the North if the +Union was to permanently endure. But he denied that the danger was so +pressing as to justify immediate Secession. He pointed out that Lincoln +would be confronted by a hos<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>tile majority in the Senate, the House and +the Supreme Court, and could not even appoint his Cabinet officers +except with the approval of a Senate in which his opponents outnumbered +his friends. He urged that it was wise to wait for some overt aggression +on the President's part before seceding. He dwelt on the immense +advantages the Union had brought to all sections. He showed (as in our +last chapter) that Toombs could allege no injuries except such as +affected slavery. Georgia's wealth had doubled between 1850 and 1860. "I +look upon this country," he said, "with our institutions, as the Eden of +the world, the paradise of the universe. It may be that out of it we may +become greater and more prosperous, but I am candid and sincere in +telling you that I fear if we yield to passion, and without sufficient +cause shall take that step, that instead of becoming greater or more +peaceful, prosperous and happy,—instead of becoming gods we will become +demons, and at no distant day commence cutting one another's throats."</p> + +<p>Stephen's counsel was that the State should hold a convention, that with +the other Southern States it should draw up a formal bill of complaint +as to the personal liberty laws and the like, and if the North then +refused redress, secede. But whatever the State should do, he would +accept its decision, since the only alternative was civil war within the +State. He succeeded in having the convention deferred till January, and +the other Gulf States took similar action, while Virginia called a +convention for February 13.</p> + +<p>With the tide of secession rising swiftly in the South, and surprise, +consternation, and perplexity at the North, Congress met in early +December. President Buchanan, in his message, following the advice of +his attorney-general, Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania,—both of them +honest and patriotic men, but legalists rather than statesmen—argued +that Secession was wholly against the Constitution, but its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> forcible +repression was equally against the Constitution. Thus encouraged, the +Southern leaders confronted the Republicans in Congress,—how far would +they recede, how much would they yield, to avert Secession? Naturally, +the Republicans were not willing to undo the victory they had just won, +or to concede the very principle for which they had fought. But in both +Houses large committees were appointed and the whole situation was +earnestly discussed. On all sides violence was deprecated; there was +general dread of disruption of the Union, general doubt of the +feasibility of maintaining it by force, and the wide wish and effort to +find some practicable compromise.</p> + +<p>But there was no hesitation on South Carolina's part. Her convention +passed, December 20, an Ordinance of Secession; a clear and impressive +statement of her complaints and the remedy she adopts. The Federal +compact has been broken; the personal liberty laws violate the +Constitution; the Northern people have denounced as sinful the +institution of slavery; they have elected a man who has declared that +"this government cannot permanently endure half slave and half free"; +they are about to exclude Southern institutions from the territories, +and to make the Supreme Court sectional. "All hope of redress is +rendered vain by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested +a great political error with the sanction of a more erroneous religious +belief." So, from a partnership of which the letter has been broken and +the spirit destroyed, South Carolina withdraws.</p> + +<p>The State was, at least on the surface, almost unanimous,—in Charleston +only the venerable James L. Petigru ventured to call himself a +Unionist,—and was in high heart and hope for its new venture. But, +facing the palmetto flags so gayly unfurled to the breeze, still floated +the Stars and Stripes over a little garrison in Fort Moultrie, commanded +by Major<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> Anderson. His supplies were low; should aid be sent him? No, +said Buchanan timidly; and thereat Cass withdrew indignantly from the +Cabinet, to be replaced as Secretary of State by Black, while the +vigorous Edwin M. Stanton took Black's former place; and Buchanan's +courage rose a little. At the request of the South Carolina authorities, +Floyd, the Secretary of War, had ordered Anderson to act strictly on the +defensive. Finding himself at the mercy of his opponents on the +mainland, he quietly withdrew his handful of men, on the night of +December 26, to Fort Sumter, whose position on an island gave +comparative security. The South Carolinians instantly occupied Fort +Moultrie and Castle Pinckney, and took possession of the custom-house +and post-office. They cried out against Anderson's maneuver as a breach +of good faith, and Secretary Floyd resigned, in sympathy with the +Carolinians. The President, heartened by his new counselors, dispatched +the steamer <i>Star of the West</i> with supplies for Anderson, but she was +fired on by the South Carolinians and turned back, January 9. Resenting +the President's act, Thompson of Mississippi and Thomas of Maryland left +his cabinet. The President brought in General Dix of New York; Joseph +Holt, now Secretary of War, was a Southern loyalist, and in its last +months Buchanan's Cabinet was thoroughly Unionist. But in him there was +no leadership.</p> + +<p>Leadership was not wanting to the Secessionists. A movement like theirs, +once begun and in a congenial atmosphere, advances like a glacier by its +own weight, but with the pace not of the glacier but of the torrent. In +the country at large and at Washington there was confusion of counsels. +There was manifest disposition among the Republicans to go a long way in +conciliation. Of forcible resistance to Secession there was but little +talk. But that the Republicans should disown and reverse the entire +principles on which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> their party was founded was out of the question. On +the night of January 5 there met in a room at the Capitol the Senators +from Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and +Texas. They agreed on a common program, and telegraphed to their homes +that Secession was advisable at the January conventions and that a +common convention was to be held at Montgomery, Ala., in mid-February, +for the organization of the Southern Confederacy. Meantime, all United +States officials were to resign, and the Federal forts, arsenals and +custom-houses were to be seized.</p> + +<p>A last formal presentation of the Southern ultimatum was made by Toombs +in the Senate. It was the familiar demand—slavery in the territories; +slavery under Federal protection everywhere except in the free States; +fugitives to be returned; offenders against State laws to be surrendered +to justice in those States; inter-State invasion and insurrection to be +prohibited and punished by Congress. No partial concessions would +answer: this, or nothing! "Nothing be it then!" was the answer of the +Republicans: and Toombs, Davis, and their associates bade a stern and +sad farewell to their fellow-congressmen and went home to organize the +Confederacy. Congress took up fresh plans for reconciliation and +reunion.</p> + +<p>Mississippi, through its convention, seceded January 9, 1861. Florida +followed, January 10, and Alabama, January 11. Then, in the great +"keystone State" of Georgia, came deliberation and momentous debate. +Against immediate Secession, the policy of patience, of conference with +the other Southern States including the new "independent republics," and +a united remonstrance to the North, of which the rejection would justify +Secession,—this policy was embodied in a resolution presented by +Herschel V. Johnson and supported by all the eloquence and +persuasiveness of Stephens.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> Against him was the strong personal +influence of Howell Cobb, and the argument—which Stephens says was +decisive,—"we can make better terms out of the Union than in it." The +test vote was 164 to 133 for immediate Secession. On the motion of +Stephens the action was made unanimous. This accession of Georgia marked +the triumph of the Secessionists' cause; and most fitly, in a speech on +the evening of the same day, Stephens declared the fundamental idea of +that cause. Jefferson, he said, and the leading statesmen of his day, +"believed slavery wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically +... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the +assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy +foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the storm came +and the wind blew. Our new government is founded upon exactly the +opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon +the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that +slavery—subordination to the white race—is his natural and normal +condition. This, our new government, is the first in the history of the +world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."</p> + +<p>The Louisiana convention voted to secede January 26, and Texas February +1. The seven seceded States sent delegates to a convention which met at +Montgomery, February 4. They quickly organized the Confederate States of +America, with a Constitution closely resembling that of the United +States. One article forbade the foreign slave trade, except that with +"the United States of America," which was left subject to Congress. +Davis was elected President, by general agreement. He was clearly marked +for the place by ability, by civil and military experience, by +unblemished character, and by his record as a firm but not extreme +champion of the Secessionist cause. He disclaimed any desire for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> the +office, preferring the position which Mississippi had given him as +commander of her forces, but when the summons came to him at his +plantation home he promptly accepted. Stephens was chosen +Vice-President, in spite of his late and half-hearted adherence, to +conciliate Georgia and the old Whigs. In the Cabinet the leading figures +were Toombs of Georgia and Benjamin of Louisiana.</p> + +<p>With this purposeful, swift, and effective action, Secession seemed to +have reached its limit. The other Southern States held back. Among the +plain folk, not over-heated about politics, there was wide +disinclination to any such extreme measure as disunion. It was well +represented by Robert E. Lee, in whom the best blood and worthiest +tradition of Virginia found fit exemplar. He wrote to his son, January +23: "Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our +Constitution never expended so much labor, wisdom and forbearance, in +its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if +it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at +will."</p> + +<p>North Carolina voted against a convention by 1,000 majority. Tennessee +voted against it by 92,000 to 25,000. Arkansas postponed action till +August. Missouri held a convention which voted not to secede. In +Maryland the governor would not convene the Legislature, and an +irregular convention took no decisive action. Delaware did nothing. +Virginia held a convention, which was not ready for Secession, but +remained in session watching the course of events. The Kentucky +Legislature refused to call a convention, but pledged assistance to the +South in case of invasion.</p> + +<p>This last declaration illustrated the second line of defense, behind the +Secessionist advance. The sentiment was general throughout the South, +even among Unionists, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> there must be no armed repression of +Secession. It rested partly on the theory of State Sovereignty, and +partly on the sympathy of neighborhood and of common institutions. Even +at the North there was wide disinclination to the use of force against +the Secessionists. The venerable General Scott, chief of the Federal +Army, gave it as his personal opinion that the wise course was to say, +"Wayward sisters, depart in peace." The New York <i>Tribune</i>, foremost of +Republican newspapers, declared: "If the cotton States wish to withdraw +from the Union, they should be allowed to do so." "Any attempt to compel +them to remain by force would be contrary to the principles of the +Declaration of Independence, and to the fundamental ideas upon which +human liberty is based." And again: "We hope never to live in a Republic +whereof one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets." Such +expressions were not uncommon among Republicans, and very frequent among +Democrats. Garrison and Phillips were loud in welcoming a separation. +But there were leaders like Wade of Ohio and Chandler of Michigan, whose +temper was very different, and ominous that the West would never consent +to a disruption of the nation.</p> + +<p>The governor of Virginia invited all the States to send delegates to a +Peace congress to find means to save the Union. Almost all sent +delegates, and the congress held long sessions, while the Senate and +House were essaying the same task. Little result came in either body, +because neither party would accept the other's concessions. The favorite +measure was that known as the Crittendon compromise, framed by the +Kentucky senator, of which the central feature was the extension of the +old Missouri compromise line of 36 degrees 30 minutes to the Pacific, +with express provision that all territory north of this should be free +and all south should be slave. To this the Republicans<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> would not +consent, but they went far toward it by agreeing to a plan proposed by +Charles Francis Adams of Massachusetts,—that New Mexico (including all +present territory south of 36 degrees 30 minutes except the Indian +territory), be admitted as a State with slavery if its people should so +vote. They offered also to admit Colorado, Nevada, and Dakota as +territories, with no express exclusion of slavery. But neither side +would leave to the other the possible future extension to the South—in +Mexico and Cuba. Further, the Republicans showed a willingness to amend +the Personal Liberty laws, so far as they might be unconstitutional, and +to provide for governmental payment for fugitives who were not returned. +They expressed entire readiness to unite in a national convention for +the revision of the Constitution. And finally there was not only +proposed, but actually passed by the Senate and House, by two-thirds +majorities, at the very end of the session, a constitutional amendment +prohibiting any future amendment that should authorize Congress to +interfere with slavery in the States where it existed.</p> + +<p>In vain, all,—in vain for the Republicans to hold out the olive branch, +to mutilate their own principles, and to bar the door against any +ultimate constitutional abolition of slavery. Even the slave States +still in the Union were not to be satisfied by all this, and the +Confederacy gave it no heed. And now, in the background, was visible a +rising force, in which the temper was far other than compromise. The +most significant voice came from Massachusetts. After all the old +antagonism of Massachusetts and South Carolina,—after the clash of +Calhoun and Hayne with Webster, the expulsion of Samuel Hoar, the +assault of Brooks on Sumner,—the two commonwealths stood forth, each +the leader of its own section. It was a hostility which sprung from no +accident, and no remembrance of old feuds, but from the oppo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>sition of +two types of society, the oligarchic idea most fully developed in South +Carolina, the industrial democracy in Massachusetts. The new Governor of +the State was John A. Andrew, a man of clear convictions, a great heart, +and a magnanimous temper. His New Year's message to the Legislature +opened with a businesslike discussion of the State's finances and other +materialities. Thence he passed to national affairs; he defended the +Personal Liberty law, of which his more conservative predecessor, +Governor Banks, had advised the repeal, but which Andrew justified as a +legitimate defense against kidnapping; while suggesting that whatever +slaves South Carolina had lost from this cause were offset by +Massachusetts black seamen enslaved in her ports. Then he took up the +matter of disunion. "The question now is, Shall a reactionary spirit, +unfriendly to liberty, be permitted to subvert democratic republican +government organized under constitutional forms?... The men who own and +till the soil, who drive the mills, and hammer out their own iron and +leather on their own anvils and lapstones ... are honest, intelligent, +patriotic, independent, and brave. They know that simple defeat in an +election is no cause for the disruption of a government. They know that +those who declare that they will not live peaceably within the Union do +not mean to live peaceably out of it. They know that the people of all +sections have a right, which they intend to maintain, of free access +from the interior to both oceans, and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, +and of the free use of all the lakes and rivers and highways of +commerce, North, South, East and West. They know that the Union means +peace and unfettered commercial intercourse from sea to sea and from +shore to shore; that it secures us against the unfriendly presence or +possible dictation of any foreign power, and commands respect for our +flag and security for our trade.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> And they do not intend, nor will they +ever consent, to be excluded from these rights which they have so long +enjoyed, nor to abandon the prospect of the benefits which humanity +claims for itself by means of their continued enjoyment in the future. +Neither will they consent that the continent shall be overrun by the +victims of a remorseless cupidity, and the elements of danger increased +by the barbarizing influences which accompany the African slave trade. +Inspired by the ideas and emotions which commanded the fraternization of +Jackson and Webster on another great occasion of public danger, the +people of Massachusetts, confiding in the patriotism of their brethren +in other States, accept this issue, and respond in the words of Jackson, +'The Federal Union, it must be preserved.'... We cannot turn aside, and +we will not turn back."</p> + +<p>The crowded, anxious, hurrying months, brought the 4th of March, and +Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as President. His speeches on his way to +the capital,—pacific, reassuring, but firm for national unity and +liberty,—had in a degree brought him into touch with the mass of the +people. But when his gaunt and homely form rose to deliver the inaugural +address, it was as a little-known and untried man that he was heard. +That speech gave signal that the man for the hour had come. No words +could better describe its quality than "sweet reasonableness";—that, +and unflinching purpose. He began by earnest reassurances as to the +fidelity to the Constitution of himself and the party behind him. He +suggested the means and temper by which mutual grievances might be +approached. Then in his clear, logical fashion, and in the plain speech +of the common man, he showed that the Union is in its nature +indissoluble, older than the Constitution, unaffected by any attempted +Secession. His own official, inevitable duty is to maintain the Union. +But there need be no bloodshed or violence. "The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> power confided to me +will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places +belonging to the government, and collect the duties and imports; but +beyond what may be necessary for these objects there will be no +invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere." If +resident citizens will not hold Federal offices, there is to be no +intrusion of obnoxious strangers. The mails will be furnished wherever +they are wanted. "So far as possible the people everywhere shall have +that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought +and reflection." This will be his course unless events shall compel a +change. And then follows a most calm, rational, moving plea against +sacrificing a great, popular, orderly self-government, to individual +caprice or fancied wrongs; a demonstration, irresistible as mathematics, +that "the central idea of Secession is anarchy." "Unanimity is +impossible, the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is +wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy +or despotism in some form is all that is left." In the address there is +not one word of heat or bitterness; it is all in the spirit of his words +spoken in private, "I shall do nothing maliciously,—the interests I +deal with are too vast for malicious dealings."</p> + +<p>He does not belittle the complaints of the South, but pleads for mutual +forbearance. If there are defects in the organic framework of the +nation, let them be discussed and amended if necessary in a +constitutional convention. No justice can be done to this inaugural in a +condensation; it should be studied line by line; it is one of the great +classics of American literature and history. Thus he ended: "I am loth +to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. +Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of +affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every +battlefield and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> patriot's grave to every living heart and hearthstone +all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when +again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our +nature."</p> + +<p>Through the weeks that followed, Lincoln was plunged in a sea of +perplexities, while the nation seemed weltering in chaos, with nothing +clear but the steady purpose of the Confederate leaders to maintain +their position and achieve complete independence by the shortest road. +Lincoln had formed a Cabinet including some very able and some ordinary +men, with one—Seward—of highest promise and at first of most +disappointing performance. He regarded himself as the real power in the +administration; he underrated alike the gravity of the situation and the +President's ability to cope with it; he trusted to conciliation and +smooth assurance; and he tried to take the reins of control into his own +hands—an attempt which Lincoln quietly foiled. The President and his +Cabinet were as yet strangers to each other. In the Senate (the House +was not in session), Douglas assailed the President's position, and +declared three courses to be open: Constitutional redress of the South's +grievances; the acceptance of Secession; or its forcible +repression,—the first the best, the last the worst. Three commissioners +of the Confederacy were in Washington, refused official recognition, but +holding some indirect intercourse with Seward, which they apparently +misunderstood and exaggerated. A swarm of office-seekers, like Egyptian +locusts, beset the President amid his heavy cares. The border States, +trembling in the balance, called for the wisest handling. Heaviest and +most pressing was the problem what to do with Fort Sumter. Closely +beleaguered, with failing supplies, it must soon fall unless relieved. +Almost impossible to relieve or save it, said the army officers; easy to +slip in supplies, contradicted the naval officers. Leave Sumter to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> fall +and you dishearten the North, urged Chase and Blair in the Cabinet; +answered Seward, Reinforce it, and you provoke instant war.</p> + +<p>Lincoln answered the question in his own way. He was true to the +principle he had laid down in his inaugural,—to maintain the essential +rights of the national government, but with the least possible exercise +of force. He would "hold, occupy, and possess the property and places +belonging to the government, and collect the duties and imports"—that +and nothing more. Practically the only "property and places" now left to +the government at the South were Forts Sumter and Pickens. To yield them +without effort was to renounce the minimum of self-assertion he had +reserved to the nation.</p> + +<p>As to the means of supply, he had recourse to the best instrument that +offered,—a scheme proposed by Captain Fox, an energetic naval officer, +who planned a relief expedition of five vessels to be privately +dispatched from New York and try to run past the batteries. The +expedition was quickly fitted out and sent, in early April. According to +promise, in case of any such action, notice was telegraphed to the +Governor of South Carolina. He communicated with the Confederate +government at Montgomery. That government was bent on maintaining, +without further debate, its full sovereignty over the coasts and waters +within its jurisdiction. There is no need to impute a deliberate purpose +to rouse and unite the South by bloodshed, any more than there is reason +to impute to Lincoln a crafty purpose to inveigle the South into +striking the first blow. Each acted straight in the line of their open +and avowed purpose,—Lincoln, to retain the remaining vestige of +national authority at the South; the Confederacy, to make full and +prompt assertion of its entire independence.</p> + +<p>Orders were telegraphed from Montgomery, and General<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> Beauregard, +commanding the Charleston forces, sent to Major Anderson a summons to +surrender. It was rejected; and the circle of forts opened fire and +Sumter fired back. The roar of those guns flashed by telegraph over the +country. In every town and hamlet men watched and waited with a tension +which cannot be described. All the accumulated feeling of months and +years flashed into a lightning stroke of emotion. All day Friday and +Saturday, April 12, 13, men watched the bulletins, and talked in brief +phrases, and were conscious of a passion surging through millions of +hearts. Saturday evening came the word,—the fort had yielded. After a +thirty-four hours' fight, overmatched, the expected relief +storm-delayed, his ammunition spent, his works on fire, Anderson had +capitulated.</p> + +<p>There was a Sunday of intense brooding all over the land. Next morning, +April 15, came a proclamation from the President. The laws of the United +States, it declared, were opposed and their execution obstructed in +seven States, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the +ordinary course of judicial proceedings; and the militia of the States, +to the number of 75,000 were called to arms for three months to suppress +the combinations and cause the laws to be duly executed.</p> + +<p>The North rose as one man to the call. Party divisions were forgotten. +Douglas went to the President and pledged his support. Regiments from +Pennsylvania and Massachusetts hurried to the capital. Every Northern +State hastened to fill its assigned quota of militia. No less promptly +the South rallied to defend the seceding States from invasion. The +Virginia convention voted Secession two days after the President's +proclamation, and the people's vote ratified it by six to one. North +Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas joined the Confederacy. Maryland, +Kentucky, and Missouri, wavered and were distracted, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> as State +organizations remained in the Union, while their populations divided.</p> + +<p>Constitutional logic, argumentation, distinctions between holding the +national property and invasion, all vanished in the fierce breath of +war. Between union and disunion, argument was exhausted, and the issue +was to be tried out by force. In a day a great peaceful people resolved +itself into two hostile armies.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<h3>THE CIVIL WAR</h3> + + +<p>At the outbreak of war, what the Northerner saw confronting him was an +organized attempt to overthrow the government and break up the nation in +the interest of slavery. This as the essential fact took form in the +circle of fire let loose on a beleaguered fort, and the Stars and +Stripes lowered before an overwhelming force. Close following came the +menace against the national capital, for Washington was believed to be +in imminent peril. A Massachusetts regiment marching to its relief was +assailed by the populace of Baltimore; communication was cut; and the +city which was the centre and symbol of the national life seemed +stretching her hands in appeal to the country's faithful sons. To the +conscience, the heart, the imagination of the North, it was a war of +national self-defense,—a holy war.</p> + +<p>What the Southerner saw was an attempt to crush by force a legitimate +exercise of the right of sovereign States to an independent existence. +The typical Southerner, whether he had thought Secession expedient or +not, believed that each State was the rightful judge of its own course, +that the citizen's first allegiance was due to his State; and that the +attempt at coercion was as tyrannical as the refusal by Great Britain of +independence to the American colonies. And, apart from all political +theories, there instantly loomed on the horizon the armies of the North, +bearing down with fire and sword on the people of the Southern States. +The instinct of self-defense, and the irresistible sympathy of +neighborhood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> and community, prompted to resistance. Beyond doubt, the +typical Southern volunteer could say in all sincerity, as one of them +has expressed it: "With me is right, before me is duty, behind me is +home."</p> + +<p>So natural and profound was the motive on each side, when the war began. +Wholly different from the moral responsibility of those who initiated +Secession, is the case of those who afterward fought for what to each +side was the cause of home and country. But, driven though both parties +felt themselves to war, none the less terrible was the war in itself. +There are difficulties from which the only escape is through disaster. +John Morley writes: "It is one of the commonest of all cheap +misjudgments in human affairs, to start by assuming that there is always +some good way out of a bad case. Alas for us all, this is not so. +Situations arise, alike for individuals, for parties, and for States, +from which no good way out exists, but only choice between bad way out +and worse." For the American people, in the situation into which by sins +of commission and omission they had been brought, the only way out was +one of the worst ways that human feet can travel.</p> + +<p>It does not belong to this work to give a history of the Civil War. But +a truthful history might be written in a very different vein from the +accepted and popular narratives. These for the most part describe the +conflict in terms resembling partly a game of chess and partly a +football match. We read of grand strategic combinations, of masterly +plans of attack and admirable counter-strokes of defense. On the +battlefield we hear of gallant charges, superb rushes of cavalry, +indomitable resistance. Our military historians largely give us the +impression of man in battle as in the exercise of his highest powers, +and war as something glorious in the experience and heart-thrilling in +the contemplation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p> + +<p>But a succinct account of the whole business would be to say that for +four years the flower of the country's population were engaged in +killing each other. All other industries were overshadowed by the +occupation of human slaughter. Shop and farm, church and college, school +and home, all were subsidiary to the battlefield.</p> + +<p>The battlefield itself is not easily conceived by the civilian, even +with the aid of poets and story-tellers from Homer to Kipling. The +reader, who has perhaps never seen a shot fired in anger, may have +chanced to witness a man struck down in the street by a falling beam or +trampled by a runaway horse. Or, as a better illustration, he may +remember in his own case some hour of sudden and extreme suffering,—a +hand caught by a falling window, a foot drenched by scalding water. +Intensify that experience, extend it through days, for the home couch +and the nursing of mother or wife put the bare ground and the onrush of +hostile men,—and you have the nucleus, the constituent atom, of a +battle. Multiply it by hundreds or thousands; give to each sufferer the +background of waiting parents, wife, children, at home; give to a part +death, swift or agonizing; to another part lifelong infirmity or +irritation,—and you begin to get the reality of war.</p> + +<p>It was Wellington who said that the worst sight on earth, next to the +field of defeat, was the field of victory. It was Lee who wrote from +Mexico to his son: "You have no idea what a horrible sight a +battle-field is." And he said that the strongest memory left from his +first battle was the plaintive tone of a little Mexican girl whom he +found leaning over a wounded drummer-boy.</p> + +<p>Men not only witness such carnage but inflict it, in the excitement of +battle, because animated by feelings of which only a part can rightly be +called heroic. Honor indeed is due to the subordination of personal fear +to the sense of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> duty and comradeship,—yes, high honor; and the appeal +of the soldier to the imagination, as a type of self-sacrifice and +nobility, has its element of truth. But the ordinary courage of the +battle-field is largely an excitement half-animal, half-contagious, +running often into savagery and insensate fury. In that situation the +highest and lowest elements in man come into play. For the most part +only the highest is portrayed for us by the historians and +romancers,—they keep the wild beast and the devil out of sight. Only in +these later days, when mankind begins to scrutinize its boasted glories +more closely, do Tolstoi in literature and Verestchagin in art give us +glimpses of the grim reality.</p> + +<p>An industry which has murder for its main output will have some +by-products to match. In the armies of both sides the human stuff was of +mixed character and motive. Some enlisted from pure patriotism,—for +Union, State, or Confederacy; some from thirst of adventure; others for +ambition; others for the bounty or under compulsion of the conscription +officer; many from the mere contagious excitement. Army life always +brings to many of its participants a great demoralization. Take away the +restriction of public opinion in a well-ordered community, take from men +the society of good women, and there will be a tendency to barbarism. A +civilized army has indeed a code and public opinion of its own, which +counts for some sterling qualities, but it is lax and ineffective for +much that goes to complete manhood. Just as the war left a host of +maimed and crippled, so it left a multitude of moral cripples. At the +reunion, around the "camp fire," with the reminiscences of stirring +times and the renewal of good comradeship runs a vein of comment which +the newspapers do not relate. "What's become of A.?" "Drank himself to +death." "And where is X.?" "Never got back the character he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> lost in New +Orleans,—went to the dogs." It is a chronicle not recorded on the +monuments, but remembered in many a blighted household. The financial +debt the war left behind it was not the heaviest part of the after-cost.</p> + +<p>Nor must there be forgotten the temper which war begets, of mutual hate +between whole peoples. Forty years later we bring ourselves,—some of +us, and in a measure,—to see that our opponents of either side had some +justification or some excuse; that they perhaps were honest as we. But +little room was there for such mutual forbearance of judgment while the +fight was on. For the average man, for most men, to fight means also to +hate. While the contest lasted, Northerners habitually spoke of their +foes as "the rebels,"—not in contumely, but as matter-of-fact +description. They were "rebels" in common speech, and when one warmed a +little they were "traitors." Good men said that now for the first time +they saw why the imprecatory Psalms were written,—theirs was the only +cursing strong enough for the country's enemies. Quite as hearty was the +South's detestation of the Yankee invaders and despots,—the fanatics +and their hired minions. The Southern feeling took the keener edge, +because sharpened by the bitter fact of invasion and the hardships it +brought. With them the home suffered, not only as at the North, by the +departure of father or son to danger or death; the Southern homes often +saw the foes in their midst, and sometimes suffered ravage and spoil. +"How can you expect me to be well reconstructed," asked a Virginian +after the war, "When I remember the family vaults in which the silver +plates were wrenched from the coffins by your soldiers?" When the +fighting was over, the life of the reunited nation had to work its way +for a generation,—and the end is not yet,—against the hostilities, the +rancors, the misunderstandings, generated in those four years of +strife.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> + +<p>The reality of war where it fell heaviest,—in the border States, where +neighborhoods and families were divided, and both armies marched and +fought,—is touched by the graphic pen of a woman, Mrs. Rebecca Harding +Davis, who saw and felt a part of it: "The histories which we have of +the great tragedy give no idea of the general wretchedness, the squalid +misery, which entered into every individual life in the region given up +to the war. Where the armies camped the destruction was absolute. Even +on the border, your farm was a waste, all your horses or cows were +seized by one army or the other, or your shop or manufactory was closed, +your trade ruined. You had no money; you drank coffee made of roasted +parsnips for breakfast, and ate only potatoes for dinner. Your nearest +kinsfolk and friends passed you on the street silent and scowling; if +you said what you thought you were liable to be dragged to the county +jail and left there for months. The subject of the war was never +broached in your home where opinions differed; but one morning the boys +were missing. No one said a word, but one gray head was bent, and the +happy light died out of the old eyes and never came to them again. Below +all the squalor and discomfort was the agony of suspense or the +certainty of death. But the parsnip coffee and the empty purse certainly +did give a sting to the great overwhelming misery, like gnats tormenting +a wounded man."</p> + +<p>Visiting in war-time the sages of Concord, she saw the difference +between war as viewed by visionaries at a distance and the reality: "I +remember listening during one long summer morning to Louisa Alcott's +father as he chanted pæans to the war, the 'armed angel which was +wakening the nation to a lofty life unknown before.' We were in the +little parlor of the Wayside, Mr. Hawthorne's house in Concord. Mr. +Alcott stood in front of the fire<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>-place, his long gray hair streaming +over his collar, his pale eyes turning quickly from one listener to +another to hold them quiet, his hands waving to keep time with the +orotund sentences which had a stale, familiar ring as if often repeated +before. Mr. Emerson stood listening, his head sunk on his breast, with +profound submissive attention, but Hawthorne sat astride of a chair, his +arms folded on the back, his chin dropped on them, and his laughing, +sagacious eyes watching us, full of mockery.</p> + +<p>"I had come up from the border where I had seen the actual war; the +filthy spewings of it; the political jobbery in Union and Confederate +camps; the malignant personal hatreds wearing patriotic masks, and +glutted by burning homes and outraged women; the chances in it, well +improved on both sides, for brutish men to grow more brutish, and for +honorable gentlemen to degenerate into thieves and sots. War may be an +armed angel with a mission, but she has the personal habits of the +slums. This would-be seer who was talking of it, and the real seer who +listened, knew no more of war as it was, than I had done in my +cherry-tree time, when I dreamed of bannered legions of crusaders +debouching in the misty fields."</p> + +<p>The youth who reads may ask in wonder, "And was then the war to which we +have been used to look back with exultation and pride,—was it but a +horror and a crime?" No; it was something other and more than that; it +had its aspects of moral grandeur and of gain for humanity; it was a +field for noble self-sacrifice, for utmost striving of men and deepest +tenderness of women, it had its heroes and martyrs and saints; it was in +the large view the tremendous price of national unity and universal +freedom. But in the exaltation of these better aspects, we have as a +people too much forgotten the other and awful side. That is what we need +now to be reminded of. For among our present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> dangers none is greater +than the false glorification of war. Against such glorifications stands +Sherman's word, "War is hell." And on that grand tomb with which our +greatest city crowns its proudest height is inscribed, as the one word +by which Grant forever speaks to his countrymen, "Let us have peace."</p> + +<p>The nobler side of the war is told and will be told in many a history +and biography, romance and poem. In the broad view, the grandest fact +was that a multitude of men and women felt and acted as never before for +a cause greater than any personal gain. Under the discipline of +sacrifice and suffering, and with the personal horizon widened to take +in nations and races, a multitude on the field and at home grew to +loftier stature. The hardships and perils which wrecked some +strengthened others. The development of energy and resource was beyond +measure. The North created armies and navies; it organized a new system +of finance; it transformed a peaceful industrial community into an +irresistible military force; and all the while it carried on its +productive industries with scarcely visible shrinkage; farm and mill, +school and college, kept on with their work. The South made itself into +a solid army of resistance; cut off from its accustomed sources of +supply, it developed for itself all the essentials of material life; it +showed an ingenuity and resourcefulness beyond all expectation; and the +fidelity of its slaves supplied its armies with food while keeping its +homes secure. In peace haunted always by latent dread of insurrection, +in war the South found its servants its best friends. So, in both +sections, wonders were wrought and deeds never dreamed of were achieved.</p> + +<p>In justly viewing the evil and the good of war, we must compare it with +other disturbances and catastrophes. The finest traits and highest +efficiency of men come out under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> disasters which yet it must be our +habitual effort to avert. It is the ship on the rocks, the theater on +fire, that shows the hero. But what should we think of one who ran a +ship on shore, or set fire to a theater, in order to call out heroism? +Exactly so are we to regard those who glorify war as in itself a fine +and admirable thing, a proper school and arena of manhood. The +refutation of such talk comes not so well from men of the church or +closet as from those who have drunk deepest of war's reality. A man of +exuberant vitality, whose personal delight in physical strife colors his +statesmanship, and who is exhilarated by the memory of a skirmish or two +in Cuba, may talk exultantly of "glory enough to go round," and preach +soldiering as a splendid manifestation of the strenuous life. But the +grim old warrior whose genius and resolution split the Confederacy like +a wedge, General Sherman, in the very midst of his task wrote to a +friend: "I confess without shame that I am sick and tired of the war. +Its glory is all moonshine. Even success, the most brilliant, is over +dead and mangled bodies, the anguish and lamentation of distant families +appealing to me for missing sons, husbands, and fathers. It is only +those who have not heard a shot, nor heard the shrieks and groans of the +wounded and lacerated (friend or foe), that cry aloud for more blood, +more vengeance, more desolation."</p> + +<p>One glance we here may give at the traits which against this dark +background shone with the light which redeems humanity. The worst scenes +of all were not on the battlefield but in the military prisons. At +Andersonville, and other points, thousands of Northern prisoners were +crowded together, with insufficient supply of unnutritious food, with +scanty and foul water; surrounded by harsh guards, quick to shoot if the +"dead line" was crossed by a foot; harassed by petty tyranny; starved, +homesick, diseased, dying like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> infected sheep. It is a black, black +page,—but let its blackness be mainly charged to war itself, and what +war always breeds. In Northern prisons, the rate of mortality was nearly +as high as in Southern; the work of hunger in the one was matched by +cold in the other. "All things considered," says J. F. Rhodes in his +impartial <i>History of the United States</i>, "the statistics show no reason +why the North should reproach the South. If we add to one side of the +account the refusal to exchange the prisoners"—a refusal based by Grant +at one time on the military disadvantage of restoring the Southern +prisoners to active service—"and the greater resources, and to the +other the distress of the Confederacy; the balance struck will not be +far from even." Enough for our present purpose that the Andersonville +prison-pen was a hell. Well, after a time the Union armies were +recruited by negroes, and the Confederates in resentment refused to +consider these when captured as prisoners of war, and would not include +them in the exchanges. Thereupon the Federal Government declared that +its negro soldiers must receive equal rights with the whites, and until +this was conceded there should be no exchange at all. Then some of the +Andersonville prisoners drew up a petition, and signed and sent it to +Washington, praying the government to hasten their release, and if +necessary to hold the question of negro prisoners for negotiation, while +pressing forward the liberation of its faithful and suffering white +soldiers. But promptly by others in the prison-pen a counter petition +was started, signed, and sent on. It ran in substance thus: "We are in +evil case, and we earnestly desire that you hasten our deliverance by +every means consistent with right and honor. But—honor first! Let the +nation's plighted faith to its black soldiers be kept, at whatever cost +to us. We ask you to still refuse all exchange of prisoners, until the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> +Õsame treatment can be secured for black and white." Was ever a braver +deed than that?</p> + +<p>One picture more. In a military hospital at Washington, Walt Whitman was +engaged as a volunteer nurse. In a letter to a friend, he depicted in a +few sentences the tragedy of it all, and yet the triumph of the spirit +over the body and over death itself. He wrote of a Northern hospital, +but the like might be seen on Southern soil, as to-day among Russians or +Japanese,—it is the tragedy and triumph of humanity. "These thousands, +and tens and twenties of thousands, of American young men, badly wounded +... operated on, pallid with diarrh[oe]a, languishing, dying with fever, +pneumonia, etc., open a new world somehow to me, giving closer insights, +... showing our humanity ... tried by terrible, fearful tests, probed +deepest, the living souls, the body's tragedies, bursting the petty +bonds of art. To these, what are your dreams and poems, even the oldest +and the tearfulest?... For here I see, not at intervals, but quite +always, how certain man, our American man,—how he holds himself cool +and unquestioned master above all pains and bloody mutilation.... This, +then, what frightened us all so long! Why, it is put to flight with +ignominy—a mere stuffed scarecrow of the fields. Oh, death, where is +thy sting? Oh, grave, where is thy victory?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<h3>EMANCIPATION BEGUN</h3> + + +<p>When the war began, the absorbing issue at the North was the maintenance +of the Union. The supreme, uniting purpose was the restoration of the +national authority. Slavery had fallen into the background. But it soon +began to come again to the front. Two tendencies existed at the North; +one, to seek the restoration of the old state of things unchanged; the +other, to seize the opportunity of war to put an end to slavery.</p> + +<p>The pressure of events raised special questions which must be met. As +soon as Northern armies were on Southern soil, slaves began to take +refuge in the camps, and their masters, loyal in fact or in profession, +followed with a demand for their return. Law seemed on the master's +side; but the use of the army, engaged in such a war, to send slaves +back to bondage, was most repugnant. At first some commanders took one +course, some another. General Butler, a volunteer from Massachusetts, +hit on a happy solution; he declared that slaves, being available to the +enemy for hostile purposes, were like arms, gunpowder, etc., "contraband +of war," and could not be reclaimed. The stroke was welcomed with cheers +and laughter; and "contraband" became a catchword. Congress, in March, +1862, forbade the army and navy to return fugitives.</p> + +<p>General Fremont was in command in Missouri. He was ardent and +uncompromising, and in August, 1861, he issued a drastic proclamation, +declaring the State under martial law, threatening death to all taken +with arms in their hands,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> and giving freedom to the slaves of all +rebels. The President remonstrated by letter against this too heroic +surgery, and when Fremont declined to modify his order, used his +authority to cancel it. The public reception of the incident marked and +heightened the growing division of sentiment; the conservatives and +especially the border State men, were alarmed and indignant at Fremont's +action, while he became at once a favorite of the strong anti-slavery +men.</p> + +<p>This divergence among his own supporters added another to the +complications which beset Lincoln and taxed him to the utmost. He had +extraordinary tact and shrewdness in managing men, and in dealing with +tangled situations. He showed this power toward his Cabinet officers, +who included the most various material,—Seward, accomplished, +resourceful, somewhat superficial, but thoroughly loyal to his chief +after he knew him, managing the foreign relations with admirable skill, +and somewhat conservative in his views; Chase, very able as a financier +and jurist, but intensely ambitious of the Presidency, regarded as a +radical as to slavery; Stanton, a great war minister but of harsh and +intractable temper. These men and their colleagues Lincoln handled so +skilfully as to get the best each had to contribute, and keep them and +the political elements they represented in working harmony. No less +successfully did he deal with Congress, guiding it to a great extent, +but acquiescing in occasional defeats and disappointments so patiently +that he disarmed hostility. He kept in closest touch with the common +people; he was accessible to every one, listened to each man's +grievance, remonstrance, or advice; and acquired an instinctive +knowledge of what was in the hearts and minds of the millions.</p> + +<p>In his own conduct, his guiding principle was fidelity to his official +duty as he read it in the Constitution and the laws. He felt the +specific, supreme task laid upon him to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> the restoration and +maintenance of the Union. And to succeed in that, he knew he must +rightly interpret and enforce the general sentiment and desire of the +loyal people. If he let them become so divided as to no longer act +together, the cause was lost. And to follow any personal opinion or +conviction of his own, in disregard of his official duty, or in defiance +of the popular will, was to betray his trust.</p> + +<p>It was under these conditions that Lincoln dealt with slavery. No man +more than he detested the institution, or desired its removal. But he +felt that he had no right to touch it, except as empowered by the +Constitution and the laws, or as guided by the supreme necessity of +saving the nation's life. Beyond that he had no authority. Beyond that, +his position toward slavery must be like that of a President toward, for +example, a system of religion which he believed to be false and +injurious. Be he intensely orthodox, believing infidelity to be the road +to hell,—yet he must not as President, put a straw across the path of +the free-thinker. Be he as heretical as Thomas Jefferson, he must not +as President, any more than did Jefferson, lay a finger on the churches. +Just so did Lincoln feel himself restricted as to slavery,—he could not +touch it, except as the civil laws brought it within his province, or +unless as supreme military commander the laws and necessities of war +brought it within his authority.</p> + +<p>Congress soon proceeded to discuss questions about slavery. Sumner, the +foremost leader of the radicals, proposed resolutions, in February, +1862, declaring that the seceded States had by their acts extinguished +their State organizations and relapsed into a territorial condition, +subject only to Congress; and that slavery within them, existing only by +a local authority now defunct, was thus abolished. Congress would take +no such ground as that. But, as within its proper sphere, it abolished +slavery in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> District of Columbia, in April, 1862, giving +compensation to owners at a maximum rate of $300 for each slave. And in +the following June, it abolished slavery in all the national +territories,—thus giving full force to the cardinal doctrine of the +Republican party up to the war. But the war had inevitably brought a +more radical issue to the front,—the question of slavery in the States.</p> + +<p>Under the name of a confiscation act, Congress passed a law, July 17, +1862, which declared freedom to all slaves of convicted rebels; to +slaves of rebels escaping within the army lines, or captured, or +deserted by their masters; and to all slaves of rebels found in places +captured and occupied by the Union army. This came near to making the +abolition of slavery follow exactly the progress of the Union arms. But, +leaving untouched the slave property of loyalists, it spared the +institution as a system.</p> + +<p>Lincoln, in many ways a man of the people by his convictions and +sympathies, in other aspects towered in solitude. He was almost unique +in that he could fight—fight if need were to the death,—with no spark +of hatred in his heart. In the midst of war he was a devoted +peace-lover. To an old friend, though a political opponent, Congressman +D. W. Voorhees, of Indiana, who called on him at the White House, he +said with a pathetic look of anxious pain: "Voorhees, doesn't it seem +strange that I should be here—I, a man who couldn't cut a chicken's +head off,—with blood running all around me?" While he was overseeing +campaigns, selecting and rejecting generals, learning the business of a +commander, keeping touch with all the great matters of administration, +besieged by office-seekers, importuned by people in all manner of +private troubles,—he found intervals in which to devise ways out of the +horrid business of war, ways that might lead both to peace and freedom.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p> + +<p>The key of the situation he thought lay largely with the border +States,—Maryland, Missouri and Kentucky,—all of them formally in the +Union, but their population divided, sending recruits to both armies, +and with hopes in the Confederacy that they might be entirely won over. +If they could be bound faster to the Union, if at the same time they +could be helped to make themselves free States,—then might the Union +cause be mightily helped, and at the same time the work of emancipation +be begun. Aiming at this result, Lincoln sent a message to Congress, +March 6, 1862, proposing this resolution: "That the United States ought +to co-operate with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment of +slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State, +in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and +private, produced by such change of system." He urged this with special +reference to its application in the border States; and, inviting the +Congressional members of these States in a body to the White House, he +pleaded with them earnestly to support the resolution, and apply the +plan. They listened, but were non-committal. Congress received the plan +coolly. The Radicals were little in the humor of compensating +slaveholders, and the Conservatives apprehended a progressive attack on +slavery. But the President's influence triumphed; the resolution passed +in mid-April; and the nation pledged itself to assist compensated +emancipation in any State that would adopt it.</p> + +<p>Nothing came of it. The border States did not move. Three months later, +July 12, their delegations were again invited to the White House. The +situation was at the gravest; McClellan's army had been baffled in the +desperate seven-days' fight; factions at the North were growing hot. +Lincoln pleaded reasonably, movingly, that they would bring decisive +help to the national cause, by committing their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> States to emancipation, +with help from the nation, gradually if they pleased, with colonization +if they desired—peace, union, freedom, all lay that way! Two days they +took to make answer, and then of the twenty-nine members only nine were +favorable; the rest with one accord began to make excuse,—and that hope +failed.</p> + +<p>Events were forcing on the question of slavery. In the previous May, +General David Hunter, in South Carolina, finding himself with 10,000 +fugitives in his camps, whom the laws forbade him to return to their +masters and did not permit him to hold as slaves, met the difficulty by +a proclamation, declaring that the martial law of the United States was +incompatible with slavery, and the slaves in his military +district—South Carolina, Georgia and Florida,—were set free. Again the +President overruled his subordinate, but in the proclamation he +distinctly said that the question of emancipation as a military +necessity belonged to himself as commander-in-chief. It was a note of +warning. Twenty years before, John Quincy Adams had written,—and the +words came from a conservative statesman of the highest standing: "I say +that the military authority takes for the time the place of all +municipal institutions, and slavery among the rest"; and had elaborated +and reiterated the doctrine that in case of war slavery might be +abolished by the commander. These statements had lately been recalled; +the action of Fremont and Hunter had given life to the idea; and Lincoln +now intimated that he might yet assume this authority.</p> + +<p>Party divisions had soon reappeared at the North. The Democrats were not +harmonious; a part called themselves "War Democrats," and a part were +ready to let the South go, or went as near that as they prudently could; +now one and now the other faction controlled the party according to time +and locality. The Republicans were more united,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> yet among them was a +cleavage between conservatives and radicals; the one taking for their +watchword, "the Constitution as it is and the Union as it was"; the +other eager to see the war turned against slavery; and both claiming the +President, and jealously watching any leaning on his part toward their +rivals.</p> + +<p>There was developing at the North a profound sentiment for attacking +slavery. The war was protracted beyond all early expectation; it was +costly, bitter, woeful. What was to be at last the recompense for all +this blood and tears? Was there, if victory came at last, to be with it +no advance, nothing but the old Union, half slave and half free? For +nothing better than this were sons, fathers, brothers, husbands to be +sacrificed? Was the nation crossing a Red Sea of anguish only to emerge +into the old bondage? Rather, let us fight at once for union and for +liberty!</p> + +<p>Those who voiced this cry could not always see the difficulties that +beset the President. Many of them failed to realize that at heart he was +as true to freedom as they. Even Lowell, in the later <i>Biglow Papers</i>, +which pleaded with deeper pathos and power than before for freedom—even +he could write of "hoisting your captain's heart up with a derrick." +Wendell Phillips on one occasion, impatient of Lincoln's attitude toward +the fugitive slave law, called him "the slave-hound from Illinois." +Beecher,—who did great service, especially by his speeches in +England,—wrote in the <i>Independent</i> a series of articles, to spur the +President to more pronounced action. Some one gave the articles to +Lincoln; he sat down and read them all, then rose to his feet +exclaiming, "Am I a dog?"</p> + +<p>All this time the conservatives were no less urgent that the President +must make no move against slavery. Among their spokesmen was General +McClellan. On him rested the chief hope of the North for military +success during the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> year following the disaster of Bull Run. He was an +admirable organizer and a good theoretical strategist; his care for his +men won their affection; and sometimes in the field he struck heavy and +effective blows. But he was always prone to overrate the enemy's +resources and underrate his own; he was slow to follow up a success; and +he lacked the bulldog grip by which Grant won. Right on the heels of his +failure in the seven-days' fight in the Peninsula, he wrote a letter to +the President, from Harrison's Landing, July 7, 1862, lecturing him +severely as to the errors he must avoid. Nothing must be done or said +looking to confiscation, forcible abolition, or territorial organization +of the States. "Until the principles governing the future conduct of our +struggle shall be made known and approved, the effort to obtain +requisite forces will be almost hopeless. A declaration of radical +views, especially upon slavery, will rapidly disintegrate our armies." +This letter was given to the public, and on this platform McClellan +began to loom up as an opposition candidate for the Presidency.</p> + +<p>So Lincoln was buffeted on the right hand and on the left. In this +summer of 1862, Greeley wrote in the <i>Tribune</i>, August 20, an open +letter to the President, upbraiding him for his slackness against +slavery. Lincoln replied, August 22, in a letter which startled many of +his friends, and to this day bewilders those who do not understand the +man himself or the position in which he stood. He wrote: "I would save +the Union, I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution.... +My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not +either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without +freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all +the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and +leaving others alone, I would also do that." In fact, the last was the +course which he eventually took.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p> + +<p>This letter stated with full sincerity Lincoln's basal principle. It was +not necessary to add that the purpose was growing within him to save the +Union by freeing the slaves in the seceded States. The very growth of +that purpose made it necessary for him to freshly bind to himself the +conservatives whose only care was for the Union and not for +emancipation. Nothing could serve this purpose better than the +declaration in this letter to Greeley. In Lincoln, sincerity and +shrewdness were thoroughly blended.</p> + +<p>At a later day he told the artist Frank Carpenter, when he was to paint +"The Signing of the Emancipation Proclamation": "It had got to be +mid-summer, 1862. Things had gone on from bad to worse, until I felt +that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan we had been +pursuing; that we had about played our last card, and must change our +tactics or lose the game. I now determined upon the adoption of the +emancipation policy; and without consultation with, or the knowledge of, +the Cabinet, I prepared the original draft of the proclamation, and +after much anxious thought, called a Cabinet meeting upon the +subject.... I said to the Cabinet that I had resolved upon this step, +and had not called them together to ask their advice, but to lay the +subject-matter of a proclamation before them, suggestions as to which +would be in order after they had heard it read." This proclamation—the +first sketch—set forth that at the next meeting of Congress, four +months later, the President designs to again recommend a practical +measure for tendering pecuniary aid to any State then recognizing the +authority of the United States, which should have adopted, or should +thereafter adopt, gradual abolishment of slavery; that the object of +this is to promote the restoration of constitutional relations between +the general government and all the States; and finally, as +commander-in-chief, the President declares that from the first of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> +January next all slaves in States still rejecting the national authority +shall then and forever be free.</p> + +<p>The Cabinet were amazed—and divided. Only Stanton and Bates were for +immediate promulgation. Chase thought it would be better to leave the +matter to district commanders, but would support the proclamation as +better than inaction. Blair opposed it as likely to be unpopular and +lose the Fall election. All this Lincoln had weighed beforehand. But now +came a suggestion from Seward, that the immediate time was inopportune, +because just after military reverses (McClellan's Peninsula defeat) it +would seem like a desperate cry for help,—"our last shriek on the +retreat," as Lincoln phrased it. His judgment welcomed this as a wise +suggestion, and he put the draft of the proclamation aside and waited +for victory. Among the elements which entered into his decisions was a +subtle instinct as to when and how far he could command the support of +the various elements on whom success depended. His rare capacity as a +listener, and his keen sagacity, enabled him to divine that the hour was +at hand when a decisive move against slavery would attract more support +than it would repel. Seward's suggestion gave the final shape to his +purpose.</p> + +<p>This happened July 22, 1862; and when the President made his calm reply +to Greeley's onslaught a month later, the unsigned proclamation lay in +his desk, and he was still waiting for a victory before he issued it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<h3>EMANCIPATION ACHIEVED</h3> + + +<p>Instead of victory came defeat. Pope, taking the command after +McClellan's failure, was beaten and driven back in the second battle of +Bull Run, and matters were at the worst. McClellan was recalled; his +genius for organization rehabilitated the demoralized army; the +soldiers' confidence in their old chief gave them new courage. When Lee, +after a year on the defensive, took the offensive and entered Maryland, +he was beaten and turned back at Antietam.</p> + +<p>Then Lincoln summoned his cabinet again, September 22, 1862. Before he +spoke the momentous word, he freshened himself in his own way,—he said +that Artemus Ward had sent him his book, and he would read them a +chapter which he thought very funny; and read it he did, with great +enjoyment; the secretaries also laughing as in duty bound—all except +Stanton! Then the President became grave enough—he told them that he +had been thinking a great deal about the proclamation he had read them +two months before; that victory seemed to have brought a favorable +occasion; that when the rebel army was at Fredericksburg he determined +as soon as it was driven out of Maryland to proclaim emancipation. He +went on: "I said nothing to any one, but I made the promise to myself, +and,"—hesitating a little—"to my Maker." So now, he tells them, he +fulfills that promise. One last word,—some other might do better than +he; he would surrender his place to a better man if he saw the way; he +believes that he has not so much of the confi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>dence of the people as he +once had, but on the whole he does not know that any one has more, and +at any rate there is no way for him to give place to any other. "I am +here; I must do the best I can, and bear the responsibility of taking +the course which I feel I ought to take." It is the counterpart of +Luther's "Here stand I; I cannot do otherwise; God help me!"</p> + +<p>Discussion in the Cabinet: general approval; slight modification only. +The proclamation runs on the original lines; compensated abolition +recommended; colonization favored; freedom to be declared next New +Year's day to all slaves in rebellious States: ultimate compensation +recommended for all loyal owners. The proclamation is issued, September +23, 1862, and the nation is inexorably committed to +emancipation,—compensated if possible; forcible if necessary; partial +at first, but moving inevitably, swiftly, toward universal freedom.</p> + +<p>The proclamation with its sequence was the best Lincoln found himself +able to do. What he wanted to do,—his own ideal which he could not +bring his countrymen to accept,—was shown in his message to Congress +when it met in December. The main burden of that message was an earnest +plea for action on the line of compensated emancipation. The President +proposed an amendment to the Constitution, to this effect: every State +abolishing slavery before 1900 to receive compensation from the United +States, at some fixed rate, in government bonds; meantime, all slaves +freed by chances of war to remain free, with compensation to loyal +owners; Congress authorized to spend money for colonization of such as +wish to go. For the general plan of compensation Lincoln argues as +broadly and calmly as if dealing with a purely economic question, and +with the restrained fervor of the patriot and statesman. He dwells on +the vast growth which the country promises; on the increasing re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>sources +which will make light the burden of ransoming the slaves; the safety of +a process of gradual liberation; the humane, economic, Christian +superiority of this settlement instead of prolonged war. This is the +close: "We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. In +giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free—honorable +alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or +meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this +could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just—a way which, +if followed, the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless."</p> + +<p>But as for practical effect, he might as well have read Dr. Watts's +Cradle-hymn to a couple of fighting bulldogs. The proposition of +compensated emancipation was thirty years too late. Now the blood of +both sections was up, the fighting animal in man let loose,—and they +would go on indefinitely killing and being killed, to free the slaves or +to hold them, but they would not lay down their arms and peacefully +share the light burden of emancipation.</p> + +<p>So came in New Year's day, 1863, and the final word was spoken, +declaring freedom to all the slaves in Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, +Alabama, Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and the greater portion of +Virginia and Louisiana; enjoining good order on the freedmen; and +opening the army and navy to their enlistment. "And upon this act, +sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the +Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment +of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God."</p> + +<p>How far, it may be asked, was the military necessity on which the +proclamation was based actually met by its results? Immediate gain, in a +military sense, did not accrue. Not a slave was freed except as the +ground was conquered foot by foot. But by opening the door to the +enlistment of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> negroes, there was soon a substantial advantage won to +the Union armies; for, enlisting by many thousands, they proved +themselves docile, trustworthy, and not lacking in courage. In the last +two years of the war, they added nearly 200,000 men to the Union forces. +They were not considered equal to white soldiers, for they succumbed far +more easily to wounds and disease; and though their officers were chary +of exposing them in battle, their mortality was greater than that of the +whites. In a sense broader than the military, the first results of the +emancipation policy were adverse. It was said by many that the +proclamation would "unite the South and divide the North." The seceded +States could hardly be more united than they were before, but a fresh +motive was added to their struggle. In the border States, there was a +wide alienation of slave owners and their sympathizers. At the North, a +similar effect was obvious at first. From the day of the first +proclamation, a war now evidently waged in part for emancipation lost +favor with many who cared nothing for the slaves. The elections two +months later, in November, 1862, were disastrous. New York, +Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana, all went against the +administration. Its majority in Congress was greatly reduced.</p> + +<p>But the emancipation proclamation had struck deep to the hidden springs +of power. For the exigencies of a prolonged and desperate struggle, it +had evoked the full power of a great sentiment. It had roused the +passion of freedom which nerves men to suffer and die. It was an +unselfish passion,—it was for the freedom of other men that the North +now fought. The loss of the half-hearted and the materialists was +outweighed by the enlistment of the enthusiasts for humanity. And the +sympathies of the nations, which had wavered while the Union cause was +declared to be apart from the slavery question, now swung weightily to +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> side of the North, since it was avowedly the side of freedom.</p> + +<p>By his proclamation, Lincoln had,—to use his language to +Greeley,—"freed some and left others alone." He could not go further on +the ground of military necessity. But the work, or the promise, could +not be left in that imperfect shape. The natural resource was soon +found,—universal freedom by a constitutional amendment. This, the +Thirteenth Amendment, was brought forward in April, 1864, and received +more than the necessary two-thirds vote in the Senate—38 to 6; but in +the House (elected in the reaction of 1862) only 95 to 66. The next +winter it was brought up again in the same House, but a House +enlightened now by the Republican victory in Lincoln's re-election; and +strongly urged by him it won the necessary two-thirds vote—119 to 56. +The States had still to pass upon it, after the war, but to resist +emancipation then was fighting against the stars in their courses; and +only Kentucky and Delaware rejected the amendment, while Texas was +silent, and Alabama and Mississippi gave a qualified assent. The +amendment was declared adopted, December 18, 1865, and on that day +slavery in the United States came to an end.</p> + +<p>When the issue was finally shaped by the Emancipation Proclamation of +January 1, 1863, both sides set themselves anew for the grim +struggle—two years more of hard fighting. Since fighting it must be, +they bore themselves all, let us say, as brave men and women,—North and +South, white and black. The Confederates came often into dire +extremities. Men whose lives had been luxurious fared on the plainest +and hardest. Delicate women bore privations uncomplainingly, and toiled +and nursed and endured. Food, clothing, medicines were scant. Invasion +was borne, with its humiliation and suffering, its train of ravage and +desolation. The supporting motive was the common defense, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> +comradeship of danger and of courage. The Confederacy and its flag had +won the devotion which sacrifice and suffering breed. Little thought was +there of slavery, little calculation of the future, as the siege grew +closer and the shadows darkened—but an indomitable purpose to hold on +and fight on. The chief hero of the Confederacy was Lee. He was the +embodiment and symbol of what the Southern people most believed in and +cared for. He was not one of those who had brought on the trouble; his +whole attitude had been defensive. He and his Army of Northern Virginia +were the shield of the South. A skilful commander, strong to strike and +wary to ward; his personality merged in the cause; gentle as he was +strong,—his army trusted and followed him with a faith that grew with +every victory, and did not wane under reverses.</p> + +<p>Let the negroes in the war-time be judged in the calm retrospect of +history. Their fidelity meant the security of the families on every +lonely plantation from Virginia to Texas.</p> + +<p>Instead of the horror of servile insurrection, women and children were +safe in their homes, supported and protected by their servants. It was +their labor that made it possible for the whole white population to take +the field. It was their fidelity and kindliness that kept the social +structure sound, even though pierced and plowed by the sword. Their +conduct was a practical refutation of the belief that they were in +general sufferers from inhuman treatment. It was a proof that slavery +had included better influences than its opponents had recognized. But it +suggested, too, that a people capable of such things under slavery were +fully ready for an upward step, and might be trusted with freedom.</p> + +<p>They gave another proof of fitness for freedom when, enlisted in the +Union armies, they showed the qualities of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> good soldiership. They +accepted discipline, and developed under it. They were brave in battle, +and in victory they were guiltless of excess. It was a wonderful epoch +in the race's history,—the transition from servitude to freedom,—and +in that ordeal, first as slaves and then as soldiers, they showed +themselves worthy of the deliverance that had come at last.</p> + +<p>As soldiers, they found leaders in the flower of the North. Such was +Robert Gould Shaw, of the best blood and training of Massachusetts; a +son of Harvard; serving from the first as private and then as captain; +called by Governor Andrew in 1863 to the command of the Fifty-fourth +Massachusetts, the first black regiment mustered into service; taking a +place which risked not battle peril only but social obloquy; training +his recruits into soldiers; leading them in a hopeless onset against the +batteries of Fort Wagner; falling at their head; buried in a ditch with +his men; honored in an immortal sculpture which portrays the young, +highbred hero in the midst of the humble, faithful men for whom he +gave his life.</p> + +<p>All the energies of the North were at the highest stretch. In those +whose hearts were in the strife, at home or in the field, there was a +great glow and elation. The intensity of the time communicated itself to +industry and trade. There was an almost feverish activity; with heavy +taxation and a fluctuating currency—gold was long at a premium of +250—mills and markets and stores were in full tide of operation. The +North matched the South in personal courage and generalship; and greatly +outweighed it in numbers, material, and in the productivity engendered +in a free, urban, industrial society. The passion of the war touched +everything. The churches were strongholds of the national cause. The +Sanitary and Christian Commissions kept camp and home in close touch. +But under all this stir was the tragedy of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> wide-spread desolation and +bereavement. The multitudinous slaughter of campaigns like the +Wilderness had an awful background of woful families.</p> + +<p>Arduous achievement, heroism and anguish, suffering and sacrifice for +the cause of the nation and humanity—that was the North's story in +those years. It is a sublime story as we look back:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The glory dies not, and the grief is past.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Once more the North was called on to solemnly decide, in the election of +1864. Against Lincoln was nominated by the Democrats, General McClellan, +himself a stainless soldier and a patriot, but supported by every +element of hostility to emancipation, of sympathy with the Southern +cause, and of impatience with the long and burdensome struggle. The +platform called for an immediate armistice, to be followed by a +convention of the States, or other peaceable measures for the +restoration of the Union. McClellan's letter of acceptance ignored the +platform, and declared strongly for the persistent maintenance of the +Union. The result of the election was a majority of 400,000 votes in +4,000,000 for Lincoln, every State supporting him save New Jersey, +Kentucky, and Delaware.</p> + +<p>It was the greatness of the prize at stake that justified the cost. +Lowell sang the true song of the war, when the end was almost reached, +in the poem that records the sore loss to his own family,—his three +nephews, "likely lads as well could be,"—slain on the battle-field. In +that lofty, mournful verse, there is no drum and trumpet clangor, but +the high purpose whose roots are watered by tears:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Come, Peace, not like a mourner bowed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For honor lost an' dear ones wasted,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But proud, to meet a people proud,</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">With eyes thet tell o' triumph tasted!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Come, with han' grippin' on the hilt,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">An' step that proves ye Victory's daughter!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Longin' for you, our sperits wilt</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Like shipwrecked men's on raf's for water.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Come, while our country feels the lift</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of a gret instinct shoutin' "Forwards!"</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An' knows thet freedom ain't a gift</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thet tarries long in han's o' cowards!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">They kissed their cross with lips thet quivered,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An' bring fair wages for brave men,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A nation saved, a race delivered.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>With Grant and Lee locked in the last desperate struggle at Petersburg, +with final victory almost in sight, Lincoln spoke his second +inaugural,—too grave for exultation, with the note of humility and +faith. He is awed before the course of events since he stood there four +years ago. He feels the strangeness of both combatants appealing to the +same Bible and the same God. For himself and his people he utters the +fond hope, the fervent prayer, that "this awful scourge of war may pass +away." He accepts the suffering as the penalty of the nation—the whole +nation—for the sin of slavery. Humbly, resolutely, he faces with his +people the final effort, the sacred duty: "With malice toward none, with +charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the +right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the +nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for +his widow and his orphan, and to all which may achieve and cherish a +just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + +<h3>RECONSTRUCTION: EXPERIMENTS AND IDEALS</h3> + + +<p>"God uses a good many ugly tools to dig up the stumps and burn off the +forests and drain the swamps of a howling wilderness. He has used this +old Egyptian plow of slavery to turn over the sod of these fifteen +Southern States. Its sin consisted in not dying decently when its work +was done. It strove to live and make all the new world like it. Its +leaders avowed that their object was to put this belt of the continent +under the control of an aristocracy which believes that one-fifth of the +race is born booted and spurred and the other four-fifths ready for that +fifth to ride. The war was one of freedom and democracy against the +institutions that rest on slaves. It will take ten years for the country +to shed the scar of such a struggle. The state of society at the South +that produced the war will remain and trouble the land until freedom and +democracy and the spirit of the nineteenth century takes its place. Only +then can we grapple the Union together with hooks of steel, and make it +as lasting as the granite that underlies the continent."</p> + +<p>These were the brave words of a Southern newspaper, the Galveston +<i>Bulletin</i>, in January, 1867, in the mid-throes of reconstruction. So it +was that the best minds of the reunited nation foresaw and accepted the +path on which we still are slowly mounting; often slipping, stumbling, +falling, but still getting upward.</p> + +<p>When, on January 31, 1865, the vote of the House com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>pleted the +ratification by Congress of the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing +slavery, a burst of jubilant cheering swept the whole assembly, and a +wave of joy went through the North. Universal freedom seemed close at +hand. Two months more, and the Confederate capital fell, on April 3, and +still higher rose the triumph. Another week, and the North woke at +midnight, to forget sleep and rejoice as over the final +consummation,—Lee had surrendered! In those days it seemed to ardent +souls that all the sacrifices of the past four years were repaid, and +freedom and Union were completely won.</p> + +<p>But real freedom of men, true union of a nation, are not achieved by +votes of Congress alone, or victories of the sword. The first and worst +was over, yet the work was only begun. And these first steps had been by +a rough and bitter road, of which the next stage could not be smooth or +sweet. The plow of slavery had been followed by the harrow of +war,—blossoms and fruitage could not instantly follow.</p> + +<p>Lincoln practically made his own the motto ascribed to the Jesuits, "The +goal of to-day, the starting-point of to-morrow." Even before to-day's +goal was reached, his eye was measuring the next stage. While his +patient shoulders were still bowed under the weight of war, his hands +were reaching out to the work of reconstruction. In December, 1863, a +year after the Emancipation Proclamation, he issued another +proclamation. In this he offered full amnesty to all who had taken arms +against the government, on condition simply of an oath to support the +Constitution, and all laws and proclamations concerning slavery until +such were legally overruled. From this amnesty were excepted those who +had held diplomatic or high military offices in the Confederacy; those +who had left Congress or the army or navy to aid the Confederate cause; +and those who had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> maltreated negro prisoners of war. Whether Lincoln in +his own mind regarded the official classes as more blameworthy or more +dangerous than their followers, we can only surmise; but he doubtless +considered that public opinion was not ripe—the war being still +flagrant—for a wider offer of pardon.</p> + +<p>Further, he invited a return of the seceded States to their former +relations, under these conditions: Wherever a number of voters equal to +one-tenth of the registered list of 1860, having individually taken the +oath of allegiance, shall unite to form a loyal State government, their +organization will be recognized by the Federal government. It is +desirable to retain as far as practicable the old State boundaries, +constitution, and laws. Such a State government may make regulations for +the negroes,—if their freedom and education are provided for,—as a +"laboring, homeless, and landless class." The admission of +representatives and senators must depend on the action of Congress.</p> + +<p>Under this plan—regarded by the President as somewhat tentative and +provisional, and expressly made dependent on Congress for its +consummation by the admission of senators and representatives—within +the next twelve months governments were established in three States +where the Union arms were partly in the ascendant, Louisiana, Arkansas, +and Tennessee. Congress, in July, 1864, passed a reconstruction bill on +more radical lines; assuming that the rebel States were by their own act +extinguished as States and were to be created <i>de novo</i>; directing that +a provisional governor be forthwith appointed for every such State; +requiring the new Legislatures to abolish slavery, exclude high +Confederate officials from office, and annul the Confederate debt. The +President let this bill fail for want of his signature, and in a +proclamation explained his objections: He was not ready to accept the +"State suicide" theory; he did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> not want to rest the abolition of +slavery on the fiat of Congress (he was looking for the adoption of the +Thirteenth Amendment); and he was unwilling to sacrifice the provisional +governments already set up in Louisiana and Arkansas. If in any other +State a movement on the congressional plan was initiated, that might do +well; but for any hard-and-fast, all-round plan the time was not ripe. +The radicals, led by Wade and Henry Winter Davis, chafed bitterly, but +Lincoln was not an easy man to fix a quarrel on.</p> + +<p>In the following winter, 1864-5, the new Louisiana Legislature, +recognized and encouraged by the President, elected two senators who +applied at Washington for admission. The judiciary committee, headed by +Lyman Trumbull, reported in their favor, and the large majority of the +Senate took the same view. But Sumner was strongly opposed to beginning +the readmission of the rebel States to congressional power until the +rights of the freedmen were fully and finally established. Aided by two +other radicals, Wade of Ohio and Zachariah Chandler of Michigan, he +"talked against time," and defeated action until the end of the session. +Under senatorial usage it was legitimate—but it was exasperating. The +little world of Washington, always greatly given to tempests in a +teapot, looked for a break between the President and the foremost man of +his supporters. What it saw instead was, at the inauguration ball, Mr. +Sumner entering in company with the President and with Mrs. Lincoln on +his arm! No, Lincoln was not going to quarrel with Sumner—nor with any +one, if it lay with him.</p> + +<p>Richmond was taken, and through its streets moved the gaunt form of the +President, his eyes taking grave, kind note of all. Back to Washington, +and the supreme word comes at last. Lee has surrendered, the war is +over, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> victory won! A cheering, exultant crowd beset the White +House. Lincoln came out on the balcony, said a word of response, and +invited them to come back two days later for a fuller word. When they +came again, he talked to them and to the country. His whole theme was, +What is our next duty? Here is the next step, the first of the "erring +sisters" to return is to be welcomed back. Louisiana has adopted a +constitution abolishing slavery, establishing public schools for black +and white alike, and allowing the Legislature at its discretion to +extend suffrage to the blacks. Under this constitution 12,000 voters +have been enrolled. The Legislature has met and ratified the Thirteenth +Amendment. Can we do better than to accept and restore them to the full +privileges of statehood? For them would it not also be wise to extend +the suffrage to the most intelligent negroes, and to those who have +served in the Union army? As to all the seceded States, the question +whether they have ever been out of the Union is "a merely pernicious +abstraction." The real question is, how to get them again into proper +practical relations with the Union. "Concede that the new government of +Louisiana is to what it should be only as the egg is to the fowl, we +shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it." Let +us be flexible as to our methods, inflexible as to vital principles.</p> + +<p>These were his last words to his countrymen. Three days later, April 14, +as he sat in Ford's theatre,—the strain of responsibility lightened by +an hour of kindly amusement—there fell on him, from an assassin's hand, +the stroke of unconsciousness and speedy death. For himself, how could +he have died better! At the summit of achievement, hailed by the world's +acclaim, in the prime of manly strength, unweakened by decay, unshadowed +by fear; a life of heroic service crowned by a martyr's death; a place +won in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> nation's heart of such love and gratitude as has been given +to no other,—how better could he have died?</p> + +<p>But never was heavier bereavement than his death brought to the American +people. It was not sorrow only, but lasting loss, beyond estimation and +beyond repair. We know not how in the sum of things all seeming evil may +find place, but to human eyes seldom was man taken who could so ill be +spared. By nature and capacity he was above all else a peace-maker. +Called to be captain in a great war, his largest contribution to its +success had been in holding united to the common purpose men most widely +varying among themselves. He said, toward the end, that he did not know +that he had done better than any one else could, except perhaps at one +point,—he did think he had been pretty successful in keeping the North +united. And while he did this, while he kept radicals and conservatives, +Abolitionists and Unionists, New Englanders and Kentuckians, loyal to +the common cause, he also shaped that cause toward the highest aims that +his various constituency would admit. He could not bring them to his own +highest thought,—they would not be persuaded to try compensated +emancipation and peaceful reunion instead of war to the extremity. But +he did lift a war for the Union to a war for freedom also, and so direct +it that from the strife should emerge not the old, but a nobler nation. +And now, the harder half was to be done! Instead of generalship, +statesmanship; instead of animal courage, justice and kindness toward +former foes; instead of holding the North together, to bring North and +South together; that was the gigantic task now to be wrought. Who so fit +for it as he? And for want of him, grievous and slow has been the +journey.</p> + +<p>From the first thrill of passionate grief, men turned to ask anxiously +what the new President was to be. He had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> been selected with that +carelessness as to the Vice-Presidency which is a tradition of American +politics. Had the convention which renominated Lincoln chosen with care +the man best fitted to aid or possibly succeed him in his work—had they +for instance chosen John A. Andrew of Massachusetts—history might have +been very different. But they took Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, with +little scrutiny of his qualities, but desiring to broaden their ticket +by including a Southern Unionist. Johnson had been bred as a tailor, +with only the meagerest schooling, with no training in the law, going +straight from his trade into politics, and by native force rising to the +senatorship. He was regarded, and rightly, as a man of honesty, +patriotism, courage, and rough energy. He had been conspicuous in +denouncing the seceders with the heat of a border-State Unionist, and +something of the uncontrolled temper of the "poor white." "Treason must +be made odious," had been his cry, "traitors must be punished." In that +war-heated time, there were good men who thought they read the purpose +of the Almighty in removing the too kindly Lincoln, that the guilty +rebels might be more severely scourged.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + +<h3>RECONSTRUCTION: THE FIRST PLAN</h3> + + +<p>The new President gave at once the best possible reassurance as to his +general course by retaining all the members of Lincoln's Cabinet. They +remained, not as a temporary formality, but for a considerable time in +full harmony with the President. Chase having left the Cabinet for the +chief-justiceship, by far the two strongest secretaries remaining were +Seward and Stanton. Seward had been struck down at the same time with +Lincoln, and dangerously wounded, but after a few weeks was able to +resume his duties. Thus the two foremost men, after Lincoln, of the +Republican party, Sumner and Seward, had been murderously assaulted, yet +neither of them was embittered or altered in his course. Seward probably +had great influence on President Johnson's early measures. The degree of +that influence is a disputed point among historians, but the internal +evidence points strongly to his having had a large share in the +President's original plans, and materially aided their execution, though +Johnson's strong will and hot temper marred and thwarted Seward's +efforts. One of the secretary's special powers was a genial and +persuasive skill in conversation; his historic place as the Republican +premier gave him influence with the President; he had been in full +sympathy with Lincoln's late course; and his constitutional theories and +his optimism appear in the reconstruction scheme which the President +soon proposed. Responsibility had steadied and sobered Johnson; his +vindictiveness toward the South had disappeared,—one guesses with +Seward's aid; and his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> plan looked to a prompt and early return of the +seceded States.</p> + +<p>His proclamation of amnesty, indeed, issued May 29, was more numerous in +its exceptions than Lincoln's; including almost the entire official +class throughout the South, and adding all such as held property in +excess of $20,000,—which in theory was little other than an attempt to +behead the political community of all its intelligent or wealthy +members. But the added clause providing for a pardon of such by the +President on special application proved in practice more significant +than the formal exemptions. Scarcely an application for amnesty was +refused, and it is recorded that in less than a twelvemonth 14,000 such +applications were made and granted.</p> + +<p>On the same day, May 29, President Johnson by proclamation appointed a +provisional governor of North Carolina, and ordered an election of +delegates to a constitutional convention. By July 13, he had issued +similar proclamations for Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina +and Florida. Texas's turn came a little later, the last embers of the +war lingering there for a while. In Virginia, the President had +recognized a shadowy loyal State government which had kept up a nominal +existence. The three other seceded States,—Louisiana, Arkansas and +Tennessee,—had already the State governments established under Lincoln, +though unrepresented in Congress.</p> + +<p>These overtures for formal reconstruction came to communities +impoverished, forlorn, and chaotic, almost beyond imagination. Property, +industry, social order, had been torn up by the plowshare of war. The +prolongation of resistance until defeat was complete and overwhelming +had ended all power and all wish to contend with the inevitable. The +people, groping back toward even a bare livelihood,—toward some settled +order, some way of public and private<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> life,—met eagerly the advances +of the President. Constitutional conventions were elected and met, +within the remaining months of 1865; they were chosen on the old basis +of suffrage, conditioned by the exceptions to amnesty and by the oaths +of allegiance; these conventions based the new constitutions largely on +the old; they affirmed the ordinances of secession to be null and void; +they repudiated the Confederate debt, and they declared that slavery no +longer existed. Legislatures were duly elected, and proceeded to enact +laws. They all ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, though Mississippi and +Alabama affixed some qualifications to their assent, while Texas was +still unreconstructed and could not act; and Kentucky and Delaware gave +a negative. The President and Secretary of State, December 18, declared +the adoption of the amendment by the vote of 31 States out of 36. +Slavery was finally and forever abolished.</p> + +<p>President Johnson used his influence to have the new constitutions open +the door to a qualified negro suffrage. He telegraphed to the +Mississippi convention, urging that the suffrage be extended to all +negroes who could read and write, or who possessed $250 worth of real +estate. Well would it have been if that appeal had been heeded.</p> + +<p>Thus far, reconstruction had moved with singular swiftness and ease. Too +swift and easy was the recovery to be trusted—so thought some—where +the disease had been so desperate. But the Cabinet, including the grim +and jealous Stanton, held with the President. More, the autumn +Republican conventions throughout the North passed resolutions cordially +approving the President's course and its results—all, with the ominous +exceptions of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, controlled respectively by +Thaddeus Stevens and Sumner, the leader of the House and the foremost +man in the Senate.</p> + +<p>Thus was initiated and begun the first of the three suc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>cessive plans of +reconstruction. Before seeing its fate, it is opportune to consider the +general ideal of the situation, as presented by two of the greatest men +of the North, the two, we may say, who best comprehended the whole case; +the one standing in the Church and the other in the State, but alike in +breadth of mind and loftiness of spirit—Henry Ward Beecher and John A. +Andrew.</p> + +<p>During the war, the Northern churches had been centers of inspiration to +the national cause, and Plymouth church among the foremost. Beecher had +made a series of speeches in England in 1862, which did much to turn the +tide of English opinion. The disclaimers by the Federal Government of a +crusade against slavery had perplexed and divided the anti-slavery +sentiment of Great Britain; the issues at stake were little understood; +the stoppage of the cotton supply aroused a commercial opposition to the +war; there was some degree of aristocratic sympathy with the Southern +oligarchy; and a wider sympathy with the weaker of the two combatants +that was fighting pluckily against odds. The North had few strong +friends, except a group of radical leaders—Mill, Bright, Cobden and +their allies,—and a host of working people, including even the +suffering cotton operatives, who instinctively recognized and supported +the cause of the common people. Beecher's eloquent and lucid orations +went far to convince that the Union cause was the cause of liberty; and +no less effect was produced by the splendid courage and self-possession +with which he faced and mastered one audience after another where the +mob tried to howl him down. After the close of the war, when a company +went down to raise the Stars and Stripes once more over Fort Sumter, +Beecher was the chosen orator, and his speech was inspired by the spirit +of fraternity and reconciliation. In a sermon in his church, October 29, +1865, he outlined with a master's hand the principles of +re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>construction. The South should be restored at the earliest possible +moment to a share in the general government. Idle to ask them to repent +of secession; enough if they recognize that it is forever disallowed. +The best guarantee for the future is the utter destruction of slavery. +Let there be no further humbling: "I think it to be the great need of +this nation to save the self-respect of the South." What then are the +necessary conditions of reconstruction? The Southern States should +accede to the abolition of slavery by the Constitution. They should +establish the freedman's "right to labor as he pleases, where he +pleases, and for whom he pleases," with full control of his own +earnings; he should be the equal of all men before the courts. What +about suffrage? It is the natural right of all men, says Beecher; but, +tempering as usual his intellectual radicalism with practical +conservatism, he goes on: It will be useless to enforce negro suffrage +on the South against the opposition of the whites. As to the general +treatment of the freedmen, "the best intentions of the government will +be defeated, if the laws that are made touching this matter are such as +are calculated to excite the animosity and hatred of the white people in +the South toward the black people there. I except the single decree of +emancipation. That must stand, though men dislike it." But beyond that, +all measures instituted under the act of emancipation for the blacks in +order to be permanently useful must have the cordial consent of the wise +and good citizens of the South. "These men (the negroes) are scattered +in fifteen States; they are living contiguous to their old masters; the +kindness of the white man in the South is more important to them than +all the policies of the nation put together." As to suffrage, whatever +the colored man's theoretical right, "you will never be able to secure +it and maintain it for him, except by making him so intelligent that men +cannot deny it to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> him. You cannot long, in this country, deny to a man +any civil right for which he is manifestly qualified." It will be a +sufficient beginning if the vote is given to such as can read and write +and have acquired a certain amount of property. As a beginning, a +stepping-stone to larger things, it might suffice even to give the +suffrage to black men who have borne arms for the Union. And, +emphatically, the negroes should be given such education as will make +them worthy of citizenship. "You may pass laws declaring that black men +are men, and that they are our equals in social position; but unless you +can make them thoughtful, industrious, self-respecting, and intelligent; +unless, in short, you can make them what you say they have a right to +be, those laws will be in vain." The work of education should be done +for black and white alike; the South is not to be treated as a pagan +land to which missionaries are to be sent, but as part of our common +country, to which the richer and more prosperous section ought to give +aid. "I do not think it would be wise for the North to pour ministers, +colporteurs and schoolmasters into the South, making a too marked +distinction between the black people and the white. We ought to carry +the gospel and education to the whites and blacks alike. Our heart +should be set toward our country and all its people, without distinction +of caste, class, or color."</p> + +<p>Governor Andrew had been the fit leader of Massachusetts through the war +period. He was strong as an administrator; he inspired and voiced the +patriotism of the people; he supported the forward policy without +harassing the President; and he was the first governor to organize negro +troops. Now, on his retirement to private life, he gave a valedictory +address, January 4, 1866, which was a worthy sequel to his inaugural of +five years before. He specially emphasized the need of a generous and +inclusive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> policy toward the Southern people and their recent leaders. +"I am confident we cannot reorganize political society with any +security: 1. Unless we let in the people to a co-operation, and not +merely an arbitrarily selected portion of them. 2. Unless we give those +who are by intelligence and character the natural leaders of the people, +and who surely will lead them by-and-by, an opportunity to lead them +now.... The truth is, the public opinion of the white race in the South +was in favor of the rebellion." The loyalists were not in general the +strongest minds and characters, and when the revolution came they were +swept off their feet. For present purposes, there should be no +discrimination. "The capacity of leadership is a gift, not a device. +They whose courage, talents, and will, entitle them to lead, will +lead.... Why not try them? They are the most hopeful subjects to deal +with in the very nature of the case. They have the brain and experience +and the education to enable them to understand the exigences of the +present situation."</p> + +<p>The ideals thus presented by Beecher and Andrew,—as practical, we see +now after forty years, as they were lofty,—were at the time somewhat +like what Catholic theologians call "counsels of perfection"—precepts +of conduct too high to be practiced except by the saintly. They fell on +the ears of a people whose two sections had long been struggling in +deadly opposition, and who still surveyed each other through eyes +inflamed by the bitter struggle. Could it be hoped that the North would +invite co-operation as of fellow-patriots from those whom they had been +denouncing as arch-traitors? And was it to be expected that the South, +which had seceded and battled on the ground that the negro was fit only +for slavery, should at once begin heartily and practically to establish +and elevate him as a freeman?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2> + +<h3>CONGRESS AND THE "BLACK CODES"</h3> + + +<p>Congress assembled at the beginning of December, 1865, and at the very +outset declared that the work of reconstruction must pass under its +hands. Before the President's message was read, Thaddeus Stevens, the +leader of the House, moved that a joint committee of fifteen on +reconstruction, be appointed by the House and Senate; and that until +that committee had reported no senator or representative from the lately +seceded States should be admitted. This action was taken at once, by a +large majority in both houses, and the committee was promptly appointed, +with Senator Fessenden at its head. Then the President's message was +read,—a very able paper, broad and statesmanlike in tone, recounting +the President's action and the choice of conventions and Legislatures in +the seceded States; their repudiation of secession and slavery; the +inauguration of loyal State governments;—this, with an invitation to +Congress to accept and co-operate in this policy, and a hopeful view of +the general situation. The message was favorably received, and for a +moment it looked as if the President and Congress might work in harmony.</p> + +<p>But the claim of Congress to a paramount voice in the settlement was +well based, not only in constitutional theory, but in the immediate +facts. Congress came fresh from the people; its members knew how the +currents of popular thought and feeling ran. The President was +comparatively out of touch with the nation; he had, so to speak, no +personal constituency; he was a Southern loyalist, apart from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> the mass +of both South and North. Further, this Congress was personally a strong +body of men. They represented in an unusual degree not merely the +average sentiment but the better sentiment of the North. To glance at a +few of their leaders: Thaddeus Stevens was a Pennsylvanian, a leader at +the bar, active in anti-slavery politics, conspicuous by his successful +defense of the State's public school system; a man of strong convictions +and strong passions, a natural fighter; skillful in parliamentary +management; vigorous and often bitter in debate; not scrupulous in +political methods; loyal to his cause and his friends, and vindictive to +his enemies; an efficient party leader, but in no high sense a +statesman. Up to his death in 1868 he exercised such a mastery over the +Republican majority in the House as no man since has approached. He is +sometimes spoken of as if he had been the ruling spirit in +reconstruction, but this seems a mistake. He was a leader in it, so far +as his convictions coincided with the strong popular current; but his +favorite ideas were often set aside. He was an early advocate of a wide +confiscation, but that policy found no support; and at the crucial +points of the reconstruction proceedings he was often thwarted and +superseded by more moderate men.</p> + +<p>Charles Sumner was a high-minded idealist and a scholar, devoted to +noble ends, but not well versed in human nature. He was a lover of Man, +but with men he was not much acquainted. His oratory was elaborate and +ornate, and he unduly estimated the power of words. Sometimes, says +Senator Hoar, he seemed to think the war was to be settled by +speech-making, and was impatient of its battles as an interruption—like +a fire-engine rumbling past while he was orating. But he had large +influence, partly from his thoroughly disinterested character, and +partly because beyond any other man in public life he represented the +ele<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>ments of moral enthusiasm among the people. His counterpart was +Henry Wilson, his colleague in the Senate. Wilson had risen from the +shoe-maker's bench, and knew the common people as a cobbler knows his +tools. He was genial in temperament; public-spirited and generous in his +aims; a most skilful tactician, and not over-scrupulous. He joined the +Know-nothings, with no sympathy for their proscriptive creed, but in the +break-up of parties using them for the anti-slavery cause,—and to +secure his own election to the United States Senate. He was a good +fighter, but without rancor; and he was an admirable interpreter of the +real democracy. Senator Hoar, in his autobiography, graphically +describes how at some crisis Wilson would travel swiftly over the State, +from Boston to Berkshire, visit forty shops and factories in a day, talk +with politicians all night, study the main currents and the local +eddies; and after a week or two of this—seeming meanwhile to be backing +and filling in his own mind—would "strike a blow which had in it not +only the vigor of his own arm, but the whole vigor and strength of the +public sentiment which he had gathered and which he represented."</p> + +<p>Prominent in the Senate was "bluff Ben Wade" of Ohio, an old-time +anti-slavery man, radical, vigorous, a stout friend and foe. Another +conspicuous radical was Zachariah Chandler of Michigan. He was born in +New Hampshire, went West early in life, and was a chief organizer and +leader of the Republican party in Michigan. He was a mixture of Yankee +shrewdness and Western energy; patriotic, masterful, somewhat +coarse-grained and materialistic; and, like many of his associates, +better suited for controversy and war than for conciliation and +construction. Of a higher type were three men who stood near the head in +the Senate,—John Sherman of Ohio, Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, and +William P. Fessenden of Maine. In the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> qualities for solid work, few men +of his time surpassed Sherman. He was wise in framing legislation, and a +good administrator,—an upright, moderate, serviceable man. Trumbull, of +Connecticut birth, was well trained in the law and eminent as a +constitutional lawyer. He made his serious entrance into public life +along with Lincoln, and was his near friend and adviser. He was an able +though not a brilliant debater; a man of independent convictions and +thorough courage. Fessenden, like Trumbull, was entitled to rank as a +real statesman. Like Trumbull he had no popular arts, and where Trumbull +was reticent and withdrawn in manner, Fessenden was austere and +sometimes irascible. In private character both were above reproach. +Fessenden had a finely-trained and richly-equipped mind. In an +emergency, after Chase's retirement, he accepted the secretaryship of an +almost bankrupt treasury, and handled it well. His devotion to duty was +unreserved; he was an admirable debater; and he had the high power of +framing legislation. His was the most important work of the +reconstruction committee, and Trumbull, as chairman of the judiciary +committee, had a chief hand in the other leading measures. The Democrats +were few and not strong in leadership; their ablest man was Reverdy +Johnson of Maryland,—-highly educated and large-minded. With these were +other senators of repute; and in the House there were abundant men of +mark,—Colfax, Blaine, Banks, Boutwell, Dawes, Conkling, Henry J. +Raymond, Randall, Hayes, Garfield, Bingham, Shellabarger, Voorhees, +Elihu B. Washburn;—space is wanting to name others, or to individually +characterize these.</p> + +<p>In estimating the work of reconstruction we must take account of the +character of the men who shaped it. Taking these leaders as a body, they +fall into groups,—Sumner for the uncompromising idealists; the radicals +by temperament,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> like Stevens, Wade, and Chandler; the men of higher +training, minds of the statesman's type, and a certain austerity of +temper, such as Fessenden, Trumbull, and Sherman. Among them all there +was a deficiency of that blending of large view, close insight, and +genial humanity, which marked Lincoln. Small discredit to them that they +were not his peers,—but the work in hand demanded just such a +combination.</p> + +<p>It is to be remembered that all of these, like the mass of the Northern +people, had been for many years contending with all their might for +certain ends, and in keenest hostility to the Southern whites. They had +fought for the Union and freedom; the South had fought for the +Confederacy and slavery. By sheer overpowering physical force the +Southern armies had been beaten down, and peace restored, and in name at +least the national authority re-established. But by conviction, habit, +instinct, these opponents yet hot from the battle-field would scrutinize +with jealous care the real success of their principles and the +disposition of their late foes.</p> + +<p>The President's policy, as laid down in his message, was at once +challenged in Congress. Stevens opened the debate in the House, and, +without directly assailing the President, antagonized his theory that +the States, like the Union, were indestructible, that secession had only +temporarily suspended their relation, and that they now by right +recurred at once to their normal position. Against this Stevens +maintained that by their rebellion these States had, as organizations, +committed suicide, that they now were in the position of conquered +territory, and that out of this territory Congress was to create new +States on whatever terms it judged most expedient. The President's +theory found an able supporter in Henry J. Raymond, who had just +exchanged the editorship of the New York <i>Times</i> for a seat in Congress. +But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> he had only a single ally among his Republican colleagues, and the +lonely couple, with four Republican senators, proved to be the only +habitual supporters of the President in the party that had elected him. +But the Democrats came to his side with an alacrity that strengthened +the Republican opposition. Their party had as a whole leaned toward the +South during the war, and they now welcomed the easy terms held out by +the President to their old associates. The Republican doctrine was best +formulated by Shellabarger of Ohio, who, without going to the full +length of Stevens's theory, maintained the essential right of Congress +to lay down the conditions on which the seceded States could resume +their old relation with the Federal Government. That seemed the just and +inevitable logic of the situation; and it was expressed in as much +conformity with the Constitution as was practicable after the rude +jostle of a four years' war.</p> + +<p>Meantime, Republican leaders in the Senate—Sumner, Wilson and +Fessenden—were announcing the same doctrine, and were earnestly +declaring that the actual conditions of the South called for stronger +remedies than the President had provided. A joint resolution brought +before Congress a report which had been made to the President by Carl +Schurz, after a tour of several months for which he had been specially +commissioned. With this report, the President sent also one from General +Grant, whom he had asked, during an official trip of a few days, to +observe the general disposition and temper of the Southern people. Grant +stated his conclusion to be that "the mass of thinking men of the South +accept the present situation of affairs in good faith"; and that they +cordially acquiesce in the restoration of the national sovereignty and +the abolition of slavery; and Grant's name carried great weight.</p> + +<p>But Mr. Schurz's much longer and more careful study<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> had brought him to +very different conclusions. He was a trained observer and thinker; a +German refugee after the disturbances of 1848; a leader among the +emancipationists in Missouri before the war, a general in the Union +army, and a political radical. Mr. Schurz recapitulated his observations +and conclusions, as he then reported them, in an article in <i>McClure's +Magazine</i> for January, 1904; and they come now with increased weight +after a life-time of disinterested and sagacious public service. That he +found the Southern whites acquiescing in their defeat only as of +necessity, conquered but not convinced—is no matter of surprise; though +Mr. Schurz seems somewhat to have shared the Northern expectation that +their late foes should take the attitude of repentant sinners. But as to +their practical attitude toward the negro, his testimony is important. +He relates that he found the general assertion to be "You cannot make +the negro work without compulsion." This conviction he encountered +everywhere; all facts to the contrary were brushed aside, and every +instance of idleness or vagabondage was cited as proof positive of the +negro's unwillingness to labor. The planter who seriously maintained in +Mr. Schurz's presence that one of his negroes was unfit for freedom +because he refused to submit to a whipping, went only a little further +than his neighbors.</p> + +<p>As to actual behavior of the negroes, under this sudden and tremendous +change of condition, certain facts were noted; not a single act of +vengeance was charged against them; a great part, probably the large +majority, remained or soon went back to work for their old employers; +but a considerable part began an aimless roaming to enjoy their new +liberty, or huddle around the stations where the agents of the +Freedmen's Bureau doled out some relief. As to their education, popular +opinion was no less unfavorable than as to their labor. The common +expressions were "learn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>ing will spoil the negro for work," "negro +education would be the ruin of the South," and even "the elevation of +the blacks would be the degradation of the whites." In practical +application of these views, negro schools were frequently broken up and +the school-houses burned; and in many places they were only safe under +the immediate protection of the Federal troops. After many further +particulars, especially as to the oppressive laws passed by the new +governments, Mr. Schurz sums up: "To recapitulate; the white people of +the South were harassed by pressing necessities, and most of them in a +troubled and greatly excited state of mind. The emancipation of the +slaves had destroyed the traditional labor system upon which they had +depended. Free negro labor was still inconceivable to them. There were +exceptions, but, as a rule, their ardent, and in a certain sense not +unnatural, desire was to resist its introduction, and to save or restore +as much of the slave labor system as possible."</p> + +<p>It was the character of the laws and ordinances passed under these +circumstances which was to the better sentiment of the North the most +concrete and convincing argument against restoring the Southern States +by the short and easy road proposed by President Johnson. It is to those +laws, and the condition underlying them, that we must ascribe the +refusal of Congress—backed by Northern conviction—to confirm the early +restoration which at first seemed so promising. So those laws deserve +careful consideration, as well as the situation which led to them.</p> + +<p>The Southern people, blacks and whites, were in a position of almost +unexampled difficulty. To the ravages of war and invasion, of +impoverishment and bereavement—and, as it fell out, to two successive +seasons of disastrous weather for crops,—was added at the outset a +complete disarrangement of the principal supply of labor. The mental +over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>turning was as great as the material. To the negroes "freedom" +brought a vague promise of life without toil or trouble. The hard facts +soon undeceived them. But for the indulgent Providence they at first +hoped for, some occasional and partial substitute appeared in the +offices of the Freedmen's Bureau. This had been established by Congress, +in March, 1865, with the laudable design of helping to adjust the +freedmen to their new condition; to make temporary provision for the +extreme physical wants of some; to aid them in arrangements for labor +and education; and, as was at first contemplated, to lease to them +abandoned or confiscated lands, in plots of forty acres, for three +years. This land provision was soon abandoned, there being no +confiscation to provide the necessary land; but it started the +expectation of "forty acres and a mule," which misled many a freedman. +As chief of the Bureau was appointed General O. O. Howard, a +distinguished Union commander, of the highest personal character, and +entirely devoted to his new work; and under him was a commissioner with +a working force in each of the States. The Bureau accomplished +considerable good; but its administration on the whole was not of the +highest class; among its subordinates were some unfit men; and a good +deal of offense and irritation attended its operations. At most, it +touched only the circumference of the problem. Three and a half millions +of newly enfranchised, ignorant men, women and children! What should +provide for the helpless among them, especially for the children, whom +the master's care had supported? How should order be maintained in the +lower mass, half-brutalized, whom slavery had at least restrained from +vagabondage, rapine, and crime? And how should the whole body be induced +to furnish the dynamic, driving power of industry essential to the +community's needs? These questions the South essayed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> answer in part +by a system of laws, of which we may take as a fair specimen the +legislation of Mississippi—the only State which had enacted this class +of laws before Congress met,—as they are summarized in the thorough and +impartial book of Professor J. W. Burgess, <i>Reconstruction and the +Constitution</i>.</p> + +<p>The law of apprenticeship ran thus: Negro children under eighteen, +orphans or receiving no support from their parents, to be apprenticed, +by clerk of probate court, to some suitable person,—by preference the +former master or mistress; the court to fix the terms, having the +interest of the minor particularly in view; males to be apprenticed till +end of twenty-first year, females to end of eighteenth. No other +punishment to be permitted than the common law permits to a parent or +guardian. If the apprentice runs away, he is to be apprehended and +returned, or, if he refuses to return, to be confined or put under bonds +till the next term of the court, which shall then decide as to the cause +of his desertion, and if it appears groundless compel his return, or if +he has been ill-treated fine the master not more than $100 for the +benefit of his apprentice. This statute seems not oppressive but +beneficent.</p> + +<p>The law of vagrancy provided that all freedmen having no lawful +employment or business, or who are found unlawfully assembling, and all +white persons so assembling in company with freedmen, or "usually +associating with freedmen, free negroes, or mulattoes, on terms of +equality," are to be deemed vagrants, and fined, a white man not more +than $200, a negro not more than $50, and imprisoned, a white man not +more than six months, a negro not more than ten days. If the negro does +not pay his fine within five days, he is to be hired out by the sheriff +to the person who will pay his fine and costs for the shortest term of +service. The same treatment is to be applied to any negro who fails to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> +pay his tax. This statute meant legal servitude for any negro not +finding employment, and the same penalty for a white man who merely +consorted with negroes on equal terms.</p> + +<p>The law of civil rights provided that all negroes are to have the same +rights with whites as to personal property, as to suing and being sued, +but they must not rent or lease lands or tenements except in +incorporated towns and cities, and under the control of the corporate +authorities. Provision is made for the intermarriage of negroes, and the +legalization of previous connections; but intermarriage between whites +and negroes is to be punished with imprisonment for life. Negroes may be +witnesses in all civil cases in which negroes are parties, and in +criminal cases where the alleged crime is by a white person against a +negro. Every negro shall have a lawful home and employment, and hold +either a public license to do job-work or a written contract for labor. +If a laborer quits his employment before the time specified in the +contract, he is to forfeit his wages for the year up to the time of +quitting. Any one enticing a laborer to desert his work, or selling or +giving food or raiment or any other thing knowingly to a deserter from +contract labor, may be punished by fine or imprisonment. No negro is to +carry arms without a public license. Any negro guilty of riot, affray, +trespass, seditious speeches, insulting gestures, language or acts, or +committing any other misdemeanor, to be fined and imprisoned, or if the +fine is not paid in five days to be hired out to whoever will pay fine +and costs. All penal and criminal laws against offenses by slaves or +free negroes to continue in force except as specially repealed.</p> + +<p>Many of these clauses speak eloquently for themselves, and as to the law +in general Professor Burgess, who certainly has no anti-Southern bias, +comments: "Almost every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> act, word or gesture of the negro, not +consonant with good taste and good manners as well as good morals, was +made a crime or misdemeanor, for which he could first be fined by the +magistrates and then be consigned to a condition of almost slavery for +an indefinite time, if he could not pay the bill." And Professor Burgess +adds, "This is a fair sample of the legislation subsequently passed by +all the States reconstructed under President Johnson's plan."</p> + +<p>The case against this class of laws may be left—in the necessary limits +of space—with this careful and moderate statement, though the +temptation is strong to quote from Mr. Schurz and other authorities +further specimens of the great body of harassing legislation, both state +and local;—the establishment of pillory and whipping-post; the +imposition of unjust taxes, with heavy license fees for the practice of +mechanic arts; requirements of certified employment under some white +man; prohibition of preaching or religious meetings without a special +license; sale into indefinite servitude for slight occasion; and so +on—a long, grim chapter. Whatever excuses may be pleaded for these +laws, under the circumstances of the South, all have this +implication,—that the negro was unfit for freedom. He was to be kept as +near to slavery as possible; to be made, "if no longer the slave of an +individual master, the slave of society." And further, as to the broad +conditions of the time, two things are to be noted. The physical +violence was almost wholly practiced by the whites against the negroes. +Bands of armed white men, says Mr. Schurz, patrolled the highways (as in +the days of slavery) to drive back wanderers; murder and mutilation of +colored men and women were common,—"a number of such cases I had +occasion to examine myself." In some districts there was a reign of +terror among the freedmen. And finally, the anticipation of failure of +voluntary labor speedily proved groundless. A law was at work more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> +efficient than any on the statute-books,—Nature's primal law, "Work or +starve!" Many, probably a majority of the freedmen, worked on for their +old masters, for wages. The others, after some brief experience of +idleness and starvation, found work as best they could. No tropical +paradise of laziness was open to the Southern negro. The first Christmas +holidays, looked forward to with vague hope by the freedmen and vague +fear by the whites, passed without any visitation of angels or +insurrection of fiends. In a word, the most apparent justifications for +the reactionary legislation,—danger of rapine and outrage from +emancipated barbarians, and a failure of the essential supply of +labor—proved alike groundless.</p> + +<p>As the facts of the situation became known, not only by Mr. Schurz's +report, but by news from the Southern capitals and by various +evidence—it was very clear that Congress could not and would not set +the seal of national authority on any such settlement as this. Granted, +and freely, that no millennium was to be expected, that a long and +painful adjustment was necessary,—yet it was out of the question that +any political theory or any optimistic hopes should induce acquiescence +in the legal establishment of semi-slavery throughout the South. It was +not Stevens's rancor, nor Sumner's unpracticability, but the serious +conviction of the North, educated and tempered by long debate and bitter +sacrifice, which ordained that the work of freedom must not be thrown +into ruins.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> + +<h3>RECONSTRUCTION: THE SECOND PLAN</h3> + + +<p>Congress addressed itself, in the first instance, to extending and +prolonging that provision for the freedmen which it had already made +through the Freedmen's Bureau. A bill was reported, having the weighty +sanction of Senator Trumbull and the judiciary committee, greatly +increasing the force of officials under the Bureau; putting it under the +military administration of the President and so with the direct support +of the army; and broadening its functions to include the building of +school-houses and asylums for the freedmen, and a wide jurisdiction over +all civil and criminal cases in which local laws made an unjust +discrimination between the races. The bill passed the Senate and House, +by the full party majority. It was sent to the President, February 10, +1866, and nine days later he returned it with a veto message, calmly and +ably argued. He objected to the bill as a war measure after peace had +been proclaimed. He took exception to the intrusion of military +authority upon the sphere of the civil courts, and to the extension of +Federal authority in behalf of black men beyond what had ever been +exercised in behalf of white men. The message was strong enough to win a +few of the orthodox Republicans, including ex-Governor Morgan of New +York, and the two-thirds vote necessary to carry the bill over the veto +could not be gained.</p> + +<p>Up to this time there seems reason to believe that while the Republicans +in Congress were firm in claiming for that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> body a decisive voice in +reconstruction, yet a majority of them were more favorable to the policy +of President Johnson than to that of Sumner and Stevens. But now, upon +the necessity of safeguarding the freedmen by exceptional measures in a +wholly exceptional time, the preponderance of conviction turned against +him in Congress and in the country. His own acts quickly converted that +first opposition into hostility and alarm.</p> + +<p>Until now President Johnson, whatever dissent he might provoke, had +appeared as a dignified statesman. But three days after his veto, on +February 22—Washington's birthday—a cheering crowd called the +President to the balcony of the White House. They heard a speech,—how +different from what Lincoln had spoken in the same place in the previous +April. Johnson was exhilarated by his success, forgetful that he still +faced a hostile majority in Congress, exasperated by opposition, and +roused by the shouts of the crowd,—and his native passion and +coarseness came out. Sumner had been severe in his language; he had +likened President Johnson to President Pierce in the Kansas days, and +hinted a family resemblance to Pharaoh of Egypt. Wendell Phillips was in +his native element of denunciation. Now the President declared to his +applauding hearers that he had against him men as much opposed to the +fundamental principles of the government, and he believed as much +laboring to pervert or destroy them, as had been the leaders of the +rebellion,—Davis, Toombs, and their associates. To the responsive +cheers, and the cry for names, he answered by naming Stevens, Sumner and +Phillips. He rehearsed his rise from tailor to President, and declared +that a ground swell, an earthquake of popular support, was coming to +him. His speech brought surprise and dismay to the country. It fanned +into hot flame the opposition between President and Congress. In vain +did John Sherman,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>—who had conferred with the President in the summer, +and thought highly of his patriotism—now hold out the olive branch in +the Senate. A keen observer at Washington, Samuel Bowles,—who had held +a friendly attitude toward both the President and the party +leaders,—now wrote, February 26, "Distrust, suspicion, the conceit of +power, the infirmities of temper on both sides, have brought affairs to +the very verge of disorder and ruin." He dissuaded from taking sides in +the quarrel; there was too much right and too much wrong on both sides. +He urged, March 3,—and no doubt he represented the best sentiment of +the country: "The great point is to secure protection and justice for +the freedmen.... For the present the Freedmen's Bureau, military +occupancy, and United States courts, must be our reliance.... We want +the President firm and resolute on this point, and we want to arouse the +better class of the Southern people to do their duty in the same +regard."</p> + +<p>The weakness of the veto message on the Freedmen's Bureau bill had been +the absence of any solicitude for the welfare of the freedmen; +constitutional theory seemed to wholly supersede the practical necessity +of the case. Now Congress again approached the matter in the Civil +Rights bill, carefully formulated in the judiciary committee, thoroughly +debated and amended, and passed by both houses late in March. It +affirmed United States citizenship for all persons born in the country +and not subject to any foreign power; it declared for all citizens an +equal right to make and enforce contracts, sue, give evidence, hold and +sell property, etc.; full equality as to security of person and +property, as to pains and penalties,—in short, complete civil equality. +Original jurisdiction was given to United States courts, and to these +could be transferred any case involving these subjects begun in a State +court. The bill<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> empowered the President to use the army for its +enforcement. All this was under authority of the Thirteenth Amendment.</p> + +<p>This, too, the President vetoed, as unnecessary, as employing the +military arm too freely, as extending unwisely the power of the Federal +Government, and as especially unwise legislation while eleven States out +of thirty-six were unrepresented in Congress. But the President was now +going in the face not only of the congressional majority but of the +North at large, which was unmistakably opposed to leaving the freedmen +with no protection against their old masters. The veto was overridden, +and became a law April 9. The Freedmen's Bureau bill, somewhat amended, +was again passed, this time over a veto, and became a law July 16.</p> + +<p>It was after the decisive victory over the President on the Civil Rights +bill that Congress took up the comprehensive measure which embodied its +own plan of reconstruction as a substitute for the President's. That +measure was the Fourteenth Amendment. It was drawn up by the +reconstruction committee, of which Senator Fessenden was chairman, and +probably his was the leading part in framing its provisions. The first +proposition was only to make the basis of congressional representation +dependent on the extension or denial of suffrage to the freedmen. This +was proposed January 22, 1866, and after some weeks' discussion passed +the House but failed in the Senate. It was replaced by a broader +measure, which was reported April 30, debated and amended for six weeks, +and finally in mid-June took the form in which it now stands in the +Constitution, and was approved by Congress. It then went before the +States for their action, with a tacit but strong implication that upon +its acceptance and adoption the lately seceded States would be fully +restored. It was in effect the plan of recon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>struction first offered by +Congress, as a substitute for the President's.</p> + +<p>The first article of the amendment declares that all persons born or +naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States, and +of the State wherein they reside; and that all are entitled to the equal +protection of the laws. Another section guarantees the validity of the +public debt, and forbids payment of the Confederate debt or payment for +the emancipation of slaves. Both these articles appear at this distance +of time to be beyond question or criticism. Another article apportions +representation in Congress, as heretofore, according to population; but +further provides that any State which denies the suffrage to any part of +its adult male population, except for rebellion or other crime, shall +have its congressional representation reduced in the same proportion. It +will be remembered that under the old Constitution the basis of +representation was fixed by adding to the total of the free population a +number equal to three-fifths of the slaves. Now that the slaves had +become freedmen, the representation of the old slave States would to +that extent be increased. But it seemed neither just nor expedient to +permit such an increase of power, unless the class on whose enumeration +it was based were made <i>bona fide</i> citizens, and sharers in this power. +If under this amendment the Southern States should choose to give the +vote to the freedmen, their total representation in Congress would be +raised from sixty-one to seventy. If they did not give it, their +representation would fall to forty-five. There was thus offered them a +strong inducement to establish impartial suffrage; while yet they were +at full liberty to withhold it at the price of some diminution of power +compared with communities adopting the broader principle. The +reconstruction committee had listened to prominent Southerners as to the +probable reception of this provision. Stephens<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> thought his people would +consider it less than their due and would not ratify it. But Lee thought +that Virginia would accept it, and then decide the question of suffrage +according to her preponderating interest; that at present she would +prefer the smaller representation, but would hold herself ready to +extend the suffrage if at any time the freedmen should show a capacity +to vote properly and understandingly.</p> + +<p>So far, the Fourteenth Amendment seems now to embody a sound +statesmanship. But the remaining article must be judged by itself. It +excludes from all State and national offices all those, who, having +taken an official oath to support the Constitution, have afterward taken +part in insurrection and rebellion. This was ingeniously framed with an +appearance of justice, as if debarring from office only those who to +rebellion had added perjury. But, as a matter of ethics, the breaking of +official oaths is an inevitable incident of every revolution; and just +as war is held to suspend in a measure the command "thou shalt not +kill," so revolution must be held to cancel the obligation of official +oaths. The opposite view would affix the full guilt of perjury to many +leaders in the American Revolution, perhaps to Washington himself. It +was not really as perjurers that the excluded class were debarred from +office, but as prominent leaders in the rebellion, so marked by having +previously held office. It shut out, and was so intended, a class not +only very large in numbers but including the best intelligence and +social leadership of the South. To exclude these men from all political +leadership in the new régime was in flat defiance of that statesmanship, +as wise as magnanimous, which Andrew and Beecher had voiced. As one New +England observer put the matter, it would help matters greatly if no man +favored a government for others that he would not like to live under +himself; now how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> would it work in Massachusetts to exclude from the +government the whole Republican party? Yet the Democrats in the State +have ten times the knowledge, character and ability, that are possessed +in the South by the elements free from stain of rebellion.</p> + +<p>The disqualification, to be sure, was removable in each case by a +two-thirds vote of Congress. But it could not be foreseen how Congress +would be disposed; and in fact, the President's pardon, so freely given, +had been by Congress expressly deprived of any political value; being +held to exempt only from legal pains and penalties. The new exclusion, +if adopted, could hardly work other than disastrously. And, being +offered, as the entire amendment necessarily was, for acceptance or +rejection by all the States, this provision was as well suited to repel +the South as if it had been designed for that purpose. It offended that +loyalty to their tried leaders in stress and storm which is one of the +best traits in a people's character. Compare it with Beecher's saying of +a few months earlier, "I think it to be the great need of this nation to +save the self-respect of the South." The difference measures the degree +of the mistake under which the mass of the North were still laboring. +They looked upon the rebellion as a moral and personal crime. They had +no comprehension of the Southern standpoint; and, sure that their own +cause was just, they believed that their opponents were not only +mistaken but morally guilty. As it was hardly possible to suppose the +8,000,000 to have all gone wrong out of individual perversity, the +current view at the North was that Secession sprang from a conspiracy; +that its leaders had secretly plotted, like Aaron Burr, and thus misled +their followers. The impulse to inflict death or imprisonment or +confiscation on anybody was infrequent or short-lived; the desire for +such punishment lingered only in an irrational wish for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> vengeance on +Jefferson Davis. But, if the leading class in the society and public +life of the South were morally responsible for a great treason and +rebellion, it might seem not only just but wise to exclude them from the +new political order.</p> + +<p>The critics of the reconstruction policy are often challenged by its +defenders with the question, "But what better course can you suggest, +even now?" And the immense difficulty of the problem, even as calmly +viewed to-day by the closet student, may well make us charitable toward +the men who, for the most part, did the best they knew under the +immediate besetment of measureless perplexities and contradictions. But +while we may approve of their work in the rest of the Fourteenth +Amendment, with equal emphasis we may say: The mistake was great, in the +amendment and later, of shutting out the very men who should have been +included. Better by far would it have been to take their counsel and +co-operation even beforehand in planning the work of reconstruction. +Even as to that crucial point, the legislation oppressive to the +freedmen, and the deeper difficulty underlying it, the ingrained +Southern attitude toward the negro as an inferior being,—even as to +this, something might have been accomplished had the Southern men, who +went to Washington in the vain hope of immediate admission to Congress, +been met by a President of Lincoln's or Andrew's calibre. Even as it +was, there were signs of promise in Georgia,—so says Rhodes in his +excellent <i>History of the United States</i>. The newly elected Governor, +Judge Jenkins, a man of "universally acknowledged probity and +uprightness of character" made in his inaugural address (December 14, +1865) a strong plea for the negroes who had so faithfully cared for the +lands and homes and families of the soldiers in the field: "As the +governing class individually and collectively we owe them unbounded +kindness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> and thorough protection.... Their rights of person and +property should be made perfectly secure." To like effect spoke +Alexander H. Stephens, revered by all Georgians, February 22, 1866; +recalling the fidelity of the slaves during the war and the debt of +gratitude it created; the obligation of honor to the poor, untutored, +uninformed; asking for the negroes ample and full protection, with +equality before the law as to all rights of person, liberty and +property. And such equality the Georgia Legislature speedily ordained. +Tennessee did the like. Rhodes expresses confidence that by gentle +pressure from the President and Congress, Virginia, North Carolina and +Alabama could have been persuaded to similar legislation within a twelve +month, and the other States would have followed.</p> + +<p>The excluding article in the amendment was probably made as a concession +by the moderate Republicans to the radicals. It replaced an article +originally reported by the committee, excluding not only from office but +from the suffrage all who had taken part in the Rebellion, until July 4, +1870. The article as adopted was disliked by Sherman and Wilson, the +latter especially declaring his willingness to remove the +disqualifications as soon as possible after a settlement had been made. +In point of fact they were removed piecemeal by Congress almost as +freely as President Johnson had done the like, and were ended except for +a few hundred by a sweeping amnesty in 1872.</p> + +<p>Grant said to A. H. Stephens in April, 1866, "The true policy should be +to make friends of enemies." If these men, with a few others of like +temper in North and South, could have settled the terms of the new +order, a different foundation might have been laid. But in default of +any such happy, unlikely conjuncture of the right men in the right +place, it is the deep and wide tides of public opinion that largely +shape events. The average Southern view of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> negro, and the average +Northern view of the "rebel," were the Scylla and Charybdis between +which the ship of state steered its troubled voyage.</p> + +<p>Returning now to the course of events,—Congress made it plain that the +acceptance of the Fourteenth Amendment would bring the restoration of +the South, not by a formal declaration, but by its action in promptly +admitting Tennessee when within a month it ratified the amendment. So +before the South and the country were now the two policies,—of Congress +and the President,—and the summer and autumn saw a general and eager +discussion. The South waited events, hoping for the President's success. +In the North there was at first a marked effort to rally conservative +men of both parties to his side. A great convention was held at +Philadelphia, promoted by the President, Seward, Weed and Henry J. +Raymond; with delegates from every State; the first day's procession led +by Massachusetts and South Carolina representatives arm-in-arm; Southern +governors and judges heartily assenting to the declaration that not only +is slavery dead, but nobody wants it revived; and with cordial +indorsement of the President's reconstruction policy.</p> + +<p>There was a counter-convention at Pittsburg; there were "soldiers' and +sailors' conventions" on both sides. From the Cabinet three members, +Speed, Denison and Harlan, resigned because their convictions were with +Congress; but Stanton remained as Secretary of War, though he was now a +bitter opponent of the President,—a safeguard over the army, as the +radical leaders considered him, and by his attitude and natural temper a +constant exasperation to his nominal chief. A fierce and bloody riot in +New Orleans, of which the precise causes were obscure, but in which the +negroes were the sufferers, heightened the Northern anxiety as to the +general situation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p> + +<p>The popular tide evidently ran with Congress, yet Johnson had the +promise of very respectable support until he threw it away. His +extempore expressions suggested an overweening view of his own position. +To the committee reporting to him the Philadelphia convention, he said, +"We have seen hanging upon the verge of the government, as it were, a +body called, or which assumes to be, the Congress of the United +States—but in fact a Congress of only a part of the States." In +September he made a tour of the Northern States, taking in his train +Secretaries Seward and Welles, with Grant and Farragut;—"swinging round +the circle," he called his trip. He made addresses in the principal +cities, in which he denounced his opponents, sometimes with vulgar +abuse, bragged of his own rise from tailor to President, and bandied +words with the mob. He shamed many of the men of character—Beecher +among them—who had viewed him with favor. The tide turned +overwhelmingly against him. The November election returned a Congress +consisting in the House of 143 Republicans to 49 Democrats, with a +Senate of 42 Republicans to 11 Democrats.</p> + +<p>It was like the hand of Nemesis that the South, led to crushing defeat +by its slave-holding aristocracy, should now have its interests +sacrificed through the characteristic faults of one of its poor +whites,—his virtues overborne by his narrow judgment, uncontrolled +temper and coarse speech.</p> + +<p>Warned by the election, the South might well have accepted the +Fourteenth Amendment as the price of its restoration. But it failed to +read the handwriting on the wall. It could not yet brook acquiescence in +the exclusion of its old leaders, and the alternative of negro suffrage +or reduced power in Congress. The pride of race, the unquenched spirit +of the "lost cause," prompted it to stand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> out for better terms. During +the autumn and winter of 1866-7 the lately seceded States, except +Tennessee, rejected the amendment. So failed the first congressional +plan of reconstruction, as the President's earlier plan had failed. And +now there was small hesitation or delay in framing and enforcing the +final plan.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> + +<h3>RECONSTRUCTION: THE FINAL PLAN</h3> + + +<p>The Congress which met in December, 1866, was the same body as in the +previous winter; but the prolonged contest, the President's misbehavior, +the South's rejection of the offered terms, and the popular verdict at +the November election, had strengthened the hands of the Republicans and +intensified their temper. Thaddeus Stevens brought in, February 6, 1867, +a bill which was trenchant indeed. It superseded the governments of the +ten unreconstructed States, divided their territory into five military +districts, placed their commanders under the orders, not of the +President, but of the general of the army, and suspended the habeas +corpus. It was military rule in its barest form, and for an indefinite +period. Blaine moved an amendment, specifying the terms on which the +States might be released from this military control and restored to +their normal status. But Stevens's despotic sway shut out the amendment +and carried the bill through the House. In the Senate, Sherman +successfully carried a substitute, much the same as the Blaine +amendment. This went back to the House, where a majority of Republicans +favored the change, but Stevens still opposed it, and had enough +followers to make together with the Democrats a majority that threw out +the whole measure. But success by such allies was undesired by the +radicals and alarming to the moderate Republicans. There was +reconsideration, minor concessions to Stevens, and the bill finally +passed February 20, not at all as he had designed it, but in a form due +either to Blaine or Sherman.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> It is singular that so important a measure +should be of doubtful paternity. It seems more like a production of +Sherman, who in constructive ability was far ahead of Blaine and of most +of his congressional colleagues. In its substance it represents +apparently the judgment and purpose of the great majority of the +Republicans in Congress.</p> + +<p>It is remarkable that so vital and momentous a law should have been +enacted with so little discussion. It was hurried through, in order that +its passage twelve days before the close of the session might prevent +the President from "pocketing" it—letting it fail for want of his +signature, without risking a veto. The debate, as Blaine reports it in +his <i>Twenty Years of Congress</i>, seems to have been mainly for the +scheme, and against the far more drastic proposal of Stevens and +Boutwell,—in opposing which Blaine himself seems to have done service +certainly as creditable as any in his checkered career. But the radical +character of the bill as passed, its great advance on all earlier +proposals, seems to have called forth hardly any challenge among the +Republicans.</p> + +<p>In a word, the law put the whole unreconstructed South,—all of the old +Confederacy except Tennessee,—under temporary military government, +subject to the President; and the commanders were at once to initiate +measures for new State organizations. They were to enroll all adult +males, white and black, as voters, except only such as the Fourteenth +Amendment would shut out from office; these voters were then to elect +delegates in each State to a convention; this body was to frame a +constitution incorporating permanently the same conditions of suffrage; +this constitution was then to be submitted to popular vote; and if a +majority ratified it,—if Congress approved it,—if the Legislature +elected under it ratified the Fourteenth Amendment,—and if and when +that amendment received enough ratifications to enact<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> it,—then, at +last, each State was to be fully restored to the Union.</p> + +<p>On this plan the States were rapidly and finally reconstructed. Its +central feature was the enforcement of suffrage for the negroes +throughout the South. Of this tremendous measure, but small discussion +appears in the debate over the bill. But it seems to have had behind it +the prevailing sentiment of the North. A good witness on this point is +the Springfield <i>Republican</i>. That paper had strongly advocated the +adoption of the Massachusetts plan, a reading and writing qualification +for suffrage—the State's only good legacy from the Know-nothing period. +Of such a provision it said January 9: "It would be a most potent +stimulus to education, and once made the national rule there would be +such a studying of spelling books as never was seen before.... There can +be no sure reliance on the votes of blacks any more than of whites who +cannot read their ballots." But this plan found little popular favor. +The objection to it which we now recognize,—that the Southern States +might probably have forborne to educate the freedmen, and so left them +disfranchised,—was not then prominent. But there had not come to be a +general recognition at the North of the danger of ignorant suffrage. Of +the actual drift of opinion the <i>Republican</i> said, March 3, that equal +suffrage is "the sole condition about which there is any approach to +unanimity among our people."</p> + +<p>To understand this opinion we must look back a little. The belief in +universal male suffrage was part of the Democratic movement that swept +almost unchallenged from Jefferson's time till Lincoln's. The mass of +ignorant immigrants gave some alarm, but they seemed to be successfully +digested by the body politic. Beecher, we have seen, thought suffrage a +"natural right," and that was a common doctrine. Besides, it was assumed +at the North that the negroes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> were naturally the friends of the +national government and of the party that had given them freedom. There +were politicians in plenty who looked to the negro vote to keep the +Republicans in control of the national government. Many of these +doubtless valued the party organization mainly as a means of +self-advancement; while others like Sumner devoutly believed that in the +Republican party lay the sole hope of justice and freedom. To the North +generally, the convincing argument for negro suffrage was that the +ballot would give the black man the necessary weapon for +self-protection. On this ground Mr. Schurz favored it in his report of +1865, and in reviewing the situation in 1904 he holds the same opinion. +The assumption in this view was that the freedmen and the former master +class were, and were to remain, natural enemies. Looking back to +slavery, which really combined an element of oppression with an element +of protection, the North saw only the oppression. Viewing the present, +it was not merely the State laws, but the frequent personal abuse of the +negroes which confirmed the idea that they must have the ballot for +self-protection.</p> + +<p>On broader grounds, the question was reasoned thus: "The logical, the +necessary ultimate step in the negro's elevation to full manhood is his +possession of the vote. By far the most desirable road to this +consummation would be a gradual and educational introduction of the body +of freedmen to the franchise. But toward such a course the South shows +no inclination. The alternative remains—in the brief period during +which the national authority can be applied to organic +reconstruction—of establishing universal manhood suffrage; with the +drawback of a present admixture of a large ignorant and unfit element; +with the great disadvantage, too, of further alienating the two races +for the present; but with the possibility and hope that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> the exercise of +the ballot will in itself prove educational, and that the Southern white +man and Southern negro will ultimately fare better than if the one is +allowed to permanently disfranchise the other." Something like this, +apparently, whether wise or unwise, was the predominant judgment of the +better class at the North.</p> + +<p>With others the argument was simpler. Blaine in his <i>Twenty Years</i> gives +a common sentiment, himself in 1884 still concurring in it: "The North +believed, and believed wisely, that a poor man, an ignorant man, and a +black man, who was thoroughly loyal, was a safer and better voter than a +rich man, an educated man, and a white man, who in his heart was +disloyal to the Union." The <i>Republican</i>, on the contrary, expressed the +opinion: "It is better to be governed by ex-rebels than by fools."</p> + +<p>The Fourteenth Amendment had been put forward virtually as an +invitation. It was rejected by the South, and the new plan—military +government, to give place to new constitutions with universal +suffrage—was issued as a mandate. It was promptly carried out. In +little more than a twelvemonth, the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, +Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas had been reconstructed; their State +organizations were provisionally accepted by Congress in June, 1868; and +as their Legislatures at once ratified the Fourteenth Amendment and +secured its adoption, they were fully restored and their senators and +representatives admitted in July. Virginia and Mississippi managed to +stave off final action, hoping to escape the excluding clauses, until +after Grant's election to the Presidency in 1868; and their hopes were +justified when Grant gave his influence successfully with Congress +against the excluding clauses; so that these two States, with belated +Texas, were reorganized in the following year and admitted early in +1870. Georgia had troubles of her own, and a suspension<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> by Congress +from full statehood for half a year; and her final admission, on July +15, 1870, marked definitely the end of the reconstruction process. The +registration of voters in the ten States had shown that in Alabama, +Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, the colored voters +were in a majority; in Georgia, the two races were about equal; and in +Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas and Texas, one-third or more were +colored. The preponderance of voting power had been given to a people +just out of slavery. The practical working of the plan, and the six +further years of Federal supervision over the South, belong to another +chapter.</p> + +<p>An episode in this story, though an important feature in a general +history, must be the impeachment of President Johnson in the spring of +1868. Though the main questions at issue were definitely settled, the +bitterness between the President and Congress lasted and increased. At +the same time with the final reconstruction measure, there was passed +the "Tenure of Office bill," which took away from the President the +power of removing his subordinates which all his predecessors had +enjoyed, and required the Senate's concurrence in removals as in +appointments. Some exception was made as to Cabinet officers; and the +President, exasperated beyond endurance by Stanton, after vainly, though +reasonably, asking the Senate to relieve him of his hostile secretary, +assumed the right to remove him by his own authority, and appointed Gen. +Lorenzo Thomas in his place, February 21, 1868. The House, in which the +radical temper had grown stronger than ever, in a blaze of excitement +voted the President's impeachment. He was tried before the Senate, the +House prosecutors being led by Stevens, Boutwell, and Benjamin F. +Butler, whose vindictive and unscrupulous personality had come to the +front. The President was defended by a group of the foremost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> lawyers in +the country, including Benjamin R. Curtis, Jeremiah S. Black, and +William M. Evarts. The only weighty article in the charge was that +concerning Stanton's removal, and upon this a legal defense was made +which now seems conclusive. But it has been justly said that the +President was on trial nominally for one class of offenses, but +practically for another—namely, his persistent opposition to the policy +of Congress. Party loyalty was invoked for his condemnation; the general +temper of the North was hot against him; wrath and tribulation were +predicted for any Republican senator who should vote for his acquittal. +In face of the storm, there were a few who quietly let it be known or +surmised that they should vote in their capacity as judges sworn to +follow the law and the facts, whatever the political consequences. The +decisive hour came, May 16, and the result no one could predict; the +Democratic senators and the four administration Republicans all would +sustain the President; seven additional votes would prevent the decisive +two-thirds condemnation. Man after man, Fessenden, Fowler, Grimes, +Henderson, Ross, Van Winkle, and Trumbull—Republicans all—voted "Not +guilty"; and, by nineteen to thirty-five, President Johnson escaped +deposition—to get rid of Stanton finally, and finish his term; to +return to the Senate from Tennessee; to take his place in history as an +honest and patriotic man, beyond his proper sphere, whose limitations +worked a part in the partial failure of reconstruction. The country +escaped a dangerous dislocation of the relation of Congress and the +executive, and the triumph of an exaggerated radicalism. The seven +independent senators sacrificed their future careers, and deserve the +perpetual gratitude of their country.</p> + +<p>And now it remained for the nation, through a Presidential election, to +pass upon the completed work. In the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> Democratic convention at New York, +in July, 1868, the reactionary and the progressive elements strove. A +new Democracy was growing, intent on administrative reform and moderate +Constitutionalism; Samuel J. Tilden of New York and his allies were +among the leaders; their candidate was Chief Justice Chase. Only the +incongruity with his judicial position marred the fitness of Chase's +candidacy. Lincoln, though he had his own troubles in dealing with him, +said, "Of all the great men I have known, Chase is equal to about one +and a half of the best of them." He had proved eminent on the bench as +in the Cabinet, and under his lead the Supreme Court gave a series of +conservative decisions on reconstruction questions which were a most +valuable contribution to the national stability and security—a vital, +though not to the popular eye a conspicuous service in the +reconstruction period. Against him, the candidacy of George H. Pendleton +of Ohio represented the element historically unfriendly to the war for +the Union, and intensely opposed to the reconstruction measures. He had +the support of the Southern delegates, present in full force, and +lending to the cheering the dominant note of the well-known "rebel +yell." The reactionists got their own way with the resolutions, which +declared the reconstruction acts to be "unconstitutional, revolutionary, +and void." On the new question which was looming up, of shirking the +national debt by payment in promises, the platform leaned strongly +toward repudiation. Pendleton's supporters, seeing their candidate could +not win, and determined that the other Ohio man, Chase, should not win, +thwarted their New York opponents by a clever trick, and successfully +rushed through the convention the nomination of its presiding officer, +Horatio Seymour of New York, against his protest and to the discomfiture +of his associates. An able, accomplished man, but reckoned half-hearted +in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> war, and not rising to statesmanlike proportions, he could not +outweigh the mischievous platform and the Vice-Presidential candidate, +the hot-headed Gen. Francis P. Blair of Missouri, who had just proposed +measures nothing short of revolutionary to override Congress. Against +this combination the Republicans advanced securely to victory. Meeting +in Chicago in May, they showed a temper more moderate than that of +Congress; they of course condemned the President, but they refused to +censure the seven independent senators; and upon Carl Schurz's motion +passed a resolution welcoming back all former enemies now become loyal, +and favoring the early and rapid removal of disabilities. As to the +Presidential nomination, there was no division,—it was given +unhesitatingly, unanimously, heartily, to General Grant. His +steadfastness and success in war had been matched by his magnanimity in +victory and his prudence in the troubled times that followed. Of manly +simplicity and solid worth, sagacious and successful wherever he had +been tried, he seemed at once an embodiment of past victory and an +assurance of future safety. Of the thirty-four States that voted, all +but eight were for Grant and Colfax. Seymour had New York, New Jersey, +Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Oregon, Georgia, and Louisiana. The +popular vote was 3,012,000 for Grant and Colfax to 2,703,000 for Seymour +and Blair.</p> + +<p>The Republican convention had shirked the question of negro suffrage at +the North by referring it to the individual States. Its refusal in many +of the Northern States was felt as a discredit after it had been +enforced throughout the South. The Republicans in Congress took courage +from the election. The Fifteenth Amendment, forbidding the States to +deny the right to vote "on account of race, color or previous condition +of servitude," was brought forward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> in Congress in December, and passed +February 28, 1869. It was ratified in rapid succession by thirty States +out of thirty-seven,—Tennessee not acting, and negative votes being +given by California, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, and +Oregon,—and proclaimed as adopted, March 30, 1870.</p> + +<p>With Grant's election, and the last touches of reconstruction sure to +follow close, the North, as it were, drew a deep breath of relief. It +felt that the fundamental issues were settled. The war had preserved the +Union and destroyed slavery. The consummation had been fitly rounded out +by the changes in the Constitution. The Southern States were restored to +their places. Vast tides of material advance were setting in. New +questions were rising, new ideas were fermenting. Good-bye to the +past,—so felt the North,—to its injustice and its strife. As the +nation's chieftain had said, in accepting the call to the nation's +Presidency, "Let us have peace."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2> + +<h3>RECONSTRUCTION: THE WORKING OUT</h3> + + +<p>So the North turned cheerfully to its own affairs—and very engrossing +affairs they were—and the South faced its new conditions. It was still +struggling with the economic wreckage left by four years of battle, +invasion and defeat. It had borne the loss of its separate nationality +and the flag endeared by countless sacrifices. It had accepted the +sudden emancipation of its servile class by the conqueror's hand. It had +been encouraged by President Johnson to resume with little change its +old ways of government. For two years it had gone along precariously +with State organizations of the earlier pattern, subject to occasional +interruption by military authority or officials of the Freedmen's +Bureau. Then, in 1867, all State governments were set aside, and +military rule pure and simple held the field,—in most States for about +fifteen months; in Mississippi, Texas and Virginia, by their own choice, +for as much longer. Though as it was generally administered the military +government was just, as well as economical, yet its maintenance was a +bitter ordeal for a people with the American political habit; a people, +too, who had fought gallantly for four years; who had, upon accepting +their defeat, been assured that the object of their conqueror was +attained in restoring them to their old position, except for +emancipation of the slaves; and who now for a year or two longer were +held under martial law.</p> + +<p>At last—for most of them in mid-summer of 1868—they were again +restored to self-government of the American<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> pattern. Self-government +for all, thought the North complacently; whites and blacks were equal, +not only as subjects of the law but as makers of the law; and so freedom +and democracy were established. But the Southern whites asked in dismay, +What kind of fellow-lawmakers have we got? The question answered itself. +The million or so of new voters were most of them ignorant in a sense of +which illiteracy gives but a hint. They were unversed even in genuine +family life; skilled only in manual industry; unpracticed in +citizenship; utterly untaught in the principles, the facts of history, +the theory and art of self-government, which make up the proper +equipment of the voter. A great part of them, field hands on the great +cotton and sugar plantations, were rude and degraded, trained to live +solely under close and constant control.</p> + +<p>How were the whites to deal with these new-made voters? From the +standpoint of expediency, three courses offered,—to conciliate and +educate them; to outvote them by massing the whites together; or to +suppress them by force or fraud. From the standpoint of unregenerate +human nature, the whites as a body at first took none of these +courses,—they stood apart from the whole business of politics, in wrath +and scorn. Unregenerate perhaps, but most natural, most human! At first, +some crude policy mingled with the sentiment that kept them aloof; there +was the hope that if the whites generally abstained from voting, at the +elections held in November, 1867, to pass on the question whether to +hold constitutional conventions, the proposal might fail for want of the +requisite majority of the registered voters. It was a fallacious hope; +suppose the conventions were to fail, what better terms were now to be +expected from Congress? But the conventions were all held; and as in the +same spirit most of the whites refused to vote for delegates, these were +chosen from the negroes, their friends<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> from the North, and the few +Southern whites who accepted the inevitable.</p> + +<p>Is it not the wisest, the manliest course, to accept the inevitable? So +asked General Longstreet, in a letter to a friend, June 3, 1867. He had +just listened to Senator Wilson, and had been surprised by his fairness +and frankness. For himself he says, "I will be happy to work in any +harness that promises relief to our discomfited people, whether bearing +the mantle of Mr. Davis or Mr. Sumner." Negro suffrage is for the +present an established fact; if after a fair trial it works +disastrously, we will appeal to Congress to repeal it. "If every one +will meet the crisis with proper appreciation of our condition and +obligations, the sun will rise to-morrow on a happy people." But his +words fell on deaf ears, and when he acted with the Republicans he was +visited with ostracism, denunciation, and attack upon his war record. +The typical attitude, at first, was that of the planter who, after +listening to a discussion of the final reconstruction act, inquired, +"Does it say anything about raising cotton?" "No." "Then, damn Congress +and its laws! I'm going to raise cotton." So he and a good many others +gave themselves to raising cotton, and for a while left the choice of +State officers and legislators to "niggers," "carpet-baggers," and +"scalawags." A "scalawag" was any Southern white who allied himself +politically with the negroes, and a "carpet-bagger" was a Northern +adventurer, for whose worldly goods a gripsack sufficed,—or, in +general, any Northerner whatever.</p> + +<p>For the blacks, the sudden opening of political power and preferment, +however designed, was in effect a very doubtful benefit. It turned their +hopes and aspirations in a way which was really "no thoroughfare." To +the more promising and ambitious it offered sudden and brilliant prizes, +instead of the patient apprenticeship which they needed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> Of those who +quickly rose to office, a few were by character and attainments really +fit for their position; many won favor by shallow arts; and others were +thrown up like driftwood by the tide. The negroes as a body could follow +only a personal leadership,—how many whites, North or South, really +follow any other?—could be organized in bodies, attached to a party +name and watchwords, and voted in mass by the men who had their +confidence. They understood that their freedom and their right to vote +had been given them by the North and by the Republican party, and to +that party they naturally turned. Their old masters—in many cases their +best friends—frankly told them they were unfit to vote, and wanted no +dealings with them in political affairs. So they found leadership +principally in the men who had come from the North.</p> + +<p>There was a Northern immigration which may be classified as business +men, teachers and adventurers. A considerable number sought an +opportunity in reviving and developing industry,—substantial men and +good citizens. Sometimes a patriotic motive mingled with the industrial. +Governor Andrew, on retiring to private life as a lawyer, tried for some +time to advance a company for bringing into conjunction Southern lands +and Northern enterprise and capital. There were various projects of this +kind, but they met with little success. Private individuals, however, +added something to the industrial and civic forces of the South. A +larger class were the teachers. Men and women by hundreds went to the +South, some sent by missionary organizations, some independently, to +organize schools and to teach the children of the freedmen. Many of them +were of the highest character, devoted, self-sacrificing, going to the +blacks simply because they supposed their need was greatest. But +Beecher's warning proved sound—because as a whole this movement took +the negroes as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> distinct field, ignoring the needs of the whites, it +incurred odium as an alien and half-hostile work. The barbaric element +among the whites—and slavery had left a deep taint of barbarism—came +out at its worst in insults to the "nigger teachers," with occasional +burning of a school-house. The better social elements looked askance at +those whose presence was a reminder of conquest and humiliation.</p> + +<p>From the business and the educational immigration, a few Northern men +were drawn into public affairs, less by choice than by necessity of the +situation. With these mingled a different class, men who had been +disreputable hangers-on of the army or the Freedmen's Bureau, or who had +come for the sole purpose of plunder. It was a very mixed company of +whites and blacks that made up the conventions and then filled the +legislative halls and the public offices. The constitutions were not +badly framed, except as they, for the most part, continued the exclusive +clauses. The general legislation was various in its character. There +were some excellent features, above all the institution in every State +of a genuine public school system, where before there had been only +makeshifts or make-believes. Some other good constructive work was done, +toward establishing society on the new basis. Certainly nothing was +enacted so bad as the "black codes" of a few years earlier, not to speak +of the legislation under slavery. There were some unsuccessful attempts +at engrafting institutions, like the township system, which had worked +well in their native soil but could not be created out of hand. In +general the white leadership of the dominant party averted much that +might have been expected from the ignorance of its legislators as a +mass. But plenty of waste and mischief was wrought. Place a crowd of +hungry and untaught men next the public treasury with the lid off, and +some results are sure. The men will not be safer guardians of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> +treasure for having had for most of their lives no property rights of +their own, not even the ownership of their own souls and bodies. Yet +most of the plunder seems to have gone into the pockets of knaves of the +superior race. There was a degree of extravagance, waste and corruption, +varying greatly with localities and times, but sufficient to leave a +permanent discredit on the Southern Republican governments as a class. +To judge accurately of the merits and demerits of these governments is +perhaps as difficult a task as historian ever undertook. So fierce is +the passion which invests these events in the memory of the present +generation, that it is almost hopeless to sift and adjudicate the sober +facts. Time has softened much; even the Civil War begins to stand forth +in some firmness of outline and clarity of atmosphere. But when we come +to reconstruction—grave historians grow almost hysterical, romancers +pass the bounds of possibilities, and even official figures contradict +one another with sublime effrontery.</p> + +<p>Yet this very passion of remembrance, which in one way obscures, in +another way illuminates the historical situation. The grievance most +profoundly felt in the reconstruction period was not unwise laws nor +waste of public money nor oppressive taxes. It was the consciousness by +the master class of political subjection to the servile class. It was +the spectacle of rude blacks, yesterday picking cotton or driving mules, +sitting in the legislators' seats and executive offices of Richmond and +Columbia, holding places of power among the people of Lee and Calhoun. +Fancy the people of Massachusetts, were the state-house on Beacon hill +suddenly occupied by Italian, Polish and Russian laborers,—placed and +kept there by a foreign conqueror. Add to the comparison the prouder +height of the slaveholder, and the lower depth of his serf. Put this as +the case of a people high-strung and sensitive, still fresh from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> +passion of war, still smarting from defeat. They had fought to +exhaustion, and their banner had fallen without disgrace. Now the +victors who had won by superiority of force had placed their late +bondmen as their rulers. The offices from which their own captains and +chiefs were shut out were filled by plantation field-hands.</p> + +<p>It was not likely that the first attitude of scornful passivity would +long continue, and it did not. The warnings vainly uttered +beforehand,—that the natural leaders would surely lead, and had best be +won as allies, were proved right when it was too late. Said the +<i>Republican</i>, August 10, 1868, in protesting against the plan of the +party managers in organizing the Southern wing to consist mainly of the +blacks: "The Republican party cannot long maintain its supremacy at the +South by negro votes alone. The instincts of submission and dependence +in them and of domination in the whites, are too strong to permit such a +reversal of the familiar relations and the natural order. The +slave-holding element has learned to combine, conspire and command, in +the best school on earth, and they will certainly come to the top. Nor +is it desirable that such a state of things should continue."</p> + +<p>The old official class being excluded—to the number, it was estimated, +of 160,000,—and the stand-aloof policy, or drift rather, prevailing in +the political field, it was the more lawless element that first began to +conspicuously assert the white supremacy. There grew up an organization +called "the Ku-Klux Klan," designed at first partly as a rough sport and +masquerade, partly to overawe the negroes. There were midnight ridings +in spectral disguises, warnings, alarms and presently whippings and even +murders. The society, or imitations of it, spread over most of the +South. It was at its height in 1868-70, and in the latter year it +gradually gave way,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> partly owing to vigorous measures ordered from +Washington, and partly perhaps as legitimate political combinations +again occupied the whites. But it is to be noted that throughout the +decade of reconstruction, though the present fashion is to lay exclusive +stress on the wrong-doing of the negroes and their friends, yet the +physical violence, frequent and widespread, was almost wholly practiced +by the whites.</p> + +<p>From the political torpor, due to discouragement and resentment, there +was an early recovery. When it was found that cotton-planting pure and +simple, with ignoring of politics, resulted in heavy taxes for the +planter; when to the first numbness there succeeded the active +smart,—the whites betook themselves to the resource which in most +States soon proved adequate,—the ballot, and political combination. In +several States the whites were easily in the majority, and where they +were slightly outnumbered their superior intelligence soon gave them the +advantage. In Georgia, finally readmitted at the end of 1869, the +Democrats—constituting the great body of the whites—carried the +election in the next year, and remained in control of the State. +Virginia, which had advisedly kept under military rule until, with +President Grant's aid, she came in without the excluding clauses, early +in 1870, passed at once under Democratic rule. In the same year North +Carolina became Democratic. Texas and Arkansas remained under Republican +sway until the majority shifted to the Democrats in 1874. In Alabama, +the Democrats gained the Governorship and the lower House as early as +1870; two years later the result was disputed, the Democrats conceding +the Governor but claiming the Legislature, while the Republicans +organized a rival Legislature; the Republican Governor-elect called for +United States troops, which were promptly dispatched, and with their +backing a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> Republican Legislature was secured. In 1874 a Democratic +Governor and Legislature were chosen and installed without dispute. The +Federal interference in Alabama, and the experience of others of the +reconstructed States,—South Carolina, Mississippi, and +Louisiana,—recalls us to that phase of the history which deals with +Washington and the national government.</p> + +<p>Through the eight years of Grant's administration, the public life of +the nation was concerned mainly with clearing away the wreckage left by +the war. There was an enormous debt to be handled and an inflated +currency to be reduced; there was to be curbed administrative +extravagance and corruption, bred of profuse expenditure; a bitter +quarrel with England was to be guided toward war or peace; and the +disordered South was to be composed. These tasks were encountered by men +whose habits and sentiments had been formed in a long and desperate +contest, and in an atmosphere slowly cooling from the fiery glow of +battle. The soldier had to beat his sword into a plowshare, and small +wonder if the blacksmithing was sometimes clumsy.</p> + +<p>Grant was too completely a soldier to be changed into a statesman. He +could deal with a definite, limited, though gigantic business,—the +overcoming of the armies of the Confederacy. But it was beyond his power +to comprehend and master the manifold and intricate problems that center +in the Presidency. Given a specific, well-defined question, within the +reach of his sturdy sense and loyal purpose, and he could deal with it +to good effect, as he did with the English arbitration and the Inflation +bill. But he was incapable of far-reaching and constructive plans +carefully laid and patiently pursued. When he communicated to Congress +the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment, he urged in wise and forcible +language that the new electorate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> could only be qualified through +education, and that to provide such education was a pressing duty of +Congress so far as its power extended, and of the people through all the +agencies it could command. But having once said this, he let the subject +drop. National education for the freedmen was left unnoticed, save by an +occasional lonely advocate like Sumner. Nor did President Grant take any +personal and positive measures to win and hold the old South to the new +order; he failed to invite and consult its representative men, he made +no journeys among the people.</p> + +<p>In most matters of public policy, save in emergencies, Grant let matters +be shaped by the men whom he had taken into his counsel—in his official +Cabinet or the "kitchen cabinet"—and by the Republican leaders in +Congress, of whom the controlling group, especially in the Senate, were +in close touch with the White House. His affiliations were with men of +material power, men who had strongly administered civil or military +affairs, stout partisans, faithful friends and vigorous haters. His +tastes did not draw him to the idealists, the scholars, the reformers. +He was accessible to good fellowship, he was easily imposed on by men +who were seeking their own ends, and he was very slow to abandon any one +whom he had once trusted. Absolutely honest, the thieves stole all round +him. Magnanimous at heart, the bitter partisans often made him their +tool. Of the great questions of the time, the English quarrel was +brought to an admirable healing, under the management of the Secretary +of State, Hamilton Fish, in 1871, by the joint high commission, the +treaty of Washington, and the Geneva award. In the long contest for a +sound currency, the inflation policy received its death-blow by the +President's veto in 1874, and resumption was undertaken when Sherman +carried his bill through Congress in 1875. As to honesty of +administration, the president's good intentions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> were constantly baffled +through his misplaced and tenacious confidences. The vast expenditures +of the war, the cheating incident to its great contracts, the +speculation favored by a fluctuating currency, the huge enterprises +invited by the return of peace,—had infected private and public life +with a kind of fever; the treasury was an easy mark; and while the +people held to Grant for his personal honesty, and re-elected him, an +army of rogues throve under his lax administration.</p> + +<p>The let-alone policy toward the South, to which Grant was prompted both +by his virtues and his limitations, would not on the whole have been +unacceptable to the mass of the Southern whites. Left wholly to +themselves, those States would soon have righted themselves from the +unstable equilibrium in which they had been placed by the imposition of +an ignorant electorate. Natural forces,—just or unjust, benignant or +cruel,—would soon have reversed the order. But the nation at large +would not at once abandon its protectorate over its recent wards, the +freedmen. For their greatest need, education, it assumed no +responsibility. But when stories were rife of abuse and terrorism under +the masquerade of the Ku-Klux, Congress interfered, even if by some +stretch of its constitutional power, to bring the raiders under the arm +of Federal law. When elections were reported to be controlled by fraud +and intimidation, it seemed incumbent on the national government to +protect the ballot-box by which its own members were chosen. When rival +bodies claimed each to be the legitimate government of a State, it was +necessary for the Washington authorities to decide which they would +recognize, and it was a natural sequence to back their decision by the +military force. And in all of these cases, the maintenance of law and +order easily became confused with the support of factions allied +politically with the party in power at Washington.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> As the Southern +Republicans were gradually outvoted or overpowered at home, their +appeals for help from the general government became more urgent, while +the continuance of such interference became more questionable to +thoughtful men.</p> + +<p>Before this state of things, there was a gradual division of opinion +among Republicans at the North, and especially among their leaders. +Against the call to protect the freedmen and bridle the slave-holding +spirit in its new forms, rose the call to return to the old respect for +local rights, and let each Southern State manage its own affairs, as did +each Northern State. To this changed attitude came some of the +staunchest of the old anti-slavery leaders, and many of the younger +generation. During the early years of Grant's administration, the +question did not present itself in acute forms. The Ku-Klux law of 1870, +though it might strain the Constitution a little, received general +acquiescence because the abuse it aimed at was so flagrant. But the +ostracism of the entire official class of the old South was growingly +recognized as a grievance and a wrong. It was the spirit of proscription +that brought on the political crisis of 1872. That proscriptive spirit +broke up the Republican party in Missouri; the liberal element, led by +Carl Schurz and B. Gratz Brown, held a State convention. Their movement +fell in with a strong rising tide of opposition to Grant's +administration within the Republican party. Its grounds were +various,—chiefly, a protest against wide and gross maladministration, a +demand for a reformed and scientific civil-service, opposition to the +high tariff, and the desire for a more generous and reconciling policy +toward the South. The movement was especially prompted by a group of +leading independent journals conducted by very able men,—the New York +<i>Evening Post</i>, under William Cullen Bryant; the <i>Nation</i>, edited by E. +L. Godkin; the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> Cincinnati <i>Commercial</i> of Murat Halstead; the +Louisville <i>Courier-Journal</i> of Henry Watterson; the Springfield +<i>Republican</i> of Samuel Bowles. Sympathetic in the main was Horace +Greeley's New York <i>Tribune</i>. In more or less close alliance were a few +of the congressional leaders, notably Sumner, who had quarreled bitterly +with Grant over the proposed annexation of San Domingo; Trumbull, who +was never in close touch with his old party after the impeachment trial; +and Carl Schurz, who was now in the Senate.</p> + +<p>A national convention was held at Cincinnati, in May, 1872. The +Democrats had so little hope of separate success that they stood ready +to fall in with the new departure, and this gave greater importance to +its action. For its Presidential candidate, the foremost name had been +that of the elder Charles Francis Adams. Of the most distinguished +family in the country's political annals; one of the founders of the +Free Soil party; a conservative but resolute Republican; minister to +England through the war, and most serviceable there by his firmness and +wisdom; eminent by character, experience, and mental equipment; so +indifferent to office that he almost openly scorned the proffered +honor,—he seemed to the reformers a nearly ideal candidate, however +much his reserved and distant manners might handicap him before a +popular constituency.</p> + +<p>But the spite of a disappointed aspirant, B. Gratz Brown, and the +caprice of the convention, turned its choice by a sudden impulse to +Horace Greeley. It was a choice that from the first moment not only +defeated but almost stultified the liberal movement. It mattered not +much what principles the convention set forth. Tariff reform it had +already set aside, and Greeley was a zealous protectionist. For +scientific civil-service reform he cared nothing, and to mistakes in his +personal choices he was at least as liable as Grant.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> His revolt against +Grant was due partly to a dispute about State patronage. Only in +generous sentiment toward the South did he fitly represent the original +and best element of the convention. He was dropped at once by the +<i>Evening Post</i>, the <i>Nation</i>, and a large part of the liberals. The +Democrats, despairing of any other way to success, indorsed his +nomination. But the acceptance of a candidate who for thirty years had +been showering hard words on the Democracy was almost grotesque. The +South was halfhearted in his support. A few of the faithful nominated +Charles O'Conor on an independent Democrat ticket. The question was only +of the size of the majority against Greeley.</p> + +<p>His wisest supporters avowed as the best significance of his candidacy: +"It means that the war is really over." Greeley had proved the sincerity +of his friendliness toward the South at a heavy cost. President Johnson +held Jefferson Davis in long imprisonment, with the aggravation not only +of close confinement and even a temporary manacling, but of a public +accusation of complicity in the murder of Lincoln. It was treatment +wholly unfit for a prisoner of state and a man of Davis's character. Its +effect on the South may be judged by imagining how the North would have +felt had Lincoln fallen into Southern hands and been kept in shackles +and under the charge of assassination. The imprisonment of Davis and the +avowed purpose to try him as a traitor were utterly out of keeping with +the general recognition that secession and its sequel were to be dealt +with as a political wrong and not a personal crime.</p> + +<p>Greeley, who on the very morning after Lee's surrender had called for a +universal amnesty, showed his faith by his works when at the opportunity +in May, 1867, he offered himself, in company with Gerrit Smith, as +bondsmen for Davis, thus obtaining his release, and incurring for +himself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> a storm of obloquy. The storm was short-lived, but revived in +greater fury when Greeley became a Presidential candidate against Grant, +with the support of the Democracy and the South. The campaign was full +of bitterness and abuse. In <i>Harper's Weekly</i>, of which the editorial +page was conducted by the high-spirited and gentle George William +Curtis, Nast assailed the liberals in savage cartoons; in one Sumner was +depicted as scattering flowers on the grave of Preston Brooks, and +another showed Greeley shaking hands with the shade of Wilkes Booth over +the grave of Lincoln. From the other side Grant was attacked with equal +ferocity.</p> + +<p>Greeley went down in overwhelming defeat, and died of exhaustion and a +broken heart before the electoral votes were counted. But something had +been gained. There had been a breaking of old lines. And one of the +South's main grievances had been almost removed. Within a month after +the Cincinnati convention, its call for amnesty was vindicated by a bill +passed in Congress removing the disabilities of almost all the excluded +class. Out of some 160,000, only about 700 were left on the proscribed +list.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2> + +<h3>THREE TROUBLED STATES</h3> + + +<p>In Grant's second term, the divergence between the Republicans on +Southern questions, though never taking permanent form, often found +marked and effective expression. In the Senate, the controlling group, +who were also the special friends and allies of Grant, were radicals, +and generally of a more materialistic class than the earlier leaders. +Fessenden had died in 1869; Sumner was alienated, and died in 1874; +Wilson had passed into the insignificance of the Vice-Presidency; +Trumbull was in opposition. At the front were Chandler, of Michigan; +Oliver P. Morton, War Governor of Illinois, powerful and partisan; +Roscoe Conkling, of New York, showy and arrogant. In the House the +foremost man was James G. Blaine, Speaker until with the Democratic +majority he became leader of the opposition; brilliant in speech, +fascinating and "magnetic" in personal intercourse, always prominent and +popular, but almost never closely identified with any great principle or +constructive measure. Very prominent on the floor was General Butler, a +foremost radical toward the South; always a storm-center; an advocate of +inflation, an ally of most bad causes, an effective mischief-maker; +followed, feared, and hated with equal ardor. The membership of the +House was notable for able men,—the Hoar brothers, Henry L. Pierce, +Eugene Hale, Dawes, Hawley, Poland, Garfield, Kasson, and others of +almost equal mark. The death of Thaddeus Stevens, in 1868, had left the +House without a master. The Greeley<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> campaign, disastrous though it was, +had started a contagious spirit of independence. During Grant's second +administration, 1873-7, there was shown in the House, on important +questions, a degree of independence rare in American politics. It was +the growing Republican opposition to Federal interference in the South +that hastened its end, and prepared the way for the consummation of that +result under President Hayes.</p> + +<p>We now return to the individual cases of three Southern States. To South +Carolina fell the bitterest experience of misgovernment. Its black +majority was organized and led by a group of white men of the worst +character, who were resisted for a time without success by a better +element in the party. Under four years' administration of Governor R. K. +Scott, a Northerner, and two of F. J. Moses, Jr., a South +Carolinian—who later disappeared from public view in a +penitentiary,—money was lavished in profligate expenditure; hundreds of +thousands spent for legislative furniture and luxuries; franchises were +corruptly sold; bogus enterprises enriched; debt piled up by millions, +and thrown off by millions. (Repudiation, be it said, always came easily +to the South,—before the war and after; during reconstruction and +after; whether the borrowed money had been spent for railroads or +squandered by thieves; and the ghost of an unpaid $300,000,000 still +scares Southern Senators when a general arbitration treaty is +discussed.) South Carolina went from bad to worse for six years.</p> + +<p>When, in 1872, the honest Republicans bolted, under an unimpeachable +candidate, Reuben Tomlinson, a Philadelphia Quaker, and gave him 35,000 +votes, the Democrats stood scornfully aloof—"better a native thief than +an honest Yankee!" But in 1874 came a revolution in the Republican +ranks. Honesty triumphed, under the lead of the elected governor, Daniel +H. Chamberlain, of Massachusetts birth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> and education,—a remarkable +man; shrewd, long-headed, a past master in political management; with +high aims; by no means indifferent to personal success, but generally +succeeding in combining personal and public service. With a Legislature +in which two-thirds were Republicans, and whites and blacks were about +equal in number, he achieved a surprising reversal of the evil +tendencies that had prevailed. In the Legislature the best of the +Democrats backed him, together with the best of the Republicans, and +overmatched the corruptionists. Stealing was stopped; the abuses of the +pardoning power were ended; the tax laws were amended so as to secure +uniformity and equality of assessment; expenditure was reduced and +regulated. These were the statements of the Charleston <i>News and +Courier</i>, the leading paper of the State, in July, 1876, when another +election was coming on. Most of the Democratic papers had praised and +supported Governor Chamberlain. It was now very seriously contemplated, +and advocated by the <i>News and Courier</i>, to let him be re-elected +without opposition. But the old-time pride of race and party was too +strong, and the Democrats nominated Wade Hampton. They supported him +with little scruple as to means,—with free use of intimidation and +proscription, with frequent threats and often the reality of violence. +There was a shocking massacre at Hamburg. Governor Chamberlain called on +the President for aid, and a thousand troops were sent into the State. +When the election came, there was claimed a majority for Chamberlain and +for the Republican Presidential ticket. The claim was instantly and +fiercely challenged by Hampton's supporters. And here the story pauses, +until it joins the main current of national affairs.</p> + +<p>Mississippi was under Republican control until 1875. If one attempts to +judge of the character of that control, he plunges into a sea of +contradictions almost enough to sub<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span>merge the hope of truth. Whether we +turn to standard historians, to the 1000 pages of sworn testimony before +a Congressional committee, or to individual witnesses, the perplexity is +the same. Thus, we consult Woodrow Wilson's <i>History of the American +People</i>,—and this book invites a word of comment. Its author has woven +together the immense material of the national history for three +centuries, in the main with admirable judgment and skill. He has +produced a comprehensive, well-proportioned, graphic narrative, which +closely holds the reader's attention, and gives in general the spirit as +well as the substance of the people's story. But upon the main theme of +the crowning century, he misses some of the vital elements. Of the wrong +and mischief of slavery he has hardly a word, waving the subject aside +as if beyond his province. He gives with admirable sympathy and +intelligence the attitude of the well-meaning Southerner before and +after the war; and this feature has special value for those familiar +only with the Northern standpoint. But he has not the least appreciation +of the anti-slavery spirit in its heroic phase. On the wrongs of the +slave he is silent, while upon the sins of the carpet-bagger he is +eloquent. This one-sidedness robs of its significance what should be the +American epic of the nineteenth century.</p> + +<p>Of the misgovernment of Mississippi, Dr. Wilson instances that "before +the work of the carpet-baggers was done, 640,000 acres of land had been +forfeited for taxes, twenty per cent. of the total acreage of the +State." The nearest atlas or gazetteer is enough to check this +statement. The total acreage of the State is 29,640,000,—of which +640,000 is not twenty per cent., but a trifle over two per cent. Dr. +Wilson goes on to say that the State tax levy in 1874 was fourteen times +as great as in 1869. This is apparently taken from the "Taxpayers' +petition" of 1875, but from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> whatever source, it gives an utterly +exaggerated impression. Before the Congressional committee Judge H. R. +Ware, chairman of the State Republican committee,—a Kentuckian by +birth, and a life-long resident of Mississippi,—gave his testimony; and +it included documents showing that the total State expense during the +last two years of Democratic rule, 1864 and '65, was $1,410,250 and +$1,860,809; for twenty years of Democratic administration, throwing out +the extra expenses of the war period, the average cost was $699,200; +under military government (always the cheapest) in 1869 it was $563,219; +while under the Republicans in 1875 it was $618,259; and the average for +six Republican years had been $992,920. When the Republicans came in, +they had to make payments in warrants worth only sixty-five cents on the +dollar, with proportionate increase of expense; they had to provide for +a free population doubled by the emancipation of the slaves, and for the +last four years they had made an annual reduction.</p> + +<p>Yet the "Taxpayers' petition"—addressed to the Legislature early in +1875, and without effect,—must be taken as evidence of at least a +considerable extravagance and waste. A reading of it gives the +impression of a needless multiplication of offices and excessive +salaries. The public printing seems clearly a scandal, running above +$73,000 a year, as against a cost in the sister State of Georgia of only +$10,000. The general charge seems to be of laxness and needlessly high +salaries rather than any wholesale corruption. Some question as to the +justice of the general charge occurs when a point is encountered as to +the payment of teachers in the public schools. The petitioners claim +that this should be reduced to $25 a month for second-class schools, and +$50 a month for first-class schools. In fact, when the Democrats came +into power, they reduced the rate to $40 a month,—which, for a school +year of four months only, seems like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> penny-wise economy. The petition +makes perhaps the strongest impression in its statement that the boards +of supervisors, controlling local taxation, are, as a general rule, +"wholly unfit to discharge their duties, and without respectability or +even accountability"; that the public works under their care are +recklessly and carelessly managed, and the county taxes are grievous. It +would seem that in these local bodies, especially in the "black +counties," lay the worst of the taxpayers' grievance.</p> + +<p>Judge Story makes a vigorous retort, testifying after a year of +Democratic administration, 1875-6, as to the question of comparative +expense. He shows that the State tax had indeed been reduced from 9-1/4 +mills to 6-1/2 mills, but this only by cutting off outright the school +tax of two mills. Not to follow further the labyrinth of figures, it is +interesting to note, as to the favorite term "carpet-bagger," that of +the six Republican candidates for Congress in Mississippi, in 1876, only +one was of Northern birth, and he had married and lived in the South +since the war; one had been an old Southern Democrat and a circuit +judge; two had been Confederate officers; and one, John R. Lynch, was a +colored man of high intelligence and excellent character. He, as Speaker +of the House, and B. K. Bruce, United States Senator, were among the +colored men who showed capacity and character worthy of the high +positions they attained. Among the Republican leaders of Northern birth +were some who were honored and trusted in their old homes; such men as +General Eggleston, president of the Constitutional convention; Colonel +Warner, afterward State Treasurer of Connecticut, and Henry W. Warren, +of Massachusetts. The first Republican governor, J. M. Alcorn, was a +Southern man, very able, but apparently not of the highest moral +standards. His successor, Adelbert Ames, was from Massachusetts, +conceded now to have been "honest and brave,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> but narrow and +puritanical," and with the mysterious trait of "hating the Aryan race of +the South."</p> + +<p>These last words are quoted from the story of an old friend of the +reader's,—Thomas Dabney, the "Southern planter," whose noble character +was sketched in chapter XII. He had fought a brave fight with poverty +and hardship since the war, and as we come again into his company for a +moment, it is with a sense of confidence which even official documents +do not inspire. He had no doubt of the oppressiveness of Republican +rule, and the need of shaking it off by vigorous measures. It is related +that the taxes on his plantation for 1873 were over $900, while the +income was less than $800. Yet one letter tells that he is in "a +laughing humor" because he has just paid his taxes for 1875—only +$375,—a reduction of more than half—and this was still under +Republican rule.</p> + +<p>One other witness may be heard, the writer's life-long friend, Henry W. +Warren, now of Holden, Mass. To those who know him his name is a synonym +for integrity, efficiency and modesty; he is one of the men who never +seek a public honor and never decline a public service. From his own +words some statements are here condensed. "After graduating at Yale in +1865, I was called to a position as public school teacher at Nashville, +Tenn.; and from there, seeing a promising opportunity, I went with two +friends to work a cotton plantation in one of the 'white' counties of +Mississippi. We bought it from its old owner, who had kept his slaves in +his employ as paid laborers, and they continued to work for us. As +slaves they had not been badly treated, except by the overseer during +the master's absence. Many of the whites of the county, owning no +slaves, had been indifferent to the Confederate cause, and many of them +had served in its army only when hunted by the conscription officer, +sometimes with bloodhounds. More than a few of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> them were Republicans. I +was asked to serve as registrar of voters for the Constitutional +convention, being one of the few who could take the 'iron-clad oath' +(that is, that he had never aided the Confederacy) and this led to my +going to the convention, and afterward to the Legislature. The Speaker +dying, I was chosen to his place for the rest of the term. Our county +going Democratic, I was not re-elected; but I was chosen chief clerk of +the House, and served for four years, after my two years as a member. +All the Democrats united in signing a paper, asking me to be always +present in the House,—this was after I had induced the Speaker to +change a mistaken ruling. So I was in a position to know pretty well +what was going on. From the first there were plenty of Confederate +generals and colonels in the Legislature." (The excluding clauses were +struck out of the Mississippi constitution at the start.) "The manner of +the blacks to the whites was habitually civil, and something of the +slave's deference to the white man remained. I think the legislation was +generally of reasonably good character. I knew positively of but little +corruption. That there was some corruption and more extravagance, I have +no doubt. But I have served since in the Massachusetts Legislature, and +I think the Southern State was but little worse than the Northern. The +negro members, though with some able and honest leaders of their own, +like Bruce and Lynch, followed largely the prominent white men. Of the +Northerners whom I knew, almost all were men of substance and had come +to stay. Six out of ten owned plantations. A 'carpet-bagger' I hardly +ever met, though no doubt there were some,—but the name was given to +all Northerners. As to expense, you must remember that the State had to +be completely rehabilitated. The war had ruined everything; public +buildings were destroyed or dilapidated; and under military rule things +had simply been kept going. Everything had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> to be reconstructed. The +slaves had become citizens, and that doubled the number to be provided +for. There had been practically no public schools, and they were set up +throughout the State. Taxes had fallen largely on slave property, now +they came on land. So it was inevitable that there should be an increase +of taxation. About county taxes I have no special knowledge, though in +our locality they certainly were not burdensome. In some of the black +counties it may have been worse. The Republicans, both blacks and +whites, were drilled in the 'Loyal League of America,'—it was a purely +political organization, often meeting in the woods at night. In those +years there was immense progress on the part of the negroes,—political +discussion was educational. I think if the Federal government had +provided better school education, and had protected the voters at the +polls, all might have gone well. That there was more or less of +extravagance on the part of the Legislature is not to be denied. So +there is in Massachusetts. That there was anything to justify the means +resorted to in 1875 and 1876 to get complete control of the State +government, might safely be questioned."</p> + +<p>What those means were, there is no serious question. The Democrats +organized a campaign of clubs, processions, enthusiasm, +and—intimidation. The better part would have disclaimed the last +feature, but they did not prevent it. Thomas Dabney was among the +leaders. He relates that the best men were brought out for the +nominations, often against their own desire. He, in his old age, was +made president of the local club, and kept busy with marchings, +meetings, and barbecues. He quotes sympathetically the response of a +friend to his remark that the uprising was wonderful: "Uprising? It is +no uprising. It is an insurrection." He relates that at Clinton the +Republicans got up a riot, that they might have a pretext for asking +President<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> Grant for troops. "They succeeded in getting up their riot, +which was put down by our own people after so sanguinary a fashion as to +strike them with a terror not easily described." There can be no doubt +as to the "sanguinary fashion" and the "terror." Testimony abounds of +the invasion of Republican meetings, enforced demands on the Republican +speakers to "divide the time," with threats and occasional violence. +Sometimes the meetings were prevented, sometimes they were broken up. +There was a great deal of terrorizing and now and then a murder. In some +cases the officers at the polls interposed so many hindrances that many +of the negroes were unable to vote. There was but a handful of Federal +troops in the State, and the President declined to send more at Governor +Ames's request. The reign of terror was effective. Once again we quote +Mr. Warren: "In our part of the country there were constant parades of +the 'red-shirted cavalry,' and the negroes were thoroughly frightened. +Two rough fellows once assailed me with threats and abuse, but drew off +when I stood my ground. When the election came on, to get our ballots +printed I had to go to New Orleans; spies dogged me in going and coming; +and as with a friend I rode toward home, we were beset and besieged in a +planter's house, that they might get possession of the ballots. Finally +we rode away on an unguarded road, pistol in hand, and escaped. But they +afterward captured and destroyed a part of the ballots, and by such +means they carried the local election. By such means and more violent +measures they carried the State."</p> + +<p>The Democratic Legislature now proceeded to impeach Governor Ames, on +frivolous charges, but agreed to drop the proceedings if he would +resign, which he did, and left the State, knowing that his trial would +be a farce. In 1876 the campaign was of the same character as in 1875, +and so Mississippi was "redeemed."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p> + +<p>The case of Louisiana was widely different. In that State the corruption +of the Republican managers was flagrant; it extended to the manipulation +of election returns; and the Federal Government interfered freely, and +with notable results. A knot of knavish adventurers were in +control,—Henry C. Warmoth, William P. Kellogg, F. F. Casey, and United +States Marshal S. B. Packard. Casey was the President's brother-in-law, +and General Grant was almost as incapable of believing a relative of his +to be a bad man as he was incapable of knowingly supporting a bad man. +Casey was made collector of New Orleans, and was allowed to hold the +Republican convention in the custom-house, with United States soldiers +guarding the doors and regulating the admissions. As he and his crew +were wrecking the finances of the State, there was in 1872 a general +combination against them of the better elements,—they preferred the +name "Conservatives" to "Democrats,"—and they claimed to have elected +their candidate, John McEnery, as governor. Warmouth, who had been +governor for a four years' term, had quarreled with his confederates +over the division of plunder, and gone over to the Conservatives. He +controlled the State returning-board, to which the laws intrusted a very +elastic and dangerous power of throwing out returns from districts where +intimidation was proved, and undertook to declare McEnery elected. But +there was a split in the board; then two rival boards, one awarding the +governorship to Kellogg and the other to McEnery.</p> + +<p>The imbroglio was suddenly ended by the intervention of a United States +judge, E. H. Durell, who issued a writ at midnight, directing the United +States marshal, S. B. Packard, to occupy and hold the capitol, and +ordering a detachment of United States troops to support the Kellogg +government. This fixed the character of the State for the next four +years, by perhaps the most lawless act done under the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> name of law in +this whole troubled period. It was perhaps only the overshadowing +interest of the Presidential campaign that prevented its reversal by +Congress,—that, and the lingering disposition of the North to pin faith +on whatever wore the label "Republican."</p> + +<p>McEnery kept up a shadowy claim to the governorship, with the +countenance of the "respectable" element. But Kellogg and his pals had +the actual administration, and used it to such effect that in two years +the State bonds had fallen from seventy or eighty to twenty-five, and +New Orleans city bonds from eighty or ninety to thirty or forty. In 1874 +the Conservatives made a determined effort to carry the Legislature. +There was an organization called "The White League,"—a legitimate +political society, said one side;—a revival of the Ku-Klux spirit and +methods in a more guarded form, said the other side. Beyond question, +there was in Louisiana, at all stages of reconstruction, some degree of +terrorism, and occasional acts of cruelty and outrage. There was knavery +among the Radicals, and there was violence among the Conservatives. At +the 1874 election the Conservatives were successful at the polls; but +the State returning-board at once began to juggle with the returns so +palpably that the Conservative member protested and resigned. The +remainder of the board, after a month of diligent work, threw out a +number of districts, on the pretext of intimidation, and as to five +seats referred the question to the House itself. That body met, +organized in a hasty and irregular fashion, and awarded the five seats +to the Democratic claimants. But Governor Kellogg had the United States +troops at his disposal, and by his command General De Trobriand with a +file of soldiers entered the House and ejected the five +Democrats,—whereupon the Republicans organized the House anew.</p> + +<p>But now the whole country took alarm. The President<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> sent General +Sheridan in haste to New Orleans, and his first dispatch sustained +Kellogg, and threw the blame on the White League, to which Secretary of +War Belknap telegraphed his full approval. But the affair transcended +ordinary politics in its importance. New York spoke through Cooper +Institute, and Boston by Faneuil Hall. Such citizens as Bryant, Evarts, +and George T. Curtis led the protest. Congress rose above partisanship. +A committee of the House, including such Republicans as George F. Hoar, +William A. Wheeler, Charles Foster, William W. Phelps and William P. +Frye, with Clarkson N. Potter and Samuel S. Marshall for the Democrats, +visited New Orleans, and after full inquiry agreed that the +returning-board had "wrongfully applied an erroneous rule of law"; that +the five Democrats had been defrauded of their seats; and that the +Louisiana House should be advised—the national House having no +compulsory power—to "repair this great injustice." The two Democrats +went further, and declared that Governor Kellogg himself held by no +rightful tenure. But the Republicans backed a compromise offered by +Wheeler, which the Louisianians accepted,—the Democrats took the +Legislature, while the Republicans kept the governorship. The returning +board survived, to put in its deadly work two years later.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV</h2> + +<h3>RECONSTRUCTION: THE LAST ACT</h3> + + +<p>We turn back to the course of national politics. The Republican triumph +of 1872 was followed by an overwhelming reverse at the Congressional +election of 1874. There was a growing impression of maladministration at +Washington. The Credit Mobilier scandal—the easy acceptance by +Congressmen of financial favors from the managers of the Union Pacific +Railway, followed by disingenuous denials—had especially discredited +the party in power. There had been a great financial reverse in 1873, +such as is always charged in the popular mind against the ruling powers. +The South had increased its Democratic vote. So from various causes, in +the new House the Republicans passed from a majority of one hundred to a +minority of forty; with New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and even +Massachusetts, in the Democratic column.</p> + +<p>But the clique of bitter partisans and radicals, with whom President +Grant had become closely associated, if they took warning from the +election, drew the inference that they must make good use of the brief +time left them in the final term of the old Congress. While the +Louisiana imbroglio was still seething, the President sent a message, in +February, 1875, recommending that the State government of Arkansas be +declared illegal. It had held an unquestioned tenure for two years, and +the proposal to oust it was simply in the interest of its two Senators, +Powell Clayton and Stephen W. Dorsey, who belonged to the Grant faction. +At the same time there was brought forward a comprehensive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> measure, +popularly known as the "Force bill," bringing every form of violence or +intimidation of the blacks within the jurisdiction of the United States +courts; putting elections under supervision and control of the Federal +officials, and giving the President large power for the supervision of +the <i>habeas corpus</i>. Another long debated measure aimed at the fuller +enforcement of civil rights—a bill good in itself, said the moderate +Republicans; better if a part of a general pacification; but with its +present accompaniment it is "civil rights prodded in with bayonets." In +the Republican press of the country, and in the party in Congress as +well as the opposition, the battle over these measures was hot. The +administration organ in Washington gave big type and prominent display +to the paragraph: "The passage of the bill"—the Force bill—"is +required to preserve to the Republican party the electoral vote of the +Southern States." The President's personal influence was used to its +limits. Butler's unscrupulous tactics were all employed. But the weight, +if not the numbers, of the House Republicans, rose in opposition. Forty +of them, including Garfield, Dawes, the Hoars, Hawley, Hale, Pierce, +Poland, and Kasson, joined with the Democrats under the able leadership +of Samuel J. Randall. In the House, brains and conscience were beaten by +patronage; the bill went through. But it went no further,—in spite of +Morton and Conkling the Senate served again the useful function of +obstruction. The Arkansas bill was beaten in the House. Only the Civil +Rights bill became a law. Independence among Republicans had saved the +party from its most dangerous leadership.</p> + +<p>It was perhaps this result, following the reverse of 1874, that +disinclined Grant to further interference in the South, and held his +hand when Governor Ames asked aid in Mississippi. The Louisiana business +had so shown the risks of Federal intervention in local affairs, that +even the best<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> friends of the freedmen began to recognize that the +States were most safely left to themselves. But the sectional fires were +not left to die unfanned. When the new Congress met, 1875-6, the +Democrats showed themselves conservative enough. They chose two +excellent Northern men as speakers: Michael C. Kerr, of Indiana, and +upon his death Randall, of Pennsylvania; and they showed themselves +chiefly concerned to probe administrative abuses, which, in truth, +needed heroic surgery. But for these prosaic matters Blaine, now leader +of the opposition, substituted a far more lively tune, when a bill for +universal amnesty at the South was brought before the House. There was +no serious Republican opposition, but Blaine saw his opportunity,—he +moved that sole exception be made of Jefferson Davis, and on that text +he roused Northern passion by the story of Andersonville, goaded to +exasperation the "Confederate brigadiers" among his listeners, and made +himself most conspicuous for the time among the Republican leaders. He +eclipsed the foremost of the Grant clique, Morton and Conkling, who +after a little fruitless third-term talk were both hoping to be legatees +of the Grant influence in the approaching Presidential convention. But +at the eleventh hour a cloud swept over Blaine's prospects, in charges +of discreditable receipt of favors from railroads looking for political +aid. The testimony was conflicting, but Blaine's palpable seizure of his +own letters from a hostile witness was hardly outweighed even by his +spectacular vindication of his acts before the House. A sudden illness +stopped the investigation; and later his transference to the Senate +postponed its renewal until it frustrated his ambition in 1884. The +convention in 1876 met at Cincinnati, with Blaine the favorite, and +Morton and Conkling dividing the Grant strength. The reform element, led +by George William Curtis, supported Benjamin F. Bristow, of Kentucky, +who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> had made an honorable record as Secretary of the Treasury, by +attacking powerful rings, which through their connection with the +President's friends succeeded in driving Bristow out of office. The +choice of the convention fell on Rutherford B. Hayes, Union general, +governor of Ohio, leader of a State campaign in 1875 which had been a +decisive victory for sound money, and a man highly acceptable to the +reformers. Against him the Democrats nominated Samuel J. Tilden, of New +York, a statesman in his aims and the craftiest of politicians in his +means; tolerant of Tammany Hall while it was a necessary factor in the +party, but leader in the fierce and skilful assault which drove the +Tweed ring from power. As Governor he had attacked and routed a +formidable gang of plunderers connected with the canal management. On +the issues which to thoughtful men were becoming +paramount,—administrative reform and sound finance,—he offered as good +promise as did Governor Hayes.</p> + +<p>The two men, and the elements supporting them, stood for the new +politics instead of the old,—the replacement of the war issues and +their sequels by the matters of clean administration, sound currency, +and interests common alike to the whole nation. But the Republican +leaders found their best campaign material in what the slang of the time +called "waving the bloody shirt,"—reviving the cry of abuse of the +freedmen, suppression of the negro vote, and the need of national +protection for the nation's wards. It was out of keeping with Hayes's +record, and with his later performances,—but he let the campaign take +its way, and the sectional temper that was roused provided the +atmosphere in which the next act of the drama was played.</p> + +<p>Election day came: the returns indicated the election of Tilden; +Democrats went to bed jubilant and Republicans regretful. Then, just +before the night-editor of the New York <i>Times</i> put his paper to press +at 3 <span class="smcap">A.M.</span>, he noticed that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> the returns from South Carolina, Louisiana, +and Florida were hardly more than conjectural, and, on the chance of +making his tables more complete, he sent a neighborly inquiry to the +Republican headquarters as to whether they had definite returns from +those States. The inquiry came to the ears of a little knot of the party +managers, among them Zachariah Chandler, chairman of the national +committee. He caught at it,—"the Democrats are not sure of those +States,—we have a chance." Instantly—so the story goes—he sent +dispatches to the party managers in the three States, "Claim +everything." So they did—and so did he. Next morning, following the +first announcement of Tilden's election, came the assertion that the +Republicans had carried South Carolina, Louisiana and Florida—which +would give Hayes a majority of one vote in the electoral college. All +hung on the vote in those three States,—no, on the counting of the +votes! The returning-board of Louisiana, which had before been so +useful, was in full working order; Florida was similarly equiped; South +Carolina was in much the same case. The boards had authority to throw +out the entire vote of districts where there was proof that intimidation +had tainted the election. The business of merely counting the votes +might be supplemented by the operation of throwing out enough districts +to leave the prize with the party that did the counting. It soon +appeared that the returning boards could be trusted by their friends. +With all reasonable speed, they threw out enough votes to give all the +doubtful States to Hayes. In each of these States an indignant and +protesting opposition sent in a counter set of returns giving the +electoral vote to Tilden. And any one of the three States would be +enough to insure Tilden's election.</p> + +<p>The controversy extended to the state governments—in South Carolina, +both Wade Hampton and Chamberlain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> claimed the Governorship, and each +had a Legislature organized to support him. The case was the same in +Louisiana, with Nichols and Packard. President Grant refused recognition +or active support to either party; but United States troops kept the +peace, and their presence prevented the Democratic claimants from +summarily ousting their opponents.</p> + +<p>The whole country was in a storm of excitement. The returning-boards had +done their counting,—but who was to judge the judges? Who was to decide +which of the returns of Presidential electors were the valid ones? They +were to be passed on by the two Houses of Congress in joint session. But +the Senate was Republican, the Representatives were Democratic,—what if +they disagreed as to the returns? The President of the Senate is to +decide, claimed the Republicans,—on very slender grounds, it must be +said. The House of Representatives, said the Democrats,—with more +plausible yet doubtful argument. The deadlock was alarming. Then the +emergency was met with a self-control, a resourcefulness and efficiency, +worthy of the best that is claimed for the American character. By +general agreement of the moderate men of both parties, a special +tribunal was constituted for the occasion. It consisted of five +Senators, five Representatives, and five Justices of the Supreme Court. +The Congressmen were evenly divided between the two parties. The +justices were two and two, with the fifth place assigned to David Davis, +an independent. It was an ideal division. But at the critical moment, +Davis was chosen by the Illinois Legislature to the Senate, so that he +could not act. As a substitute, Justice Joseph Bradley, was put on the +commission. He was a Republican, but in the generous temper which had +risen to meet the emergency, there was a general feeling that party +lines would be forgotten by the tribunal. The commission consisted of +Justices Bradley,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> Miller, Strong, Field and Clifford; Senators Edmunds, +Morton, Frelinghuysen, Bayard and Sherman; Representatives G. F. Hoar, +Garfield, Payne, Hunton and Abbott.</p> + +<p>The two Houses proceeded to count the electoral votes in the usual form, +and whenever the return was contested the case was referred to the +commission and debated before it. Each side had its ablest lawyers to +plead; for the one party, Evarts, Kasson, McCrary, Stoughton and +Matthews; for the other, O'Conor, Black, Field and Tucker. The +commission then made its decision; and the result was reported to the +two Houses for their acceptance. In the pleading, the Republicans took +their stand on legality and the Democrats on equity. The Democrats +claimed as the question at issue, For whom did the majority of the +people of the State give their votes? The Republicans made it, Whom does +the official authority of the State certify as elected? When the +commission came to vote, on the preliminary questions, it was apparent +that the party line was just as rigid among its members as between the +advocates who pled. And it was clear that the Republicans stood upon the +narrowest possible construction of the case before them. For example, in +the case of Louisiana, it was moved, first, that evidence be admitted +that the returning body was an unconstitutional body and its acts void. +No, said the Republican eight. Moved, next, that evidence be admitted +that the board was illegal because its acting members were all of one +party,—No. Moved, that evidence be admitted that the board threw out +votes dishonestly and fraudulently,—No. In each case, the Republican +eight refused to look a hair's breadth beyond the governor's seal to the +returning board's certificate. In the same way they dealt with Florida +and South Carolina.</p> + +<p>Tilden's friends had contrived an ingenious scheme to put the commission +in a dilemma. They had managed that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> there should be two returns from +Oregon,—a Republican State where one of the three electors chosen was +claimed to be disqualified,—the return bearing the Governor's seal +naming one Democrat along with two Republican electors. They argued, +Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; if the Governor's seal is +taken as settling everything, we gain the one electoral vote we need; +if, confronted by the Oregon case, the commission decide that they may +go back of the governor's seal,—that opens the three Southern States to +our rightful challenge. But the commission, or its Republican members, +were not to be so easily posed; in the case of Oregon, they accepted the +seal of the Secretary of State, certifying the three Republicans. As the +Springfield <i>Republican</i> bluntly put it, "The electoral commission +decided that there was no way of recovering the stolen goods in the +Louisiana case; it has found a way of restoring the Oregon vote to its +rightful owner."</p> + +<p>That the goods were stolen, at least in Louisiana, there can scarcely at +this day be any doubt. Whether the commission did its duty in declining +to investigate and right the wrong may be debated, but the judgment of +history will probably say that neither equity nor statesmanship, but +partisanship guided the decision. Undoubtedly in Louisiana, and probably +in Florida, the returning board deliberately threw out some thousands of +votes for no other reason than to change the State's vote, and the +Presidency. The commission refused to correct or even investigate the +wrong, on the plea of scrupulous respect for State rights. A great +victory for the principle of local rights, argues Senator Hoar in his +autobiography. Possibly. But it is also open to say, that the general +government having tolerated and supported an iniquitous local oligarchy, +a special and supreme tribunal of the nation allowed that oligarchy to +decide the Presidency by a fraud.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span></p> + +<p>The popular judgment of the matter at the North was largely affected by +the belief that the frauds of the Republicans were offset by +intimidation on the part of the Democrats. In various parts of the +South, notably in Mississippi and South Carolina, and probably in +Louisiana, there was a wide terrorizing of the negro Republicans. "One +side was about as bad as the other," was a common feeling. A year or two +later, the New York <i>Tribune</i> unearthed and translated a number of +cipher telegrams, which disclosed that while the dispute over the result +was going on, agents high in the confidence of the Democratic leaders +made efforts to buy up a returning board or a presidential elector. So +both parties were badly smirched, and the election and its sequel +furnished one of the most desperate and disreputable passages in +American politics.</p> + +<p>Yet the better sentiment of the country, triumphant in the creation of +the commission, but baffled by its partisan action, shone clear again +when the decision was deliberately and calmly accepted by the beaten +party. Congress had reserved to itself the power to reverse by a +concurrent vote of both Houses the commission's decision upon any State. +But each decision was accepted by a party vote, except that in the case +of Louisiana two Massachusetts Republicans, Julius H. Seelye and Henry +L. Pierce, spoke and voted against their party. But when the final count +gave a majority to Hayes, the formal declaration of the result was +supported by all save about eighty irreconcilables, chiefly Northern +Democrats, who were overborne in a stormy night session. It had become +simply a question between order and anarchy, and the party of order, by +a strange chance, was led for the occasion by Fernando Wood, the +"copperhead" of earlier days. For the body of the Southern Democrats, +Henry Watterson spoke manly words, accepting the inevitable with +resolution and dignity. But among the influences that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> weighed with the +Southern Congressmen was the assurance from Hayes's friends that as +President he would make an end of military interference in the South. In +the giving of the assurance there was nothing unworthy, for the +withdrawal of the troops was dictated by the whole logic of recent +events, and was in keeping with Hayes's convictions.</p> + +<p>So, quickly following the inauguration of President Hayes came the +withdrawal of the blue-coats from South Carolina and Louisiana and the +Republican State governments tumbled like card houses. Nicholls took the +governorship in New Orleans and Hampton in Columbia. But it was not by +this act alone that the new President inaugurated a new régime. He +called to his Cabinet as postmaster-general, David M. Key, of Tennessee, +who had fought for the Confederacy. Schurz, liberal and reformer of the +first rank, was given the department of the interior. Evarts in the +State department; Devens, of Massachusetts, as attorney-general; Sherman +in the treasury, to complete the work of resumption; McCrary, of Iowa, +and Thompson, of Indiana, for the war and navy; and Blaine, Morton, +Conkling, Chandler,—nowhere. The administration went steadily on its +way, little loved by the old party chiefs; under some shadow from the +character of its title; but doing good work, achieving resumption of +specie payments; ending the administrative scandals which had grown +worse to the end of Grant's term; reforming the civil service. It was a +peaceful and beneficent revolution, and in its quiet years the Southern +turmoils subsided, and for better or for worse South Carolina and +Mississippi worked out their own way as New York and Ohio worked out +theirs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2> + +<h3>REGENERATION</h3> + + +<p>"Evil is good in the making," says the optimist philosopher. Even the +more sober view of life reveals</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That men may rise on stepping-stones</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of their dead selves to higher things.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Out of the calamities and horrors of war came to the nation a larger +life. Communities had been lifted out of pettiness, churches had half +forgotten their sectarianism, to millions of souls a sublimer meaning in +life had been disclosed. Lowell said it in two lines:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Earth's biggest country's got her soul,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And risen up earth's greatest nation.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The South had suffered far more than the North, and the South reaped the +larger profit. The fallacy of the old Southern civilization had been the +idea that labor is a curse and is to be shirked on to somebody else. +Overthrow and impoverishment brought labor as a necessity to every one, +and slowly it was revealed as a blessing.</p> + +<p>When General Lee, stately in figure and bearing and splendid in dress, +met in surrender the sturdy Grant, in worn and homely service uniform, +it was emblematic of the yielding of the aristocratic order to the +industrial democracy. There was significance in the victor's kindly +words,—"Let your soldiers keep their horses; they will need them when +they get home for the spring plowing." That was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> it,—they turned from +chargers to plow-horses, and much to their safety and gain. Their +masters, too, from fighters became toilers, and if it seemed a fall it +proved a rise.</p> + +<p>Before long on the street cars of Charleston and New Orleans were seen +young men of good family as drivers and conductors. Anything for an +honest living! Our fine old friend, Thomas Dabney, had been ruined along +with everybody else. He and his family undauntedly set themselves to do +their own household work. General Sherman was reported to have said, "It +would be a good thing if this sent every Southern woman to the +wash-tub." "Did Sherman say that?" said Dabney; "he shall not send my +daughters to the wash-tub!" and the old hero turned laundry-man for the +family as long as the need lasted. But the educated class soon found +fitter work than as laundry-men or car conductors. The more exacting +places called for occupants. There was a great enlistment in the ranks +of teachers. Lee took the presidency of Washington university and gave +to its duties the same whole-hearted service, the same punctilious care, +that he had given to the command of the army of Northern Virginia. In +peace as in war he was an exemplar to his countrymen,—and his +countrymen now were spread from Maine to California.</p> + +<p>But what was to be the fate of the emancipated negro? Jefferson had +believed that he must be sent back to Africa. "Colonization" had been +the watchword of Southern emancipators, so long as there were any. Even +Lincoln apparently looked to that. But wholesale colonization was +clearly impossible. The freedmen neither could nor would be transported +in a body to Africa. And had it been possible it would have stripped the +land of laborers and left it a waste.</p> + +<p>The South's assumption was that the negro was intrinsically an inferior +and must be kept subordinate to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> white man. The North, in its +management of political reconstruction, had practically assumed that the +negro was the equal of the white man and was so to be treated. There was +a third view of the matter,—that the negro was at an inferior stage of +manhood, and the necessary task was to develop him. He is a man, but an +imperfect man,—make him a whole man. To that end some of the finest +forces of the nation were now directed. But the invigorating and +commanding spirit, who conceived the saving idea, put it into practice, +and gave guidance and inspiration to both races,—the man who found the +way out was Samuel Chapman Armstrong.</p> + +<p>He came of Scotch-Irish blood, and of sturdy farming stock, bred in the +fertile fields of Pennsylvania and in the best traditions of +Christianity. His father and mother gave themselves to the missionary +work, in that lofty enthusiasm whose wave swept through the country +early in the nineteenth century. The boy was born in 1839 in the +Hawaiian Islands, and grew up in the joy-giving climate, with a happy +boy-life, swimming the sea and climbing the mountains; trained firmly +and kindly in obedience and service; impressed by the constant presence +in the home of unselfish and consecrated lives. As he grew older, his +bright eyes studied the native character, emotional, genial, unstable; +he saw the wholesale conversions to Christianity, speedy, happy, and +well-nigh barren of fruit. Going to America for his education, he +completed it at Williams College under the presidency of Mark Hopkins. +Garfield said that his conception of a university was a pine bench with +Mark Hopkins at one end and a student at the other. He gave a stimulus +alike intellectual and moral; his special teaching was in philosophy, +broadly reasoned, nobly aimed, closely applied to the daily need. +Armstrong spoke of him in later years as his spiritual father. +Graduating in 1862, he enlisted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> in the Union army, took his share in +Gettysburg and other fights, became an officer of negro troops, and rose +to a brigadier-generalship. He said that to him, born abroad, the cause +of Union made no strong appeal,—what he was fighting for was the +freedom of the slaves. The war finished, he left the army, entered the +service of the Freedmen's Bureau under General Oliver O. Howard, and was +assigned to the Jamestown peninsula in Virginia. There were huddled +together thousands of the freedmen,—the unconscious cause of the war, +the problem of the future,—simple, half-dazed, a mixture of good and +bad, of physical strength, kindly temper, crude morals and childish +ignorance. For a time the officials of the Bureau, as best they could, +kept order, found work, settled quarrels, and promoted schools. But what +was to be the large outcome?</p> + +<p>Armstrong had been known to his associates as a man of splendid and +many-sided vitality. A college classmate, Dr. John Denison, graphically +describes him, "A sort of cataclysm of health, like other cyclones from +the South seas"; what the Tennessee mountaineers call "plumb +survigrous"; an islander, with the high courage and jollity of the tar; +"a kind of mental as well as physical amphibiousness." Extraordinary in +his training and versatility; able to "manage a boat in a storm, teach a +school, edit a newspaper, assist in carrying on a government, take up a +mechanical industry at will, understand the natives, sympathize with the +missionaries, talk with profound theorists, recite well in Greek or +mathematics, conduct an advanced class in geometry, and make no end of +fun for little children." He had had the training of a missionary +station in a Robinson Crusoe-like variety of functions. A knight-errant +to the core, the atmosphere of Williams under Hopkins gave him his +consecration. His comrades recognized him as an intellectual leader, +essentially religious but often startlingly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> unconventional, "under +great terrestrial headway," "the most strenuous man I ever saw." He said +of himself: "missionary or pirate."</p> + +<p>Now after the sobering of three years of campaigning his immediate +duties brought him face to face with the tremendous problem of the +negro, and the elements of the solution already lay in his own +character, experience, personality.</p> + +<p>What were the assets of the negro? He had, by inheritance and training, +the capacity and instinct of labor. What an advantage that is appears by +the contrast with the Indian, who is perishing for want of just that. +But the negro knew labor only as the hard necessity of his lot,—it had +to him no higher significance. "Education," was the watchword of the +generous spirits of another race who were coming to his help. They found +at first great promise in the freedman's eagerness to learn reading and +writing. But it soon appeared that this was an outreaching toward some +vague social advantage, and that the actual acquisition through speller +and copybook carried him and his children but a little way up. It was a +pressing necessity to provide teachers, and of his own race; so, rightly +and naturally, were founded the normal school and the college. He needed +his own educated preachers, physicians, lawyers; for these, too, there +must be training. So, rightly and naturally, were planted +universities,—Atlanta, Fisk, Howard. It was an unquestioned creed that +the white man's training as preacher, lawyer, physician, teacher, must +begin with years of Latin and Greek; so what other way for the negro? +So, as almost inevitable, the early education of the race began as a +copy of the white man's methods. But sadly inadequate, alas, as we begin +to see, is a classical education for the typical white man of our time; +and immense was the gap between the teaching of which that was the core +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> crown, and the wants of the black field-hands and their children.</p> + +<p>Labor, education,—and what of religion? The slave had found in +Christianity, often in rude, half-barbaric forms, a consolation, a +refuge, a tenderness and hope, to which we can scarcely do justice. +Perhaps its most eloquent expression to our imagination is those +wonderful old-time melodies, the negro "spirituals," as they have been +made familiar by the singers of the negro colleges. Their words are +mystic, Scriptural, grotesque; the melodies have a pathos, a charm, a +moving power, born out of the heart's depths through centuries of sorrow +dimly lighted by glimmerings of a divine love and hope. The typical +African temperament, the tragedy of bondage, the tenderness and triumph +of religion, find voice in those psalms.</p> + +<p>Religion is not to be despised because it is not altogether or even +largely ethical. The heart depressed by drudgery, hardship, forlornness, +craves not merely moral guidance but exhilaration and ecstacy. Small +wonder if it seeks it in whisky; better surely if it finds it in hymns +and prayers and transports partly of the flesh yet touched by the +spirit. Further, by faithful masters and mistresses there was given to +the slave's religion, in many cases, a clear and strong sense of moral +obligation. Uncle Tom in his saintliness may be an idealization, but the +elements were drawn from life.</p> + +<p>Yet the slave's and so the freedman's religion was very one-sided and +out of all proportion emotional. Its habitual aim was occasional +transport on earth and rapture in heaven. Of the day's task, of homely +fidelities and services, of marriage and parenthood and neighborhood and +citizenship, it made almost no account.</p> + +<p>Face to face with these impoverished and groping souls, what had +Armstrong, in his experience, knowledge, person<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>ality, with which to +meet them? "He was filled through and through"—the quotation is from +the admirable biographical sketch by his daughter—"with a deep sense +that by hard work alone can any of us be saved—a sense based on many +obscure foundations of observation and deduction. Away back in the +corners of his mind were recollections of sundry wood-choppings and +milkings carried on under protest by himself and his companions; and +knowledge, too, of how his father and mother had spent their ambitious +youth in work, the mother spinning by the fireside, the father doing +chores at his home in Pennsylvania. It was the boys who faced and +conquered hard physical jobs that became the men of endurance later." He +had seen and shared the devotion of the missionary spirit, and had seen, +too, how largely it failed of fruit by being spent on supernatural +conversion and mystical emotion. He knew the tropical temperament, +common to Hawaiian and negro,—how accessible to transient fervor, how +deficient in persistence and continuity. He had watched his father's +operations, as minister of public instruction under the Hawaiian king; +his experiments in more practical and prosaic education and religion, +half frowned on by the ecclesiastics of America, but rich in suggestion. +He knew that the Hilo manual labor school, where the boys paid their +expenses by labor, slightly trained, was a marked success. His intensely +active nature had caught from Hopkins the philosophic outlook, and the +human materials were before him in rich abundance. Above all, while +unspeculative in religion, and content to employ its traditional +forms,—"they're imperfect enough," he said, "but they're the best we've +got"—the instincts of his great and disciplined nature sent him +straight to the central realities of character, which are the true +foundations of society.</p> + +<p>His ideal crystallized by that swift and sudden process in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> which the +long subconscious growth of the mind sometimes comes to fruitage. He +said in later years that before he entered the Bureau's service, while +sailing on a troop-ship to Texas, he saw as in a dream his school much +as it afterward became. Twice afterward the vision came to him. +Stationed at Hampton in 1866, while he was bringing order out of the +chaos around him, his mind was reaching forward surely and swiftly to +his larger project.</p> + +<p>This was the germ thought: Character is to get its direction and energy +in the day's work. Just as man's physical needs drive him to toil, his +spiritual necessities find their best field and cultivation in the same +toil. The freedmen's first need is to earn a living; then to acquire +such a margin as will allow some little ease and comfort and refinement; +and along with these goes the need of good habits, high aims, +disciplined character. Teach the industrial lesson and the moral lesson +together. Train them to work intelligently and cheerfully; teach them at +the same time whatever of book knowledge best fits their need; and +constantly inspire them with the spirit of service to their kind. +Provide in this way for some hundreds of young men and women, who shall +go out as teachers to educate and train their people along these lines.</p> + +<p>That was the ideal,—the germ of Hampton, of Tuskegee, of the new +education of the negro; the suggestion and stimulant of the new +education as it is coming to be for the white.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2> + +<h3>ARMSTRONG</h3> + + +<p>Armstrong was a man of action, and of words only as far as they helped +action. He reached the starting of his school in 1868, within two years +after he was assigned to duty at Hampton. For external help he had first +the countenance and support of the Freedmen's Bureau. He was in its +service and pay until 1872. He had the warm and practical friendship of +General Howard, who, after inviting him to take charge of the new +university in Washington bearing his own name, skilfully gained for his +Hampton enterprise a moderate appropriation from Congress. If the +Freedmen's Bureau had accomplished nothing else,—and it did accomplish +much, especially in education—it would have been justified merely by +giving Armstrong his opportunity. Next he turned to private benevolence. +Of the various organizations, church and secular, that were devising and +doing for the freedmen, perhaps the most efficient was the American +Missionary Association. From its officers Armstrong won response, +sympathy, contributions. He had to face the difficulties of a pioneer. +There were precedents against him. Experiments somewhat similar had been +tried and failed. At Mount Holyoke seminary for women, created by the +genius and devotion of Mary Lyon, and at Oberlin college, where the best +New England tradition had been transplanted—there had been long and +earnest trial of giving the students work by which to partially pay +their expenses. But it had been given up,—the women students were taxed +beyond their strength; the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> farmers complained that the boys were +thinking of their books, and the teachers said their pupils came with +half strength to their lessons. But Armstrong knew the material he was +dealing with, and how different from the nervous, high-strung pupils of +Oberlin and Mount Holyoke was the vigorous, sensuous material he was to +mold.</p> + +<p>He began in April, 1868, with small things,—a matron, a teacher, +fifteen pupils and buildings worth $15,000. In a month there were thirty +pupils. Things moved straight on,—they were moved by the assiduity, the +enthusiasm, the inspiration, of Armstrong, and the answering temper +which he woke in pupils, teachers, contributors, observers. Presently a +special effort, an appeal to friends, solicitude, students zealously +making bricks and laying them, help from General Howard—and so, in +1870, a noble building, Academic Hall, and presently again, Virginia +Hall,—and the school kept growing.</p> + +<p>Its moral success was promptly won. The subject answered to the +experiment,—those dark-skinned boys and girls came eager to learn. No +one had believed in them, and they had not believed in themselves, but +they speedily learned self-respect and gained the respect of others. +They did what was asked of them, earned most of their support, showed +good workmanship and scholarship, were blameless in morals, caught the +spirit of the place, and went out to carry light into the dark places. +No holiday task was set them. There was a working day of twelve hours, +between the class-room, the work-shop, the drill-ground and the field, +with rare and brief snatches of recreation. They met the demand with a +resource inherited from their ancestors' long years of patient labor. +The hard toil was a moral safeguard. The African race is sensuous, and +co-education might seem perilous. The danger was completely averted by +the influence of labor, strenuous and constant, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> diversified and +interesting. The essentials of character,—industry, chastity, truth and +honesty, serviceable good-will,—were the aim and result of the Hampton +training; and all ran back to the homely root that man should be trained +to earn intelligently and faithfully his daily bread.</p> + +<p>The story of Hampton is a theme not for a chapter but for a volume. How +its founder won favor and friendship by his tact and large-mindedness; +how he established good relations with the Virginians; how the Institute +became the parent of other schools; how Booker Washington was there +fitted for the founding of Tuskegee and the leadership of his race; how +the work was extended to the Indians; how Armstrong's spirit and example +gathered and inspired a company of teachers perhaps unsurpassed,—mostly +women, whose refining influence on the pupils he specially valued; how +he dreamed of what he never reached, some day to give industrial +education at Hampton to the whites; how a worthy successor took his +place, efficient and self-effacing; how deeply the Hampton idea has +permeated the education of the Southern negro, and is coming to +influence white education North and South,—all this can here be +recalled but by a word.</p> + +<p>But on the personality of its leader we must for a moment linger, to +note one or two of its traits. His splendid vitality overflowed at times +in frolic and extravagance. He never lost the spirit of the boy. He +would come into a group of his serious-minded teachers and say, "Oh! +what's the good of saving souls if you can't have any fun?" and start a +frolic or organize an all-day picnic. In his home he introduced "puss in +the corner" and "the Presbyterian wardance" among the very elect. He +delighted his children with romances. "Like Dr. Hopkins, he believed +that the class-room should be a jolly place, and used to say that no +recitation was complete without at least one good laugh.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> 'Laughter +makes sport of work,' he said." His teaching sometimes came in a droll +story. "Once there was a woodchuck.... Now, woodchucks can't climb +trees. Well, this woodchuck was chased by a dog and came to a tree. He +knew that if he could get up this tree the dog could not catch him. Now, +woodchucks can't climb trees, but he had to, so he did."</p> + +<p>His devotion to his work was so whole-souled that it was joyous and +seemed unconscious of cost. In the touching pages he wrote when death +impended, he said, "I never gave up or sacrificed anything in my life." +Yet he constantly made what most men count heavy sacrifices. His work +involved frequent and laborious trips to the North to arouse interest +and raise money. He did it in as gallant a fashion as he had led a +charge, or as he made appeal to the students hanging reverently on his +words. A glimpse of him on one of these begging tours is given by +Professor Francis G. Peabody:</p> + +<p>"I suppose that every lover of General Armstrong recalls some special +incident which seems most entirely typical of the man's life and heart. +For my part, I think oftenest of one of those scenes in his many begging +journeys to the North. It was at a little suburban church far down a +side street on a winter night in the midst of a driving storm of sleet. +There was, as nearly as possible, no congregation present; a score or so +of humble people, showing no sign of any means to contribute, were +scattered through the empty spaces, and a dozen restless boys kicked +their heels in the front pew. Then in the midst of this emptiness and +hopelessness up rose the worn, gaunt soldier, as bravely and gladly as +if a multitude were hanging upon his words, and his deep-sunk eyes +looked out beyond the bleakness of the scene into the world of his +ideals, and the cold little place was aglow with the fire that was in +him, and it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> like the scene on the Mount, that was not any less +wonderful and glistening because only three undiscerning followers were +permitted to see the glory."</p> + +<p>Those frequent and long journeys went far to break up the happy home +life in which he delighted, with the wife whose congenial and intimate +companionship was his for nine years and the little girls to whom he was +the most delightful of fathers. Then for twelve years, until his second +marriage, he was almost a homeless man. He wore out his wonderful +constitution; he suffered from dyspepsia and sleeplessness; a paralytic +stroke crippled him; but for a year and a half he struggled on, +cheerful, self-forgetful,—then the end.</p> + +<p>His countrymen scarcely yet realize all that he was. He was the +successful leader in that real emancipation of the American negro to +which the legal emancipation was but a prelude. Beyond that, it would +hardly be too much to say that he did more than any other man in either +hemisphere to rationalize and Christianize our still half-medieval +system of education. The working ideals of Hampton are to-day higher +than those of Yale and Harvard. It may be questioned whether any +professed preacher has done so much to develop the best modern type of +religion; centered in daily work, reaching out into all human service, +and consciously inspired by the divine life. It would not be extravagant +to say that in the little group—perhaps half a dozen in all—whom +America has contributed to the world's first rank of great men, not one +stands higher in heroic manhood and far-reaching service than Samuel +Armstrong.</p> + +<p>But any comparison seems almost unworthy of his lofty spirit. There is +no rivalry among the saints. Would that Armstrong could here be +portrayed as he appeared in life. The outer man spoke well the inner. To +look upon, he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> a thoroughbred; of soldierly bearing, alert, vivid, +noble; with the twinkle of mirth, the flash of resistless purpose,—a +man to love, to revere, to follow. As a sort of mental portrait-sketch, +we may glean a few of his sayings. It was as true of him as of Luther +that his words were half-battles. They were flashed out like sparks +struck from action. As to his special work, these:</p> + +<p>"The North thinks that the great thing is to free the negro from his +former owner; the real thing is to save him from himself."</p> + +<p>On the dissolution of the American Anti-slavery Society, (because +nothing remained for it to do): "It failed to see that everything +remained. Their work was just beginning when slavery was abolished."</p> + +<p>"I cannot understand the prevailing views of the war among pious and +intelligent Americans. It is simply barbaric—to whip the South and go +home rejoicing, to build monuments of victory, leaving one-third of +their countrymen in the depths of distress."</p> + +<p>"The reconstruction measures were a bridge of wood over a river of +fire."</p> + +<p>(In 1878): "Hereafter it will be seen that negro suffrage was a boon to +the race, not so much for a defense, but as a tremendous fact that +compelled its education. There is nothing to do but attempt its +education in every possible way. In their pinching poverty the Southern +States have seized the question of negro education with a vigor that is +the outcome of danger."</p> + +<p>(In 1887): "The political experience of the negro has been a great +education to him. In spite of his many blunders and unintentional crimes +against civilization, he is to-day more of a man than he could have been +had he not been a voter."</p> + +<p>"The war was the saving of the South. Defeat and ruin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> brought more +material prosperity to the South than to the North, and the future has +untold advantages in store. Education is part of it, but capital and +enterprise, which make men work, are the greater part. The negro and +poor white, and, more than all, the old aristocrat, are being saved by +hard work, which, next to the grace of God, saves our souls."</p> + +<p>"We hew from the raw material, men who have come out of deep darkness +and wrong, without inheritance but of savage nature, the best product we +can, and care as much to infuse it with a spiritual life and divine +energy as with knowledge of the saw, plane, and hoe."</p> + +<p>And, of his broader outlook on life, these: "I am convinced of the +necessity of organizing pleasure as well as religion in order to sustain +Christian morality."</p> + +<p>"The chief comfort in life is babies."</p> + +<p>"Politics and philanthropy are a grind; only when one is at the post of +duty and knows it, there is a sensation of being lifted and lifting (<i>et +teneo et teneor</i>) which sometimes comes gradually over one. Detail is +grinding, the whole inspiring. God's kings and priests must drudge in +seedy clothes before they can wear the purple."</p> + +<p>"From the deep human heart to the infinite heart there is a line along +which will pass the real cry and the sympathetic answer—a double flash +from the moral magnetism that fills the universe. Its conditions are not +found in theological belief, but in the spirit of a little child. We can +no more understand our human brother than our Father in heaven without +bringing faith—the evidence of things unseen, the substance of things +hoped for—to our aid."</p> + +<p>"All progress of strong hearts is by action and reaction. Human life is +too weak to be an incessant eagle flight toward the Sun of +Righteousness. Wings will be sometimes folded because they are wings.... +The earthly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> struggle must be enduring—that is all. There must be no +surrenders; we can't expect much of victory here."</p> + +<p>"The longer I live, the less I think and fear about what the world calls +success; the more I tremble for true success, for the purity and +sanctity of the soul, which is as a temple."</p> + +<p>"Doing what can't be done is the glory of living."</p> + +<p>"What are Christians put into the world for but to do the impossible in +the strength of God?"</p> + +<p>In the contemplation of such a spirit we rest for a little from the +turmoils of politics, the mixture of motives, the half-successes. Here +is what glorified the whole business,—the development of souls like +this; and in such is the promise of the future. Fitly to Armstrong +belongs what Matthew Arnold has written of his father, a kindred soul:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Servants of God!—or sons</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall I not call you? because</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not as servants ye knew</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your Father's innermost mind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His, who unwillingly sees</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One of his little ones lost—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yours is the praise, if mankind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hath not as yet in its march</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fainted, and fallen, and died!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See! In the rocks of the world</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Marches the host of mankind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A feeble, wavering line.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where are they tending?—A God</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Marshal'd them, gave them their goal—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah, but the way is so long!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Years they have been in the wild!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sore thirst plagues them, the rocks,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rising all round, overawe;</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Factions divide them, their host</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Threatens to break, to dissolve—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah, keep, keep them combined!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Else, of the myriads who fill</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That army, not one shall arrive;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sole they shall stray; on the rocks</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Batter forever in vain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Die one by one in the waste.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then, in such hour of need</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of your fainting, dispirited race,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ye, like angels, appear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Radiant with ardor divine.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beacons of hope, ye appear!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Languor is not in your heart,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Weakness is not in your word,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Weariness not on your brow.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ye alight in our van! at your voice,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Panic, despair, flee away.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ye move through the ranks, recall</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The stragglers, refresh the outworn,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Praise, re-inspire the brave.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Order, courage, return;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Eyes rekindling, and prayers,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Follow your steps as ye go.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ye fill up the gaps in our files,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Strengthen the wavering line,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stablish, continue our march,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On, to the bound of the waste,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On, to the City of God!</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2> + +<h3>EVOLUTION</h3> + + +<p>The story of slavery merges in the stories of the white man and the +black man, to which there is no end. As the main period to the present +study we have taken the beginning of President Hayes's administration in +1877, when the withdrawal of Federal troops from the South marked the +return of the States of the Union to their normal relations, and also +marked the disappearance of the negro problem as the central feature in +national politics. From that time to the present we shall take but a +bird's-eye view of the fortunes and the mutual relation of the two +races.</p> + +<p>The people of the Southern States realized gradually but at last fully +that the conduct of their affairs was left in their own hands. From this +time there was no important Federal legislation directed specially at +the South. The restrictive laws left over from the reconstruction period +were in some cases set aside by the Supreme Court and in general passed +into abeyance. There was rare and brief discussion of a renewal of +Federal supervision of elections. But the Northern people, partly from +rational conviction and partly from absorption in new issues, were +wholly indisposed to any further interference. Without such interference +there was no slightest chance of any restoration of political +preponderance of the negroes over the whites. The specter of "negro +domination" haunted the Southern imagination long after it had become an +impossibility. Then it was used as a bogy by small politicians. But the +only serious attempt at national legislation for the South has been of a +wholly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> different character. It was the plan of Senator Blair of New +Hampshire, long urged upon Congress, and sometimes with good hope of +success, for national assistance to local education, on the basis of +existing illiteracy, for a term of ten years, to a total amount of +$100,000,000. That is the only kind of special legislation for the South +that has had any chance of enactment for almost thirty years.</p> + +<p>Through the twelve years of political reconstruction, 1865-77, the +Southern people were gradually adapting themselves to the new industrial +and social conditions. Then the body of the whites, finding themselves +fully restored to political mastery, grasped the entire situation with +new clearness and vigor. They thrust the freedmen not only out of +legislative majorities and the State offices, but out of all and any +effective exercise of the suffrage. The means were various, consisting +largely of indirect and technical hindrances, "tissue-paper ballots" and +the like. The intelligent class massed against the ignorant found no +serious difficulty in having their own way at all points. A considerable +number of negroes still voted, and had their votes counted, but their +party was always somehow put in the minority; almost all offices passed +out of their hands; their representatives speedily disappeared from +Congress, and before long from the Legislatures. Negro suffrage was +almost nullified, and that, too, before the legislation of the last +decade.</p> + +<p>But, in asserting their complete political superiority, the whites also +recognized a large responsibility for the race they controlled. A degree +of civil rights was secured to them, short of a perfect equality with +the whites, but far beyond the status intended by the "black codes" of +1865-6. The fundamental rights, of liberty to dispose of their labor and +earnings in their own way, and protection of person and property by the +law and the courts, were substantially<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> secured. And, very notably, the +common school education of blacks as well as whites was undertaken with +fidelity, energy and new success. This great and vital advance, +inaugurated by the Southern Republican governments, was accepted and +carried on, loyally and at heavy cost, by the succeeding Democratic +governments. The figures show a great advance from 1875 to 1880 in the +number of schools and scholars of both races throughout the South. +Political inferiority for the negroes, but civil rights, industrial +freedom, and rudimentary education,—that was the theory and largely the +practice of their white neighbors.</p> + +<p>One clause they added with emphatic affirmation: "I will buy with you, +sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I +will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you." Social +superiority, indicated by separation in all the familiar and courteous +intercourse of daily life, was asserted by the whites with a rigor +beyond that of the days of slavery. When humiliated and stung by the +political ascendency of their former bondmen, they wrapped themselves in +their social superiority with a new haughtiness. The pride of race, of +color, of the owner above the serf, stripped of its old power and +insignia, but no whit weakened in root and core, set an adamantine wall +along the line of social familiarity. Let the black man have his own +place—in school and church, in street and market and hotel; but the +same place, never! Separate schools, churches, cars. And as in a +hospitable country the social meal is the special occasion and symbol of +good fellowship and equal comradeship, right there let the line be +fixed,—no black man or woman shall sit at table with whites.</p> + +<p>The usage came down by tradition, and became only a little more rigid +under the new conditions. At the North the general practice had always +been much the same; but there it was occasionally and growingly +superseded, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> people of the two races found a common level of +education and manners. The Southern whites for a while took their own +practice as a matter of course. But then, especially as by degrees some +black men and women acquired mental cultivation and social polish,—then +came question and challenge from the world without and from conscience +within; why this rigid separation? An answer must be found or made,—and +presently the answer appeared: If white and black men and women eat and +drink together, play and work together,—then they will intermarry, and +the white race will become mixed and degenerate. So that became the +conviction, the creed, the shibboleth, of the Southern whites,—race +purity, to be safeguarded by complete prohibition of all social +intimacy, especially as symbolized by the common meal. And the +prohibition was enforced among the whites by the penalty of sure and +stern ostracism.</p> + +<p>Under these conditions, then, the two sections of the Southern people +have been working their way, for almost thirty years. How first have the +negroes fared? Of the prophecies for their future, made when they were +in bondage and in view of possible emancipation, one was that they would +die out,—but in less than half a century they have doubled. Another was +that if freed they would refuse to work,—but the industrial product of +the South has never fallen off, but has steadily and vastly increased, +with the negro still as the chief laborer. Another prediction was that +they would lapse into barbarism. The Southern negroes as a mass have a +fringe of barbarism—a heavy fringe. So has every community, white, +black or yellow, the world over. Have the Southern blacks, as a body, +moved toward barbarism or toward civilization since they were set free?</p> + +<p>The comparative tests between civilization and barbarism are, broadly +speaking, productive industry, intelligence and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> morality. If we gauge +industry by results, we find that the class which forty years ago +entered into freedom with empty hands now owns more than $300,000,000 of +property by the tax-gatherers' lists. Another estimate—cited by Prof. +Albert Bushnell Hart—puts their entire property holdings at +$500,000,000. Though most of them are tenants or hired laborers, yet +there are more than 173,000 who own their farms. The total number of +farms worked by them in the South—owned, leased, or rented on +shares—is figured at 700,000. The census of 1900 shows that in almost +every profession, trade and handicraft the black race has numerous +representatives—their range of occupation and industrial opportunity +being far wider in the South than in the North. Taking the whole +country, the percentage of adults in gainful pursuits is a trifle higher +among blacks than among whites. Allow for the more frequent employment +in toil of the black woman; allow, too, for the more intermittent +character of black labor,—yet the relative showing is not unfavorable +to the enfranchised race. And this comparison touches, too, the more +difficult problem of morality,—for industry is itself a chief safeguard +of morality.</p> + +<p>As to intelligence, the statistics show that, roughly speaking, about +half the blacks over ten years old can read and write. That is not much +below the status of the people of England half a century ago. In the +higher fields of intelligence, the American negroes,—there are +9,000,000 of them,—supply to-day a large part of their own teachers, +ministers, lawyers and doctors, and in all these professions the +standard is steadily rising.</p> + +<p>In regard to morality, generalization is difficult. There is undoubtedly +a much larger criminal element among the blacks than among the whites. +There are proportionately more crimes against property, crimes of +sensuality, crimes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> of violence. Materials are wanting for exact +comparison, either with the whites, or among the blacks at different +periods. Yet there are few or no sections at the South, even in the +worst parts of the Black Belt, as to which the public gets the +impression of any general lawlessness. And in any comparison of the +present with the time of slavery, we must remember what Carlyle says in +speaking of the cruelties of the French Revolution as compared with +those of the tyranny which preceded it,—when the high-born suffer the +world hears of it, but the woes of the inarticulate are unheard. Wrongs +at the South which shock us to-day,—or wrongs as great—were +commonplace, were unnoted and unchronicled, under slavery. It is +offenses against women that rouse the hottest resentment. But for +centuries the black woman's chastity had absolutely no protection under +the law, and her woes were pitiful beyond telling. For the Southern +negro, true family life was impossible until within fifty years. With so +brief experience in the best school of character, there is no ground for +doubting that he has won a vast moral advance, and the promise of +greater.</p> + +<p>Of the negroes, as of every race or community, we may consider the +lowest stratum, the great mass, and the leaders. Regarding not morality +only, but general conditions, there is a considerable element of the +Southern blacks whose condition is most pitiable. Such especially are +many of the peasants of the Black Belt; barely able to support +themselves, often plundered with more or less of legality by landlord +and storekeeper, shut up to heavy, dull, almost hopeless lives. +Inheritance weighs on them as well as environment; when these +plantations were recruited from Virginia, it was only the worst of the +slaves whom their masters would sell, and the bad elements propagated +their like. The case of these people to-day presents one of the open +sores, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> unanswered questions,—we might say the impossible tasks, +did we not remember Armstrong's attitude toward things "impossible." +Yet, even as to these,—are they not better off than when enslaved? A +part of their trouble is the burden of responsibility—for themselves, +their wives and children. In slavery they had no responsibility beyond +the day's task; the whip and the full stomach were the two extremes of +their possibilities. Now at least they are men—with manhood's burdens, +but with its possibilities, too.</p> + +<p>Of the great middle class, something has already been said, as to +industry, property and education. But statistics are cold and dead, +could we but see the living human realities which they vainly try to +express. The growth of a slave, or a slave's child, into a free man or +woman,—the birth and development of true family life,—could we see +this in its millions of instances, or even distinctly in one typical +instance, with all its phases of struggle, mistake, disappointment, +success, the growth of character, the blossoming of manhood and +womanhood,—it would be a more moving spectacle than any that +Shakespeare has given. Here, again, it is mostly the inarticulate class, +and their story is not told to the world. We especially fail to learn +it, because of the wall of caste by which the white man shuts himself +out from the finest sights and the most brotherly opportunities. More +than farming or carpentry, more than school or church, and taking in the +best fruits of all these, is family life, in its fullest and best. That +is where the negro is coming to highest manhood.</p> + +<p>A necessary test of a race is its power to furnish its own leaders. The +negro race in America is developing a leadership of its own,—small as +yet, but choice and growing. It was part of Armstrong's central idea to +create and supply such a leadership. Hampton has gone steadily on in the +work, and the sisters and the children of Hampton are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> multiplying their +fruits. It was by an ideal fitness of things that Armstrong attracted, +inspired and started as his worthy successor one of the negro race. At +Tuskegee the black man is doing for himself what at Hampton the white +man is doing for him. Booker Washington is the pupil and successor of +Armstrong, but he has his own distinct individuality, his own word and +work. His constant precept and practice has been that the black man +should make himself so serviceable and valuable to the community that +every door will open as fast as he is fit to enter it. It is the gospel +of wisdom and of peace. Toward all the opportunities denied to the race, +its attitude is one of patience but of untiring persistence. Its +constant word is, Make yourself fit for any function, any place, and +sooner or later it will be yours. Against political exclusion Mr. +Washington on due occasion speaks his calm word, but he does not beat +against the closed gate; he knows that when the black man shows his full +capacity for citizenship it cannot long be denied him. The social +exclusion he accepts with quiet self-respect; let time see to that, let +us only do our full work, learn our full lesson. His teaching goes far +beyond the schoolroom; he gathers in conference the heads of families, +the fathers and mothers; he sets them to study and practice the +curriculum of the family and the neighborhood. In his intense +practicality he lacks something of the spiritual inspiration which +Armstrong had and gave. But his teaching is in no wise narrow or +selfish, for always it is animated by the spirit of brotherhood and +service. His personal story, <i>Up from Slavery</i>, is one of the most +moving of human documents; in itself it is an answer to all pessimism. +It is a typical story; even as these sheets are written there comes to +hand another like unto it, the story of another boy, William Holtzclaw, +who groped his way up from a negro cabin, caught the sacred fire at +Tuskegee, did battle with misfortune and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> adversity, and now in his turn +is carrying on the good work. And for every such story that gets told +there are a hundred that are acted.</p> + +<p>The wider leadership of the negroes by their own men is exemplified,—it +is not measured or exhausted,—by a pregnant little volume of essays +entitled <i>The Negro Problem</i>. Seven of its phases are discussed by +Booker Washington, Professor DuBois, Charles W. Chestnutt, Wilfred H. +Smith, H. T. Kealing, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and T. Thomas Fortune. As a +collection, these essays are noteworthy for their cogency and clearness, +for their earnest and self-respectful plea for full justice and +opportunity, and their calmness and candor. The race that can speak for +itself in such tones has an assured future,—if democracy, evolution, +Christianity, are the ruling powers.</p> + +<p>This story is concerned mainly with the slave and the freedman, but it +must also touch on his former master, now his neighbor and +fellow-citizen. The new South is far too ample a theme for a paragraph +or a chapter. But it must be said in a word that its main trait is the +substitution, for a territorial and slave-owning aristocracy, of an +industrial democracy. It is the coming of the new man,—laborious, +enterprising, pushing his way. His development began when the whole +community was set to work its way up from the impoverishment left by the +war. It was accelerated when new resources were found, when coal and +iron mines were started, when cotton manufacturing began where the +cotton is grown. New types of character and society are developing, yet +blending with the remnant of the old.</p> + +<p>Politics, in all its forms, plays a smaller part in to-day's society +than in that of fifty years ago. Not only has the South never regained +its old ascendency at Washington, but it has not stood, and does not +stand, for any distinct set of ideas or principles in the national life. +It has clung<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> closely together, under the influence of old sentiments +and lingering apprehensions. In its fear of a recurrence of "negro +domination," it has lost touch with the living questions of to-day and +to-morrow. "The Solid South" has meant a secure contingent of electoral +votes for the Democratic Presidential candidate,—whether he stood for a +gold or a silver currency, for revenue reform or its opposite, for +radicalism or conservatism,—and a solid array of members in Senate and +House equally without pilotage on living issues. Until the South breaks +away from its fetish of past fears and prejudices, it cannot rise to its +proper opportunities of statesmanship.</p> + +<p>Yet better than the old-time absorption in Federal politics and the +prizes of the Capitol is the more diversified life of the South to-day. +It is being swept into the current of industrialism—with its energies, +its prizes, its perils. In other directions, too, the new life of the +South flows free and strong. It is creating a literature,—a branch of +American literature,—incomparably beyond any product of its earlier +days. After what may be called a literature of statesmanship,—the work +of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall,—the old South was almost +wholly barren of original scholarship and creative genius. Now it bears +a harvest so rich that one cannot here begin to classify or to name. The +war-time is bearing an aftermath, of less importance in its romances, +but admirable and delightful in its biographies and reminiscences. Of +these the most notable feature, full as they are of vivid human interest +and striking personal characteristics,—is the freedom from rancor, the +generosity toward old foes which seems even unconscious of any necessity +to forgive. And in these personal sketches there are disclosed certain +broad yet distinct types of manhood and womanhood, the special Southern +contributions to the composite American. In general literature, too, +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> South is doing its full share. In its histories, the note of +provincialism still lingers,—inevitably, and not blamably. The Southern +essayist or historian naturally gravitates to the past of his own +section,—and naturally he seeks to vindicate his comrades or his +ancestors, and to interpret the past from their standpoint. But, +compared with the provincialism of the South of 1860, he is a +cosmopolitan.</p> + +<p>The new South is doing perhaps its best work in education. Its leaders +are both raising and widening their standards,—they are reaching out +toward modern and progressive ways, while they are trying to amplify +their systems so as to include the whole youthful population. Their +intelligence and enthusiasm are seen alike in the ancient universities +like that of Virginia, in the younger colleges such as Roanoke and +Berea, and in the leaders of the public schools. Intelligence, +enthusiasm, devotion,—all are needed, and all will be tasked to the +utmost. For the education of the people's children, everywhere the most +pressing of common concerns, and the most perplexing in the transition +from old to new ideas and methods—bears with especial weight and +importunity upon the South. Its thinly-spread population, its still +limited resources of finance, the presence of the two races with their +separate and common needs,—all set a gigantic task to the South, and +one that calls for sympathy and aid from the nation at large.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX</h2> + +<h3>EBB AND FLOW</h3> + + +<p>Thus, in broadest outline, have the two races at the South been faring +on their way. And now in recent years, under their separate development +and with their close intermingling, have come new complications and +difficulties. The tendency has been in some ways to a wider separation. +The old relations between the household servants and their employers, +often most kindly, and long continuing to link the two races at +numberless points, have passed away with the old generation. Once the +inmates of mansion and cabin knew well each other's ways. Now they are +almost unacquainted. The aristocracy and its dependents had their mutual +relations of protection and loyalty, and gracious and helpful they often +were. Now comes democracy,—vigorous, jostling, self-assertive,—its +true social ideal of brotherly comradeship being yet far from +realization. The negro is in a doubly hard position; under democratic +competition the weaker is thrust to the wall, yet he has not even the +equality which democracy asserts, but is held in the lower place by +caste. And so there is a new or a newly apparent aggression upon the +weaker race.</p> + +<p>Its most obvious form is the legal limitation of suffrage. The irregular +and indirect suppression of the negro vote which had prevailed since the +close of the Reconstruction period, was not thorough and sure enough to +satisfy the white politicians. And the lawless habit which it fostered, +and whose effects could by no means be confined to one race, alarmed the +better classes. So from two directions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> there was a pressure toward some +restriction of the negro vote which should be both legal and effective. +The movement became active about the year 1895, and accomplished its end +in the States of Virginia, the Carolinas, Alabama, Mississippi, and +Louisiana, by constitutional amendments. The qualifications thus +prescribed are so various and so variously combined that a full +statement here is forbidden by limits of space, but their general +characteristics are these: The requirement (in Virginia, South Carolina, +Alabama, Louisiana) of $300 worth of property; the payment of a poll tax +(in Virginia, North and South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana); the +ability to read and write (in North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana); the +ability, if not to read, to understand and explain any section of the +Constitution (in Virginia, Mississippi); regular employment in some +lawful occupation, good character, and an understanding of the citizen's +duties and obligations (Alabama).<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<p>These restrictions apply in theory alike to both races. But exemption +from them is allowed, and the suffrage is given, to certain classes: To +all who served in the Civil War (Virginia, Alabama); to all who were +entitled to vote on January 1, 1867, also to the sons (or descendants) +of these two classes (Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana).</p> + +<p>In these States, if these requirements are impartially enforced, the +effect is to impose on the negroes a moderate property or intelligence +qualification, or the two combined; and to give practically universal +suffrage to the whites. This<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> last feature, while essentially unfair, is +a practical grievance to the negroes so long and only so long as the two +races stand as directly opposed forces in politics. Otherwise it is +questionable whether the class who are called on to earn the suffrage by +intelligence or productive industry are not really as well off as the +class to whom it is given regardless of merit.</p> + +<p>But in its practical operation the system is so elastic—and +unquestionably was so designed—that it can be easily applied for the +exclusion of a great part of those who nominally are admitted to the +suffrage. The "character" and "understanding" tests leave virtually full +power with the registration officers. There can be no reasonable doubt +that in these six States the suffrage is virtually denied to negroes to +an extent utterly beyond any fair construction of the law. Mr. Charles +W. Chestnutt, in his paper on <i>Disfranchisement</i>, cites the case of +Alabama, where the census of 1900 gave the negro males of voting age as +181,471, while in 1903 less than 3000 were registered as voters. And +even in States like Georgia, where suffrage is by law universal, ways of +practical nullification are often applied,—as for example by exclusion +from the nominating primaries, in which the results are principally +determined.</p> + +<p>Without the need of legal forms, there is a practically universal +exclusion of all negroes from public offices, filled by local election +or appointment, throughout most of the South. Their appointment to +Federal offices in that region, though very rare, is always made the +occasion of vehement protest.</p> + +<p>The theory generally avowed among Southern whites, that the two races +must be carefully kept separate, is apt to mean in practice that the +black man must everywhere take the lower place. At various points that +disposition encounters the natural and cultivated sentiments of +justice,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> benevolence, and the common good, and now one and now the +other prevails. Thus, there have been efforts to restrict the common +school education of the blacks. It has been proposed, and by prominent +politicians, to spend for this purpose only the amount raised by +taxation of the blacks themselves. There has appeared a disposition to +confine their education to the rudimentary branches and to a narrow type +of industrialism. Strong opposition has developed to the opening either +by public or private aid of what is known as "liberal education" in the +college or university sense. A flagrant instance of injustice is the +enactment in Kentucky of a law prohibiting all co-education of the +races—a law especially designed to cripple the admirable work of Berea +College.</p> + +<p>But the most serious obstacle to the black man, the country over, is the +threatened narrowing of his industrial opportunities. Here has been his +vantage-ground at the South, because his productive power was so +great—by numbers and by his inherited and traditional skill,—that +there was no choice but to employ him. At the North, where he is in so +small a minority as to be unimportant, he has been crowded into an ever +narrowing circle of employments. Precisely the same sentiment, though +not so ingeniously formulated, which makes the white gentleman refuse to +receive the black gentleman in his drawing-room, inclines the white +carpenter or mason to refuse to work alongside of his negro +fellow-laborer. Yet against this we have the accomplished fact, in the +South, of black and white laborers actually working together, +harmoniously and successfully, in most industries. We see the divided +and wavering attitude of the trade-unions; some branches taking whites +and blacks into the same society; others allying white societies and +black societies on an equal footing; others refusing all affiliation; +the earlier declarations of the national leaders<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> for the broadest human +fellowship challenged and often giving way before the imperious +assertions of the caste spirit.</p> + +<p>A race closely intermixed with another superior to it in numbers, +wealth, and intelligence,—a self-conscious and self-assertive +race,—suffers at many points. There are abuses tolerated by law; +infractions and evasions of law; semi-slavery under the name of peonage; +impositions by the landlord and the creditor. There are unpunished +outrages,—let one typical case suffice: a negro farmer and produce +dealer, respected and esteemed by all, in place of a rude shanty puts up +a good building for his wares; the word goes round among the roughs, +"that nigger is getting too biggity," and his store is burned,—nobody +surprised and nobody punished. Then there is the chapter of lynchings: +First, the gross crime of some human brute, then a sudden passionate +vengeance by the community; the custom spreads; it runs into hideous +torture and public exultation in it; it extends to other crimes; it +knows no geographical boundaries but spreads like an evil infection over +the country—but most of its victims are of the despised race.</p> + +<p>Against the worst outrages the best men of all sections are arrayed in +condemnation and resistance. But of its own essential and final social +superiority the white South brooks no question. It expects its social +code to be observed by the nation's representatives. It forgets that the +nation's representatives are cognizant of the general code of the +civilized world,—that breeding, manners, and intelligence, constitute +the gentleman. So when President Roosevelt entertains as his guest the +foremost man of the negro race,—easily one of the foremost half-dozen +men in the country,—the white South indulges in a mood which to the +rest of the world can only appear as prolonged hysteria.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span></p> + +<p>Before this whole wide range of the unjust treatment of the black race +in America, the observer is sometimes moved to profound discouragement. +"Was it all for nothing?" he asks, "have all the struggle and sacrifice, +the army of heroes and martyrs, brought us to nothing better than this?" +But such discouragement overlooks the background of history, and the +vital undergrowth of to-day. We see the present evils, but we forget the +worse evils that preceded. Turn back sixty years,—read, not <i>Uncle +Tom's Cabin</i> if you distrust fiction, but Fanny Kemble's <i>Life on a +Georgia Plantation</i>, or Frederick Law Olmsted's volumes of travels. +Glean from the shelves of history a few such grim facts, and let +imagination reconstruct the nether world of the cotton and sugar +plantations, the slave market, and the calaboose; the degradation of +women; the hopeless lot to which "'peared like there warn't no +to-morrow",—and see how far our world has moved into the light since +those days. A race is not developed in an hour or a decade or a +generation.</p> + +<p>In the present are facts of solid reassurance, in that the best spirit +of the South is facing the besetting ills, is combating them, and being +thus aroused must eventually master and expel the evil spirit. The South +has a burden to carry which the North does not easily realize. There the +negro is not a remote problem of philanthropy; he is not represented by +a few stray individuals; it is a great mass, everywhere present, in its +surface manifestations often futile, childish, exasperating; shading off +into sodden degradation; as a whole, a century or several centuries +behind its white neighbors. To get on with it peaceably, to rightly +apportion with it the opportunities and the burdens of the community, to +keep the common movement directed upward,—this demands measureless +patience, forbearance, wisdom, and persistence. Against the more +flagrant abuses,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> the leaders of Southern society are making strong +head. Governor Vardaman of Mississippi, though a reactionary as to negro +education, has struck terror to the hearts of the lynchers. The attitude +of the official class in certain peonage cases is thus described by Carl +Schurz: "These crimes were disclosed by Southern officers of the law, +the indictments were found by Southern grand juries, verdicts of guilty +were pronounced by Southern petty juries, and sentence was passed by a +Southern judge in language the dignity and moral feeling of which could +hardly have been more elevated." As to disfranchisement on grounds of +race, representative Southerners are anxious to demonstrate that the +only real disqualification is for ignorance and unfitness; and we must +look to them to give practical effect to their professions, which can be +done if the existing statutes are applied in a spirit of justice. It is +especially as to education that the better sentiment and purpose of the +South is apparent. The heavy cost of maintaining public schools for the +blacks has been steadily met. It is estimated by the United States +Commission of Education that for this purpose since the beginning +$132,000,000 has been spent. The reactionaries in education, like +Governor Vardaman, seem to be overborne by the progressives like +Governor Aycock of North Carolina. There is a notable growth of the +higher order of industrial schools, mainly as yet by private support, +but with a general outreaching of educational leaders toward more +practical and efficient training for the common body at the common +expense. In the general discussion of race matters, in periodicals and +books, the old passionate advocacy is in a degree giving place to +broader and saner views. Such writers are coming to the front as John S. +Wise, with his frank criticism of the political Bourbons and his forward +look; and Edgar Gardner Murphy, whose book <i>The Present South</i> is full +of the modern spirit. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> are others, especially among educators, not +less pronounced and serviceable in the forward movement. It is in these +quarters, and not among politicians or party newspapers, that we must +look for the brightening day.</p> + +<p>But it is to be recognized that a right solution of the South's +difficulties will not be reached without a sharp and prolonged +antagonism between the good and the evil tendencies. Mr. Schurz states +the case none too strongly: "Here is the crucial point: There will be a +movement either in the direction of reducing the negroes to a permanent +condition of serfdom—the condition of the mere plantation hand, +'alongside of the mule,' practically without any rights of +citizenship—or a movement in the direction of recognizing him as a +citizen in the true sense of the term. One or the other will prevail." +And he adds, "No doubt the most essential work will have to be done in +and by the South itself. And it can be."</p> + +<p>When President Hayes withdrew the Federal troops from the South, it +marked the formal restoration of that local self-government which is a +vital principle of the American Union. Of slower, deeper growth, has +been the spirit of mutual good-will and confidence, with the free +concession to each member of its individual life. Numberless delicate +cords have been reuniting the severed sections. Railways, commerce, +literature, the tides of business and pleasure travel, the pressure of +common problems, the glory of common achievements, the comradeship of +the blue and the gray on Cuban battlefields, the expositions of +industry, the throb of human feeling as the telegraph tells its daily +story of heroism or tragedy—all have done their part. It is by their +nobler interests that the sections are most closely united. Beyond the +squabbles of politicians is the power of such conferences as those of +the Southern Education Commission where meet the best brains and +consciences, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> gifts of the liberal, the plans of the wise, and the +energy of the stout-hearted.</p> + +<p>The education of a slave into a man, the harmonizing of two races, the +common achievement of a great national life,—it is a long work, but it +moves on.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Say not, The struggle naught availeth,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The labor and the wounds are vain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The enemy faints not nor faileth,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And as things have been they remain.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"For while the tired waves vainly breaking,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Seem here no painful inch to gain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Far back, through creeks and inlets making,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Comes silent, flooding in, the main.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"And not through eastern windows only,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">When daylight comes, comes in the light,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But westward, look, the land is bright!"</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> In Maryland, an amendment prescribing a series of elaborate +and vexing inquiries, investing the registration officers with judicial +powers, and avowedly aiming at the elimination of the negro vote, was +passed by the Legislature, at the instigation of Senator Gorman and +against the opposition of a Democratic governor, and decisively rejected +by the popular vote in November, 1905.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL</h2> + +<h3>LOOKING FORWARD</h3> + + +<p>It is difficult to write history, but it is impossible to write +prophecy. We can no more tell what lies before us than the Fathers of +the Republic could foresee the future a century ago. They little guessed +that slavery, which seemed hastening to its end, would take new vigor +from an increase of its profits,—that, stimulated by the material gain, +a propaganda of religious and political defense would spring up,—that a +passionate denunciation and a passionate defense would gradually inflame +the whole country,—that meanwhile the absorption of the mass of +citizens in private pursuits would blind them to the evil and peril, and +prevent that disinterested, comprehensive statesmanship which ought to +have assumed as a common burden the emancipation of the slaves,—that +the situation would be exasperated by hostility of the sections and +complicated by clashing theories of the national Union,—that only by +the bitter and costly way of war would a settlement be reached,—and +that emancipation, being wrought by force and not by persuasion, would +leave the master class "convinced against its will," and a deep gulf +between the races, whose spanning is still an uncertain matter,—all +this was hidden from the eyes of the wisest, a century ago. So is hidden +from our eyes the outworking of the century to come.</p> + +<p>But the essential principles of the situation, the true ideals, the +perils,—these were seen of old. Jefferson wrote, "I tremble for my +country when I reflect that God is a God of justice." And Washington +said, "I can already foresee that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> nothing but the rooting out of +slavery can perpetuate the existence of our Union, by consolidating it +in a common bond of principle." Just so clearly can we read the basal +principles on which depends our national safety. We look forward to-day, +not to predict what will be, but to see what ought to be, and what we +purpose shall be.</p> + +<p>We, the people of the United States, are to face and deal with this +matter. We are all in it together. Secession has failed, colonization is +impossible. Southerner and Northerner, white man and black man, we must +work out our common salvation. It is up to us,—it is up to us all!</p> + +<p>The saving principle is as simple as the multiplication table or the +Golden Rule. Each man must do his best, each must be allowed to do his +best, and each must be helped to do his best. Opportunity for every one, +according to his capacity and his merit,—that is democracy. Help for +the weaker, as the strong is able to give it,—that is Christianity. +Start from this center, and the way opens out through each special +difficulty. The situation is less a puzzle for the intellect than a +challenge to the will and heart.</p> + +<p>First of all, it is up to the black man himself. His freedom, won at +such cost, means only opportunity, and it is for him to improve the +opportunity. As he shows himself laborious, honest, chaste, loyal to his +family and to the community, so only can he win to his full manhood. The +decisive settlement of the whole matter is being worked out in cotton +fields and cabins, for the most part with an unconsciousness of the +ultimate issues that is at once pathetic and sublime,—by the upward +pressure of human need and aspiration, by family affection, by hunger +for higher things.</p> + +<p>On the leaders of the negroes rests a great responsibility. Their ordeal +is severe, their possibilities are heroic. The hardship of a rigid race +severance acts cruelly on those whose intelligence and refinement fit +them for a companion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span>ship with the best of the whites, which they needs +must crave, which would be for the good of both races, but which is +withheld or yielded in scanty measure. Self-abnegation, patience, power +alike to wait and to do,—these are the price they are called to pay. +But the prize set before them is worth it all,—the deliverance of their +people, and the harmonizing of the long alienated races. They need to +beware of jealousies and rivalries of leadership such as have made +shipwreck of many a good cause. There is room and need for various +contributions. They have a common bond in that ideal which is the most +precious possession of the American negro. It is the old simple idea of +goodness, set in close relation to this age of productive activity. It +requires that a man be not only good but good for something, and sets +faithful and efficient service as the gateway to all advance.</p> + +<p>But for the right adjustment of the working relations of the two races, +the heavier responsibility rests with the whites, because theirs is the +greater power. They can prescribe what the blacks can hardly do other +than accept.</p> + +<p>What we are now facing is not slavery,—an institution that may be +abolished by statute—but its offspring, Caste—a spirit pervasive, +subtle, sophistical, tyrannic. It can be overcome only by a spirit more +pervasive, persistent and powerful—the spirit of brotherhood.</p> + +<p>Puzzling as the situation is at some points, its essential elements are +far simpler and easier to deal with than slavery presented. There is no +longer a vast property interest at stake,—on the contrary, material +interest points the same way with moral considerations. There are +complexities of the social structure, but nothing half so formidable as +the aristocratic system based on slavery. The gravest difficulty now is +a race prejudice, deep-rooted and stubborn, yet at bottom so irrational +that civilization and Christianity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> and human progress should be +steadily wearing it away. Let us take heart of grace. If our wills are +true, it should be no great puzzle for our heads to find the way in this +business. Let us test the practical application of our +principle—namely, that each man should do his best, each should be +allowed to do his best, and helped to do his best—let us see how this +should work in industry, education, politics, and social relations.</p> + +<p>First in importance is the industrial situation. Broadly, the negro in +this country shows himself able and willing to work. The sharp spur of +necessity urges him, and his inherited habit carries him on. But he +needs a training in youth that shall fit him to work more effectively. +For that matter, his white brother needs it, too. But here is the +inequality of their situations,—whatever the white worker is qualified +to do he is allowed to do, but how is it with the black worker? Let the +Northern reader of these pages see at his door the palpable instance of +a limitation more cruel than can be found at the South. Let him note, as +the children stream out from the public school, the dark-skinned boy, +playing good-naturedly with his white mates, at marbles or ball or +wrestling,—just as he has been studying on the same bench with +them,—he is as clean, as well-dressed, as well-behaved, as they. Now, +five years hence, to what occupation can that colored boy turn? He can +be a bootblack, a servant, a barber, perhaps a teamster. He may be a +locomotive fireman, but when he is fit to be an engineer, he is turned +back. Carpentry, masonry, painting, plumbing, the hundred mechanical +trades,—these, for the most part, are shut to him; so are clerkships; +so are nineteen-twentieths of the ways by which the white boys he plays +and studies with to-day can win competence and comfort and serve the +community. It is a wrong to whose acuteness we are blunted by +familiarity. It can be changed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> only as sentiment is changed; and for +that there must be white laboring men who will bravely go ahead and +break the cruel rule by welcoming the black laborer to their side.</p> + +<p>In the South the negro as yet enjoys industrial freedom, in the choice +of an occupation—or a near approach to it—because his labor is so +necessary that he cannot be shut out. But the walls are beginning to +narrow. White immigration is coming in. The industrial training of the +old plantation is no longer given, and industrial schools are yet very +imperfectly developed. Some trades are being lost to the negroes; they +have fewer carpenters, masons, and the like; they find no employment in +cotton mills, and are engaged only in the least skilful parts of iron +manufacture. The trade unions, gradually spreading through the South, +begin to draw back from their early professions of the equality and +brotherhood of all toilers. An instance comes to hand as these pages are +being written—one instance out of a plenty. "The convention at Detroit, +Mich., of the amalgamated association of steel and iron workers has +postponed for a year consideration of a proposition to organize the +colored iron, steel and tin workers of the South. The white employes of +the Southern mills led the opposition. They objected to seeing the +negroes placed on an equality, and it was further argued that once a +colored man obtained a standing in the association, there was nothing to +prevent his coming North. President Shaffer urged that all men who are +competent workers should be members of the association." Now for next +year it is up to President Shaffer, and those of like mind! On this +question, of comradeship between black and white laborers, there is a +call to the leaders of labor organizations to lead right. These chiefs +of labor hold a place of the highest possibilities and obligations. In +their hands largely lies the advance or retrogression of the industrial +community—and that means<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span> our entire community. It is one of the most +hopeful signs of the times that stress of necessity is bringing to +labor's front rank men of a higher type, men often of large brain, high +purpose, and strong will. Brains, purpose, will,—all are needed by +these unofficial statesmen. They must look many ways at once, but this +way they ought not to fail to look,—to the industrial harmonizing and +equality of the two races.</p> + +<p>Exclude the colored men from the unions, and what can be expected but +that they serve as a vast reserve for the employers when strikes arise +between the capitalists and the employes? We read now and then of the +introduction of negroes as "strike-breakers," and the bitterness it +causes. But will not this be repeated on the largest scale if the +millions of negroes are to be systematically excluded from the unions? +There may be difficulties in including them,—difficulties partly +running back into other injustices, such as the practice of different +wage-rates for whites and blacks. But it would seem to be the larger +wisdom, in point of strategy, to enroll the two great wings of the host +of labor into a united army. And apart from strategy, that character of +the labor movement which most deeply appeals to the conscience and +judgment of mankind,—the uplift of the great multitude to better and +happier things,—that should rise above the barrier of race-prejudice as +above all other conventional and foolish divisions. Will the labor +leaders see and seize their opportunity at once to strengthen and to +ennoble their cause?</p> + +<p>The education of the negroes presents a hundred special questions, but +its basal principles are not difficult to discern. Here, fortunately, we +have in the main an admirable loyalty and good-will on the part of the +white South. It is proved by deeds more than by words. The sum spent by +the Southern States in the last thirty years for the schooling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> of the +blacks—it is reckoned at $132,000,000, most of it, of course, from +white taxpayers—is the best evidence of its disposition. The occasional +complaints and protests seem no more significant than the occasional +grumbling at the North against its best-rooted institutions,—everywhere +and always the children of light must keep up some warfare with the +Philistines. The main difficulties at the South are two; limited means +for so great a task,—three or four months of schooling burdens +Mississippi more than ten months burdens Massachusetts; and the grave +puzzle as to what kind of elementary education best fits the negro +child.</p> + +<p>This puzzle applies almost equally to the white child; throughout the +country and the world a reconstruction of education is struggling +forward, through great uncertainties but under strong pressure of +necessity. It is felt that the old-time book-education, and even its +modern revision—all as yet come vastly short of rightly fitting the +child for manhood or womanhood. We have advanced, but we have still far +to go. To rightly educate "the hand, head and heart," (the watchword of +Tuskegee)—to develop strong, symmetrical character and intelligence, +the sound mind in the sound body,—to train the bread-winner and the +citizen, as well as to open the gates of intellectual freedom and +spiritual power,—this is what we have not quite learned. Socrates and +More and Rousseau and Pestalozzi and Froebel and Armstrong have done +much, but they have left abundant room for their successors. The +millionaire's child, as well as the field-hand's, must wait awhile yet. +So it is small wonder if the Southern public school is still a challenge +to the best wits.</p> + +<p>The combined industrial and educational need of the South is excellently +summed up by a sympathetic observer, Ernest Hamlin Abbott:</p> + +<p>"The chief industrial problem of the South is, therefore,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> that of +transforming an indolent peasantry accustomed to dependence into an +active, independent people. This involves an educational problem. +Industrial education is something very different from training a few +hundred girls to cook and sew for others; it is something, even, very +different from supplying a few hundreds of young men with a trade. +Industrial training is this larger undertaking, namely, to train +hundreds of thousands of young people in habits of industry, in +alertness of mind, and in strength of will that shall enable them to +turn to the nearest opportunity for gaining the self-respect that comes +with being of use to the community."</p> + +<p>One thing is clear. More than the system is the teacher. Now and always +the first requisite must be instructors of devotion, intelligence, +sympathy, inspiration. To train such, and train them in multitudes, +there must be institutions, ample in intellectual resource and high in +their standards. There can be no fit common schools for the blacks +unless there are worthy normal schools and colleges. Atlanta and its +class are necessary as well as Tuskegee and its class,—and Atlanta +reinforces Tuskegee with a large proportion of its teachers. On broader +grounds, too, the need of the higher education for the black man is +imperative. It can hardly be better stated than in the words of +Professor DuBois, in his book of irresistible appeal, <i>The Souls of +Black Folk</i>:</p> + +<p>"That the present social separation and acute race-sensitiveness must +eventually yield to the influence of culture, as the South grows +civilized, is clear. But such transformation calls for singular wisdom +and patience. If, while the healing of this vast sore is progressing, +the races are to live for many years side by side, united in economic +effort, obeying a common government, sensitive to mutual thought and +feeling, yet subtly and silently separate in many matters of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> deeper +human intimacy,—if this unusual and dangerous development is to +progress amid peace and order, mutual respect and growing intelligence, +it will call for social surgery, at once the delicatest and nicest in +modern history. It will demand broad-minded, upright men, both white and +black, and in its final accomplishment American civilization will +triumph. So far as white men are concerned, this fact is to-day being +recognized in the South, and a happy renaissance of university education +seems imminent. But the very voices that cry hail to this good work are, +strange to relate, largely silent or antagonistic to the higher +education of the negro."</p> + +<p>It must be remembered that in the growth of a tree the upper boughs must +have space and air and sunlight, as much as the roots must have earth +and water,—and so with a race. There is need of scholars and idealists, +as well as toilers; and for these there should be their natural +atmosphere. Again let us hear the moving words of Professor DuBois: "I +sit with Shakespeare, and he does not wince. Across the color line I +move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming +women glide in gilded halls. From out the caves of evening that swing +between the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon +Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all +graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell +above the veil. Is this the life you grudge us, O knightly America? Is +this the life you long to change into the dull red hideousness of +Georgia? Are you so afraid lest, peering from this high Pisgah, between +Philistine and Amalekite, we sight the Promised Land?"</p> + +<p>Yet it is not for himself or the cultured few that he makes the +strongest plea:</p> + +<p>"Human education is not simply a matter of schools, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> is much more a +matter of family and group life, the training of one's home, of one's +daily companions, of one's social class. Now the black boy of the South +moves in a black world—a world with its own leaders, its own thoughts, +its own ideals. His teachers here are the group leaders of the negro +people—the physicians, clergymen, the trained fathers and mothers, the +influential and forceful men about him of all kinds—here it is, if +anywhere, that the culture of the surrounding world trickles through, +and is handed on by the graduates of the higher schools. Can such +culture training of group leaders be neglected? Can we afford to ignore +it? Do you think that if the leaders of thought among negroes are not +trained and educated themselves, they will have no leaders? On the +contrary, a hundred half-trained demagogues will still hold the places +they so largely occupy now, and hundreds of vociferous busy-bodies will +multiply. We have no choice; either we must help furnish this race from +within its own ranks with thoughtful men, of trained leadership, or +suffer the consequences of a headless misguided rabble."</p> + +<p>Turning now to the political status of the negro, it may be said that +the most pressing need will be substantially met if the South will carry +out in good faith the provisions of her statute-books. By some of those +statute-books, suffrage is still equal and universal. In others, the +negro in required to own $300 worth of property, or to be able to read +and write, or to understand the Constitution when read to him. That the +white man is practically exempt from these tests, by the "soldier" or +"grandfather" clause, whatever be its theoretic injustice or unwisdom, +would be no great practical grievance to the negro if only he were +fairly allowed to cast his own vote when he can meet the statutory +tests. At present, throughout the greater part of the South, the +practical attitude of the election officials, and the social<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> sentiment +enforced in subtle, effectual ways, debars the negro vote almost as +thoroughly as if it were disallowed by law. That this should be so may +be satisfactory enough for those to whom the matter ends with "This is a +white man's country," or "Damn the niggers anyhow." But will the +intelligent, large-minded Southerners,—the men of light and +leading—always allow the theory of their own statute-books to be +nullified? Will they forever maintain a suffrage-test of race rather +than of property and intelligence?</p> + +<p>It is said, no doubt truly enough, that a large part of the negroes are +indifferent to the suffrage, and do not care to vote. But is this a +desirable state of things? Taking the class to whom the law awards the +suffrage,—the men of some modest property qualification and +intelligence,—is it well for the community that they should be +indifferent to questions of taxation, of law-making, of courts and +schools and roads and bridges? Is it not in every sense desirable that +they should be encouraged to take an intelligent and active interest in +such matters? John Graham Brooks tells of his recent observations in +Gloucester county, Virginia, where whites and blacks have been +co-operating for good local government, and the curse of liquor-selling +has been restrained by the votes of a black majority. Surely we should +all like to see that precedent widely followed. That is a very crude +idea of politics which sees in it only a scramble for public offices. +That is an obsolete idea which construes Southern politics as a struggle +for power between whites and blacks. Politics, in a large sense, is the +common housekeeping of the community. It is the administration of the +broadest and highest common interests. The importance to the Southern +negro of the political function was greatly overrated when he emerged +from chattelhood. But is there any wiser course now than to educate and +train<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span> and encourage him to a living membership in the body politic?</p> + +<p>In this connection we naturally recur to the relation of the national +government to the negro problem. In general, the let-alone policy of the +last twenty-eight years is likely to continue, and there is every reason +why it should. The termination of Federal interference in 1877 was not +due to criminal indifference or lassitude on the part of the North, or +to political accident. It was essentially the gravitation of the nation +to its normal position, after the shock of war and the adjustment of the +vital changes involved in the abolition of slavery. Those changes +recognized in the national Constitution, and the new order set on its +feet, it was natural, inevitable, and right, that the States should +resume the control of their local affairs. The division of governmental +functions between State and nation was one of the most fortunate +circumstances of our birth-period; it was the ripening of our historical +antecedents, felicitously grasped and molded by a group of great men. It +rests on the fitness of each local community to handle its own affairs, +while only the most general and fundamental interests are intrusted to +the central authority. When the Southern States were left to themselves, +they did some unwise and unjust things,—and there had been something of +unwisdom and injustice in the time of Federal supervision—but on the +whole it was the re-establishment of the normal order. The policy which +naturally followed on the part of the general government was the +avoidance of special legislation, especially of the restrictive kind.</p> + +<p>But within its own sphere, the national government should follow those +principles which are in the best sense American. Thus the executive, in +its appointments to office, ought to recognize an equality of race, like +that which the Constitution affirm as to civil rights and the suffrage. +It is of vital<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> moment that the American nation,—whatever local +communities may do,—should not bar competent men from office because of +race. Here as elsewhere,—the tools to him who can use them, the career +open to the fit talent. This should hold good wherever the national +executive acts, South as well as North. The principle should be applied +with reasonable regard to the sentiments of the local +community,—reasonable but not servile regard. In a city by character +and tradition a stronghold of the white race, it seems unwise to give a +principal office to a black man. But in a community where the black +element is strong in numbers and in character, and where the dark race +offers fit incumbents for office, there should be a fair number of such +appointments. If it is said "This is offensive to the Southern people," +the answer is, Who are the Southern people? Not the white people only, +but the black people also.</p> + +<p>As to legislation, a measure was recently proposed and somewhat +discussed, which has perhaps passed like other bubbles, but the proposal +of which caused natural agitation and apprehension at the South. This +was a scheme for applying the Fourteenth Amendment to the reduction of +Congressional representation in the South in proportion to the negroes +excluded from suffrage by the new State Constitutions. Some such +reduction may be permissible under the amendments,—for the later +Fifteenth Amendment only forbids the States to limit suffrage by "color, +race, or previous condition of servitude." Limitation by a property or +educational test is not forbidden; but under the Fourteenth Amendment it +might be made the ground for reducing a State's representation in +Congress. But when it has been said that the proposed measure of +reduction is permissible under the Constitution, there is nothing more +in its favor. From the standpoint of its proposers, it would be only +half-effective, for it could reach only those debarred by actual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> want +of property or education; the larger exclusion by the unfair +administration of election officers is an individual matter, beyond the +cognizance of statute-books. But the weighty objection is that it would +recognize, accept and confirm that very exclusion of the negro vote +against which it professes to be aimed. It would only enforce a penalty, +from which the gain would accrue solely to the Republican majority in +Congress and the electoral college. The Republican party, it is safe to +say, has too much virtue and intelligence in its rank and file to accept +such a gain at such a cost. For the cost would be a bitter intensifying +of race and sectional hostility. The Southern negro, his +disfranchisement accepted and ratified by the North, would be freshly +odious to his white neighbors on whom he had unconsciously brought this +humiliation. The fast closing breach between the North and South would +have a sharp and heavy wedge of division driven in. The peaceful forward +movement of the nation—for forward it is, spite of some lurches and +staggers—would be set back by a return to the old methods of sectional +conflict. But indeed the proposal hardly merits so much space as has +here been given it. It is a scheme of politicians and not of the people, +unhopeful even as a political scheme, unsupported by the sober thought +of the North, utterly unlikely to be realized or seriously attempted.</p> + +<p>There is another kind of legislative action which may well be seriously +considered. Would it not be wise, just, and statesmanlike, for the +nation to give financial aid to the tremendous work of public education +with which the South is struggling? The Blair bill for this purpose,—in +a word, an appropriation of $100,000,000, running through ten years, on +the basis of illiteracy,—came very near success in Congress. It was +defeated by an ardent championship in the North of local independence +and self-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span>reliance. It is questionable whether that championship was not +misdirected. Here are States burdening themselves beyond their Northern +neighbors, to give schooling for only a third of a year, and necessarily +sometimes of inferior quality. The deficiency, compared with the +standards of wealthier States, results in a widespread ignorance +detrimental not only to the community but to the nation. The interests +at stake are common to us all. The backlying cause of the +trouble,—slavery and its accompaniments—was in a sense our common +responsibility; we all ought to have united to get rid of it peaceably, +and the North ought to have paid its share. For the dereliction the +South has paid a terrible price. The North, too, suffered wofully, yet +in far less measure. Would it not be the part of patriotism and +statesmanship—of wisdom and good-will—that all should now take some +share in lifting the load which weighs heaviest on the South, but hurts +us all?</p> + +<p>We are spending a hundred millions a year for a navy. Would not some of +that money be put to better use in training our own citizens, who will +otherwise go untaught? Someone has said: "The cost of one battleship +would endow the higher education of the Southern negro for half a +century to come."</p> + +<p>It is not the negro only, it is his white neighbor also, for whom we are +to provide. So to plan the provision that the money be honestly and +wisely spent; to do it with just consideration of local feeling, yet on +firm lines of American democracy—this would take study and sagacity. +But could study and sagacity be better applied than to make this idea +practical? The project seems prompted by wise self-interest and by +justice. The South is carrying more than its share of national expense, +and without complaint. Our tariff system presses far heavier on the +agricultural South than on the manufacturing North. Of our payment of +pensions,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span>—running up to $130,000,000 a year,—the South bears its +proportion, though it is paid to men for fighting against her, and the +South makes no remonstrance. Is it not simple justice, is it not a +matter of national conscience and honor, that the whole nation should +help her in educating the future citizens of the republic?</p> + +<p>From this national aspect, we return to the more personal phases of our +theme. Shall we touch on that subject whose very name seems to prohibit +discussion?—what is called "social equality," or as others would prefer +"social intimacy." Either phrase seems to evoke a phantom before which +consideration and composure flee. But we may, as Epictetus suggests, +say, "Appearances, wait for me a little; let me see who you are and what +you are about, and put you to the test." Social equality—in what sense +does it exist among white men? People find their associates according to +fitness and congeniality. Clean people prefer the society of clean +people, and the dirty must go by themselves or change their habits. Men +and women of refinement and good manners welcome the company of the +refined and well-mannered. They do so no less if these pleasing traits +are found in a Japanese, a Chinese, or, a Hindu. This is the custom of +the civilized world. At the North, as already in Christendom at large, +the same usage is coming to extend to the African. A gentleman, a lady, +by breeding and education and behavior, is admitted to the society of +other ladies and gentlemen, whether in the business office, the +committee-room, or the home. When the Grand Army of the Republic in +Massachusetts this year chose their district commander, the almost +unanimous choice fell on a soldier, a lawyer, and a gentleman, of +African blood. When last fall the students of the Amherst agricultural +college elected the captain of their football team, they took as their +leader a young man of the dark race. A few years since a class<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> in +Harvard awarded their highest honor, the class oratorship, to Mr. Bruce +of Mississippi, of negro blood. When a Springfield lawyer, meeting in +Philadelphia an old classmate in the law school, accepted his invitation +to dinner at his boarding-house, and there found himself among a score +of ladies and gentlemen, all dark-skinned, elegant in dress and manners, +agreeable in conversation, and meeting their guest with entire ease and +composure,—he did not feel that the meeting had injured either him or +them, or shaken the foundations of the social order. Such is the +growing, if not the general, practice in the Northern States; such is +the well-established custom of Christendom. If the white people of the +Southern States, for reasons peculiar to their section, follow a +different rule, they have still no occasion for wonder and dismay at the +practice in other sections, or for indignation when the highest official +in the American capital follows the general usage of the civilized +world.</p> + +<p>The reasons given by the Southern whites for their own course in the +matter call no less for respectful consideration. They say: "We are +encompassed and intermingled with a people of negro and mixed blood. If +we associate with them familiarly, the natural result will be +intermarriage. There is no drawing the line short of that. Meet at the +dining-table and in the drawing-room,—visit, study, play, associate +familiarly and intimately,—and the young people of the two races, in +many instances, will pass through acquaintance and friendship to love +and marriage. Then springs a mixed and degenerate race; then the white +race, with its proud tradition, its high ideals, its grand power, shades +off into an inferior, mongrel breed. Our inheritance, our civilization, +our honor, bid us shut out and forbid that degeneracy at the very +threshold."</p> + +<p>Let it be assumed that for the present the white South resolutely +maintains its attitude of social separation. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> let its defenders +consider some of the consequences it involves, and make account with +them as best they may. Does not this social code strongly confirm, and +indeed carry as a necessary implication, that industrial separation +which must work injuriously not only to the negro but to the community? +If the white gentleman will not associate with a black gentleman in a +committee on school or public affairs, if he will not admit him to his +pew or his drawing-room, is it not to be expected that the white +carpenter or mill-hand will refuse to work side by side with the black? +What that means where the black man is in a small minority, we see here +at the North,—it shuts him out. Where he is in stronger force, as at +the South, the refusal of industrial fellowship means growing +bitterness, and the complication and aggravation of labor difficulties. +It all goes along together,—the social separation and the industrial.</p> + +<p>Further, this means that each race is to be ignorant and aloof from the +other, on its best side. The best side of every civilized people is seen +in its homes. The white and the black homes of the South are strangers +to each other. Edgar Gardner Murphy in his admirable book, <i>The Present +South</i>, while he does not for a moment question the necessity of the +social barrier, laments that ignorance of each other's best which it +involves. He dwells hopefully on that development of the family life +which marks the negro's best advance,—but what, he asks, can the white +people really see or know of it? Surely it is a very grave matter to +keep two intermingled peoples thus mutually ignorant of each other's +best.</p> + +<p>If it be asked, "What course can reasonably be considered as a possible +alternative to the jealous safeguarding of our race integrity?" the +answer might suggest itself: "Simply deal with every man according to +his fitness, his merits, and his needs, regardless of the color of his +skin. Decide to-day's questions on the broad principles of justice and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> +humanity. Leave the ultimate relation of the races to those sovereign +powers working through Nature and mankind, which we dimly understand, +but with which we best co-operate by doing the right deed here and now."</p> + +<p>Some things we say—and think, too,—when we are in debate with our +opponents, and some other things we think when we quietly commune with +ourselves. Any social ordinance or usage finds its final test when we +bring it into the companionship of our highest ideal. We may here borrow +an apologue:</p> + +<p>"The other night I fell asleep when soothed by vivid memories of a visit +to Charleston soon after the war. The place was then new to me, and the +warmth of old friends from whom I had long been parted and the cordial +hospitality of those now first met seemed to blend with the delicious +atmosphere which soothed and charmed my senses. The memory prompted a +dream, in which I sat again at that hospitable board, where my host had +summoned a company to meet a special guest. The stranger delighted us +all, partly by his suggestive comments, but still more by some subtle +sympathy which moved us all to free and even intimate speech. Gradually +the company enlarged; presently entered a man, and my host whispered to +me, 'That fellow tried to ruin me, but I can't shut him out now'—and +place was made. Then came in one with marked Jewish features, and the +company drew their chairs together and made room for him. More intimate +and sympathetic grew the talk,—strangely we all felt ourselves in a +region of thought and feeling above our wont, and brought close together +in it. It dawned on me 'this Presence among us is the same that once +walked in Jerusalem and Galilee.' At that moment there appeared at the +door a newcomer of dark hue. A frost fell on the company; they seemed to +stiffen and close their ranks; the host's face turned in trouble and +uncertainty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> from the newcomer to the guest of honor. The Guest arose +and spoke to the stranger,—'Take my place!' he said."</p> + +<p>Each of us dreams his own dream, and thinks his own thought. Differ as +we may, let us unite wherever we can in purpose and action. The perfect +social ideal will be slow in realization, but it is to-day's +straightforward step along some plain path that is bringing us nearer to +it. The black workman who every day does his best work; the white +workman who welcomes him to his side; the trade-union that opens its +doors alike to both colors; the teacher spending heart and brain for her +pupils; the statesman planning justice and opportunity for all; the +sheriff setting his life between his prisoner and the mob; the +dark-skinned guest cheerfully accepting a lower place than his due at +life's feast; the white-skinned host saying, Friend, come up higher,—it +is these who are solving the race problem.</p> + +<p>Slowly but surely we are coming together. We confront our difficulties +as a people, however we may differ among ourselves, with a oneness of +spirit which is a help and pledge of final victory. We are one by our +most sacred memories, by our dearest possessions, and by our most solemn +tasks. Our discords are on the lower plane; when the rich, full voices +speak, in whatever latitude and longitude, they chord with one another. +When Uncle Remus tells Miss Sally's little boy about Brer Rabbit and +Brer Fox, the children from the Gulf to the Lakes gather about his +knees. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are claimed as comrades by all the boys +between the Penobscot and the Rio Grande. Lanier's verse rests on the +shelf with Longfellow's. The seer of Concord gives inspiration in Europe +and India and Japan. Frances Willard stands for the womanhood of the +continent. When Fitzhugh Lee died, it was not Virginia only but America +that mourned a son. When Mary Livermore passed away, we all did honor to +her heroic spirit. When Dunbar sings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> his songs, or DuBois speaks in the +tones of scholar and poet, we all listen. The great emancipators of the +successive generations,—Woolman, Lundy, Channing, Mrs. Stowe, Lincoln, +Armstrong, Booker Washington—do we not all claim a share in them? Just +as all Englishmen feel themselves heirs alike of the Puritan Hampden and +the Royalist Falkland, so we Americans all pay our love and reverence to +the heroes of our war,—Grant and Lee, Jackson and Sheridan, Johnston +and Thomas, and all their peers.</p> + +<p>And we are one by the common tasks that confront us. This problem of the +races,—it is a challenge to do our best. "Impossible? What are we put +into the world for, but to do the impossible in the strength of God?" +The rich man and the poor man, the employer and the laborer, must find +some common ground of justice and harmony. The nation must be steered +away from commercial greed and military glory, toward international +arbitration, toward peace, toward universal brotherhood. Knowledge and +faith are to join hands, and the human spirit is to reach nobler +heights. These are the tasks which we Americans are to meet and +master—together.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span></p> + +<p>The hope of Lincoln is finding its late fulfillment: "The mystic chords +of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot +grave"—Northern and Southern graves alike—"to every living heart and +hearth-stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the +Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels +of our nature." The pathetic melody of the negro spirituals, the brave +and rollicking strains of "Dixie," and the triumphant harmony of "The +Star Spangled Banner," blend and interweave in the Symphony of +America.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2> + + + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Abbott, Ernest Hamlin, on industrial problem of South, <a href='#Page_397'><b>397</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Abolition, see Emancipation.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Abolitionists (Cf. Anti-slavery men), in England, <a href='#Page_38'><b>38</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opinions of North and South on, <a href='#Page_54'><b>54</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">inclusiveness of term, <a href='#Page_54'><b>54</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">characterized, <a href='#Page_56'><b>56</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">conservatives ally themselves with Republicans, <a href='#Page_130'><b>130</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">extremists not opposed to secession, <a href='#Page_212'><b>212</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">favor disunion, <a href='#Page_217'><b>217</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Adams, Charles Francis, joins "Free Soil" party, <a href='#Page_81'><b>81</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominated for Vice-President, <a href='#Page_82'><b>82</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">proposes compromise on slavery, <a href='#Page_229'><b>229</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">candidate for Presidential nomination, <a href='#Page_328'><b>328</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Adams, John Quincy, characteristics, <a href='#Page_28'><b>28</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">relations with Clay, <a href='#Page_29'><b>29</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Congress, <a href='#Page_72'><b>72</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">believes abol. of slavery as war measure legal, <a href='#Page_253'><b>253</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Adams, Nehemiah (Dr.), <a href='#Page_141'><b>141</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Adams, Samuel, <a href='#Page_8'><b>8</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alabama, admitted as slave State, <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">forbids importation of slaves, later repeals, <a href='#Page_36'><b>36</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">secedes, <a href='#Page_225'><b>225</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">emancipation in, <a href='#Page_260'><b>260</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">gives qualified assent to thirteenth amendment, <a href='#Page_262'><b>262</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">provisional govt. formed, <a href='#Page_275'><b>275</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">reconstructed, <a href='#Page_310'><b>310</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">negro voters in majority in, <a href='#Page_311'><b>311</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Federal interference in election (1872), <a href='#Page_323'><b>323</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Democrats regain control in, <a href='#Page_324'><b>324</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">legal limitation of suffrage in, <a href='#Page_383'><b>383</b></a>, <a href='#Page_384'><b>384</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alabama Claims, the, settled, <a href='#Page_325'><b>325</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alcorn, J. M., first Republican governor of Mississippi, <a href='#Page_336'><b>336</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alcott, Amos Bronson, characterizes John Brown, <a href='#Page_160'><b>160</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">futile views of on war, <a href='#Page_242'><b>242</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Allen, Charles, refuses to support Whig party, <a href='#Page_81'><b>81</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Amendments, constitutional, Thirteenth, <a href='#Page_262'><b>262</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ratified, <a href='#Page_268'><b>268</b></a>, <a href='#Page_276'><b>276</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">declared adopted, <a href='#Page_276'><b>276</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fourteenth formulated and discussed, <a href='#Page_297'><b>297</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">prob. reason for mistake of exclusion art. in, <a href='#Page_301'><b>301</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">disqualifications under removed by Congress, <a href='#Page_302'><b>302</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">restoration offered to South upon adoption of, <a href='#Page_303'><b>303</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">rejected by South, <a href='#Page_304'><b>304</b></a>, <a href='#Page_310'><b>310</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Grant against exclusion clauses in, <a href='#Page_310'><b>310</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">scheme to apply to reduction of Southern representation, <a href='#Page_403'><b>403</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fifteenth proposed, <a href='#Page_314'><b>314</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">adopted, <a href='#Page_315'><b>315</b></a>, <a href='#Page_403'><b>403</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">American Missionary Asso'n, labors of for freedmen, <a href='#Page_362'><b>362</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">American Party. (See <span class="smcap">Know-nothing Party</span>), <a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a>, <a href='#Page_151'><b>151</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">death of, <a href='#Page_153'><b>153</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"American system," <a href='#Page_31'><b>31</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ames, Adelbert, governor of Mississippi, <a href='#Page_336'><b>336</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">calls for Federal troops; impeached; driven from state, <a href='#Page_340'><b>340</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ames, Charles G., characterizes Stroud's Slave Laws, <a href='#Page_110'><b>110</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Amherst agricultural college, chooses negro foot ball captain, <a href='#Page_406'><b>406</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Anderson, Major, at Ft. Moultrie, <a href='#Page_223'><b>223</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Buchanan refuses aid to; withdraws to Ft. Sumter; supported, <a href='#Page_224'><b>224</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">surrenders, <a href='#Page_235'><b>235</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Andersonville, terrors of, <a href='#Page_245'><b>245</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Andrew, John A. (Gov.), denounces slavery, <a href='#Page_154'><b>154</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on John Brown, <a href='#Page_165'><b>165</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">strongly opposes secession, <a href='#Page_230'><b>230</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">course as war governor, <a href='#Page_279'><b>279</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">suggests principles of reconstruction, <a href='#Page_280'><b>280</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">endeavors to interest Northern capital in South, <a href='#Page_319'><b>319</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Anti-Nebraska" party, <a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Anti-secessionists, in North and South, <a href='#Page_212'><b>212</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Anti-slavery men (Cf. <span class="smcap">Abolitionist</span>),</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">distinguished from abolitionists, <a href='#Page_55'><b>55</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">disheartened by "Free Soil" nomination, <a href='#Page_82'><b>82</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">outbreaks against in South, <a href='#Page_169'><b>169</b></a>, <a href='#Page_186'><b>186</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Anti-slavery movement grows, <a href='#Page_35'><b>35</b></a> ff, <a href='#Page_37'><b>37</b></a>, <a href='#Page_51'><b>51</b></a>, <a href='#Page_52'><b>52</b></a>, <a href='#Page_71'><b>71</b></a>, <a href='#Page_91'><b>91</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">women and literary men in, <a href='#Page_56'><b>56</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">public leaders keep aloof from, <a href='#Page_57'><b>57</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">petitions, <a href='#Page_71'><b>71</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">documents excluded</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">from Southern mails, <a href='#Page_72'><b>72</b></a>, <a href='#Page_73'><b>73</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">made political issue, <a href='#Page_74'><b>74</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">strong growth of in North, <a href='#Page_113'><b>113</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">assumed by Republican party, <a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">tabooed at South, <a href='#Page_129'><b>129</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Anti-slavery society, American, founded, <a href='#Page_44'><b>44</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">purposes of, <a href='#Page_45'><b>45</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">dissolution of, <a href='#Page_367'><b>367</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Arkansas, admitted as slave state, <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">postpones action on secession, <a href='#Page_227'><b>227</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">secedes, <a href='#Page_235'><b>235</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">emancipation in, <a href='#Page_260'><b>260</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">provisional govt. estab. in, <a href='#Page_269'><b>269</b></a>, <a href='#Page_275'><b>275</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">reconstructed, <a href='#Page_310'><b>310</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">relative number of negro voters in, <a href='#Page_311'><b>311</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">becomes Democratic, <a href='#Page_323'><b>323</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Grant recommends state govt. be declared illegal, <a href='#Page_344'><b>344</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">bill defeated, <a href='#Page_345'><b>345</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Armstrong, Samuel Chapman (Gen.), birth and early life of, <a href='#Page_356'><b>356</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Union Army;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">begins labors for freedmen in Virginia; characterization of, <a href='#Page_357'><b>357</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">special fitness for work, <a href='#Page_359'><b>359</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">religious views, <a href='#Page_360'><b>360</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">forms ideals of negro education, <a href='#Page_360'><b>360</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">founds Hampton Institute, <a href='#Page_362'><b>362</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">personality, <a href='#Page_364'><b>364</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">labors of for school, <a href='#Page_365'><b>365</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">death of; summary of life work; personal appearance, <a href='#Page_366'><b>366</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">sayings of, <a href='#Page_367'><b>367</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Booker Washington, pupil and successor to, <a href='#Page_378'><b>378</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Arnold, Matthew, poem on his father, <a href='#Page_369'><b>369</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Atchison, Senator, of Missouri, <a href='#Page_117'><b>117</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Atlanta University, <a href='#Page_358'><b>358</b></a>, <a href='#Page_398'><b>398</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, begun, <a href='#Page_144'><b>144</b></a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Aycock, Governor, of N. C., <a href='#Page_388'><b>388</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bacon, Leonard, <a href='#Page_36'><b>36</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Baltimore, Maryland, Mass. troops attacked at, <a href='#Page_237'><b>237</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Banks, Nathaniel P., joins "Free Soil" party, <a href='#Page_81'><b>81</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">speaker of House, <a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Republican party, <a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">refuses nomination of "Know-nothing" seceders,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supports Fremont, <a href='#Page_129'><b>129</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">governor of Mass., <a href='#Page_193'><b>193</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in House, <a href='#Page_284'><b>284</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Baptists, champion cause of freedom, <a href='#Page_22'><b>22</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Barnburners," the, <a href='#Page_82'><b>82</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Barnwell, Senator, advocates secession, <a href='#Page_89'><b>89</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bates, Edward, candidate for Presidential nomination (1860), <a href='#Page_191'><b>191</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">attitude of on emancipation proclamation, <a href='#Page_257'><b>257</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beauregard, Gen., leads attack on Fort Sumter, <a href='#Page_235'><b>235</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beecher, Edward, <a href='#Page_36'><b>36</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beecher, Henry Ward, characterization of, <a href='#Page_141'><b>141</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">active in political discussion, <a href='#Page_142'><b>142</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">criticises Lincoln in <i>Independent</i>, <a href='#Page_254'><b>254</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">labors in behalf of Union, <a href='#Page_277'><b>277</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">outlines plan of reconstruction, <a href='#Page_277'><b>277</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">views on suffrage, <a href='#Page_308'><b>308</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bell, John, nominated for President, <a href='#Page_189'><b>189</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">popular vote for (1860), <a href='#Page_194'><b>194</b></a>; <a href='#Page_214'><b>214</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bennett, James Gordon, <a href='#Page_141'><b>141</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Berea College, beginnings of, <a href='#Page_73'><b>73</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">discriminated against by Kentucky educational law, <a href='#Page_385'><b>385</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bernard, John, meets Washington, <a href='#Page_1'><b>1</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Biglow Papers," Lowell attacks slavery and war in, <a href='#Page_77'><b>77</b></a>; <a href='#Page_144'><b>144</b></a>; <a href='#Page_254'><b>254</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Birney, James G., <a href='#Page_36'><b>36</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">incidents in life of, <a href='#Page_58'><b>58</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">political ideas of, <a href='#Page_59'><b>59</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominated for President, <a href='#Page_74'><b>74</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">views of on slavery question, <a href='#Page_74'><b>74</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">again nominated, <a href='#Page_75'><b>75</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Black, Jeremiah S., Attorney-General, <a href='#Page_222'><b>222</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Secretary of State, <a href='#Page_244'><b>244</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">defends Johnson, <a href='#Page_312'><b>312</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Black Codes" of 1865-6, <a href='#Page_281'><b>281</b></a> ff, <a href='#Page_372'><b>372</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Blaine, James G., in House, <a href='#Page_284'><b>284</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">proposes amend. to Stevens's reconstruction bill, <a href='#Page_306'><b>306</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on debate of bill, <a href='#Page_307'><b>307</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on negro suffrage, <a href='#Page_310'><b>310</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">leader in House, characterized, <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">speaks against Davis, reputation discredited, Presidential candidate, <a href='#Page_346'><b>346</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Blair, Francis P. (Gen.), nominated for Vice-Presidency; defeated, <a href='#Page_314'><b>314</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Blair, Senator, of N. H., bill of for aid to local education on basis of existing illiteracy, <a href='#Page_372'><b>372</b></a>, <a href='#Page_404'><b>404</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Border Ruffians," the, <a href='#Page_116'><b>116</b></a>, <a href='#Page_118'><b>118</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Border States, severity of war greatest in, <a href='#Page_242'><b>242</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lincoln's scheme for compensated emancipation in, <a href='#Page_252'><b>252</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">slave owners in alienated by emancipation proclamation, <a href='#Page_261'><b>261</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Boston Courier</i>, denounces Republican party in 1860 campaign, <a href='#Page_194'><b>194</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bourne, George (Rev.), denounces slavery, <a href='#Page_37'><b>37</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Boutwell, George S., governor of Mass., <a href='#Page_92'><b>92</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in House, <a href='#Page_284'><b>284</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">House prosecutor of Johnson, <a href='#Page_311'><b>311</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bowles, Samuel, <a href='#Page_124'><b>124</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Life and Times of," <a href='#Page_124'><b>124</b></a> note;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">gives opinion of Johnson imbroglio, <a href='#Page_296'><b>296</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bradley, Joseph (Justice), on Hayes-Tilden commission, <a href='#Page_349'><b>349</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Breckinridge, John C., nominated for President, <a href='#Page_188'><b>188</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">scheme for electing, <a href='#Page_189'><b>189</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">popular vote for (1860), <a href='#Page_194'><b>194</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">declines to repudiate secession, <a href='#Page_194'><b>194</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bristow, Benjamin H., Presidential candidate, Sec'y of Treasury, <a href='#Page_346'><b>346</b></a>, <a href='#Page_347'><b>347</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brooks, John Graham, observations of on Virginia politics, <a href='#Page_401'><b>401</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brooks, Preston S., assaults Sumner, <a href='#Page_122'><b>122</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">re-elected and honored, effect on North, <a href='#Page_123'><b>123</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brown, B. Gratz, leads independent movement in Mo., <a href='#Page_327'><b>327</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">aspirant for Presidential nomination, <a href='#Page_328'><b>328</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brown, John, sketch of, <a href='#Page_119'><b>119</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">leads massacre in Kansas, <a href='#Page_120'><b>120</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">schemes for extinction of slavery, <a href='#Page_159'><b>159</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Springfield, Mass., <a href='#Page_159'><b>159</b></a>, <a href='#Page_162'><b>162</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">aided by leading anti-slavery men, <a href='#Page_160'><b>160</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">pen pictures of by Alcott and Emerson, <a href='#Page_160'><b>160</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">characterization of, <a href='#Page_161'><b>161</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">makes raid on Harper's Ferry, <a href='#Page_162'><b>162</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">captured, <a href='#Page_163'><b>163</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">hanged, <a href='#Page_164'><b>164</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">honored as martyr, <a href='#Page_164'><b>164</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">eulogized by Emerson, <a href='#Page_165'><b>165</b></a>, <a href='#Page_167'><b>167</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">characterization of his acts and schemes, <a href='#Page_166'><b>166</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bruce, B. K., U. S. Senator, <a href='#Page_336'><b>336</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bruce, R. C., of Miss., awarded class oratorship at Harvard, <a href='#Page_407'><b>407</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bryant, William Cullen, editor of N. Y. <i>Evening Post</i>, <a href='#Page_327'><b>327</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Buchanan, James, <a href='#Page_72'><b>72</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Democratic Presidential candidate, characterized, <a href='#Page_128'><b>128</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">with Mason and Soulé issues Ostend manifesto, <a href='#Page_128'><b>128</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">administration of (1857-61), <a href='#Page_147'><b>147</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">sends Gov. Walker to Kansas, <a href='#Page_150'><b>150</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supports Lecompton constitution, <a href='#Page_151'><b>151</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">announces position on secession, <a href='#Page_222'><b>222</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">refuses aid to Ft. Moultrie, <a href='#Page_224'><b>224</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">cabinet, <a href='#Page_224'><b>224</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Burgess, J. W. (Prof), shows effects of John Brown's raid, <a href='#Page_170'><b>170</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">comments on laws governing negroes after war, <a href='#Page_291'><b>291</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Burns, Anthony, fugitive slave, <a href='#Page_91'><b>91</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Butler, Senator, from S. C., Sumner attacks in Congressional speech, <a href='#Page_122'><b>122</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Butler, Benjamin F., joins seceding Democratic convention (1860), <a href='#Page_188'><b>188</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">candidate for governor of Mass., <a href='#Page_192'><b>192</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">declares fugitive slaves "contraband of war," <a href='#Page_248'><b>248</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">House prosecutor of Johnson, <a href='#Page_311'><b>311</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Congress, characterized, <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">labors for "force bill" (1875), <a href='#Page_345'><b>345</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Butler, Fanny Kemble. See <span class="smcap">Kemble, Fanny</span>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Calhoun, John C., Vice-President, relations with Jackson, <a href='#Page_30'><b>30</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">defends right of nullification, <a href='#Page_32'><b>32</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">prophesies concerning relations between North and South, <a href='#Page_34'><b>34</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">becomes leader of South, <a href='#Page_34'><b>34</b></a>, <a href='#Page_44'><b>44</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">characterization of, <a href='#Page_47'><b>47</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">social theories of, <a href='#Page_50'><b>50</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Senate, opposes anti-slavery petitions, claims State control of mails, <a href='#Page_72'><b>72</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Tyler's cabinet, leader in Texas annexation, <a href='#Page_75'><b>75</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">returns to Senate, <a href='#Page_76'><b>76</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">politically isolated, <a href='#Page_79'><b>79</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposes war with Eng., <a href='#Page_80'><b>80</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">claims of for nationionalization of slavery, <a href='#Page_80'><b>80</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">last speech of, <a href='#Page_86'><b>86</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his opinion of struggle bet. North and South, <a href='#Page_87'><b>87</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">California, taken from Mexico, <a href='#Page_79'><b>79</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">admission as free State advocated, <a href='#Page_88'><b>88</b></a>, <a href='#Page_90'><b>90</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">swift settlement of; applies for admission with slavery excluded, South opposes, <a href='#Page_84'><b>84</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">rejects Fifteenth amendment, <a href='#Page_315'><b>315</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cameron, Simon, candidate for Presidential nomination; supports Lincoln, <a href='#Page_190'><b>190</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Carolinas, the (see also <span class="smcap">North</span>, <span class="smcap">South</span>),</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">slavery foundation of aristocracy in, <a href='#Page_6'><b>6</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">number of slaves in in 1790, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Carpenter, Frank, Lincoln's conversation with, <a href='#Page_256'><b>256</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Carpet-baggers," the, <a href='#Page_318'><b>318</b></a>, <a href='#Page_336'><b>336</b></a>, <a href='#Page_338'><b>338</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Casey, F. F., in government of Louisiana, <a href='#Page_341'><b>341</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cass, Lewis, nominated for President, <a href='#Page_81'><b>81</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">resigns from cabinet, <a href='#Page_224'><b>224</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chamberlain, Daniel H., governor of So. Carolina, <a href='#Page_332'><b>332</b></a>, <a href='#Page_348'><b>348</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chandler, Zachariah, <a href='#Page_270'><b>270</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">sketch of, <a href='#Page_283'><b>283</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">as radical leader, <a href='#Page_285'><b>285</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">party leader, <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">chairman Republican national committee; disputes Tilden's election, <a href='#Page_348'><b>348</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Channing, William Ellery, plan of emancipation, <a href='#Page_39'><b>39</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">sketch of, attitude toward anti-slavery movement, <a href='#Page_59'><b>59</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">treatise on Slavery, <a href='#Page_62'><b>62</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chase, Salmon P., in "Free Soil" convention, <a href='#Page_82'><b>82</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Senate, <a href='#Page_83'><b>83</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">against extension of slavery, <a href='#Page_90'><b>90</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Lincoln's cabinet, <a href='#Page_249'><b>249</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">attitude of on emancipation proclamation, <a href='#Page_257'><b>257</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">becomes chief justice, <a href='#Page_274'><b>274</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">candidate for Presidential nomination, Lincoln's opinion of, services of in supreme court, <a href='#Page_313'><b>313</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chestnutt, Charles W., <a href='#Page_379'><b>379</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">shows discrimination against negro suffrage, <a href='#Page_384'><b>384</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Child, Lydia Maria, <a href='#Page_56'><b>56</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opinion of Channing, <a href='#Page_63'><b>63</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Church, the, early, accepts slavery, works toward abolition, <a href='#Page_4'><b>4</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">casuistical defense of slavery by, <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in America, justifies slavery, <a href='#Page_50'><b>50</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">split over slavery, <a href='#Page_53'><b>53</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">united in South in defense of slavery in North divided, <a href='#Page_141'><b>141</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">labors of in North in behalf of Union, <a href='#Page_277'><b>277</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Civil rights bill (1866) passed, <a href='#Page_296'><b>296</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">vetoed by Johnson, becomes law, <a href='#Page_297'><b>297</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">of 1875, <a href='#Page_345'><b>345</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Civil war, the, causes of, <a href='#Page_211'><b>211</b></a> ff; <a href='#Page_237'><b>237</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">views on in North and South, <a href='#Page_237'><b>237</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">moral results of, <a href='#Page_240'><b>240</b></a>, <a href='#Page_244'><b>244</b></a>, <a href='#Page_247'><b>247</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">emancipation measures discussed and adopted during, <a href='#Page_248'><b>248</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">disappointment over protraction of, <a href='#Page_254'><b>254</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">negroes in, <a href='#Page_261'><b>261</b></a>, <a href='#Page_263'><b>263</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">courage of both North and South in, <a href='#Page_262'><b>262</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">suffering in, <a href='#Page_265'><b>265</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ended, <a href='#Page_270'><b>270</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Civil War and the Constitution, The," <a href='#Page_170'><b>170</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Clay, Cassius M., opposes slavery, <a href='#Page_73'><b>73</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in founding of Berea College, <a href='#Page_73'><b>73</b></a>; <a href='#Page_170'><b>170</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Clay, Henry, votes for slavery in Arkansas, <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">favors Missouri compromise, aspires to Presidency, dislikes but supports slavery, <a href='#Page_26'><b>26</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">relations of with J. Q. Adams, <a href='#Page_29'><b>29</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">advocates protective tariff, <a href='#Page_31'><b>31</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">proposed tariff compromise, <a href='#Page_33'><b>33</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whigs nominate for President, <a href='#Page_75'><b>75</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">defeated, <a href='#Page_76'><b>76</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposed to annexation of Mexico, <a href='#Page_79'><b>79</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">disappointed of Presidential nomination, <a href='#Page_81'><b>81</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Senate (1849-50), frames compromise measures of 1850, <a href='#Page_85'><b>85</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposes extension of slavery, denies right of secession, last speech of, <a href='#Page_86'><b>86</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">denounces threats of secession, <a href='#Page_89'><b>89</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Clayton, Powell, in Grant faction, <a href='#Page_344'><b>344</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cobb, Howell, <a href='#Page_138'><b>138</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Coles, Edward (Gov.), <a href='#Page_35'><b>35</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Colfax, Schuyler, in House, <a href='#Page_284'><b>284</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Vice-President, <a href='#Page_314'><b>314</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Colonization, Jefferson's schemes for, <a href='#Page_18'><b>18</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pennsylvania society, <a href='#Page_22'><b>22</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">society attacked by New Eng. anti-slavery society, <a href='#Page_44'><b>44</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Compromise of 1820, see <span class="smcap">Missouri</span></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">of 1850, <a href='#Page_85'><b>85</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">adopted, <a href='#Page_90'><b>90</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">causes dissatisfaction in North and South, <a href='#Page_91'><b>91</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Confederacy, the Southern (see also <span class="smcap">South</span>, the, etc.).</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Secessionists propose to form, <a href='#Page_215'><b>215</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">convention to organize, <a href='#Page_225'><b>225</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">organized, constitution of, <a href='#Page_226'><b>226</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">election of officers of, <a href='#Page_226'><b>226</b></a>, <a href='#Page_227'><b>227</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">disregards peace overtures from Republicans, <a href='#Page_229'><b>229</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">courage displayed in, <a href='#Page_262'><b>262</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lee the chief hero of, <a href='#Page_263'><b>263</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Conkling, Roscoe, in House, <a href='#Page_284'><b>284</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">party leader, <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">favors "force bill," <a href='#Page_345'><b>345</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Presidential candidate, <a href='#Page_346'><b>346</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Connecticut, passes emancipation law, <a href='#Page_21'><b>21</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Conscience Whigs," <a href='#Page_82'><b>82</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Constitution (See <span class="smcap">Convention of 1787</span>),</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">proposed convention to revise, <a href='#Page_229'><b>229</b></a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Amendments to, see <span class="smcap">Amendments</span>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Constitutional Union" party, <a href='#Page_153'><b>153</b></a>, <a href='#Page_189'><b>189</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Convention of 1787, personnel, work, and difficulties of, <a href='#Page_10'><b>10</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">results of, <a href='#Page_14'><b>14</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Corwin, Thomas, opposes Mexican war, <a href='#Page_77'><b>77</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cotton gin, invention of stimulates cotton growing, <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Credit Mobilier, <a href='#Page_344'><b>344</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Crittenden, John J., Senator, <a href='#Page_151'><b>151</b></a>, <a href='#Page_214'><b>214</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Crittenden, compromise, proposed, refused by Republicans, <a href='#Page_228'><b>228</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cuba, emancipation in, <a href='#Page_108'><b>108</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">annexation of demanded in Ostend manifesto, <a href='#Page_128'><b>128</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Curtis, Benj. R., defends President Johnson, <a href='#Page_312'><b>312</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Curtis, George William, editor <i>Harper's Weekly</i>, <a href='#Page_330'><b>330</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">leads reform element in Republican convention of 1876, <a href='#Page_346'><b>346</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Curtis, Justice, dissents from Dred Scott decision, <a href='#Page_148'><b>148</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cushing, Caleb, joins seceding Democratic convention, <a href='#Page_188'><b>188</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supports Breckinridge Democracy; bitter words of on Mass. election, <a href='#Page_193'><b>193</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dabney, Thomas, sketch of, <a href='#Page_100'><b>100</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">experiences of after war, <a href='#Page_337'><b>337</b></a>, <a href='#Page_339'><b>339</b></a>, <a href='#Page_355'><b>355</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Davis, David, on Hayes-Tilden commission; in Senate, <a href='#Page_349'><b>349</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Davis, Henry Winter, favors radical reconstruction, <a href='#Page_270'><b>270</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Davis, Jefferson, in Senate, <a href='#Page_86'><b>86</b></a>, <a href='#Page_89'><b>89</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">sketch of life and principles of, <a href='#Page_132'><b>132</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">active in politics, in Mexican war, in Senate, Sec'y of War, leader in secession, <a href='#Page_134'><b>134</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">hostility toward, <a href='#Page_135'><b>135</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">final estimate of, <a href='#Page_136'><b>136</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">presents ultimatum of South in Senate (1859), <a href='#Page_184'><b>184</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">residence of at North, <a href='#Page_193'><b>193</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">defends secession, <a href='#Page_215'><b>215</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposes immediate secession (1860), <a href='#Page_221'><b>221</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">with others withdraws from Congress to organize Confederacy, <a href='#Page_225'><b>225</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">elected President of Confederacy, <a href='#Page_226'><b>226</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">North's hatred of, <a href='#Page_301'><b>301</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">imprisoned by Pres. Johnson, <a href='#Page_329'><b>329</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">attacked by Blaine, <a href='#Page_346'><b>346</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Davis, Rebecca Harding (Mrs.), describes terrors of Civil war in border states, <a href='#Page_242'><b>242</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dawes, Henry L., in House, <a href='#Page_284'><b>284</b></a>, <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dayton, William L., Vice-Presidential candidate (1856), <a href='#Page_129'><b>129</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Declaration of Independence, clause in regarding wrongs of slave trade suppressed, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">DeForest, J. W., <a href='#Page_209'><b>209</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Delaware, votes against extension of slave trade, <a href='#Page_13'><b>13</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">rejects Thirteenth amendment, <a href='#Page_262'><b>262</b></a>, <a href='#Page_276'><b>276</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">rejects Fifteenth amendment, <a href='#Page_315'><b>315</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Democratic party (see <span class="smcap">Democrats</span>),</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">power of South in, <a href='#Page_185'><b>185</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">extreme South breaks up, <a href='#Page_187'><b>187</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Alex. H. Stephens explains move, <a href='#Page_189'><b>189</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">geographical lines of in campaign of 1860, <a href='#Page_192'><b>192</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Democratic sentiment, growth of, <a href='#Page_21'><b>21</b></a>, <a href='#Page_29'><b>29</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Democrats, opposed to strong central gov't, <a href='#Page_21'><b>21</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">favor annexing Texas, <a href='#Page_75'><b>75</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominate Cass for President, <a href='#Page_81'><b>81</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">combine with Free Soilers, <a href='#Page_92'><b>92</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominate Pierce for President, desert Free Soilers, <a href='#Page_93'><b>93</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">vote for Kansas-Nebraska bill, <a href='#Page_114'><b>114</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Republican party, <a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">platform (1856), campaign, Buchanan candidate of, <a href='#Page_128'><b>128</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">uphold Ostend manifesto, <a href='#Page_129'><b>129</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">divided over Lecompton constitution, <a href='#Page_151'><b>151</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">convention of 1860, <a href='#Page_185'><b>185</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">delegates from S. C. and Gulf States leave, <a href='#Page_187'><b>187</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">adjourns, <a href='#Page_188'><b>188</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">regular convention at re-meeting nominates Douglas and Johnson, seceders nominate Breckinridge and Lane, <a href='#Page_188'><b>188</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">inharmonious in North, <a href='#Page_253'><b>253</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">gain in 1862, <a href='#Page_261'><b>261</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominate McClellan for Presidency, defeated, <a href='#Page_265'><b>265</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Congress of 1865-6, <a href='#Page_284'><b>284</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">hold convention of 1868, repudiate reconstruction acts, favor repudiation, nominate Seymour, <a href='#Page_313'><b>313</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">regain control in many Southern States, <a href='#Page_323'><b>323</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">join Independent Republicans, <a href='#Page_328'><b>328</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">indorse Greeley's nomination, Independent Democrats nominate O'Conor, <a href='#Page_329'><b>329</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">organize resistance to Republicans in South and begin intimidation, <a href='#Page_339'><b>339</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Congress of 1875-6, <a href='#Page_346'><b>346</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominate Tilden for President, <a href='#Page_347'><b>347</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">claim election, <a href='#Page_348'><b>348</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Denison, John, Dr., characterizes Gen. Samuel Armstrong, <a href='#Page_357'><b>357</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Devens, Charles, Attorney-General under Hayes, <a href='#Page_353'><b>353</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickinson, Edward, helps organize Republican party, <a href='#Page_114'><b>114</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickinson, John, opinion of slave trade, <a href='#Page_12'><b>12</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Disfranchisement," paper on, by Charles W. Chestnutt, <a href='#Page_384'><b>384</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">District of Columbia, slavery abolished in, <a href='#Page_251'><b>251</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dix, John A. (Gen.), in Buchanan's cabinet, <a href='#Page_224'><b>224</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dorsey, Stephen W., in Grant faction, <a href='#Page_344'><b>344</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Douglas, Stephen A., sketch of, <a href='#Page_112'><b>112</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">introduces "Kansas-Nebraska" bill to aid his Pres. candidature, <a href='#Page_112'><b>112</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">doctrine of "popular sovereignty," <a href='#Page_150'><b>150</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supports Republicans on Lecompton bill, <a href='#Page_151'><b>151</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">returns to Democrats and becomes Senator, <a href='#Page_153'><b>153</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">famous debates of with Lincoln, <a href='#Page_180'><b>180</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">elected U. S. Senator, <a href='#Page_181'><b>181</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">struggle of, with extreme South on Democratic platform (1860), <a href='#Page_185'><b>185</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">great power of in convention; principles of; followers defy Southern Democracy, <a href='#Page_186'><b>186</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominated for President, <a href='#Page_188'><b>188</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">denounces secession; pop. vote for, <a href='#Page_194'><b>194</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">assails Lincoln's position, proposes plans to conciliate South, <a href='#Page_233'><b>233</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supports Lincoln, <a href='#Page_235'><b>235</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Douglass, Frederick, <a href='#Page_96'><b>96</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Dred," anti-slavery novel, <a href='#Page_123'><b>123</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dred Scott decision, <a href='#Page_147'><b>147</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">DuBois, Prof., <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a>, <a href='#Page_379'><b>379</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">on need of higher education for negroes, <a href='#Page_398'><b>398</b></a>, <a href='#Page_399'><b>399</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dunbar, Paul Laurence, <a href='#Page_379'><b>379</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Duncan, James, <a href='#Page_38'><b>38</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Durell, E. H. (Judge), in Louisiana election struggle, <a href='#Page_341'><b>341</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Education, of negroes, <a href='#Page_37'><b>37</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">urged by Beecher, <a href='#Page_279'><b>279</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nat'l, of negroes neglected, <a href='#Page_325'><b>325</b></a>, <a href='#Page_326'><b>326</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">higher, for negroes, <a href='#Page_358'><b>358</b></a>, <a href='#Page_377'><b>377</b></a> ff, <a href='#Page_398'><b>398</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Blair bill for local aid to, on basis of existing illiteracy, <a href='#Page_372'><b>372</b></a>, <a href='#Page_404'><b>404</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">of negroes undertaken by Southern whites, <a href='#Page_373'><b>373</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">standard of in South being raised, <a href='#Page_381'><b>381</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">efforts to restrict for negroes, unjust Kentucky law, <a href='#Page_385'><b>385</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">estimate of amt. paid out for negro education to date, <a href='#Page_388'><b>388</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">improved industrial for negroes, <a href='#Page_388'><b>388</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">of negro presents great difficulty, <a href='#Page_396'><b>396</b></a>-<a href='#Page_7'><b>7</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">amount spent by South for edu. of negro in past <a href='#Page_30'><b>30</b></a> years, <a href='#Page_397'><b>397</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">problems of in South, <a href='#Page_397'><b>397</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">need of higher for negroes, <a href='#Page_398'><b>398</b></a>-<a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">gov't aid to in South advocated, <a href='#Page_404'><b>404</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Eggleston, General, Republican leader in Miss., <a href='#Page_336'><b>336</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Eliot, Thomas D., helps organize Republican party, <a href='#Page_114'><b>114</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln presents to cabinet, decides to delay promulgation of, <a href='#Page_257'><b>257</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">reintroduces, <a href='#Page_258'><b>258</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">discussed and approved by cabinet, issued (1862), <a href='#Page_259'><b>259</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">goes into effect, immediate results of, <a href='#Page_260'><b>260</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Emerson, Ralph Waldo, in anti-slavery movement, <a href='#Page_56'><b>56</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in literature, <a href='#Page_94'><b>94</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">influence of, <a href='#Page_143'><b>143</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">pen picture of John Brown by, <a href='#Page_160'><b>160</b></a>; <a href='#Page_243'><b>243</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"End of an Era, The," <a href='#Page_169'><b>169</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">English bill, the, <a href='#Page_151'><b>151</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Evarts, William M., in Republican convention (1860), <a href='#Page_191'><b>191</b></a>, <a href='#Page_192'><b>192</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">defends President Johnson, <a href='#Page_312'><b>312</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Secy. of State under Hayes, <a href='#Page_353'><b>353</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Everett, Edward, nominated for Presidency, <a href='#Page_189'><b>189</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Federalist Party, principles of, <a href='#Page_20'><b>20</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fee, John G., and Berea College, <a href='#Page_73'><b>73</b></a>, <a href='#Page_170'><b>170</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fessenden, William P., in Senate, <a href='#Page_114'><b>114</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Republican party, <a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">heads reconstruction committee, <a href='#Page_281'><b>281</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in U. S. Senate, <a href='#Page_283'><b>283</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">sketch of, <a href='#Page_284'><b>284</b></a>, <a href='#Page_285'><b>285</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposes President Johnson's plan of reconstruction, <a href='#Page_286'><b>286</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">votes to acquit Pres. Johnson, <a href='#Page_312'><b>312</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">death of, <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fillmore, Millard, becomes President, character of, <a href='#Page_90'><b>90</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">candidate for Presidential nomination, <a href='#Page_92'><b>92</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominated (1856) by "Know-nothings," <a href='#Page_129'><b>129</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fish, Hamilton, in Senate, <a href='#Page_114'><b>114</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in settlement of Alabama claims, <a href='#Page_325'><b>325</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fisk University, <a href='#Page_358'><b>358</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Florida, secedes, <a href='#Page_225'><b>225</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">emancipation in, <a href='#Page_260'><b>260</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">provisional gov't of, <a href='#Page_275'><b>275</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">reconstructed, <a href='#Page_310'><b>310</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">rel. number of negro voters in, <a href='#Page_311'><b>311</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Presidential vote of contested (1876), <a href='#Page_348'><b>348</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Flower de Hundred," <a href='#Page_100'><b>100</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Floyd, John B., Secy. of War, resigns, <a href='#Page_224'><b>224</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Foot, Solomon, in Senate, <a href='#Page_114'><b>114</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Force bill, of 1833, <a href='#Page_33'><b>33</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">—— proposed, of 1875, defeated in Senate, <a href='#Page_345'><b>345</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fort Moultrie, commanded by Anderson, <a href='#Page_223'><b>223</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Buchanan refuses to aid, <a href='#Page_224'><b>224</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">abandoned by Anderson, <a href='#Page_224'><b>224</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">occupied by So. Carolinians, <a href='#Page_224'><b>224</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fort Sumter, Anderson removes to, <a href='#Page_224'><b>224</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">debate over, <a href='#Page_233'><b>233</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lincoln sends aid to, <a href='#Page_234'><b>234</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Confederates attack and take, <a href='#Page_235'><b>235</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fortune, T. Thomas, <a href='#Page_379'><b>379</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fowler, Senator, votes to acquit Pres. Johnson, <a href='#Page_312'><b>312</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Franklin, Benjamin, <a href='#Page_8'><b>8</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">labors against slavery, skill of as a leader, <a href='#Page_19'><b>19</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Freedmen's Bureau, <a href='#Page_287'><b>287</b></a>, <a href='#Page_289'><b>289</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pres. Johnson vetoes bill to increase powers of, <a href='#Page_294'><b>294</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">bill amended, passed, <a href='#Page_297'><b>297</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">labors of, <a href='#Page_357'><b>357</b></a>, <a href='#Page_362'><b>362</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Free Soil" party, previously "Liberty" party, gains from Whigs and Democrats, <a href='#Page_81'><b>81</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Free Soilers," convention of (1848), nominates Van Buren, <a href='#Page_82'><b>82</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">form alliance with Democrats, <a href='#Page_92'><b>92</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominate John P. Hale for President, lose Democratic allies, <a href='#Page_93'><b>93</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">vote against Kansas-Nebraska bill in House, <a href='#Page_114'><b>114</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">unite with Whigs in Mich. in formation of Republican party, <a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Republican party, <a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Free State men, in Kansas struggle, <a href='#Page_117'><b>117</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">refuse to vote in Kansas, <a href='#Page_150'><b>150</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">give up separate organization, and win, <a href='#Page_152'><b>152</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">triumph of, <a href='#Page_153'><b>153</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fremont, John C. (Gen.), nominated for President, <a href='#Page_126'><b>126</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">sketch of, <a href='#Page_126'><b>126</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">declares martial law, and emancipation of slaves in Missouri, <a href='#Page_248'><b>248</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">emancipation measure of set aside by Lincoln, results of incident, <a href='#Page_249'><b>249</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fugitive slave law, demanded by South, <a href='#Page_85'><b>85</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">resisted in North, dissatisfaction over, <a href='#Page_91'><b>91</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Galveston Bulletin</i>, view of reconstruction in, <a href='#Page_267'><b>267</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Garfield, James A., in House, <a href='#Page_284'><b>284</b></a>, <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Garrison, Wm. Lloyd, becomes interested in emancipation, <a href='#Page_39'><b>39</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">early experiences, founds <i>Liberator</i>, principles, <a href='#Page_40'><b>40</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">founds New England Anti-Slavery Society, <a href='#Page_44'><b>44</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">fight of against slavery, <a href='#Page_51'><b>51</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">aims and methods of, <a href='#Page_52'><b>52</b></a>, <a href='#Page_53'><b>53</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">followers of divided, <a href='#Page_54'><b>54</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">personality of, <a href='#Page_54'><b>54</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">mobbed, <a href='#Page_55'><b>55</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">scorns Republican party, <a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">propagandism of inflames North and South, <a href='#Page_207'><b>207</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">declares all war unchristian, <a href='#Page_210'><b>210</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">favors disunion, <a href='#Page_217'><b>217</b></a>, <a href='#Page_228'><b>228</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Geary, John W., governor of Kansas, <a href='#Page_117'><b>117</b></a>, <a href='#Page_121'><b>121</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Genius of Universal Emancipation</i>, founded, <a href='#Page_38'><b>38</b></a>, <a href='#Page_39'><b>39</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Georgia, demands representation in Congress based on slave numbers, <a href='#Page_11'><b>11</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">refuses to join Union if slave trade forbidden, <a href='#Page_12'><b>12</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">forbids entry of free negroes into State, forbids circulation of insurrectionary pamphlets, <a href='#Page_41'><b>41</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">citizens of characterized, <a href='#Page_137'><b>137</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">becomes pivotal point of Southern politics, <a href='#Page_138'><b>138</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">considers secession (1860), <a href='#Page_221'><b>221</b></a>, <a href='#Page_225'><b>225</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">secedes, <a href='#Page_226'><b>226</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">emancipation in, <a href='#Page_260'><b>260</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">provisional govt. formed, <a href='#Page_275'><b>275</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">signs of promise in during reconstruction period, <a href='#Page_301'><b>301</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">rights of negro conserved in, <a href='#Page_302'><b>302</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">readmitted, relative number of negro voters in, <a href='#Page_311'><b>311</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Democrats regain control in, <a href='#Page_323'><b>323</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">discrimination against negro suffrage in, <a href='#Page_384'><b>384</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Giddings, Joshua, in "Free Soil" convention, <a href='#Page_82'><b>82</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Godkin, E. L., <a href='#Page_327'><b>327</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gold, at premium of <a href='#Page_250'><b>250</b></a>, <a href='#Page_264'><b>264</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gorman bill to limit suffrage, defeated (1905), <a href='#Page_383'><b>383</b></a>, note.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grand Army of the Republic, chooses negro commander in Mass., <a href='#Page_406'><b>406</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grant, Ulysses S. (Gen.), votes for Buchanan, <a href='#Page_130'><b>130</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">refuses to exchange prisoners, <a href='#Page_246'><b>246</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">report of on conditions in South after war, <a href='#Page_286'><b>286</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on proper policy toward South, <a href='#Page_302'><b>302</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">against exclusion clauses of <a href='#Page_14'><b>14</b></a>th amendment, <a href='#Page_310'><b>310</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominated for President, elected, <a href='#Page_314'><b>314</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">problems of administration, displays lack of statesmanship, <a href='#Page_324'><b>324</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">defeats inflation policy, <a href='#Page_325'><b>325</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">personal honesty of, <a href='#Page_326'><b>326</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">strong opposition to develops, <a href='#Page_327'><b>327</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">prominent men and events of second term, <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">growth of independence of, <a href='#Page_332'><b>332</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">recommends State govt. of Arkansas be declared illegal, <a href='#Page_344'><b>344</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">favors "Force bill," <a href='#Page_345'><b>345</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">disinclination of to further interference in South, <a href='#Page_345'><b>345</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">attitude of in disputed States in 1876, <a href='#Page_349'><b>349</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">remarks of to Lee on surrender, <a href='#Page_354'><b>354</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Greeley, Horace, votes for Taylor, <a href='#Page_82'><b>82</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">helps prolong Whig organization in N. Y., <a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">sketch of, <a href='#Page_140'><b>140</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposes Seward in Republican convention. (1860), <a href='#Page_191'><b>191</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">criticises Lincoln, Lincoln's reply to, <a href='#Page_255'><b>255</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supports Independ. Repub. movement, nominated for President, <a href='#Page_328'><b>328</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nomination of indorsed by Democrats, weakness of as candidate, generous sentiment of toward South, <a href='#Page_329'><b>329</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">bitter opposition to, defeat and death of, <a href='#Page_330'><b>330</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grimes, Senator, votes to acquit President Johnson, <a href='#Page_312'><b>312</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hale, Edward Everett, in New Eng. Emigrant Aid Society, <a href='#Page_116'><b>116</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hale, Eugene, in House, <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hale, John P., nominated for President, <a href='#Page_93'><b>93</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hamlin, Hannibal, nominated for Vice-President, <a href='#Page_192'><b>192</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hampton, Wade, nominated for governor of So. Carolina; violence of campaign, <a href='#Page_333'><b>333</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">claims governorship, <a href='#Page_348'><b>348</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">governor, <a href='#Page_353'><b>353</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hampton Institute, founded, <a href='#Page_362'><b>362</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">work at begun, success and growth of, <a href='#Page_363'><b>363</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">work of, <a href='#Page_377'><b>377</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Harper's Ferry, raid on, by John Brown, <a href='#Page_162'><b>162</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Harper's Weekly</i>, opposes Greeley, <a href='#Page_330'><b>330</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Harrison, Mrs. Burton, personal reminiscences of Virginia before the war, <a href='#Page_100'><b>100</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Harrison, William H., campaign of, <a href='#Page_74'><b>74</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hart, Albert Bushnell, gives estimate of wealth of negroes, <a href='#Page_375'><b>375</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Harvard College, awards class oratorship to negro (Bruce of Miss.), <a href='#Page_407'><b>407</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hawley, Joseph R. (Gen.), in House, <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hawthorne, Nathaniel, <a href='#Page_242'><b>242</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hayes, Rutherford B., in House, <a href='#Page_284'><b>284</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominated for President, <a href='#Page_347'><b>347</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">election of claimed, <a href='#Page_348'><b>348</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">declared elected, <a href='#Page_352'><b>352</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ends military interference in South, inaugurates new régime, <a href='#Page_353'><b>353</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hayne, Robert, debate of with Webster, <a href='#Page_33'><b>33</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hedrick, Prof., driven from North Carolina for anti-slavery sentiments, <a href='#Page_129'><b>129</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Helper, Hinton R., publishes <i>The Impending Crisis</i>, <a href='#Page_109'><b>109</b></a>, <a href='#Page_154'><b>154</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">driven from N. C., <a href='#Page_157'><b>157</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Henderson, Senator, votes to acquit Pres. Johnson, <a href='#Page_312'><b>312</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Henry, Patrick, <a href='#Page_8'><b>8</b></a>; views of on slavery, <a href='#Page_19'><b>19</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Herndon, William H., Lincoln's partner and friend, <a href='#Page_179'><b>179</b></a>, <a href='#Page_180'><b>180</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, supports John Brown, <a href='#Page_160'><b>160</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hilo (Hawaii) Manual School, <a href='#Page_360'><b>360</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hoar, George F., characterizes Sumner, <a href='#Page_282'><b>282</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">describes polit. methods of Henry Wilson, <a href='#Page_283'><b>283</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in House, <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on Louisiana investigation committee, <a href='#Page_343'><b>343</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hoar, Samuel, driven from So. Carolina, <a href='#Page_73'><b>73</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">joins "Free Soil" party, <a href='#Page_81'><b>81</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Holt, Joseph, Secy. of War, <a href='#Page_224'><b>224</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Holtzclaw, William, story of, <a href='#Page_378'><b>378</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hopkins, John H. (Bishop), <a href='#Page_141'><b>141</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hopkins, Mark, as president of Williams College, <a href='#Page_356'><b>356</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hopkins, Samuel (Dr.), denounces slave trade, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Howard, O. O. (Gen.), chief of Freedmen's Bureau, <a href='#Page_289'><b>289</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Howard University, <a href='#Page_358'><b>358</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Howe, S. G. (Dr.), supports John Brown, <a href='#Page_160'><b>160</b></a>, <a href='#Page_168'><b>168</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hunter, David (Gen.), attempts partial emancipation as war measure, <a href='#Page_253'><b>253</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class="smcap">Illinois</span>, admitted as free State, <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">attempt to introduce slavery in, <a href='#Page_34'><b>34</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">anti-slavery rioting in, <a href='#Page_74'><b>74</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Abolitionists in, ally themselves with Republicans; Lincoln the central figure at first State convention, <a href='#Page_179'><b>179</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Impending Crisis, The</i>, <a href='#Page_109'><b>109</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">resumé of, <a href='#Page_154'><b>154</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">effects of, <a href='#Page_157'><b>157</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Independent, The</i>, criticises Lincoln, <a href='#Page_254'><b>254</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Indiana, admitted as free State, <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Indians, unfitness of for slavery, <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jackson, Andrew, characteristics, administration, <a href='#Page_29'><b>29</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">denounces nullification, <a href='#Page_33'><b>33</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposes circulation of anti-slavery literature through U. S. mails, <a href='#Page_72'><b>72</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jackson, Stonewall, <a href='#Page_135'><b>135</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson, Thomas, <a href='#Page_8'><b>8</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">denounces slave trade in first draft of Decl. of Independ.;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">plans of for gradual emancipation, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>, <a href='#Page_17'><b>17</b></a>-<a href='#Page_18'><b>18</b></a>,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">and for exclusion of slavery from unorganized territory, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">polit. ideals, views on slavery, <a href='#Page_17'><b>17</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">unskillful as President, <a href='#Page_21'><b>21</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">fears of for Union; sympathies with slave States, jealous of State rights, <a href='#Page_25'><b>25</b></a>, <a href='#Page_250'><b>250</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on dangers of slavery, <a href='#Page_391'><b>391</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jenkins, Charles J. (Gov.), pleads for negro rights in inaugural, <a href='#Page_301'><b>301</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jerry, fugitive slave, rescued, <a href='#Page_91'><b>91</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Johnson, Andrew, in Senate, <a href='#Page_214'><b>214</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">early life and character of, becomes President, <a href='#Page_273'><b>273</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">retains Lincoln's cabinet, Seward's influence on, <a href='#Page_274'><b>274</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">issues proclamation of amnesty; appoints provisional governors in South, <a href='#Page_275'><b>275</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">favors qualified negro suffrage, <a href='#Page_276'><b>276</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">message (1865), <a href='#Page_281'><b>281</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">policy of reconstruction of opposed in Congress, <a href='#Page_285'><b>285</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supported by Democrats, <a href='#Page_286'><b>286</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">vetoes Freedmen's Bureau bill, <a href='#Page_294'><b>294</b></a>, <a href='#Page_296'><b>296</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">loses support of party; undignified speech of strengthens opposition to, <a href='#Page_295'><b>295</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">vetoes Civil Rights bill, <a href='#Page_297'><b>297</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">strong opposition to reconstruction policy of, <a href='#Page_303'><b>303</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">undignified conduct of during tour of North, <a href='#Page_304'><b>304</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">impeachment and trial of, <a href='#Page_311'><b>311</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">acquitted; in Senate; place of in history, <a href='#Page_312'><b>312</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Johnson, Herschel V., nominated for Vice-President, <a href='#Page_188'><b>188</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposes immediate secession, <a href='#Page_225'><b>225</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Johnson, Oliver, <a href='#Page_44'><b>44</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Johnson, Reverdy, in U. S. Senate, <a href='#Page_284'><b>284</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jones, C. C. (Rev.), on condition of slaves, <a href='#Page_49'><b>49</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kansas, struggle for, <a href='#Page_116'><b>116</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">stringent slavery laws in, <a href='#Page_117'><b>117</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">forms issue of Repub. party's first campaign, <a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Walker appointed governor of; struggle in, <a href='#Page_150'><b>150</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">admitted to Union, <a href='#Page_152'><b>152</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kansas-Nebraska bill, <a href='#Page_112'><b>112</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">effects of on election (1854), <a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">results of, <a href='#Page_116'><b>116</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kealing, H. T., <a href='#Page_379'><b>379</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Keitt, Lawrence, with Brooks in assault on Sumner, <a href='#Page_122'><b>122</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kellogg, William P., in government of Louisiana, <a href='#Page_341'><b>341</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kemble, Fanny, describes slavery in "A Residence on a Georgia Plantation," <a href='#Page_103'><b>103</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kendall, Amos, <a href='#Page_72'><b>72</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kentucky, attempt to establish as free State, <a href='#Page_22'><b>22</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">refuses to consider secession, but promises to aid South if invaded, <a href='#Page_227'><b>227</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">remains in Union, <a href='#Page_235'><b>235</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lincoln tries to bind faster to Union, <a href='#Page_252'><b>252</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">rejects <a href='#Page_13'><b>13</b></a>th amendment, <a href='#Page_262'><b>262</b></a>, <a href='#Page_276'><b>276</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">rejects <a href='#Page_15'><b>15</b></a>th amendment, <a href='#Page_315'><b>315</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">law in to prohibit co-education of races, <a href='#Page_385'><b>385</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kerr, Michael C., speaker of House, <a href='#Page_346'><b>346</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Key, David M., Postmaster-General under Hayes, <a href='#Page_353'><b>353</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Kitchen Cabinet" of Gen. Grant, <a href='#Page_325'><b>325</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Knapp, Isaac, partner of Garrison, <a href='#Page_40'><b>40</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Know-nothings," <a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominate ex-President Fillmore (1856); platform; seceders from nominate Banks, <a href='#Page_129'><b>129</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ku Klux Klan, <a href='#Page_322'><b>322</b></a>, <a href='#Page_326'><b>326</b></a>, <a href='#Page_327'><b>327</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lane, Joseph, nominated for Vice-President, <a href='#Page_188'><b>188</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lane Seminary, trouble at, over anti-slavery movement, <a href='#Page_37'><b>37</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lanier, Sidney, <a href='#Page_410'><b>410</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lawrence, Kansas, founded, <a href='#Page_116'><b>116</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">attack on, <a href='#Page_119'><b>119</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Leavitt, Joshua, <a href='#Page_44'><b>44</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lecompton constitution framed, scouted by free State men, <a href='#Page_150'><b>150</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">urged by Buchanan administration, <a href='#Page_151'><b>151</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">defeated, <a href='#Page_152'><b>152</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">LeConte, Joseph, reminiscences of slavery, <a href='#Page_49'><b>49</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lee, Fitzhugh, <a href='#Page_410'><b>410</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lee, Robert E. (Gen.), <a href='#Page_95'><b>95</b></a>, <a href='#Page_135'><b>135</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">captures John Brown, <a href='#Page_163'><b>163</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposes secession, <a href='#Page_227'><b>227</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">chief hero of Confederacy, <a href='#Page_263'><b>263</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">surrenders, <a href='#Page_270'><b>270</b></a>, <a href='#Page_354'><b>354</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">becomes president of Washington Univ., <a href='#Page_355'><b>355</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Liberator</i>, The, founded, <a href='#Page_40'><b>40</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Liberia, colony estab., <a href='#Page_22'><b>22</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Liberty, Washington's conception of, <a href='#Page_3'><b>3</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Liberty party, <a href='#Page_75'><b>75</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">becomes "Free Soil" party, <a href='#Page_81'><b>81</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lincoln, Abraham, views on Dred Scott decision, <a href='#Page_149'><b>149</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominated for Senator, defeated, <a href='#Page_153'><b>153</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on endurance of Union, <a href='#Page_153'><b>153</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">early life and characteristics of, <a href='#Page_172'><b>172</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">political career begins, <a href='#Page_177'><b>177</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">attitude of on slavery, <a href='#Page_178'><b>178</b></a>, <a href='#Page_181'><b>181</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">central figure in Ills. Republican convention, <a href='#Page_179'><b>179</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">debates with Douglas, <a href='#Page_180'><b>180</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cooper Inst. address of; proves right of Congress to control slavery in the Territories; shows stand Republicans must take, <a href='#Page_182'><b>182</b></a>;</span> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">schemes of friends for in Repub. convention (1860), <a href='#Page_190'><b>190</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">states principles, <a href='#Page_191'><b>191</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominated for President, <a href='#Page_192'><b>192</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">elected, <a href='#Page_194'><b>194</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">answers secessionist arguments, <a href='#Page_215'><b>215</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">personal interest of in slavery, <a href='#Page_217'><b>217</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">immediate results of election of, <a href='#Page_221'><b>221</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">pronounces inaugural, <a href='#Page_231'><b>231</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">forms cabinet, difficulties, <a href='#Page_233'><b>233</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">sends aid to Ft. Sumter, <a href='#Page_234'><b>234</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">issues call for militia, <a href='#Page_235'><b>235</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">attitude of toward emancipation, <a href='#Page_249'><b>249</b></a>, <a href='#Page_252'><b>252</b></a>, <a href='#Page_253'><b>253</b></a>, <a href='#Page_255'><b>255</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">tact and shrewdness of, <a href='#Page_249'><b>249</b></a>, <a href='#Page_256'><b>256</b></a>, <a href='#Page_257'><b>257</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in close touch with people, <a href='#Page_249'><b>249</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his conception of his mission, <a href='#Page_249'><b>249</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">difficulties of administration, <a href='#Page_249'><b>249</b></a>, <a href='#Page_251'><b>251</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his detestation of slavery, <a href='#Page_250'><b>250</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">scheme of for compensated emancipation, <a href='#Page_252'><b>252</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">announces his power as Commander-in-chief to emancipate slaves as war measure, <a href='#Page_253'><b>253</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">criticism of, <a href='#Page_253'><b>253</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">replies to Greeley's criticisms, <a href='#Page_255'><b>255</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">lays emancipation proclamation before cabinet, <a href='#Page_256'><b>256</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">adopts Seward's advice, to delay promulgation of, <a href='#Page_257'><b>257</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">reintroduces to cabinet after McClellan's victory, <a href='#Page_258'><b>258</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">issues prelim. proclamation; embodies views on emancipation in message to Congress, <a href='#Page_259'><b>259</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">administration of repudiated in election of 1862, <a href='#Page_261'><b>261</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">re-elected, <a href='#Page_262'><b>262</b></a>, <a href='#Page_265'><b>265</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">delivers second inaugural, <a href='#Page_266'><b>266</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">offers amnesty to Confederates, <a href='#Page_268'><b>268</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">invites return of seceded States; leaves reconstruction bill (1864) unsigned, <a href='#Page_269'><b>269</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">plans of opposed in Congress, <a href='#Page_270'><b>270</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">makes public statement of views on reconstruction, <a href='#Page_271'><b>271</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">assassination of, <a href='#Page_271'><b>271</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">summary of political achievements of, <a href='#Page_272'><b>272</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Literature, growth of Southern, <a href='#Page_380'><b>380</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Longfellow, Henry W., work of, <a href='#Page_145'><b>145</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Longstreet, Gen., advises acceptance of inevitable, acts with Republicans, denounced and ostracized, <a href='#Page_318'><b>318</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Louisiana, admitted as free State, <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">secedes, <a href='#Page_226'><b>226</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">emancipation in, <a href='#Page_260'><b>260</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">new Constitution and State govt. in, <a href='#Page_271'><b>271</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">provisional govt. established in, <a href='#Page_269'><b>269</b></a>, <a href='#Page_275'><b>275</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">applies for admission of U. S. Senators (1864-5), <a href='#Page_270'><b>270</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">reconstructed, <a href='#Page_310'><b>310</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">negro votes in majority in, <a href='#Page_311'><b>311</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Presidential vote of contested (1876), <a href='#Page_348'><b>348</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">State vote of contested, <a href='#Page_349'><b>349</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"carpet-bag" rule in, <a href='#Page_341'><b>341</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Conservatives" organize opposition in, struggle over governorship in, <a href='#Page_341'><b>341</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">cruelty and corruption in, <a href='#Page_342'><b>342</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Federal intervention in, <a href='#Page_343'><b>343</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">legal limitation of suffrage in, <a href='#Page_83'><b>83</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Louisiana purchase, <a href='#Page_2'><b>2</b></a>, <a href='#Page_24'><b>24</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lovejoy, Elijah P., <a href='#Page_74'><b>74</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lowell, attacks slavery and war in "Biglow Papers," <a href='#Page_77'><b>77</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">labors of for freedom; edits <i>Atlantic</i>, <a href='#Page_144'><b>144</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">upbraids Lincoln in "Biglow Papers," <a href='#Page_254'><b>254</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">war poems of, <a href='#Page_265'><b>265</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lundy, Benjamin, sketch of, <a href='#Page_38'><b>38</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lynch, John R., speaker of the House, <a href='#Page_336'><b>336</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lyon, Mary, founds Mt. Holyoke Seminary, <a href='#Page_362'><b>362</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">McClellan, George B. (Gen.), leader of Conservatives, warns Lincoln not to move against slavery, <a href='#Page_255'><b>255</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">success of against Lee, <a href='#Page_258'><b>258</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Democrats nominate for President.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">McCrary, George W., Secy. of War under Hayes, <a href='#Page_353'><b>353</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">McEnery, John, claims governorship of Louisiana, <a href='#Page_341'><b>341</b></a>, <a href='#Page_342'><b>342</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">McLean, Justice, dissents from Dred Scott decision, <a href='#Page_148'><b>148</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Madison, James, against strengthening slave power, <a href='#Page_11'><b>11</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">as President, <a href='#Page_21'><b>21</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mails, U. S., circulation of anti-slavery documents through, <a href='#Page_72'><b>72</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Marcy, William L., Secretary of State, <a href='#Page_128'><b>128</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Maryland, forbids importation of slaves, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">stops importation, <a href='#Page_20'><b>20</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">elects anti-slavery members to House of Delegates, <a href='#Page_36'><b>36</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">irregular secession convention in, <a href='#Page_227'><b>227</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">remains in Union, <a href='#Page_235'><b>235</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lincoln tries to bind faster to Union, <a href='#Page_252'><b>252</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">rejects amendment against negro suffrage (1905), <a href='#Page_383'><b>383</b></a> note;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">rejects <a href='#Page_15'><b>15</b></a>th amendment, <a href='#Page_385'><b>385</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mason, George, opposes strengthening of slave power, <a href='#Page_11'><b>11</b></a>, <a href='#Page_12'><b>12</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mason, James M., <a href='#Page_89'><b>89</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">with Buchanan and Soulé issues Ostend manifesto, <a href='#Page_128'><b>128</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Massachusetts, slaves freed in, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">negroes granted suffrage in, number of negroes in, 1780; in slave trade, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">aids extreme South to prolong slave trade, <a href='#Page_13'><b>13</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">indifferent to slave trade, <a href='#Page_20'><b>20</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Know-nothings" carry election of 1854 in, <a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">leads North in opposing secession, <a href='#Page_229'><b>229</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Republicans in fail to indorse Pres. Johnson, <a href='#Page_276'><b>276</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">May, Samuel J. (Rev.), <a href='#Page_44'><b>44</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">conversation with Dr. Channing on anti-slavery, <a href='#Page_61'><b>61</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mexico, war with, <a href='#Page_76'><b>76</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ends, <a href='#Page_79'><b>79</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">proposal to annex, Calif. taken from, <a href='#Page_79'><b>79</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Middle States, in slave trade, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">slavery abolished in, <a href='#Page_20'><b>20</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mississippi, admitted as slave State, <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">considers secession (1860), <a href='#Page_221'><b>221</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">secedes, <a href='#Page_225'><b>225</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">emancipation in, <a href='#Page_260'><b>260</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">gives qualified assent to <a href='#Page_13'><b>13</b></a>th amendment, <a href='#Page_262'><b>262</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">provisional gov't formed in, <a href='#Page_275'><b>275</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">delays her return to Union, <a href='#Page_310'><b>310</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">negro voters outnumber white in, <a href='#Page_311'><b>311</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">under martial law, <a href='#Page_316'><b>316</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"carpet-bag" rule in, <a href='#Page_333'><b>333</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">statistics on misgovernment in, <a href='#Page_334'><b>334</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">misgovt. and corruption in exaggerated, <a href='#Page_338'><b>338</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Democrats organize opposition and practice intimidation in, <a href='#Page_339'><b>339</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">legal limitation of suffrage in, <a href='#Page_383'><b>383</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Missouri, bill to organize as State, <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">geographical relation of to free States, <a href='#Page_24'><b>24</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">debate on admission, <a href='#Page_24'><b>24</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Compromise, <a href='#Page_25'><b>25</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">admitted as slave State, <a href='#Page_27'><b>27</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">mobs form in struggle for Kansas, <a href='#Page_116'><b>116</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">votes not to secede, <a href='#Page_227'><b>227</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">remains in Union, <a href='#Page_235'><b>235</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lincoln tries to bind faster to Union; Republican party breaks up in, <a href='#Page_327'><b>327</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Morgan, Edwin P. (ex-Gov.), supports Pres. Johnson, <a href='#Page_204'><b>204</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Morton, Oliver P., party leader, <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">favors "Force bill" in Senate, <a href='#Page_345'><b>345</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Presidential candidate, <a href='#Page_346'><b>346</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Moses, F. J., Jr., governor of So. Carolina, <a href='#Page_332'><b>332</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mott, Lucretia, <a href='#Page_56'><b>56</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mount Holyoke Seminary, founded, plan for students to earn expenses fails at, <a href='#Page_362'><b>362</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Murphy, Edgar G., "The Present South," <a href='#Page_388'><b>388</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on negro problem, <a href='#Page_408'><b>408</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nashville convention, to promote interests of South, <a href='#Page_90'><b>90</b></a>, <a href='#Page_138'><b>138</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Nation</i>, The, supports Independent Republicans, <a href='#Page_327'><b>327</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">refuses to support Greeley, <a href='#Page_329'><b>329</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nat Turner insurrection, <a href='#Page_41'><b>41</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nebraska, <a href='#Page_112'><b>112</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Negroes (see also <span class="smcap">Slaves</span>, <span class="smcap">Slavery</span>, <span class="smcap">Education</span>),</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">superiority of over Indians as slaves, <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">advantages and disadvantages of slavery to, <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">granted suffrage in Mass. and other States, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">number of in Mass. in 1780, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">number of in other States, see <span class="smcap">Slaves</span>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">condition of in North before the war, <a href='#Page_37'><b>37</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">(for condition of in South, see <span class="smcap">Slavery</span>, <span class="smcap">Slaves</span>);</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">proposed college for, <a href='#Page_37'><b>37</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">violence against in North, <a href='#Page_74'><b>74</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">status of in America defined by Dred Scott decision, <a href='#Page_147'><b>147</b></a>, <a href='#Page_148'><b>148</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">citizenship rights of declared in New York, <a href='#Page_149'><b>149</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">U. S. army and navy opened to enlistment of, <a href='#Page_260'><b>260</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">enlist in Union armies, martial qualities of, <a href='#Page_261'><b>261</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">good qualities of displayed in war, <a href='#Page_263'><b>263</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pres. Johnson favors qualified suffrage for, <a href='#Page_276'><b>276</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Henry Ward Beecher's views on suffrage for, <a href='#Page_278'><b>278</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">education of urged by Beecher, <a href='#Page_279'><b>279</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">South's estimate of after war, <a href='#Page_280'><b>280</b></a>, <a href='#Page_287'><b>287</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">behavior of after emancipation, <a href='#Page_287'><b>287</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">repressive laws against, following war, <a href='#Page_287'><b>287</b></a>, <a href='#Page_288'><b>288</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">their misconception of freedom, <a href='#Page_289'><b>289</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">laws governing labor of after war, <a href='#Page_290'><b>290</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">law against association of whites with, <a href='#Page_290'><b>290</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">abuse of by Southern whites, <a href='#Page_292'><b>292</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">their necessities force them to labor, <a href='#Page_293'><b>293</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">leaders in Georgia plead for rights of, <a href='#Page_301'><b>301</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">suffrage for in South the central feature of Reconstruction bill, <a href='#Page_308'><b>308</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">suffrage for favored by North, <a href='#Page_308'><b>308</b></a>, <a href='#Page_309'><b>309</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">broad conception of, <a href='#Page_309'><b>309</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">number of voters among in Southern States compared to white voters, <a href='#Page_311'><b>311</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">many Northern States refuse suffrage to, <a href='#Page_314'><b>314</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">unfitness of in South for suffrage, choose delegates to const. conventions, <a href='#Page_317'><b>317</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">sudden political power of doubtful benefit to, <a href='#Page_318'><b>318</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">as a body lack independence; affiliate with Republican party; become estranged from old masters, <a href='#Page_319'><b>319</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in high political offices, <a href='#Page_321'><b>321</b></a>, <a href='#Page_333'><b>333</b></a>, <a href='#Page_336'><b>336</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">not guilty of physical violence, <a href='#Page_323'><b>323</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">national education of neglected, <a href='#Page_325'><b>325</b></a>, <a href='#Page_326'><b>326</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">manner of toward whites, <a href='#Page_338'><b>338</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">organized resistance to voting of in South, <a href='#Page_340'><b>340</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">intimidated at polls, <a href='#Page_352'><b>352</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">problem of disposition of, <a href='#Page_355'><b>355</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">views on in North and South, <a href='#Page_356'><b>356</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">condition and needs of after war, <a href='#Page_357'><b>357</b></a>, <a href='#Page_358'><b>358</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">beginnings of higher education for, <a href='#Page_358'><b>358</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">religion of, <a href='#Page_359'><b>359</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gen. Armstrong's labors in behalf of, see <span class="smcap">Armstrong, Samuel</span>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">problem of disappears as central feature in national politics, <a href='#Page_371'><b>371</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">polit. preponderance of in South ended, <a href='#Page_371'><b>371</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">suffrage of practically nullified in South, but large degree of civil rights secured to, <a href='#Page_372'><b>372</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Southern whites undertake education of with energy and success, <a href='#Page_373'><b>373</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">refused social equality at South, and often at North, <a href='#Page_373'><b>373</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">improved social conditions, and increased numbers of, <a href='#Page_374'><b>374</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">present wealth, skill, intelligence, and moral status of, <a href='#Page_375'><b>375</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">development of leadership among, <a href='#Page_376'><b>376</b></a> ff., <a href='#Page_379'><b>379</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">legal limitation of suffrage of in South, <a href='#Page_382'><b>382</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">practical disfranchisement of, <a href='#Page_384'><b>384</b></a>, <a href='#Page_388'><b>388</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">threatened narrowing of industrial opportunities the greatest danger to, <a href='#Page_385'><b>385</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">unfortunate social position of, <a href='#Page_386'><b>386</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">hopes of future betterment, <a href='#Page_387'><b>387</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">estimated amt. paid out for education of to date; better industrial education for, <a href='#Page_388'><b>388</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">necessity for all to face the problem of; great responsibility on leaders of, <a href='#Page_392'><b>392</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">present phase of problem, necessity of abolishing caste spirit, <a href='#Page_393'><b>393</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">industrial position of, <a href='#Page_394'><b>394</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">attitude of trade unions toward, <a href='#Page_385'><b>385</b></a>, <a href='#Page_395'><b>395</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">dangers consequent upon exclusion from unions, <a href='#Page_396'><b>396</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">need of higher education for, <a href='#Page_398'><b>398</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">present polit. status of, <a href='#Page_400'><b>400</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">attitude of toward suffrage, <a href='#Page_401'><b>401</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">should have fair share of public offices, <a href='#Page_403'><b>403</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">government aid in education advocated, <a href='#Page_404'><b>404</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">growing recognition of in North, <a href='#Page_406'><b>406</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">results of social ostracism on, suggested means to avoid, <a href='#Page_408'><b>408</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Negro Problem</i>, The, by Booker Washington and others, <a href='#Page_379'><b>379</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">New England (See also <span class="smcap">North</span>, <span class="smcap">Massachusetts</span>,)</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Washington's opinion of, <a href='#Page_2'><b>2</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">slave labor unprofitable in; industries in, <a href='#Page_6'><b>6</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">negroes granted suffrage in, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">aids extreme South in extension of slave trade, <a href='#Page_13'><b>13</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">New England Anti-slavery Society, founded, <a href='#Page_44'><b>44</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">New England Emigrant Aid Society, formed, <a href='#Page_116'><b>116</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">New Hampshire, number of slaves in in 1790, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">slavery abolished in, <a href='#Page_21'><b>21</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">New Haven, labors in for negroes, <a href='#Page_36'><b>36</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">New Jersey, votes against extension of slave trade, <a href='#Page_13'><b>13</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">passes emancipation law, <a href='#Page_22'><b>22</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">counted as free State, <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">declares for emancipation, <a href='#Page_35'><b>35</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">rejects <a href='#Page_15'><b>15</b></a>th amendment, <a href='#Page_315'><b>315</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">New Mexico, South demands permission of slavery in, <a href='#Page_84'><b>84</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">New Orleans, riot in, <a href='#Page_303'><b>303</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">New York <i>Evening Post</i>, supports Independent Republicans, <a href='#Page_327'><b>327</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">refuses support to Greeley, <a href='#Page_329'><b>329</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">New York <i>Herald</i>, <a href='#Page_141'><b>141</b></a>, <a href='#Page_164'><b>164</b></a>, <a href='#Page_193'><b>193</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">New York <i>Times</i>, <a href='#Page_141'><b>141</b></a>, <a href='#Page_347'><b>347</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">New York <i>Tribune</i>, influence of, <a href='#Page_140'><b>140</b></a>, <a href='#Page_141'><b>141</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">against forcible repression of secession movement, <a href='#Page_228'><b>228</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">criticises Lincoln, <a href='#Page_255'><b>255</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supports Independent Republicans, <a href='#Page_328'><b>328</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">unearths Hayes-Tilden telegrams, <a href='#Page_352'><b>352</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">New York State, number of slaves in in 1790, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">passes emancipation law, <a href='#Page_22'><b>22</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">counted as free State, <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">delegation of to "Free Soil" convention (1848), <a href='#Page_82'><b>82</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">declares right of citizenship for negroes, <a href='#Page_149'><b>149</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nicholls, Francis T., claims governorship of Louisiana, <a href='#Page_349'><b>349</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">becomes governor, <a href='#Page_353'><b>353</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">North, the (see also <span class="smcap">New England</span>),</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">slavery unprofitable in, <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">aids extreme South in extending slave trade, <a href='#Page_13'><b>13</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">slavery abolished in, <a href='#Page_20'><b>20</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">surpasses South in population and wealth; increased representation in House, <a href='#Page_24'><b>24</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">its economic advantages over South, <a href='#Page_69'><b>69</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">violence against negroes in, <a href='#Page_74'><b>74</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">disputes with South over new territory, <a href='#Page_80'><b>80</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">dissatisfaction in over Compromise measures of 1850; passes "Personal Liberty Laws," <a href='#Page_91'><b>91</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">outstrips South in industrial, literary, and religious growth, advantages of South over, <a href='#Page_94'><b>94</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">growth of anti-slavery feeling in, <a href='#Page_113'><b>113</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">best intelligence of in early Republican party, <a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">resents polit. aggression of South more than slavery, <a href='#Page_128'><b>128</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">leaders of (1850-60), <a href='#Page_132'><b>132</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">leaders of, <a href='#Page_140'><b>140</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">attitude of clergy in toward slavery, <a href='#Page_141'><b>141</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">economic conditions in compared with those of South, <a href='#Page_156'><b>156</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">John Brown's raid intensifies conviction against slavery in, <a href='#Page_167'><b>167</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">growing distrust of South in, <a href='#Page_169'><b>169</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">position of on secession, etc., <a href='#Page_200'><b>200</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">underlying divergences from South in sentiment and character of, <a href='#Page_205'><b>205</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">religious life in, <a href='#Page_206'><b>206</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">inflamed against South;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">sources of misunderstanding, <a href='#Page_207'><b>207</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">varied occupations in, <a href='#Page_208'><b>208</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">secession movement causes consternation in, <a href='#Page_209'><b>209</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">strongly inclined to peace; disbelieves in Southern courage, <a href='#Page_210'><b>210</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">grounds for resistance of secession in; impatient of Southern political dominance, <a href='#Page_212'><b>212</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">reasons for failure of disunion movement in, <a href='#Page_218'><b>218</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">disinclination in to use force against secession movement, <a href='#Page_228'><b>228</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mass. becomes leader in, <a href='#Page_229'><b>229</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">united in resistance to secession, <a href='#Page_235'><b>235</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">views on Civil war in, <a href='#Page_237'><b>237</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">bitter feeling against South in, <a href='#Page_241'><b>241</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">moral effect of war on, <a href='#Page_244'><b>244</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Unionism the absorbing issue in, <a href='#Page_248'><b>248</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">party divisions in, <a href='#Page_253'><b>253</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">growing sentiment in against slavery, <a href='#Page_254'><b>254</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">courage of in war, <a href='#Page_262'><b>262</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">advantages of over South, <a href='#Page_264'><b>264</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">joy in over prospect of success, <a href='#Page_268'><b>268</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposes Johnson's reconstruction plans, <a href='#Page_288'><b>288</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">current opinion in on cause of secession, <a href='#Page_300'><b>300</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">hatred of Jefferson Davis in, <a href='#Page_301'><b>301</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">general temper in hostile to Pres. Johnson, <a href='#Page_312'><b>312</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">feeling of relief in after Grant's election, <a href='#Page_315'><b>315</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">resumption of business in, <a href='#Page_316'><b>316</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">immigration from into South, <a href='#Page_319'><b>319</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">growing tendency in to accord social equality to negroes, <a href='#Page_373'><b>373</b></a> ff, <a href='#Page_406'><b>406</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">North Carolina, emancipation favored in, <a href='#Page_36'><b>36</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">right of free speech vindicated in, <a href='#Page_129'><b>129</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">votes against secession convention, <a href='#Page_229'><b>229</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">secedes, <a href='#Page_235'><b>235</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">emancipation in, <a href='#Page_260'><b>260</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">provisional govt. formed in, <a href='#Page_275'><b>275</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">reconstructed, <a href='#Page_310'><b>310</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">relative number of negro voters in, <a href='#Page_311'><b>311</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Democrats regain, <a href='#Page_323'><b>323</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">legal limitation of suffrage in, <a href='#Page_383'><b>383</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Northwestern Territory, slavery prohibited in, <a href='#Page_10'><b>10</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nullification, So. Carolina claims right of, <a href='#Page_32'><b>32</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">denounced by Jackson, <a href='#Page_33'><b>33</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposed in "Force bill" of 1833, <a href='#Page_33'><b>33</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">question dropped, <a href='#Page_34'><b>34</b></a>, <a href='#Page_214'><b>214</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oberlin College, becomes anti-slavery stronghold, <a href='#Page_37'><b>37</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">plan for students to earn expenses fails at, <a href='#Page_362'><b>362</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O'Conor, Charles, nominated for President, <a href='#Page_329'><b>329</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ohio, admitted as free State, <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">declares for emancipation, <a href='#Page_35'><b>35</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Olmsted, Frederic Law, on condition of slaves in South before the war, <a href='#Page_49'><b>49</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">volumes of travels in the slave States, <a href='#Page_107'><b>107</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ordinance of 1784, fails to limit slave territory, <a href='#Page_10'><b>10</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ordinance of 1787, limits slave territory, <a href='#Page_10'><b>10</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oregon, boundary dispute, <a href='#Page_80'><b>80</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">rejects <a href='#Page_15'><b>15</b></a>th amendment, <a href='#Page_315'><b>315</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">double returns from in Hayes-Tilden election, <a href='#Page_351'><b>351</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ostend manifesto, <a href='#Page_128'><b>128</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Packard, S. B., in govt. of Louisiana, <a href='#Page_341'><b>341</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">claims governorship, <a href='#Page_349'><b>349</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Paine, Thomas, <a href='#Page_8'><b>8</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Parker, Theodore, influence of in church and state, <a href='#Page_143'><b>143</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supports John Brown, <a href='#Page_160'><b>160</b></a>, <a href='#Page_168'><b>168</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Peace Congress, proposed, to find means to preserve the Union, <a href='#Page_228'><b>228</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pendleton, George H., candidate for Presidential nomination, <a href='#Page_313'><b>313</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pennsylvania, number of slaves in in 1790, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">votes against extension of slave trade, <a href='#Page_13'><b>13</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">passes emancipation law, <a href='#Page_21'><b>21</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">counted as free State, <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">declares for emancipation, <a href='#Page_35'><b>35</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Republicans fail to indorse Pres. Johnson, <a href='#Page_276'><b>276</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Peonage cases, prosecution of, <a href='#Page_388'><b>388</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Personal Liberty Laws, passed in North, <a href='#Page_91'><b>91</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Petigru, James L., <a href='#Page_223'><b>223</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Petitions to Congress, anti-slavery, <a href='#Page_71'><b>71</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pettus, Gov., of Mississippi, <a href='#Page_221'><b>221</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Philadelphia, convention in behalf of Pres. Johnson at, <a href='#Page_303'><b>303</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Phillips, Wendell, becomes ally of Garrison, <a href='#Page_54'><b>54</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">scorns Republican party, <a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">declares all war un-Christian, <a href='#Page_210'><b>210</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">favors disunion, <a href='#Page_217'><b>217</b></a>, <a href='#Page_228'><b>228</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">abuses Lincoln, <a href='#Page_254'><b>254</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pierce, Franklin, nominated for, and elected President, <a href='#Page_93'><b>93</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">recognizes usurpers in Kansas struggle, <a href='#Page_117'><b>117</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pierce, Henry L., in House, <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">vote of in Hayes-Tilden contest, <a href='#Page_352'><b>352</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pinckneys, Charles and Thomas, demand freedom of slave trade, <a href='#Page_12'><b>12</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pittsburg, counter convention at, <a href='#Page_303'><b>303</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Platte country, the, <a href='#Page_112'><b>112</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Polk, James K., nominated for President, <a href='#Page_75'><b>75</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">elected;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">declares war with Mexico, <a href='#Page_76'><b>76</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poor whites, evil effects of slavery on, <a href='#Page_110'><b>110</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Present South, The," by E. G. Murphy, <a href='#Page_388'><b>388</b></a>, <a href='#Page_408'><b>408</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pottawatomie massacre, <a href='#Page_120'><b>120</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">results of, <a href='#Page_121'><b>121</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Presbyterian church, condemns slavery, <a href='#Page_35'><b>35</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prisons, military, terrors of, <a href='#Page_245'><b>245</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Protection. See <span class="smcap">Tariff, Protective</span>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Quakers, relation of to slavery, <a href='#Page_7'><b>7</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Randall, Samuel J., in House, <a href='#Page_284'><b>284</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">speaker, <a href='#Page_346'><b>346</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Randolph, John, his opinion of slavery, <a href='#Page_47'><b>47</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Randolph, Thos. Jefferson, his scheme of emancipation, <a href='#Page_43'><b>43</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rankin, John, <a href='#Page_38'><b>38</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rantoul, Robert, joins "Free Soil" party, <a href='#Page_81'><b>81</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Raymond, Henry J., <a href='#Page_141'><b>141</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in House, <a href='#Page_284'><b>284</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supports Pres. Johnson's plan of reconstruction, <a href='#Page_285'><b>285</b></a>, <a href='#Page_303'><b>303</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Reconstruction, <a href='#Page_267'><b>267</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lincoln's plans for and views on, <a href='#Page_268'><b>268</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">congressional bill (1864), rejected by Lincoln, <a href='#Page_269'><b>269</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lincoln's plans for opposed by Congress, <a href='#Page_270'><b>270</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">first Congressional plan of, <a href='#Page_274'><b>274</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">President Johnson's plan of, <a href='#Page_275'><b>275</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Henry Ward Beecher's plan of, <a href='#Page_277'><b>277</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">John A. Andrew's plan of, <a href='#Page_280'><b>280</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">both latter plans too advanced for the time, <a href='#Page_280'><b>280</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">action taken on by Congress (1865-6), <a href='#Page_281'><b>281</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pres. Johnson's plan of opposed in Congress, <a href='#Page_285'><b>285</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">second Congressional plan of, <a href='#Page_294'><b>294</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">difficulties of question increased by lack of statesmen to handle, <a href='#Page_302'><b>302</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">two policies of before the country, South indorses Pres. Johnson's plan of, <a href='#Page_303'><b>303</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">final plan of, <a href='#Page_306'><b>306</b></a> ff; bill passed, <a href='#Page_306'><b>306</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">results of bill, <a href='#Page_307'><b>307</b></a>, <a href='#Page_310'><b>310</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">verdict of country on work of, <a href='#Page_312'><b>312</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the working out of, <a href='#Page_316'><b>316</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the last act, <a href='#Page_344'><b>344</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Reconstruction and the Constitution," by Prof. J. W. Burgess, <a href='#Page_290'><b>290</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Reeder, Governor, of Kansas, <a href='#Page_117'><b>117</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Republican party (see also <span class="smcap">Republicans</span>),</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">beginnings of, <a href='#Page_114'><b>114</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">components of, <a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">first Presidential convention of, <a href='#Page_124'><b>124</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">principles, leaders, constituency, successes, and failures of in first (1856) campaign of, <a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposition to in first campaign, <a href='#Page_128'><b>128</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">weakness of in South, <a href='#Page_129'><b>129</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">composition of opposition to, and causes of defeat of in first campaign, <a href='#Page_130'><b>130</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">stand of on negro question (1860), <a href='#Page_186'><b>186</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">origin of protectionist character of, <a href='#Page_190'><b>190</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">geographical lines of in 1860 campaign, <a href='#Page_192'><b>192</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">denounced in 1860 campaign, <a href='#Page_193'><b>193</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">restriction of slavery the supreme principle of, <a href='#Page_212'><b>212</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sumner's belief in, <a href='#Page_319'><b>319</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">freedmen instinctively turn to, <a href='#Page_319'><b>319</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">leaders of in Grant's second term, <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Republicans, hold first (1856) Presidential convention, <a href='#Page_124'><b>124</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominate John C. Fremont for President, <a href='#Page_126'><b>126</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wm. L. Dayton for Vice-President, <a href='#Page_129'><b>129</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">platform, <a href='#Page_126'><b>126</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">denounce Ostend manifesto, <a href='#Page_129'><b>129</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">dissent from Dred Scott decision, <a href='#Page_148'><b>148</b></a>, <a href='#Page_149'><b>149</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">gain in numbers, name Lincoln for U. S. Senator, <a href='#Page_153'><b>153</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">first Illinois convention of, <a href='#Page_179'><b>179</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">campaign, <a href='#Page_180'><b>180</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">not in John Brown's raid, <a href='#Page_183'><b>183</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">hold convention (1860), <a href='#Page_189'><b>189</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">platform, <a href='#Page_190'><b>190</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">struggle bet. Seward and Lincoln men in, <a href='#Page_190'><b>190</b></a>, <a href='#Page_191'><b>191</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominate Lincoln and Hamlin, <a href='#Page_192'><b>192</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">elect candidates (1860), <a href='#Page_194'><b>194</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">results of success of, <a href='#Page_221'><b>221</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">oppose secession, <a href='#Page_223'><b>223</b></a>, <a href='#Page_224'><b>224</b></a>, <a href='#Page_225'><b>225</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">oppose schemes for extension of slavery, <a href='#Page_228'><b>228</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">vainly concede many points to South, <a href='#Page_229'><b>229</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">divide over war questions, <a href='#Page_253'><b>253</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">reaction against in elections of 1862, <a href='#Page_261'><b>261</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">success of in 1864, <a href='#Page_262'><b>262</b></a>, <a href='#Page_265'><b>265</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">indorse President Johnson, <a href='#Page_276'><b>276</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">assert right of Congress to direct reconstruction, leaders oppose Pres. Johnson's plan of, <a href='#Page_286'><b>286</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opinion of turns against Johnson, <a href='#Page_294'><b>294</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">increased strength of in Congress (1866-7), <a href='#Page_306'><b>306</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Senate vote to acquit Pres. Johnson, <a href='#Page_312'><b>312</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">adopt moderate platform, nominate and elect Grant (1868), <a href='#Page_314'><b>314</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in temporary control of South, <a href='#Page_323'><b>323</b></a>, <a href='#Page_327'><b>327</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">change attitude tword South, independent movement among, <a href='#Page_327'><b>327</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Independents hold convention (1872), <a href='#Page_328'><b>328</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in gov't of South, <a href='#Page_332'><b>332</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">lose heavily in Congressional elections of 1874, suspected of maladministration, <a href='#Page_344'><b>344</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">many oppose Force bill of 1875, <a href='#Page_345'><b>345</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">hold convention (1876), <a href='#Page_346'><b>346</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominate Hayes, campaign, <a href='#Page_347'><b>347</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">claim election of Hayes, <a href='#Page_348'><b>348</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Residence on a Georgia Plantation, A.", <a href='#Page_103'><b>103</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rhett, Senator, proposes secession, <a href='#Page_89'><b>89</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rhode Island, in slave trade, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">passes emancipation law, <a href='#Page_21'><b>21</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rhodes, "History of the U. S.," quoted, <a href='#Page_301'><b>301</b></a>, <a href='#Page_302'><b>302</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Robinson, Chas. S., gov. of Kansas, <a href='#Page_117'><b>117</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his house burned, <a href='#Page_119'><b>119</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Roosevelt, President, South criticises for entertainment of Booker Washington, <a href='#Page_386'><b>386</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ross, Senator, votes to acquit Pres. Johnson, <a href='#Page_312'><b>312</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sanborn, Franklin B., supports John Brown, <a href='#Page_160'><b>160</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">San Domingo, proposed annexation of, <a href='#Page_328'><b>328</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Scalawags," the, <a href='#Page_318'><b>318</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Schurz, Carl, on conditions in South after war, <a href='#Page_286'><b>286</b></a> ff, <a href='#Page_292'><b>292</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">favors negro suffrage, <a href='#Page_309'><b>309</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Republican convention (1868), <a href='#Page_314'><b>314</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">leads Independent Republicans in Missouri, <a href='#Page_327'><b>327</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in U. S. Senate, <a href='#Page_328'><b>328</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sec'y of Interior under Hayes, <a href='#Page_353'><b>353</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on peonage cases in South, <a href='#Page_388'><b>388</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on future of negro question, <a href='#Page_389'><b>389</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scott, R. K., governor of S. Carolina, <a href='#Page_332'><b>332</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scott, Winfield (Gen.), nominated for President, <a href='#Page_92'><b>92</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">against armed repression of secession, <a href='#Page_228'><b>228</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Secession, Clay denies right of, <a href='#Page_86'><b>86</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Webster declares impossible with peace, <a href='#Page_87'><b>87</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">threats of in Congress denounced by Taylor and Clay, <a href='#Page_89'><b>89</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">open threats of in South, <a href='#Page_193'><b>193</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">not taken seriously at North, <a href='#Page_194'><b>194</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">denounced by Douglas, <a href='#Page_194'><b>194</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Southern position on defined, <a href='#Page_197'><b>197</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Northern position on defined, <a href='#Page_200'><b>200</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">slavery question the real basis of <a href='#Page_211'><b>211</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">grounds for resistance of at North, <a href='#Page_212'><b>212</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">extreme abolitionists not opposed to, <a href='#Page_212'><b>212</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">arguments for and against, <a href='#Page_212'><b>212</b></a> ff, <a href='#Page_226'><b>226</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">reasons for success of movement in South and failure of in North, <a href='#Page_218'><b>218</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">sources of movement in South, <a href='#Page_219'><b>219</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">action of Southern States on following Lincoln's election, <a href='#Page_221'><b>221</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">discussed in Congress (1860), <a href='#Page_223'><b>223</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">advised by Southern leaders in Congress, <a href='#Page_225'><b>225</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">triumph of movement, <a href='#Page_226'><b>226</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">movement halts, <a href='#Page_227'><b>227</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">various Southern States take action on;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">general sentiment in South against armed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">repression of, <a href='#Page_227'><b>227</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">disinclination in North to use force against, <a href='#Page_228'><b>228</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">West strongly against movement, <a href='#Page_228'><b>228</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mass. takes strong stand against, <a href='#Page_229'><b>229</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">plea of Lincoln against, <a href='#Page_232'><b>232</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">current Northern opinion of causes of, <a href='#Page_300'><b>300</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Secessionists (see <span class="smcap">Secession</span>),</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">propose disunion, and formation of Southern Confederacy, <a href='#Page_215'><b>215</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seelye, Julius H., vote of in Hayes-Tilden contest, <a href='#Page_352'><b>352</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Senate, State representation in determined, <a href='#Page_11'><b>11</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">South strives to keep up numbers in, <a href='#Page_24'><b>24</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">stronghold of South, <a href='#Page_81'><b>81</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sewall, Samuel, protests against slavery, <a href='#Page_7'><b>7</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seward, William H., votes for Taylor, <a href='#Page_82'><b>82</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">influence and strength of, <a href='#Page_82'><b>82</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his plan of emancipation, <a href='#Page_83'><b>83</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">speaks in Senate against extension of slavery, <a href='#Page_89'><b>89</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">helps prolong Whig organization in New York, <a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Republican party, <a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opinion of on Dred Scott decision, <a href='#Page_149'><b>149</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opinion of on future labor conditions in Union, <a href='#Page_154'><b>154</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">logical candidate for Presidency (1860), <a href='#Page_190'><b>190</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Lincoln's cabinet, <a href='#Page_233'><b>233</b></a>, <a href='#Page_249'><b>249</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lincoln adopts advice of to delay issuance of emancipation proclamation, <a href='#Page_257'><b>257</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Johnson's cabinet, his influence on the President, <a href='#Page_274'><b>274</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supports Pres. Johnson, <a href='#Page_303'><b>303</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seymour, Horatio, nominated for President, characterized, <a href='#Page_313'><b>313</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">defeated, States carried by, <a href='#Page_314'><b>314</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shadrach, fugitive slave, rescued, <a href='#Page_91'><b>91</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shaffer, President, urges admission of capable negroes to trade unions, <a href='#Page_395'><b>395</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shannon, Wilson, gov. of Kansas, <a href='#Page_117'><b>117</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shaw, Robert Gould, <a href='#Page_264'><b>264</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shellabarger, Samuel, in House, <a href='#Page_284'><b>284</b></a>, <a href='#Page_286'><b>286</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sheridan, Gen'l, sent to investigate Louisiana election scandals, <a href='#Page_343'><b>343</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sherman, John, in U. S. Senate, <a href='#Page_283'><b>283</b></a>, <a href='#Page_285'><b>285</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">endeavors to stem tide against Pres. Johnson, <a href='#Page_296'><b>296</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">defeats Stevens's reconstruction bill, <a href='#Page_306'><b>306</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">superiority of over Blaine, <a href='#Page_307'><b>307</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sec'y of Treasury under Hayes, <a href='#Page_353'><b>353</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sherman, William T. (Gen.), his opinion of war, <a href='#Page_244'><b>244</b></a>, <a href='#Page_245'><b>245</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Slaveholders, numbers of, characteristics, <a href='#Page_95'><b>95</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Slave Laws</i>, compiled and published by Stroud, <a href='#Page_110'><b>110</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Slavery. (See also <span class="smcap">Slaves</span>, <span class="smcap">Slave Trade</span>.)</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Washington's opinion of, <a href='#Page_3'><b>3</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">origin, growth, regulation and defense of, <a href='#Page_3'><b>3</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">legally recognized in Judea, Greece, and Rome, by Jesus and the early church, <a href='#Page_4'><b>4</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supplants free peasantry in Italy, <a href='#Page_4'><b>4</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">influence of Christianity on, <a href='#Page_4'><b>4</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">absolute, abolished throughout Christendom, supplanted by serfdom, <a href='#Page_4'><b>4</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">recrudescence of in <a href='#Page_17'><b>17</b></a>th and <a href='#Page_18'><b>18</b></a>th centuries, <a href='#Page_4'><b>4</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">economic conditions determine location of in America, <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">unprofitable in North, <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a>, <a href='#Page_6'><b>6</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">need of in South, <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">casuistical defense of by church, <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">advantages and disadvantages of to negro, <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">responsibility for denied by North and South, <a href='#Page_6'><b>6</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">commercial demand for overrides humanity, <a href='#Page_6'><b>6</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">unprofitable in New England, <a href='#Page_6'><b>6</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">social conscience unawakened to enormity of, <a href='#Page_7'><b>7</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sewall and Woolman protest against, <a href='#Page_7'><b>7</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">relation of Quakers to, <a href='#Page_7'><b>7</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">awakening to wrongs of, <a href='#Page_8'><b>8</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">abolished in Mass., <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Jefferson strives to limit territory of, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">limited, <a href='#Page_10'><b>10</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">impossible for convention of 1787 to prohibit, <a href='#Page_14'><b>14</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">compromised, <a href='#Page_14'><b>14</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">views of Washington and other leaders on, <a href='#Page_15'><b>15</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Patrick Henry's views on, Franklin labors against, <a href='#Page_19'><b>19</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">early anti-slavery sentiment, <a href='#Page_20'><b>20</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">abol. in Northern and Middle States, <a href='#Page_20'><b>20</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">question temporarily eclipsed, <a href='#Page_21'><b>21</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">estab. in Kentucky, abol. in Spanish America, <a href='#Page_22'><b>22</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">question again to the front (1819), <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">defended in Congress, all ideas of abolishing dropped in South, growth of sentiment against in North, <a href='#Page_24'><b>24</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Jefferson supports, <a href='#Page_25'><b>25</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Clay supports, <a href='#Page_26'><b>26</b></a>; growth of question from 1832, <a href='#Page_28'><b>28</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">South fully accepts and defends, <a href='#Page_46'><b>46</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">views of Jos. LeConte, Frederic Law Olmsted, and C. C. Jones on, <a href='#Page_49'><b>49</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">theory of adopted by slave-holders, <a href='#Page_50'><b>50</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">abolished in West Indies, <a href='#Page_51'><b>51</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Garrison's fight against, <a href='#Page_51'><b>51</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">defense of strengthened in South, <a href='#Page_54'><b>54</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">underlying principles of;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">tide of public opinion sets against, <a href='#Page_70'><b>70</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">question grows in prominence, <a href='#Page_71'><b>71</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">freedom of speech on denied in South, <a href='#Page_73'><b>73</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Calhoun's claim for nationalization of, <a href='#Page_80'><b>80</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">excluded from new territory acquired by purchase, <a href='#Page_80'><b>80</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposition of Seward and Chase to, <a href='#Page_83'><b>83</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">as it was, depicted by Mrs. Burton Harrison, <a href='#Page_100'><b>100</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">depicted in biography of Thomas Dabney, <a href='#Page_100'><b>100</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">described by Fanny Kemble, <a href='#Page_103'><b>103</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">pictured by Frederic Law Olmsted, <a href='#Page_107'><b>107</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Harriet Beecher Stowe's opinion of embodied in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href='#Page_109'><b>109</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">general view of in South, <a href='#Page_133'><b>133</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">attitude of clergy toward, <a href='#Page_141'><b>141</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">hostility toward in South, <a href='#Page_170'><b>170</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the great cause of difference between North and South, <a href='#Page_207'><b>207</b></a>, <a href='#Page_211'><b>211</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">restriction of the supreme principle of Republican party, <a href='#Page_212'><b>212</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">measures upon during Civil war, <a href='#Page_249'><b>249</b></a>, <a href='#Page_250'><b>250</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lincoln's attitude toward, <a href='#Page_250'><b>250</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">abolished in Dist. of Columbia, <a href='#Page_251'><b>251</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">finally and forever abolished in U. S., <a href='#Page_276'><b>276</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Slaves (See also <span class="smcap">Negroes</span>, <span class="smcap">Slavery</span>, <span class="smcap">South</span>, <span class="smcap">Slave Trade</span>),</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Africa source of, <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">indolence and unthrift of, <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Virginia taxes, <a href='#Page_6'><b>6</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">foundation of aristocracy in Virginia and Carolinas, <a href='#Page_6'><b>6</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">unprofitable as laborers in New Eng., <a href='#Page_6'><b>6</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Virginia and Maryland forbid importation of, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Jefferson proposes plan for gradual emancipation of, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Virginia passes law regulating manumission of, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">numbers of in various States in 1790, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">counted in determining representation in Congress, <a href='#Page_11'><b>11</b></a>, <a href='#Page_12'><b>12</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Jefferson's schemes for emancipation and disposition of, <a href='#Page_17'><b>17</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">value of increased by invention of cotton gin, <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">fugitive, overtures made to England for treaty on, <a href='#Page_28'><b>28</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">instruction of denied in Virginia, <a href='#Page_44'><b>44</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">physical and moral condition of, <a href='#Page_48'><b>48</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Slave States, <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Slave trade, begun by Europe, brutality of, <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">maintained by Eng. trading companies, colonists attempt to check, <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">New Eng. in, <a href='#Page_6'><b>6</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Virginia remonstrates against, <a href='#Page_8'><b>8</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">clause in Declaration of Independence denouncing, suppressed;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mass., R. I., and Middle States in;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">denounced by Dr. Hopkins, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Congress refused power to forbid until 1808; North aids extreme South in fight to prolong;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">champions of defend only as necessary evil, <a href='#Page_13'><b>13</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">stopped in Virginia and Maryland, <a href='#Page_20'><b>20</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">made piracy by Congress (1800), <a href='#Page_22'><b>22</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">revival of between Africa and Cuba, <a href='#Page_158'><b>158</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">checked, <a href='#Page_159'><b>159</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Slave-trading companies, English, <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">oppose tax on slaves, <a href='#Page_6'><b>6</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Smith, Caleb B., supports Lincoln, <a href='#Page_191'><b>191</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Smith, Gerritt, characterized by Andrew D. White, <a href='#Page_55'><b>55</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supports John Brown, <a href='#Page_160'><b>160</b></a>, <a href='#Page_168'><b>168</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Smith, Wilfred H., <a href='#Page_379'><b>379</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Soulé, Pierre, in Congress, <a href='#Page_89'><b>89</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">with Buchanan and Mason issues Ostend manifesto, <a href='#Page_128'><b>128</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Souls of Black Folk, The," an appeal for higher education of negro, <a href='#Page_398'><b>398</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">South. (See also <span class="smcap">Virginia</span>, etc., <span class="smcap">Slavery</span>, etc.)</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Economic conditions in favor slavery, <a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">demands Congress be refused right to forbid slave trade, <a href='#Page_12'><b>12</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">all ideas of abolishing slave trade dropped in, <a href='#Page_24'><b>24</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">aggrieved by protective tariff, <a href='#Page_32'><b>32</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">leadership of passes to So. Carolina, <a href='#Page_44'><b>44</b></a>, <a href='#Page_229'><b>229</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">fully accepts slavery as estab. institution, <a href='#Page_46'><b>46</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">strengthens defense of slavery, <a href='#Page_54'><b>54</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">economic disadvantages of, <a href='#Page_69'><b>69</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">disputes new territory with North, attempts to nationalize slavery, <a href='#Page_80'><b>80</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposes admission of Calif. as free State, demands allowance of slavery in Utah and New Mexico, <a href='#Page_84'><b>84</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">demands fugitive slave law, <a href='#Page_85'><b>85</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">leaders of in Congress (1850), threatens disunion, <a href='#Page_89'><b>89</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">denounces "Personal Liberty Laws," <a href='#Page_91'><b>91</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">North outstrips in industrial growth;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">advantages of over North, <a href='#Page_94'><b>94</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">master class in analyzed by Fanny Kemble, <a href='#Page_105'><b>105</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">surprised by Kansas-Nebraska bill, <a href='#Page_113'><b>113</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">anti-slavery sentiment completely ostracized in, <a href='#Page_129'><b>129</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">suppression of free speech in, <a href='#Page_130'><b>130</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">leaders of (1850-60), <a href='#Page_132'><b>132</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">magnifies State rights;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">general view of slavery in, <a href='#Page_133'><b>133</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">apprehensive of growing hostility in North, <a href='#Page_134'><b>134</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">clergy in united in defense of slavery, <a href='#Page_141'><b>141</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">economic conditions in compared with North in <i>Impending Crisis</i>, <a href='#Page_156'><b>156</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">hostility in toward North increased by Brown's raid, <a href='#Page_167'><b>167</b></a>, <a href='#Page_169'><b>169</b></a>-<a href='#Page_70'><b>70</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">misconceived by abolitionists, <a href='#Page_168'><b>168</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">renewed outbreaks in against anti-slavery men, <a href='#Page_169'><b>169</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">antagonism toward slave power in, <a href='#Page_170'><b>170</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">solidarity against North created by Brown's raid, <a href='#Page_170'><b>170</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">presents ultimatum in Senate (1859), <a href='#Page_184'><b>184</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">demands protection of slave-holding right in all territories, <a href='#Page_185'><b>185</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">power of in democracy and state, <a href='#Page_185'><b>185</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">growing hostility in, expulsion of anti-slavery men, <a href='#Page_186'><b>186</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">extreme, breaks up Democratic party, conjectural reasons for move, <a href='#Page_187'><b>187</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Alex. H. Stephens explains move, <a href='#Page_189'><b>189</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">open threats of secession in, <a href='#Page_193'><b>193</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">position of on secession, etc., defined, <a href='#Page_197'><b>197</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"> underlying divergences North in sentiment and character, <a href='#Page_205'><b>205</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ideal of society in, <a href='#Page_205'><b>205</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">religious life and literature in, <a href='#Page_206'><b>206</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">inflamed against North, sources of misunderstanding, <a href='#Page_207'><b>207</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">plantation life in at best, <a href='#Page_208'><b>208</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">concentration of interest in on national politics, <a href='#Page_208'><b>208</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">concentrates on secession movement, <a href='#Page_209'><b>209</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">duelling and street affrays common in, <a href='#Page_209'><b>209</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">men of in Texas, in Mexican war, and as "filibusters," <a href='#Page_209'><b>209</b></a>-<a href='#Page_10'><b>10</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">believes all war-spirit extinct in North, <a href='#Page_210'><b>210</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">causes of united action in, <a href='#Page_211'><b>211</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">North impatient of political dominance of, <a href='#Page_212'><b>212</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">patriotic sentiment still powerful in, <a href='#Page_214'><b>214</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">disunion sentiment strongest in Gulf and Cotton States, <a href='#Page_214'><b>214</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">reasons for success of secession movement in, <a href='#Page_218'><b>218</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">leaders of resign from Buchanan's cabinet, <a href='#Page_224'><b>224</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">leaders of in Congress favor secession, last formal presentation of ultimatum of in Senate, <a href='#Page_225'><b>225</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">general sentiment in against armed repression of secession, <a href='#Page_227'><b>227</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So. Carolina leader of, <a href='#Page_229'><b>229</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">views on Civil war in, <a href='#Page_237'><b>237</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">bitterness against North in, <a href='#Page_241'><b>241</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">moral effect of war on, <a href='#Page_244'><b>244</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">courage of in war, <a href='#Page_262'><b>262</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">advantages of North over, <a href='#Page_264'><b>264</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">social conditions in after war, <a href='#Page_275'><b>275</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">State legislatures and conventions resumed in, <a href='#Page_275'><b>275</b></a>, <a href='#Page_276'><b>276</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_13'><b>13</b></a>th amendment ratified in <a href='#Page_276'><b>276</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Senators from refused admission to Congress, <a href='#Page_218'><b>218</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">reports of Gen. Grant and Carl Schurz on conditions in after war, <a href='#Page_286'><b>286</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">views of on negro labor, <a href='#Page_287'><b>287</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">laws governing negro labor in after war, association of whites and negroes forbidden in, <a href='#Page_290'><b>290</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Congressional represent. of conditioned on negro suffrage by <a href='#Page_14'><b>14</b></a>th amendment, <a href='#Page_298'><b>298</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">proposed to refuse suffrage to leaders of, <a href='#Page_299'><b>299</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">mistake of such course, <a href='#Page_301'><b>301</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">excepting Tennessee, rejects <a href='#Page_14'><b>14</b></a>th amendment, <a href='#Page_304'><b>304</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">reconstruction of, see Reconstruction; government of under reconstruction bill begins, <a href='#Page_307'><b>307</b></a>, <a href='#Page_310'><b>310</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">number of negro voters in various States of, <a href='#Page_311'><b>311</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">trials and struggles of under new conditions, under martial law, restored to self-government, <a href='#Page_316'><b>316</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">unfitness of negroes in for suffrage, whites refuse to vote, constitutional conventions held and negro delegates chosen, <a href='#Page_317'><b>317</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">typical attitude of whites in;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">under "carpet bag" rule, <a href='#Page_318'><b>318</b></a>, <a href='#Page_332'><b>332</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Northern immigration into, <a href='#Page_319'><b>319</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Northern teachers insulted or disdained in; Northerners in politics in; legislation in during reconstruction, <a href='#Page_320'><b>320</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">extravagance, waste and corruption in under Republican governments;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">exaggeration of, <a href='#Page_321'><b>321</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">negro rule in, <a href='#Page_319'><b>319</b></a>, <a href='#Page_321'><b>321</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">resumption of white leadership in, <a href='#Page_322'><b>322</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">continued interference of Congress in, <a href='#Page_326'><b>326</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">growth of Republican opposition to Federal interference in;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">repudiation in, <a href='#Page_332'><b>332</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Democrats organize resistance to Republican rule in and practice intimidation, <a href='#Page_339'><b>339</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Federal troops withdrawn from, <a href='#Page_353'><b>353</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">regeneration of, <a href='#Page_354'><b>354</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">whites in driven to labor, <a href='#Page_355'><b>355</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">end of Federal interference in, <a href='#Page_371'><b>371</b></a>, <a href='#Page_402'><b>402</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">negro suffrage practically nullified in, civil rights secured to negroes, <a href='#Page_372'><b>372</b></a>, <a href='#Page_382'><b>382</b></a>, <a href='#Page_388'><b>388</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">refuses social equality to negro, <a href='#Page_373'><b>373</b></a>, <a href='#Page_407'><b>407</b></a>-<a href='#Page_8'><b>8</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">fear of race mixture in, <a href='#Page_374'><b>374</b></a>, <a href='#Page_407'><b>407</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">development of industrial democracy in, <a href='#Page_379'><b>379</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">present condition of politics in, <a href='#Page_379'><b>379</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">why "solid," <a href='#Page_380'><b>380</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">life in diversifying, growth of literature in, <a href='#Page_380'><b>380</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">growth of standard of education in, <a href='#Page_381'><b>381</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">widening gulf between the races in, <a href='#Page_382'><b>382</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">legal and practical limitation of suffrage in, <a href='#Page_382'><b>382</b></a> ff, <a href='#Page_388'><b>388</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">efforts in to restrict negro education, <a href='#Page_385'><b>385</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">negro still has industrial freedom in, <a href='#Page_385'><b>385</b></a>, <a href='#Page_395'><b>395</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">pronounced attitude of on social inferiority of negro, <a href='#Page_386'><b>386</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">hopes for better conditions, growth of good-will and confidence in, <a href='#Page_389'><b>389</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">amount spent by for negro education, <a href='#Page_397'><b>397</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">educational and industrial problems of, <a href='#Page_397'><b>397</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">suffrage laws in, <a href='#Page_400'><b>400</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">politics in, no longer a struggle between whites and blacks, <a href='#Page_401'><b>401</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">scheme to reduce representation of under <a href='#Page_14'><b>14</b></a>th amendment, <a href='#Page_403'><b>403</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">government aid to education in advocated, <a href='#Page_404'><b>404</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">disproportionate share of national expense borne by, <a href='#Page_405'><b>405</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">problem of social equal. of races in, <a href='#Page_406'><b>406</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">South Carolina (see also <span class="smcap">Carolinas, The</span>),</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">demands representation based on slave numbers, <a href='#Page_11'><b>11</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">refuses to join Union if slave trade forbidden, <a href='#Page_12'><b>12</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">revolts over tariff, claims right of nullification, <a href='#Page_32'><b>32</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">passes law against negro seamen, <a href='#Page_73'><b>73</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">considers secession, <a href='#Page_221'><b>221</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">passes ordinance of secession, <a href='#Page_223'><b>223</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">occupies Ft. Moultrie and Castle Pinckney, <a href='#Page_224'><b>224</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">leads South, <a href='#Page_229'><b>229</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">emancipation in, <a href='#Page_260'><b>260</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">provisional government formed in, <a href='#Page_275'><b>275</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">reconstructed, <a href='#Page_310'><b>310</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">negro voters in majority in, <a href='#Page_311'><b>311</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">under "carpet-bag," rule, <a href='#Page_332'><b>332</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Presidential and State vote of contested (1876), <a href='#Page_348'><b>348</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">legal limitation of suffrage in, <a href='#Page_383'><b>383</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Southern Democracy, asserts universal right of slave-holding, <a href='#Page_186'><b>186</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Southern Planter, A," <a href='#Page_100'><b>100</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Southern Statesmen of the Old</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Régime," <a href='#Page_137'><b>137</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Speed, Joshua F., <a href='#Page_178'><b>178</b></a>; resigns</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">from cabinet, <a href='#Page_303'><b>303</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Springfield <i>Republican</i>, <a href='#Page_124'><b>124</b></a> and note, <a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">its opinion of John Brown, <a href='#Page_162'><b>162</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">state's issue between Democrats and Republicans in 1864, <a href='#Page_265'><b>265</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">favors educational test for suffrage, <a href='#Page_308'><b>308</b></a>, <a href='#Page_310'><b>310</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">prophesies slave-holding class will regain power, <a href='#Page_322'><b>322</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supports Independent Republicans, <a href='#Page_328'><b>328</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on Hayes-Tilden contest, <a href='#Page_351'><b>351</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stanton, Edwin M., Attorney-General, <a href='#Page_224'><b>224</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Lincoln's cabinet, <a href='#Page_249'><b>249</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">attitude of on emancipation proclamation, <a href='#Page_257'><b>257</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Johnson's cabinet, <a href='#Page_274'><b>274</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supports Johnson in reconstruction plans, <a href='#Page_276'><b>276</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">becomes bitterly opposed to Johnson, <a href='#Page_303'><b>303</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">removed by Johnson, <a href='#Page_311'><b>311</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Star of the West," sent with supplies to Anderson, driven from Charleston harbor, <a href='#Page_224'><b>224</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">State rights, theory of, <a href='#Page_133'><b>133</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">States, relative power of in Congress determined, <a href='#Page_11'><b>11</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stearns, George L., supports John Brown, <a href='#Page_160'><b>160</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stephens, Alexander H., sketch of his life and views, <a href='#Page_137'><b>137</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">political activity of, <a href='#Page_138'><b>138</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Congress, and Vice-President of Confederacy, <a href='#Page_139'><b>139</b></a>, <a href='#Page_227'><b>227</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">explains defection of Southern Democrats, <a href='#Page_189'><b>189</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supports Douglas in 1860 campaign, <a href='#Page_193'><b>193</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposes secession, <a href='#Page_211'><b>211</b></a>, <a href='#Page_215'><b>215</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">labors against secession, <a href='#Page_219'><b>219</b></a>, <a href='#Page_221'><b>221</b></a>, <a href='#Page_225'><b>225</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Vice-President of Southern Confederacy, <a href='#Page_227'><b>227</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">pleads for negro rights, <a href='#Page_302'><b>302</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stevens, Thaddeus, Republican leader in Penn., <a href='#Page_276'><b>276</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">leader of House, <a href='#Page_281'><b>281</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">sketch of, <a href='#Page_282'><b>282</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposes Pres. Johnson's reconstruction plan, <a href='#Page_285'><b>285</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his drastic reconstruction bill defeated, <a href='#Page_306'><b>306</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">House prosecutor of Johnson, <a href='#Page_311'><b>311</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">death of, <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Story, Judge, on taxes in Miss., <a href='#Page_336'><b>336</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stowe, Harriet Beecher, publishes "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href='#Page_97'><b>97</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">her views of slavery as pictured therein, <a href='#Page_109'><b>109</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">publishes "Dred," <a href='#Page_123'><b>123</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Suffrage, manhood, adopted, <a href='#Page_21'><b>21</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">equal, without test passed in North, <a href='#Page_308'><b>308</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">negro, representation of South conditioned on, <a href='#Page_298'><b>298</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">proposal to refuse to leaders of South, <a href='#Page_299'><b>299</b></a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">see also <span class="smcap">Amendments, Constitutional</span>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Springfield <i>Republican</i> favors educational test for, <a href='#Page_308'><b>308</b></a>, <a href='#Page_310'><b>310</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">unfitness of negroes in South for after war, <a href='#Page_317'><b>317</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">of negroes practically nullified in South, <a href='#Page_372'><b>372</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">legal limitation of in South, <a href='#Page_382'><b>382</b></a> ff; <a href='#Page_388'><b>388</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sumner, Charles, opinion of abolitionists, <a href='#Page_54'><b>54</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">joins "Free Soil" party, <a href='#Page_81'><b>81</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Senate, <a href='#Page_92'><b>92</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">denounces slavery in Congress, assaulted by Brooks, <a href='#Page_122'><b>122</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Republican party, <a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposes admission of Senators from Confederate States, <a href='#Page_270'><b>270</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lincoln refuses to quarrel with, <a href='#Page_270'><b>270</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Republican leader in Mass., <a href='#Page_276'><b>276</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">sketch of, <a href='#Page_282'><b>282</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Senate, <a href='#Page_284'><b>284</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposes Pres. Johnson's reconstruction plan, <a href='#Page_286'><b>286</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">belief of in Republican party, <a href='#Page_309'><b>309</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">quarrels with Grant, <a href='#Page_328'><b>328</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">death of, <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sumner, Colonel, in Kansas, <a href='#Page_118'><b>118</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Taney, Chief Justice, in Dred Scott case, <a href='#Page_147'><b>147</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tappan, Arthur, <a href='#Page_40'><b>40</b></a>, <a href='#Page_44'><b>44</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tappan, Lewis, <a href='#Page_44'><b>44</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tariff, of abominations, <a href='#Page_32'><b>32</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">protective, <a href='#Page_31'><b>31</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">compromise on, <a href='#Page_33'><b>33</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supported in Georgia, <a href='#Page_2'><b>2</b></a>, <a href='#Page_11'><b>11</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">adopted by Republican party, <a href='#Page_190'><b>190</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">burden of to South, <a href='#Page_405'><b>405</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Taylor, Zachary (Gen.), <a href='#Page_76'><b>76</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominated by Whigs, <a href='#Page_81'><b>81</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">elected, <a href='#Page_82'><b>82</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">denounces threats of disunion as treason, <a href='#Page_89'><b>89</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">favors admission of Calif. as free State, <a href='#Page_90'><b>90</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">death of, <a href='#Page_90'><b>90</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in North, <a href='#Page_208'><b>208</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tennessee, added as slave State, <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">votes against holding secession convention, <a href='#Page_227'><b>227</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">secedes, <a href='#Page_235'><b>235</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">provisional govt. estab. in, <a href='#Page_267'><b>267</b></a>, <a href='#Page_275'><b>275</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">rights of negro conserved in, <a href='#Page_302'><b>302</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">readmitted under <a href='#Page_14'><b>14</b></a>th amendment, <a href='#Page_303'><b>303</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tenure of office law, passed; Pres. Johnson accused of violating, <a href='#Page_311'><b>311</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Territories, power of Congress over, <a href='#Page_149'><b>149</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Texas, annexation of, <a href='#Page_74'><b>74</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">slavery re-estab. in, <a href='#Page_75'><b>75</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">becomes a state, <a href='#Page_76'><b>76</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">emancipation in, <a href='#Page_260'><b>260</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">silent on <a href='#Page_13'><b>13</b></a>th amendment, <a href='#Page_262'><b>262</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">provisional govt. of, <a href='#Page_275'><b>275</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">reconstructed, <a href='#Page_310'><b>310</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">relative number of negro voters in, <a href='#Page_311'><b>311</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">under martial law, <a href='#Page_316'><b>316</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">becomes Democratic, <a href='#Page_323'><b>323</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thayer, Eli, originates New Eng. Emigrant Aid Society, <a href='#Page_116'><b>116</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thomas, Lorenzo (Gen.), Sec'y of War, <a href='#Page_311'><b>311</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thompson, George, aids Garrison, <a href='#Page_51'><b>51</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thompson, Richard W., Sec'y of Navy under Hayes, <a href='#Page_353'><b>353</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tilden, Samuel J., leader of Democrats, <a href='#Page_313'><b>313</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominated for President;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">characterized; apparently elected, <a href='#Page_347'><b>347</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">election contested, <a href='#Page_348'><b>348</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tomlinson, Reuben, Repub. candidate for governor of S. Carolina, <a href='#Page_332'><b>332</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toombs, Robert, sketch of, <a href='#Page_136'><b>136</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">political activity of, <a href='#Page_138'><b>138</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">gives moral support to Preston Brooks, <a href='#Page_138'><b>138</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Confederate cabinet and army, <a href='#Page_139'><b>139</b></a>, <a href='#Page_227'><b>227</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supports Breckinridge in 1860 campaign, <a href='#Page_193'><b>193</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">advocates secession in Georgia legislature, <a href='#Page_211'><b>211</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supports secession movement, <a href='#Page_221'><b>221</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">states South's ultimatum in Congress, <a href='#Page_225'><b>225</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Confederate cabinet, <a href='#Page_227'><b>227</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Trade unions, attitude of toward negroes, <a href='#Page_385'><b>385</b></a>, <a href='#Page_395'><b>395</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">danger of excluding negroes from, <a href='#Page_396'><b>396</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Trumbull, Lyman, elected Senator, <a href='#Page_177'><b>177</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">favors admission of Senators from Louisiana, <a href='#Page_270'><b>270</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Senate, <a href='#Page_283'><b>283</b></a>, <a href='#Page_284'><b>284</b></a>, <a href='#Page_285'><b>285</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">favors Freedmen's Bureau bill, <a href='#Page_294'><b>294</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">votes to acquit Pres. Johnson, <a href='#Page_312'><b>312</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in opposition to administration, <a href='#Page_331'><b>331</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tuskegee Institute, <a href='#Page_378'><b>378</b></a>; function of, <a href='#Page_398'><b>398</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Truth, Sojourner, <a href='#Page_96'><b>96</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Twenty Years of Congress," Blaine's, quoted, <a href='#Page_307'><b>307</b></a>, <a href='#Page_310'><b>310</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tyler, John, becomes President, <a href='#Page_71'><b>71</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href='#Page_97'><b>97</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">reception, <a href='#Page_98'><b>98</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Key to," <a href='#Page_99'><b>99</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">criticism of, <a href='#Page_99'><b>99</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Underground railroad, the, <a href='#Page_85'><b>85</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Unionism, spirit of strong in white laboring class of South, <a href='#Page_214'><b>214</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">strength of at North, <a href='#Page_218'><b>218</b></a>, <a href='#Page_248'><b>248</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Unitarians, <a href='#Page_143'><b>143</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Up from Slavery," Booker Washington's personal story told in, <a href='#Page_378'><b>378</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Utah, South demands permission of slavery in, <a href='#Page_84'><b>84</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Van Buren, Martin, <a href='#Page_30'><b>30</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">becomes President, <a href='#Page_71'><b>71</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">receives "Free Soil" nomination, <a href='#Page_82'><b>82</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Van Winkle, Senator, votes to acquit Pres. Johnson, <a href='#Page_312'><b>312</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vardaman, Gov., of Mississippi, <a href='#Page_388'><b>388</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Virginia, tries to discourage slave trade by tax;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">slave labor foundation of aristocracy in, <a href='#Page_6'><b>6</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">remonstrates against continuance of slave trade, <a href='#Page_8'><b>8</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">forbids importation of slaves, passes law regarding manumission of slaves, number of slaves in 1790, <a href='#Page_9'><b>9</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">against strengthening the slave power, <a href='#Page_11'><b>11</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">protests against restraint of Congress to forbid slave trade, <a href='#Page_12'><b>12</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">consents (1778) to abolish slave trade, <a href='#Page_18'><b>18</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">stops importing slaves, <a href='#Page_20'><b>20</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">convention for revis. of constitution, <a href='#Page_41'><b>41</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">general emancipation debated, <a href='#Page_42'><b>42</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">plans for fail, <a href='#Page_43'><b>43</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">passes severe laws against incitement to rebel, instruction of slaves, etc., loses leadership of South, <a href='#Page_44'><b>44</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mrs. Burton Harrison's personal reminiscences of before the war, <a href='#Page_100'><b>100</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">calls convention to consider secession, <a href='#Page_222'><b>222</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">calls peace congress, <a href='#Page_228'><b>228</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">secedes, <a href='#Page_235'><b>235</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">emancipation in, <a href='#Page_260'><b>260</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">loyal State govt. in recognized, <a href='#Page_275'><b>275</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">delays her final restoration to Union, <a href='#Page_310'><b>310</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">relative number of negro voters in, <a href='#Page_311'><b>311</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">under martial law, <a href='#Page_316'><b>316</b></a>: Democrats regain, <a href='#Page_323'><b>323</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">legal limitation of suffrage in, <a href='#Page_383'><b>383</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">co-operation of whites and negroes for good govt. in, <a href='#Page_401'><b>401</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wade, Benjamin, in Senate, <a href='#Page_114'><b>114</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Republican party, <a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">favors radical reconstruction, <a href='#Page_270'><b>270</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in U. S. Senate, <a href='#Page_283'><b>283</b></a>, 285.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Walker, Boston negro, issues Appeal, <a href='#Page_41'><b>41</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Walker, Robert J., <a href='#Page_117'><b>117</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">appointed governor of Kansas, <a href='#Page_150'><b>150</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">defeats fraud in ballot, and is deserted by Buchanan, <a href='#Page_152'><b>152</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">War, terrors of. See <span class="smcap">Civil War</span>, <a href='#Page_237'><b>237</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"War Between the States," by Alex. H. Stephens, <a href='#Page_189'><b>189</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"War Democrats," <a href='#Page_194'><b>194</b></a>, <a href='#Page_253'><b>253</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Warmouth, Henry C., in govt. of Louisiana, <a href='#Page_341'><b>341</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Warner, Col., in govt. of Miss., <a href='#Page_336'><b>336</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Warren, Henry W., in govt. of Miss., <a href='#Page_336'><b>336</b></a>, <a href='#Page_337'><b>337</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on conditions and experiences in Miss. during reconstruction, <a href='#Page_337'><b>337</b></a> ff.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Washburn, Israel, Jr., helps organize Republican party, <a href='#Page_114'><b>114</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Washington, city of, threatened by Confederates, <a href='#Page_237'><b>237</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Washington, George, <a href='#Page_2'><b>2</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opinion of New Englanders, <a href='#Page_2'><b>2</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">conception of liberty and of slavery, <a href='#Page_3'><b>3</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">favors Revolution, <a href='#Page_8'><b>8</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">against strengthening slave power, <a href='#Page_11'><b>11</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">views of on slavery, <a href='#Page_15'><b>15</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">private life and character of, <a href='#Page_15'><b>15</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his treatment of his slaves, frees them, <a href='#Page_16'><b>16</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on necessity of abolishing slavery, <a href='#Page_391'><b>391</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Washington, Booker T., pupil of and successor to Gen. Armstrong; his aims and methods;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">personal story of, <a href='#Page_378'><b>378</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">entertained by Pres. Roosevelt, <a href='#Page_386'><b>386</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Watterson, Henry, in Hayes-Tilden contest, <a href='#Page_352'><b>352</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Webster, Daniel, defends protective tariff, <a href='#Page_32'><b>32</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">debate with Hayne, <a href='#Page_33'><b>33</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his public life characterized, <a href='#Page_64'><b>64</b></a> ff;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_7'><b>7</b></a>th of March speech on slavery questions, <a href='#Page_87'><b>87</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">defects of speech, <a href='#Page_88'><b>88</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">political and moral characteristics of, <a href='#Page_88'><b>88</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Fillmore's cabinet, <a href='#Page_90'><b>90</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">allied with upper classes, <a href='#Page_92'><b>92</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">as Pres. candidate defeated in Whig convention (1852), <a href='#Page_92'><b>92</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">death of, <a href='#Page_93'><b>93</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Weed, Thurlow, votes for Taylor, <a href='#Page_82'><b>82</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">helps prolong Whig organization in N. Y., <a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supports Pres. Johnson, <a href='#Page_303'><b>303</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Weld, Theodore D., <a href='#Page_37'><b>37</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whig party (see also <span class="smcap">Whigs</span>),</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">beginnings of, <a href='#Page_31'><b>31</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on verge of dissolution, <a href='#Page_93'><b>93</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">end of, <a href='#Page_153'><b>153</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whigs, nominate Clay, <a href='#Page_75'><b>75</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">gain majority in House, <a href='#Page_79'><b>79</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominate Taylor, <a href='#Page_81'><b>81</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominate Gen. Winfield Scott;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">defeated by combined Democrats and "Free Soilers," <a href='#Page_92'><b>92</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">vote against Kansas-Nebraska bill, <a href='#Page_114'><b>114</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">unite with "Free Soilers" to form Republican party;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">organization prolonged in N. Y., <a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Republican party, <a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whitman, Walt, volunteer nurse, pen picture of war, <a href='#Page_247'><b>247</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whitney, Eli, <a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whittier, John G., joins anti-slavery movement, <a href='#Page_44'><b>44</b></a>, <a href='#Page_56'><b>56</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">criticises Webster in poem "Ichabod," <a href='#Page_88'><b>88</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">poem on settlement of West, <a href='#Page_116'><b>116</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in first Republican campaign, <a href='#Page_130'><b>130</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his labors for freedom, <a href='#Page_144'><b>144</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wilmot proviso, <a href='#Page_80'><b>80</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wilson, Henry, joins "Free Soil" party, <a href='#Page_81'><b>81</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">elected Senator, <a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a>; sketch of, <a href='#Page_283'><b>283</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposes Pres. Johnson's plan of reconstruction, <a href='#Page_286'><b>286</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">against exclusion clauses in <a href='#Page_14'><b>14</b></a>th amendment, <a href='#Page_302'><b>302</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wilson, Woodrow, "History of the American People," criticised, <a href='#Page_334'><b>334</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wise, Henry A., opinion of John Brown, <a href='#Page_164'><b>164</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wise, John S., shows effects of John Brown's raid in South, <a href='#Page_169'><b>169</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">criticises Bourbonism in Southern politics, <a href='#Page_388'><b>388</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Women's rights, <a href='#Page_56'><b>56</b></a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">cause advanced, <a href='#Page_94'><b>94</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wood, Fernando, <a href='#Page_352'><b>352</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Woolman, John, protests against slavery, <a href='#Page_7'><b>7</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Woolsey, Theodore D., <a href='#Page_36'><b>36</b></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wright, Elizur, <a href='#Page_44'><b>44</b></a>.</span><br /> +</p> + + + + +<h4>THE END</h4> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Negro and the Nation, by George S. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Negro and the Nation + A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement + +Author: George S. Merriam + +Release Date: February 14, 2008 [EBook #24613] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEGRO AND THE NATION *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + + + THE NEGRO AND THE NATION + + _A History of American Slavery + and Enfranchisement_ + + BY + + GEORGE S. MERRIAM + + HASKELL HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD. + _Publishers of Scarce Scholarly Books_ + + NEW YORK. N. Y. 10012 + + 1970 + + + + + First Published 1906 + + HASKELL HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD. + _Publishers of Scarce Scholarly Books_ + + 280 LAFAYETTE STREET + NEW YORK, N. Y. 10012 + + Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 75-95441 + + Standard Book Number 8383-0994-1 + + Printed in the United States of America + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. HOW SLAVERY GREW IN AMERICA 1 + + II. THE ACTS OF THE FATHERS 8 + + III. CONFLICT AND COMPROMISE 21 + + IV. THE WIDENING RIFT 28 + + V. CALHOUN AND GARRISON 46 + + VI. BIRNEY, CHANNING AND WEBSTER 58 + + VII. THE UNDERLYING FORCES 67 + + VIII. THE MEXICAN WAR 71 + + IX. HOW TO DEAL WITH THE TERRITORIES 79 + + X. THE COMPROMISE OF 1850 84 + + XI. A LULL AND A RETROSPECT 92 + + XII. SLAVERY AS IT WAS 97 + + XIII. THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS 112 + + XIV. "FREMONT AND FREEDOM" 122 + + XV. THREE TYPICAL SOUTHERNERS 132 + + XVI. SOME NORTHERN LEADERS 140 + + XVII. DRED SCOTT AND LECOMPTON 147 + + XVIII. JOHN BROWN 158 + + XIX. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 172 + + XX. THE ELECTION OF 1860 185 + + XXI. FACE TO FACE 197 + + XXII. HOW THEY DIFFERED 205 + + XXIII. WHY THEY FOUGHT 211 + + XXIV. ON NIAGARA'S BRINK--AND OVER 221 + + XXV. THE CIVIL WAR 237 + + XXVI. EMANCIPATION BEGUN 248 + + XXVII. EMANCIPATION ACHIEVED 258 + + XXVIII. RECONSTRUCTION: EXPERIMENTS AND IDEALS 267 + + XXIX. RECONSTRUCTION: THE FIRST PLAN 274 + + XXX. CONGRESS AND THE "BLACK CODES" 281 + + XXXI. RECONSTRUCTION: THE SECOND PLAN 294 + + XXXII. RECONSTRUCTION: THE FINAL PLAN 306 + + XXXIII. RECONSTRUCTION: THE WORKING OUT 316 + + XXXIV. THREE TROUBLED STATES 331 + + XXXV. RECONSTRUCTION: THE LAST ACT 344 + + XXXVI. REGENERATION 354 + + XXXVII. ARMSTRONG 362 + + XXXVIII. EVOLUTION 371 + + XXXIX. EBB AND FLOW 382 + + XL. LOOKING FORWARD 391 + + INDEX 413 + + + + +THE NEGRO AND THE NATION + + + + +CHAPTER I + +HOW SLAVERY GREW IN AMERICA + + +An English traveler, riding along the banks of the Potomac in mid-July, +1798, saw ahead of him on the road an old-fashioned chaise, its driver +urging forward his slow horse with the whip, until a sharp cut made the +beast swerve, and the chaise toppled over the bank, throwing out the +driver and the young lady who was with him. The traveler--it was John +Bernard, an actor and a man of culture and accomplishments, spurred +forward to the rescue. As he did so he saw another horseman put his +horse from a trot to a gallop, and together they reached the scene of +action, extricated the woman and revived her from her swoon with water +from a brook; then righted the horse and chaise, helped to restore the +half-ton of baggage to its place; learned the story of the couple--a New +Englander returning home with his Southern bride--and saw them safely +started again. Then the two rescuers, after their half-hour of +perspiring toil in a broiling sun, addressed themselves courteously to +each other; the Virginian dusted the coat of the Englishman, and as Mr. +Bernard returned the favor he noticed him well,--"a tall, erect, +well-made man, evidently advanced in years, but who appeared to have +retained all the vigor and elasticity resulting from a life of +temperance and exercise. His dress was a blue coat, buttoned to the +chin, and buckskin breeches." The two men eyed each other, half +recognizing, half perplexed, till with a smile the Virginian exclaimed, +"Mr. Bernard, I believe?" and, claiming acquaintance from having seen +him on the stage and heard of him from friends, invited him to come and +rest at his house near by, to which he pointed. That familiar front, the +now wholly familiar face and form,--"Mount Vernon! Have I the honor of +addressing General Washington?" With a charming smile Washington offered +his hand, replying, "An odd sort of introduction, Mr. Bernard; but I am +pleased to find you can play so active a part in private and without a +prompter." There followed a long and leisurely call at Mount Vernon, and +Bernard, in his volume of travels which did not see the light for nearly +a century, has given a most graphic and winning picture of Washington in +his every-day aspect and familiar conversation. To the actor's keen eye, +acquainted with the best society of his time, the near approach showed +no derogation from the greatness which the story of his deeds conveyed. +"Whether you surveyed his face, open yet well defined, dignified but not +arrogant, thoughtful but benign; his frame, towering and muscular, but +alert from its good proportions--every feature suggested a resemblance +to the spirit it encased, and showed simplicity in alliance with the +sublime. The impression, therefore, was that of a most perfect whole." + +The talk ran a various course. Washington incidentally praised the New +Englanders, "the stamina of the Union and its greatest benefactors." The +Englishman acknowledged a tribute to his own country, but Washington +with great good humor responded, "Yes, yes, Mr. Bernard, but I consider +your country the cradle of free principles, not their arm-chair." He had +proceeded a little way in a eulogy of American liberty, when a black +servant entered the room with a jug of spring water. Bernard smiled, and +Washington quickly caught his look and answered it: "This may seem a +contradiction, but I think you must perceive that it is neither a crime +nor an absurdity. When we profess, as our fundamental principle, that +liberty is the inalienable right of every man, we do not include madmen +or idiots; liberty in their hands would become a scourge. Till the mind +of the slave has been educated to perceive what are the obligations of a +state of freedom, and not confound a man's with a brute's, the gift +would insure its abuse. We might as well be asked to pull down our old +warehouses before trade has increased to demand enlarged new ones. Both +houses and slaves were bequeathed to us by Europeans, and time alone can +change them; an event which, you may believe me, no man desires more +heartily than I do. Not only do I pray for it on the score of human +dignity, but I can clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of +slavery can perpetuate the existence of our Union, by consolidating it +in a common bond of principle." + +These words of Washington, with the incident that supplies their +background, are an epitome of the view and attitude of that great man +toward slavery. Before measuring their full significance, and the +general situation in which this was an element, we may glance at the +preliminary questions; how came slaves in Virginia and America; whence +came slavery; what was it? + +Primitive man killed his enemy and ate him. Later, the sequel of battle +was the slaying of all the vanquished and the appropriation of their +goods, including women and other live stock. Then it was found more +profitable to spare the conquered warrior's life and set him to do the +victor's disagreeable work; more profitable, and incidentally more +merciful. Civilization advanced; wars became less general; but in the +established social order that grew up there was a definite place for a +great class of slaves. It was part of Nature's early law, the strong +raising themselves upon the weak. Morality and religion by degrees +established certain limited rights for the slave. But the general state +of slavery was defended by philosophers like Aristotle; was recognized +by the legislation of Judea, Greece, and Rome; was accepted as part of +the established order by Jesus and the early church. It is beyond our +limits here to measure either its service, as the foundation on which +rested ancient society; or the mischief that came from the supplanting +of a free peasantry, as in Italy. We can but glance at the influence of +Christianity, first in ameliorating its rigor, by teaching the master +that the slave was his brother in Christ, and then by working together +with economic forces for its abolition. By complex and partly obscure +causes, personal slavery--the outright ownership of man--was abolished +throughout Christendom. Less inhuman in theory, less heartless in +practice, though inhuman and harsh enough, was the serfdom which +succeeded slavery and rested on Europe for a thousand years; till by +slow evolution, by occasional bloody revolt, by steady advance in the +intelligence and power of the laborer, compelling for him a higher +status, the serf became a hired laborer and thence a citizen throughout +Europe. + +The recrudescence of slavery came when the expanding energies of +European society, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, dashed +against the weak barbarians of Africa and America. The old story was +retold,--the stronger man, half-savage still under the veneer of +civilization and Christianity, trampled the weaker man under foot. In +Europe there was little need or room for slaves--the labor supply was +sufficient, but on the new continent, in the words of Weeden (_Economic +and Social History of New England_): "The seventeenth century organized +the new western countries, and created an immense opportunity for +labor. The eighteenth coolly and deliberately set Europe at the task of +depopulating whole districts of western Africa, and of transporting the +captives, by a necessarily brutal, vicious and horrible traffic, to the +new civilization of America." The European was impartial between African +and Indian; he was equally ready to enslave either; but the Indian was +not made for captivity,--he rebelled or ran away or died; the more +docile negro was the chief victim. The stream of slavery moved mainly +according to economic conditions. Soil and climate in the Northern +States made the labor of the indolent and unthrifty slave unprofitable, +but in the warm and fertile South, developing plantations of tobacco, +rice, and indigo, the negro toiler supplied the needed element for great +profits. The church's part in the business was mainly to find excuse; +through slavery the heathen were being made Christians. But when they +had become Christians the church forgot to bid that they be made +brothers and freemen. Some real mitigation of their lot no doubt there +was, through teaching of religion and from other conditions. Professor +Du Bois says that slavery brought the African three advantages: it +taught him to labor, gave him the English language and--after a +sort--the Christian religion. But it ruined such family life as had +existed under a kind of regulated polygamy. Again we must decline to +measure the good and the evil of the system. Probably the negro was in +better condition in America than he had been in Africa, as he certainly +was in far worse condition than he was entitled to be--and was in future +to be. + +The traffic was maintained chiefly by trading companies in England,--at +first a great monopoly headed by the Duke of York, then rival companies. +The colonists made some attempts to check the traffic,--growing alarmed +at the great infusion of a servile and barbaric population. Virginia +long tried to discourage it by putting a heavy import tax on slaves, +which was constantly overruled by the English government under the +influence of the trading companies. At a later day every one tried to +put the responsibility of slavery on some one else,--the North on the +South, the South on England. But in truth the responsibility was on all. +The colonists did not hesitate to refuse to receive tea which England +taxed; equally well they could have refused to buy slaves imported by +trading companies if they had not wanted them; but they did want them. +The commercial demand overrode humanity. The social conscience was not +awake,--strange as its slumber now seems. Stranger still, as we shall +see, after it had once been thoroughly roused, it was deliberately +drugged to sleep. But this belongs to a later chapter. + +New England had little use for slaves at home, but for slave ships she +had abundant use. With a sterile soil, and with the sea at her doors +swarming with edible fish and beckoning to her sails, her hardy industry +found its best field on the ocean. The fisheries were the foundation of +her commerce. The thrifty Yankee sold the best of his catch in Europe +(here again we follow Weeden); the medium quality he ate himself; and +the worst he sent to the West Indies to be sold as food for slaves. With +the proceeds the skipper bought molasses and carried it home, where it +was turned into rum; the rum went to Africa and was exchanged for +slaves, and the slaves were carried to the West Indies, Virginia, and +the Carolinas. Rum and slaves, two chief staples of New England trade +and sources of its wealth; slave labor the foundation on which was +planted the aristocracy of Virginia and the Carolinas,--alas for our +great-grandfathers! But what may our great-grandchildren find to say of +us? + +The social conscience was not developed along this line; men were +unconscious of the essential wrong of slavery, or, uneasily conscious of +something wrong, saw not what could be done, and kept still. Here and +there a voice was raised in protest. There was fine old Samuel Sewall, +Chief Justice of Massachusetts; sincere, faithful man; dry and narrow, +because in a dry and narrow place and time; but with the capacity for +growth which distinguishes the live root from the dead. He presided over +the court that adjudged witches to death; then, when the community had +recovered from its frenzy, he took on himself deepest blame; he stood up +in his pew, a public penitent, while the minister read aloud his humble +confession, and on a stated day in each year he shut himself up in +solitude to mourn and expiate the wrong he had unwittingly done, and, +almost alone among his people, he spoke out clear and strong against +human slavery. + +A little later, in the generation before the Revolution, came the +Quaker, John Woolman,--a gentle and lovely soul, known among his people +as a kind of lay evangelist, traveling among their communities to utter +sweet persuasive words of holiness and uplifting; known in our day by +his _Journal_, a book of saintly meditations. Sensitive and shrinking, +he yet had the moral insight to see and the courage to speak against the +wrong of slavery. The Quakers, rich in the virtues of peace and +kindliness, were by no means unpractical in the ways of worldly gain, or +inaccessible to its temptations; they had held slaves like their +neighbors, though we should probably have preferred a Quaker master. But +the seed Woolman sowed fell on good ground; slavery came into disfavor +among the Quakers, and when sentiment against it began to grow they lent +strength to the leadership of the public conscience. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE ACTS OF THE FATHERS + + +The revolt of the colonists from British rule was not inspired +originally by abstract enthusiasm for the rights of man. It was rather a +demand for the chartered rights of British subjects, according to the +liberal principles set forth by Locke and Chatham and Burke and Fox; a +demand pushed on by the self-asserting strength of communities become +too vigorous to endure control from a remote seat of empire, especially +when that control was exercised in a harsh and arbitrary spirit. The +revolutionary tide was swelled from various sources: by the mob eager to +worry a red-coated sentry or to join in a raid under Indian disguise; by +men who embodied the common sense and rough energy of the plain people, +like Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine; by men of practical statesmanship, +like Franklin and Washington, who saw that the time had come when the +colonists could best manage their own affairs; and by generous +enthusiasts for humanity, like Jefferson and Patrick Henry. + +With the minds of thoughtful men thoroughly wakened on the subject of +human rights, it was impossible not to reflect on the wrongs of the +slaves, incomparably worse than those against which their masters had +taken up arms. As the political institutions of the young Federation +were remolded, so grave a matter as slavery could not be ignored. +Virginia in 1772 voted an address to the King remonstrating against the +continuance of the African slave trade. The address was ignored, and +Jefferson in the first draft of the Declaration alleged this as one of +the wrongs suffered at the hands of the British government, but his +colleagues suppressed the clause. In 1778 Virginia forbade the +importation of slaves into her ports. The next year Jefferson proposed +to the Legislature an elaborate plan for gradual emancipation, but it +failed of consideration. Maryland followed Virginia in forbidding the +importation of slaves from Africa. Virginia in 1782 passed a law by +which manumission of slaves, which before had required special +legislative permission, might be given at the will of the master. For +the next ten years manumission went on at the rate of 8000 a year. +Afterward the law was made more restrictive. Massachusetts adopted in +1780 a constitution and bill of rights, asserting, as the Declaration +had done, that all men are born free and have an equal and inalienable +right to defend their lives and liberties, to acquire property and to +seek and obtain freedom and happiness. A test case was made up to decide +the status of a slave, and the Supreme Court ruled that under this +clause slavery no longer existed in Massachusetts. Its 6000 negroes were +now entitled to the suffrage on the same terms as the whites. The same +held good of the free blacks in four other States. In all the States but +Massachusetts slavery retained a legal existence, the number ranging in +1790 from 158 in New Hampshire to nearly 4000 in Pennsylvania, over +21,000 in New York, 100,000 in each of the Carolinas, and about 300,000 +in Virginia. Ships of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the Middle States +were still busy in bringing negroes from Africa to the South, though +there were brave men like Dr. Hopkins at Newport who denounced the +traffic in its strongholds. + +Jefferson planned nobly for the exclusion of slavery from the whole as +yet unorganized domain of the nation, a measure which would have belted +the slave States with free territory, and so worked toward universal +freedom. The sentiment of the time gave success to half his plan. His +proposal in the ordinance of 1784 missed success in the Continental +Congress by the vote of a single State. The principle was embodied in +the ordinance of 1787 (when Jefferson was abroad as Minister to France), +but with its operations limited to the Northwestern territory, the +country south of the Ohio being left under the influence of the slave +States from which it had been settled. + +The young nation crystalized into form in the constitutional convention +of 1787, and the ratification of its act by the people. It was indeed, +as John Fiske's admirable book names it, "the critical period of +American history." To human eyes it was the parting of the ways between +disintegration toward anarchy, and the birth of a nation with fairer +opportunities and higher ideals than any that had gone before. The work +of those forty men in half a year has hardly a parallel. Individually +they were the pick and flower of their communities. The circumstances +compelled them to keep in such touch with the people of those +communities that their action would be ratified. They included men of +the broadest theoretical statesmanship, like Madison and Hamilton; men +of great practical sense and magnanimity, like Washington and Franklin; +and they also included and needed to include the representatives of +various local and national interests. They had been schooled by the +training of many momentous years, and the emergency brought out the +strongest traits of the men and of the people behind them. + +A prime necessity was willingness to make mutual concessions, together +with good judgment as to where those concessions must stop. Large States +against small States, seaport against farm, North against South and East +against West, slave society against free society--each must be willing +to give as well as to take, or the common cause was lost. The theorists, +too, must make their sacrifices; the believers in centralization, the +believers in diffusion of power; Madisonians, Hamiltonians, +Jeffersonians--all must concede something, or there could be no nation. +And between principles of moral right and wrong,--here, too, can there +be compromise? Easy to give a sweeping No; but when honest men's ideas +of right and wrong fundamentally differ, when personal ideals and social +utilities are in seeming contradiction, the answer may be no easy one. + +The great difficulty at the outset, as to the relative power in Congress +of the large and small States, was settled at last by the happy +compromise of making the Senate representative of the States in +equality, and the House representative of the whole people alike. But +then came the question, Should the representation be based on numbers or +on wealth? The decision to count men and not dollars was a momentous +one; it told for democracy even more than the framers knew. But now +again, Shall this count of men include slaves? Slaves, who have no voice +in the government, and are as much the property of their owners as +horses and oxen? Yes, the slaves should be counted as men, in the +distribution of political power,--so said South Carolina and Georgia. In +that demand there disclosed itself what proved to be the most determined +and aggressive interest in the convention,--the slavery interest in the +two most southern States. Virginia, inspired and led by Washington, +Madison, and Mason, was unfriendly to the strengthening of the slave +power, and the border and central as well as the eastern States were +inclined the same way. But South Carolina and Georgia, united and +determined, had this powerful leverage; from the first dispute, their +representatives habitually declared that unless their demands were +granted their States would not join the Union. Now it had been agreed +that the Constitution should only become operative on the assent by +popular vote of nine of the thirteen States, and it was plain that at +the best there would be great difficulty in getting that number. With +two lost in advance the case looked almost hopeless. South Carolina and +Georgia saw their advantage, and pushed it with equal resolution and +dexterity. The question of representation was settled by a singular +compromise: To the free population was to be added in the count +three-fifths of the slave population. The slave was, for political +purposes, three-fifths a man and two-fifths a chattel. Illogical to +grotesqueness, this arrangement--in effect a concession to the most +objectionable species of property of a political advantage denied to all +other property--yet seemed to the wisest leaders of the convention not +too heavy a price for the establishment of the Union. The provision that +fugitive slaves should be returned had already been made, apparently +with little opposition. + +But the price was by no means all paid. When the powers of Congress came +to be defined, the extreme South demanded that it be not allowed to +forbid the importation of African slaves. With the example of Virginia +and Maryland in view, it was clear that the tide was running so strongly +against the traffic that Congress was sure to prohibit it unless +restrained from doing so. Against such restraint there was strong +protest from Virginia and the middle States. "The traffic is infernal," +said Mason of Virginia. "To permit it is against every principle of +honor and safety," said Dickinson of Delaware. But the two Pinckneys and +their colleague said, "Leave us the traffic, or South Carolina and +Georgia will not join your Union." The leading members from the +northern and New England States actually favored the provision, to +conciliate the extreme South. The matter went to a committee of one from +each State. There it was discussed along with another question: It had +been proposed to restrict Congress from legislating on navigation and +kindred subjects except by a two-thirds vote of each House. This went +sorely against the commercial North, which was eager to wield the whole +power of the government in favor of its shipping interests. Of this +power the South was afraid, and how well grounded was the importance +each section attached to it was made plain when a generation later the +North used its dearly-bought privilege to fashion such tariff laws as +drove South Carolina to the verge of revolt. Now in the committee a +bargain was struck: The slave trade should be extended till 1800, and in +compensation Congress should be allowed to legislate on navigation as on +other subjects. The report coming into the convention, South Carolina +was still unsatisfied. "Eight more years for the African trade, until +1808," said Pinckney, and Gorham of Massachusetts supported him. Vainly +did Madison protest, and Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey +vote against the whole scheme. The alliance of New England commerce and +Carolina slavery triumphed, and the African slave trade was sanctioned +for twenty years. + +For the compromise on representation it might be pleaded, that by it no +license was given to wrong; there was only a concession of +disproportionate power to one section, fairly outweighed in the scale of +the public good by the establishment of a great political order. But the +action on the slave trade was the deliberate sanction for twenty years +of man-stealing of the most flagitious sort. It was aimed at the +strengthening and perpetuation of an institution which even its +champions at that time only defended as a necessary evil. And this +action was taken, not after all other means to secure the Union had been +exhausted, but as the price which New England was willing to pay for an +advantage to her commercial interests. + +At a later day, there were those who made it a reproach to the +convention, and a condemnation of their whole work, that they imposed no +prohibition on slavery as it existed in the States. But if such +prohibition was to be attempted, the convention might as well never have +met. The whole theory of the occasion was that the States, as individual +communities, were to be left substantially as they were; self-governing, +except as they intrusted certain definite functions to the general +government. When only a single State, and that almost without cost, had +abolished slavery within itself, it was out of the question that all of +the States should through their common agents decree an act of social +virtue wholly beyond what they had individually achieved. Any human +State exists only by tolerating in its individual citizens a wide +freedom of action, even in matters of ethical quality; and a federated +nation must allow its local communities largely to fix their own +standard of social conduct. At the point which the American people had +reached, the next imperative step of evolution was that they unite +themselves in a social organism, such as must allow free play to many +divergencies. For the convention to take direct action for the abolition +of slavery was beyond the possibilities of the case. It was in making +provision for the extension of the evil that it was untrue to its ideal, +sacrificed its possibilities, and opened the door for the long +domination of a mischievous element. + +But the main work of the convention was well and wisely done. Not less +fine was the self-control and sagacity with which the people and their +leaders debated and finally adopted the new order. Advocates of a +stronger government, like Hamilton, and champions of a more popular +system, like Samuel Adams and Jefferson, sank their preferences and +successfully urged their constituents to accept this as the best +available settlement. Slavery played very little part in the popular +discussions, and only a few keen observers like Madison read the +portents in that quarter. The young nation was swept at once into +difficulties and struggles in other directions. + +A word, before we follow the history, as to the sentiments of the great +leaders in this period. Broadly, they all viewed slavery as a wrong and +evil; they looked hopefully for its early extinction; they recognized +great difficulties in adapting the negro to conditions of freedom; and +they were in general too much absorbed in other and pressing problems to +direct much practical effort toward emancipation. Washington's view is +nowhere better given than in the casual talk so graphically reported by +Bernard. He desired universal liberty, but believed it would only come +when the negroes were fit for it; at present they were as unqualified to +live without a master's control as children or idiots. Washington's way +was to look at facts and to deal with a situation as he found it, and +not to try to order the world by general and abstract ideals. He was +intensely practical, responsive to each present call of duty, and in his +conception of duty taking wider and wider views as he was trained by +years and experience. The incident which brought him and Bernard +together was characteristic; if any chaise was upset in his +neighborhood, trust Washington to have a hand in righting it! The +natural reply to his talk about the negroes might have been: "Since you +desire their freedom, but think them not fit for it, why not make a +business--you and the country--of making them fit?" And the answer +fairly might have been: "The country and I have as yet had too much else +to do." Besides his public services, he was a planter on the largest +scale; thousands of acres and hundreds of slaves had come to him by +inheritance and by marriage. He was most thorough and successful in his +private affairs; through all his cares in the Revolution, scarcely ever +visiting his home, he kept in close touch with his steward and regulated +the plantation's management by constant correspondence. He had the +reputation of a just but strict master. His slaves were well fed and +clothed; they were supported in infancy and old age; they were trained +in work according to their capacity, and taught something of morals and +religion; in point of physical comfort and security, and of industrial +and moral development, they were by no means at the bottom of the scale +of humanity. The slave-holder's position, however unjust by an absolute +standard, and with great possibilities of abuse, was, in the case of the +rightly-disposed man--and such were common--a position which had its +grave duties and often onerous burdens to be conscientiously borne. + +Hardly was the war ended when the country's needs summoned Washington +again to long and arduous service. Retired from the Presidency, his +successor called him, not in vain, to head the army which the threatened +French war would call into action. Who can blame him that he did not +undertake in addition a complete reorganization of the labor system of +his own farms and of Virginia? Inconsistent perhaps it was,--a very +human inconsistency,--that his slaves, who, he told Bernard, were unfit +for freedom, were given their freedom by his will, though not until his +wife's death. That we may take as an imperfect essay of conscience to +deal with a situation so complicated that no ideal solution was +apparent. But we may fairly read as his unspoken legacy to his +countrymen of the next generation: "My associates and I have won +national independence, social order, and equal rights for our own race; +deal you as courageously and strongly with the problems which remain." + +Jefferson was an enthusiast for moral ideals, and a warm believer in the +merit and trustworthiness of average humanity. He ennobled the struggle +of the colonies against England by writing on the flag the universal and +undying ideas that the authority of governments rests solely on their +justice and public utility, and that every man has an inalienable right +to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And Jefferson did not +flinch, as did many of his associates, from giving that right a full and +general application to blacks as well as whites. Nor was he a mere +doctrinaire. As he revolted from the abstract injustice of slavery, so +its concrete abuses as he saw them, filled him with horror. He wrote: "I +tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just." He described +what he had seen. "The whole commerce between master and slave is a +perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions,--the most +unremitting despotism on the one part and degrading submission on the +other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it, for man is an +imitative animal.... The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the +lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller +slaves, gives a loose rein to the worst of passions; and thus nursed, +educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it +with odious peculiarities." + +But Jefferson shared a common belief of his time, that it was futile to +hope to "retain and incorporate the blacks into the State." He wrote: +"Deep-rooted prejudices of the whites, ten thousand recollections of +blacks of injuries sustained, new provocations, the real distinction +Nature has made, and many other circumstances, will divide us into +parties and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in +the extermination of one or the other race." So he looked for a remedy +to emancipation followed by deportation. But he hesitated to affirm any +essential inferiority in the negro race. He wrote: "The opinion that +they are inferior in the faculties of reason and imagination must be +hazarded with great diffidence." Later he wrote that "they were gaining +daily in the opinions of nations, and hopeful advances are making toward +their re-establishment on an equal footing with other colors of the +human family." + +Jefferson was more than a theorist; he was skillful to persuade men, and +to organize and lead a party. His general tendency was "along the line +of least resistance,"--the summoning of men to free themselves from +oppressive restraint; and he was highly successful until he called on +them for severe self-sacrifice, when his supporters were apt suddenly to +fail him. Virginia gladly followed his lead in abolishing primogeniture +and entail, and overthrowing the Established Church. She even consented, +in 1778, to abolish the African slave-trade, being then in little need +of more slaves than she possessed. In 1779 he planned a far more radical +and costly project--a general emancipation. All slaves born after the +passage of the act were to be free; they were to dwell with their +parents till a certain age, then to be educated at the public expense in +"tillage, arts, or sciences," until the males were twenty-one years old +and the females eighteen; then they were to be colonized in some +suitable region, furnished with arms, implements, seeds and cattle; +declared a free and independent people, under American protection until +strong enough to stand alone; and meanwhile their place as laborers was +to be filled by whites sent for by vessels to other parts of the world. +It is hardly strange that the Legislature did not even take the measure +into consideration, and it does not appear that Jefferson ever returned +to it. Practical legislation was not his forte. But his influence told +nobly, as has been related, in barring slavery from the Northwestern +territory, and, had just a little more support been found in 1784, would +have saved the Southwest also to freedom, with almost certain promise of +result in early freeing of the whole country. Just two or three votes in +the Continental Congress,--on such small hinges does the destiny of +nations seem to turn. + +The inertia which holds men even exceptionally high-minded from breaking +strong ties of custom and convenience is shown by a letter of Patrick +Henry to a Quaker in 1773, in which he declared slavery "as repugnant to +humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible and destructive of +liberty. Every thinking, honest man rejects it as speculation, but how +few in practice from conscientious motives! Would any one believe that I +am a master of slaves of my own purchase? I am drawn along by the +general inconvenience of living without them." + +There is no need to dwell further on the anti-slavery sentiments of the +group of great leaders who were the glory of the nation. It is to be +noted that Franklin took a characteristically active part in aiding to +establish an anti-slavery society in Philadelphia in 1782. Shrewd as he +was high-minded and benevolent, Franklin was always a special master in +organizing men in societies for effective and progressive action. His +tact won France to the American alliance, and decisively turned the +scale in the Revolutionary war; and his conciliatory yet resolute spirit +was a main factor in the constitutional convention. This Pennsylvania +anti-slavery society led the way to the early adoption by the State of +gradual emancipation. Franklin, an optimist by temperament and by his +large faith in mankind, looked confidently for the early end of slavery; +as fast as men ripened into honesty and sense, he thought, they would +recognize the folly and wrong of it. + +Looking from the leaders to the mass of the community, in this early +period, we see these broad facts. Slavery was regarded by all as an +evil, and by most as a wrong. Even its champions in the convention +claimed no more for it than that it was a necessary evil; one of the +Pinckneys expressed the hope of its extinction at an early day, and the +other Pinckney dissented only in thinking this too sanguine. Further, +there was a distinct wave of anti-slavery sentiment, sympathetic with +the lofty temper of the Revolution and the genesis of a free nation. +That wave was strong enough to wipe out slavery where its economic hold +was slight; it was plainly destined to sweep at least through all the +Northern and Middle States, and hope was high that it might go farther. +But this moral enthusiasm broke helpless against the institution +wherever a strong property interest was involved with it. Manumission in +the South went no further than a few individuals. Virginia and Maryland, +needing no more slaves, ceased importing them; but South Carolina and +Georgia bargained successfully for a twenty years' supply. +Massachusetts, having almost inadvertently freed her few slaves, was +willing that the stream of misery should still flow on from Africa to +the South. In a word, so far as the negroes were concerned, the supposed +material interest of the whites remained the dominating factor +throughout the country. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +CONFLICT AND COMPROMISE + + +For thirty years after the Constitution was established, slavery falls +into the background of the national history. Other and absorbing +interests were to the front. First, the strife of Federalist and +Democrat: Should the central government be strengthened, or should the +common people be more fully trusted? Twelve years of conservative +ascendency under Washington and Adams; then a complete and lasting +triumph for the popular party led by Jefferson. Mixed with and +succeeding this came an exasperating and perplexing struggle for +commercial rights, invaded equally by England and France in their +gigantic grapple; an ineffectual defense by Jefferson, who in executive +office proved an unskillful pilot; a half-hearted war under Madison, a +closet statesman out of place in the Presidential chair; a temporary +alienation of New England, exasperated by the loss of her commerce and +suspicious of the Jeffersonian influence; a participation in the general +peace which followed 1815, and a revival of industry. Under this surface +tide of events went on a steady, quiet advance of the democratic +movement. With Jefferson's administration disappeared the Federal party +and the old distrust of the common people. State after State gave up the +property qualification--almost universal in the first period--and +adopted manhood suffrage. Slavery disappeared from the North; in New +Hampshire it was abolished by judicial decision, as in Massachusetts; +Connecticut, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania passed gradual emancipation +laws, and a little later New York and New Jersey did the same. In +Kentucky, settled by hardy pioneers from Virginia, there had been a +vigorous campaign to establish a free State; the Baptist preachers, +strong leaders in morals and religion, had championed the cause of +freedom; the victory seemed decisively won, by three to one it was said, +in the election of May, 1798; but a torrent of excitement over the alien +and sedition laws submerged other issues, and the convention sanctioned +slavery as it existed. The African slave trade was made piracy by act of +Congress in 1808, though the extreme penalty was not inflicted for sixty +years, and a considerable traffic still went on. In furtherance of +emancipation, a colonization society was started in Pennsylvania, and in +a few years it had transported 20,000 freed negroes to Africa, and +established the feeble colony of Liberia. Meanwhile the first French +republic had freed half a million slaves in the West Indies; and Chili, +Buenos Ayres, Columbia, and Mexico, as they gained their independence +from Spain, had abolished slavery. The European reaction against the +French republic and empire had largely spent itself; the English +tradition of constitutional freedom had survived and promised to spread; +the Spanish colonies in America had won their independence. + +The stiller and deeper current of industrial progress had moved on apace +in the United States. A new New England was being swiftly built in the +Northwest. The Southwest, too, was growing fast. The acquisition of the +Louisiana territory,--through an exigency of Napoleon's politics, and +the wise inconsistency of Jefferson--had opened another vast domain. At +the North, commerce, set free again, spread rapidly, and a new era of +manufactures was opening. The South--more diffusely settled, with less +social activity, with a debased labor class--caught less of the spirit +of advance. But on one line it gained. Following the English inventions +in spinning and weaving, and the utilization of the stationary +steam-engine, a Connecticut man, Eli Whitney, had invented a cotton-gin, +for separating the seed from the fibre, and the cotton plant came to the +front of the scene. The crop rose in value in twenty years from +$6,000,000 to $20,000,000. The value of slaves was trebled, and the +border States began to do a thriving trade in exporting them to the +cotton States--it was said a little later the yearly export reached +50,000. + +As new States were organized and admitted, those from the Northwest came +in without slavery, which had been kept out by the ordinance of 1787, +and those from the Southwest, where slaves had been carried by the +emigrants from the seaboard, were allowed without question to retain the +institution. Of the old thirteen, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, +Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York New Jersey, Pennsylvania (spite of a +few slaves lingering in the last three) were counted as free +States--seven in all; Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, the two Carolinas, +Georgia, were claimed as slave States--six. Speedily were added Vermont +to the one column, and Kentucky and Tennessee to the other, making the +numbers equal. The following acquisitions were free and slave States +alternately: Ohio and Louisiana, Indiana and Mississippi, Illinois and +Alabama, a total, so far, of eleven free and eleven slave. Of the new +Southwestern domain, Arkansas had been organized as a territory, early +in 1819, and a motion that slavery be excluded had been defeated in the +House by the casting vote of the speaker, Henry Clay. + +But in all these thirty years the subject of slavery had little +prominence in public discussion. Now it suddenly came to the front. A +bill was brought into Congress to permit Missouri to organize as a +State. It was part of the Louisiana purchase, of which the Southern +portion had inherited and retained slavery; but Missouri was +geographically an extension of the region of the Ohio States, in which +free labor had made an established and congenial home. It was moved in +Congress that slavery should be excluded from the new State, and on this +instantly sprang up a fiery debate. On one side it was urged that +slavery was a wrong and an evil, and that Congress had full power to +exclude it from a State as a condition of admittance to the Union. On +the other side slavery was defended not only as an industrial advantage, +but as morally right and a benefit to both blacks and whites. It was +strenuously declared that the people of each incoming State had a right +to determine their own institutions; and it was also urged that to keep +the balance of power between the two sections, it was necessary that +slave States should be admitted equally with free. It was disclosed with +startling suddenness that two systems of labor and society stood face to +face, with different ideals, different interests, and in a mutual +opposition to which no limits could be foreseen. It was plain that with +the increase of profit from slavery all idea of its abolition had been +quietly dropping from the minds of the great mass of the Southern +community. It was equally plain that the sentiment against slavery in +the North had increased greatly in distinctness and intensity. There was +apparent, too, a divergence of material interests, and a keen rivalry of +political interests. The South had been losing ground in comparison. +From an equality in population, the North had gained a majority of +600,000 in a total of 10,000,000. The approaching census of 1820 would +give the North a preponderance of thirty in the House. In wealth, too, +the North had been obviously drawing ahead. Only in the Senate did the +South retain an equality of power, and, to maintain at least this, by +the accession of new slave States, was an avowed object of Southern +politicians. + +The debate was so hot, the underlying causes of opposition were so +obvious, and the avowed determination of the contestants was so +resolute, that the unity and continuance of the nation was unmistakably +threatened. State Legislatures passed resolutions for one side or the +other, according to their geographical location; only the Delaware +Legislature was superior to the sectional consideration, and voted +unanimously in favor of holding Missouri for freedom. The alarm as to +the continuance of the Union was general and great. No one felt it more +keenly than Jefferson, startled in his scholarly and peaceful retirement +at Monticello, as he said, as by "a fire-bell in the night." He wrote: +"In the gloomiest movements of the Revolutionary war, I never had an +apprehension equal to that I feel from this source." It was a grave omen +that Jefferson's sympathies were with his section rather than with +freedom; he joined in the opposition to the exclusion of slavery from +Missouri. He had no love for slavery, but he was jealous for the right +of each State to choose its own way, for good or evil; a political +theory outweighed in him the sentiment of humanity. + +A compromise was proposed. Let Missouri have slavery if she will, but +for the Northwest let it be "thus far and no farther"; let it be fixed +that there shall be no more slave States north of the line which marks +Missouri's southern boundary, the line of 36 degrees 30 minutes north +latitude. Present advantage to the South, future security to the North; +and meantime let Maine be admitted, which keeps the balance equal. This +was the solution accepted by both sides after a discussion lasting +through the Congressional session of 1819-20 until March. But the +smothered flame broke out again. Missouri in 1820 adopted a +constitution, and asked for admission according to promise; and one +clause in her constitution forbade the entrance of free blacks into the +State. This was too much for the North, already half disgusted with the +concession it had made, and when Congress met for the session of 1820-21 +the whole question was reopened, and the dispute was hotter and more +obstinate than ever. The issue was wholly uncertain, and disunion seemed +to hover near and dark, when Henry Clay, who in the first debate had +taken no very important part, but had supported the Southern claim, now +threw his whole power, which was great, in favor of conciliation and +agreement on the original basis. Clay was a politician, and ambitious +for the Presidency, but he was a patriot and a lover of humanity. As to +slavery he was a waverer, disliking it at heart and sometimes speaking +manfully against it, but at other times respectful toward it as an +established and mighty fact, and even lending himself to its eulogy. In +the first debate he had advocated the Southern side, had extolled +slavery, and declared the black slaves of the South to be better off +than the white slaves of the North. Now he gave all his persuasive and +commanding eloquence, all the influence of his genial nature and winning +arts, to rally the lovers of the Union to the mutual concessions by +which alone it could be preserved. He justified the objection to the +exclusion of free negroes, he divested himself of sectional +partisanship, and pleaded with equal skill and fervor for the +compromise. He did not forget that he was a Presidential aspirant, but +he was a true lover of his country, and seldom have the traits of +politician and patriot worked together more effectively. Though the mass +of the Northern members, strengthened doubtless by the influence of +their constituents at home during the recess, were now opposed to the +whole compromise, and a few Southern extremists were against it, yet +the majority of both House and Senate were won to its support, and on +the last day of February, 1821, Missouri was admitted as a slave State, +on condition that she expunge her exclusion of free blacks, which she +promptly did. Maine had already been admitted. The excitement ended +almost as suddenly as it had begun. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE WIDENING RIFT + + +For the next twelve years, slavery was in the background of the national +stage. But during this period, various influences were converging to a +common result, until in 1832-3 the issue was defined with new clearness +and thenceforth grew as the central feature in the public life of +America. + +From the time of the Missouri debate, the slavery interest was +consolidated and alert, even while other subjects seemed to fill the +public mind. To the North, slavery was habitually a remote matter, but +it was perpetually brought home to the business and bosoms of the South. +The whole industrial system, a social aristocracy, and political +ambition, blended their forces. An instance of the subtle power of the +institution was given in a little-marked incident of Adams's generally +creditable administration. By three men as high-minded as President +Adams, Secretary Clay, and Minister Gallatin, overtures were made to +England for a treaty by which the surrender of deserters from her army +and navy should be her compensation for surrendering our fugitive +slaves! The British government would not listen to the proposal. + +The national politics of this period, 1820-32, centred in a group of +strong and picturesque personalities,--Clay, Adams, Calhoun, Jackson, +and Webster. John Quincy Adams was a sort of exaggeration of the typical +New Englander,--upright, austere, highly educated, devoted to the public +service, ambitious, yet not to the sacrifice of conscience, but cold, +angular, repellant. Says Carl Schurz in his _Henry Clay_--a book which +gives an admirable resume of a half-century of politics: "He possessed +in the highest degree that uprightness which leans backward. He had a +horror of demagogy, and lest he should render himself guilty of anything +akin to it, he would but rarely condescend to those innocent amenities +by which the good-will of others may be conciliated. His virtue was +freezing cold of touch, and forbidding in its look." When the +Presidential election went into the House in 1824, the influence of +Clay--himself a defeated candidate--was decisively thrown for Adams +against Jackson, and Clay served as President Adams's Secretary of +State. The two men supplemented each other well; Clay less austerely +virtuous, but far more lovable; his personal ideals less exacting, but +his sympathies wider. The co-operation between them was honorable to +both and serviceable to the country; but partisan bitterness stigmatized +it as a corrupt alliance; the air was full of suspicion and jealousy +toward the cultivated and prosperous class that had hitherto supplied +the chiefs of the government, and the rising democratic sentiment found +a most congenial hero in Andrew Jackson. + +He was a rough backwoodsman; a fighter by nature and a passable soldier; +a staunch friend and a patriot at heart; ignorant, wholly unversed in +statesmanship, arbitrary in temper, and inclined to judge all subjects +from a personal standpoint. He easily defeated Adams for the Presidency +in 1828. His election marked the ascendancy, long to continue, of a more +ignoble element in the nation's political life. His administration began +the employment of the spoils system; and it "handled intricate financial +problems as a monkey might handle the works of a watch." Jackson had +small regard for the rights of those who got in the way of himself, his +party, or his country; he had trampled recklessly on the Indian; and his +triumph fell as a heavy discouragement on the quiet but widespread +movement to elevate the negro. He treated all questions in a personal +way; and the first great battle of his administration was to compel +social recognition in Washington for the wife of one of his cabinet +members whose reputation scandal had breathed upon, unjustly as Jackson +believed. In the revolt against her recognition a leader was the +Vice-President, John C. Calhoun, himself a man of blameless morals and +an advocate of the highest social standards. He thereby lost at once the +favor of Jackson, which was transferred to Martin Van Buren, a wily New +York politician, quite ready to call on any lady or support any policy +that his chief might approve. The breach between Jackson and Calhoun was +widened by the disclosure of an old political secret, probably by +Crawford of Georgia, a disappointed Presidential aspirant. Jackson's +administration naturally fell more and more into the hands of mediocre +men. + +Calhoun had already had a long term of distinguished public service; he +had been one of the group of young men who came to the front in urging +on the war of 1812; he had served with success in the cabinet and twice +been chosen to the Vice-Presidency. He was of high personal character; a +keen logician and debater; a leader who impressed himself by the +strength of his character and depth of his convictions. Adams wrote of +him in 1821: "He is above all sectional and factious prejudices, more +than any other statesman of this Union with whom I have ever acted." He +was ambitious of the Presidency, an ambition which saw itself defeated +when Van Buren became the heir-apparent of the Jackson dynasty. A true +lover of his country, his predominant devotion came to be given to his +own section, and that temper fell in with events to make him the +foremost champion of the South. + +The prominence of the personal element in public affairs was connected +with the absence of any clear and deep division upon large questions of +policy. There emerged a group of ideas constituting what was called the +"American system," of which Clay was the foremost advocate, and which +became the basis of the Whig party, as it was organized in the early +'30's. Its general principle was the free use of the Federal +government's resources for the industrial and commercial betterment of +the people; and its prominent applications were a national bank, a +system of national highroads and waterways, and a liberal use of the +protective principle in tariff laws. "Protection to American industry" +was the great cry by which Clay now rallied his followers. The special +direction of this protection was in favor of American manufacturers. By +very high taxes levied on imported goods, the price of those was +necessarily raised to the consumer, and the American maker of clothes, +cutlery, and so on, was enabled to raise his own prices correspondingly. +Naturally, this result was most gratifying to the manufacturer and his +dependents and allies. No less naturally, it was highly objectionable to +the consumer. But to the consumer it was pointed out that by thus +fostering the "infant industries" of his country they would be +strengthened to the point where they could and would supply him with his +goods far more cheaply than would otherwise be possible. But this +pleasing promise, held out now for some seventy-five years, somehow +failed to quite satisfy the consumer; and where whole classes and +sections were consumers only, from the tariff standpoint, and saw +themselves mulcted for the benefit of classes and sections already +richer than they, they grumbled loudly, and did not always stop with +grumbling. So when in 1828 a tariff was enacted imposing very high +duties on most manufactured articles, and which delighted the hearts of +New England and Middle States manufacturers, it was so obnoxious to +others that the name was fastened to it of "the tariff of abominations," +and history has never changed that name. + +There were hopes of relief under Jackson, but in the confusion of party +issues, and with the tariff supported by the consolidated strength of +the manufacturers--a consolidation powerful enough to make Webster its +spokesman in Congress; a consolidation as definite and resolute as that +of the slave-holders, and destined to be far longer-lived,--no change in +legislation came till 1832, and then the change was immaterial; the +"tariff of abominations" was substantially re-enacted. The South had +been chafing bitterly, and now South Carolina broke into open revolt. +The whole South felt itself aggrieved by the tariff. Its industrial +system was not suited to develop manufactures; it lacked the material +for skilled labor; it lacked the artisan class who create a demand. Its +staple industry was agriculture, the growth of tobacco, rice, sugar, and +above all, cotton, and it went to the North and to Europe for its +manufactured goods. A system of taxation which doubled the price of its +imports without helping its exports, was resented as unjust, and as +hostile to the spirit if not the letter of the Constitution. + +South Carolina took the lead, and indeed stood alone, in applying a +remedy more drastic than the disease--nullification. Calhoun's logic +welded and sharpened the weapon which had behind it almost the entire +weight of the State. The precise relation of the States to the Union, +left indeterminate in the Constitution, and debated in every crisis +which had strained the bonds, was now asserted by Calhoun to involve the +right of any State to declare null and void any action of the Federal +Congress which impaired its rights. South Carolina now put the theory +into action. She held near the close of 1832 a convention, which +declared the tariff law unconstitutional and void; asserted that the +State would no longer pay duties under it, and if coercion was attempted +would secede outright. + +Congress discussed the matter; and in the most memorable and classic of +Senate debates, Hayne of South Carolina vindicated the State's position +with logic, passion, and eloquence; while Webster replied with an equal +logic, a broader and higher ideal of nationality, a vindication of New +England which thrilled all hearts, and a patriotism which gave the +keynote to the ultimate triumph of the Union. Hitherto, Massachusetts +and South Carolina had each stood stiffly at times for her own way, even +at peril of the national bond; but in that hour the individuality of +South Carolina was merged in the slave-holding States, and that of +Massachusetts in a Union, one and indivisible. + +The challenge of South Carolina was promptly answered by Jackson, just +re-elected President. He issued a proclamation, proclaiming +nullification as political heresy, and threatening to treat its +practical exercise as treason. But the situation was not destined to +settlement by the high hand. Webster favored such a settlement; he was +for no concession. As well make the issue now as ever, he said. The +President's friends introduced a bill giving him authority, if +nullification were insisted on, to close ports of entry, collect duties +by military force, and the like; "the force bill," it was called. But +the "tariff of abominations" was not the most satisfactory or promising +ground on which to assert the national sovereignty. And Jackson was +hardly a desirable man to intrust with indefinite military power. So +urged the timid or the moderate, and Clay was again the spokesman of +compromise. He brought in a tariff bill, by which all duties above 20 +per cent. were to be gradually reduced until in 10 years they reached +that figure, at which they were to remain. This bill and the force bill +were passed together, and signed the same day. Confronted by the +government with the sword in one hand and the olive branch in the other, +South Carolina retracted--it was not a capitulation--and repealed the +ordinance. Nullification as a theory passed out of sight. But the +willingness of the extreme South to push to all lengths its resistance +to a hostile policy remained, and was felt in all that followed. + +It was a distinct tradition among Calhoun's followers after his +death--and they followed him till Appomattox--that he privately gave as +a reason for making the first battle on the tariff question rather than +on slavery, that on the first the world's sympathies would be with them, +and on slavery against them. The same tradition ascribed to Calhoun the +prediction that the Northern influence would become predominant in the +Union about 1860. Whether or not Calhoun said these things, the tariff +issue certainly was brought on by the North; and the "compromise" on it +was a substantial victory gained by South Carolina for the South. The +final verdict of history may be that it was a just victory, won by +unjust means. Calhoun now stood forth the recognized leader of his +section, while it soon became apparent that of that section slavery was +the special bond, and was to be its avowed creed. + +Almost unobserved for a time amid these exciting events, the debate over +slavery had been going on, transferred mainly from the political field +to the minds and consciences of individuals. Once in State politics it +came to an issue. Illinois, a free State without question at its +admission in 1818, had a majority of its early immigrants from the +South, and a determined effort was made to introduce slavery by law. It +met a still more vigorous resistance, in which the Methodist and Baptist +clergy, mainly Southern men, took a leading part. The opposition was +led by a Southerner, Gov. Edward Coles, one of the forgotten heroes. +Inheriting in Virginia some hundreds of slaves, and hindered by the +State laws from emancipating them, he took them all to Illinois, gave +them their freedom, supplied them with land, cabins, stock, and tools, +and watched and befriended them till they became self-supporting. In +each deed of emancipation he gave his testimony: "Whereas, I do not +believe a man can have a right of property in his fellow men ... I do +therefore ... restore to the said ---- that inalienable liberty of which +they have been deprived." He led the fight against the introduction of +slavery into Illinois to a decisive victory in 1824. A few more such men +throughout the South, and history would have been different. + +A quiet advocacy of anti-slavery went on throughout the country, except +the extreme South. It was in sympathy with the general revival of +religious activity which began about 1815--a form of the new national +life, disentangled from European complications, and free for home +conquests and widening achievements. Three great evils aroused the +spirit of reform--intemperance, slavery, and war. The general assembly +of the Presbyterian church, representing the whole country, in 1818, by +a unanimous vote, condemned slavery as "a gross violation of the most +sacred and precious rights of human nature, and utterly inconsistent +with the law of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as +ourselves." In 1824-7 the Legislatures of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New +Jersey passed resolutions calling on Congress to provide for compensated +emancipation, and expressing willingness that their States should pay +their share of the burden. This last sentiment was a rare one; the +self-sacrifice it demanded from the non-slave-holding States was very +little in evidence during the long contest that followed; men would +speak and vote for freedom; when angry enough they would fight--to +defeat the master and incidentally to free the slave--but to pay, in +cold blood, and in heavy measure, for the ransom of the slaves, was a +different matter; and few were they who, like Lincoln, favored that way +out. The action of those three Legislatures marked the height of the +early anti-slavery tide, and prompted a hope which was never fulfilled. + +In the decade 1820-30, more than 100 anti-slavery societies were +established in slave States (see _James G. Birney and His Times_, an +admirable exposition of the conservative anti-slavery movement). The +Manumission Society of North Carolina in 1825 took a kind of census of +the State, and concluded that of its people 60 in 100 favored +emancipation in some form. In the same year a pamphlet published in +Charleston, S. C., on "The Critical Situation and Future Prospects of +the Slave-Holding States," bitterly declared that the whole book and +newspaper press of the North and East teemed with articles on slavery. +In Maryland, an anti-slavery party in 1826 elected two members to the +House of Delegates; but this movement disappeared on the election of +Jackson two years later. In Alabama, Birney, a man of a fine type, and +growing toward leadership, secured in 1827 the passage of a law +forbidding the importation of slaves as merchandise; but this was +repealed two years later. So the wave flowed and ebbed, but on the whole +it seemed to advance. + +Among local societies in the Northern States, one may be instanced in +New Haven, Ct., in which, in 1825, five young men associated themselves; +among them were Edward Beecher, Leonard Bacon, and Theodore D. Woolsey. +They were highly practical; their immediate aims were: First to elevate +the black population of New Haven; secondly, to influence public +sentiment in the city and State; and thirdly, to influence the +theological students in Yale college. So faithful were their labors in +their own city for its black population--described as in most wretched +condition, which seems to have been the case with most of the blacks at +the North in this period--that six years later Garrison pronounced them +more comfortable and less injured by prejudice than in any other place +in the Union. The young men of the New Haven and Andover seminaries +united in a project of a college for the blacks; strong support was +obtained; but the fierce wave of reaction following Nat Turner's revolt +swept it away. Lane seminary at Cincinnati, a Presbyterian stronghold, +became a center of enthusiastic anti-slavery effort, with the brilliant +young Theodore D. Weld as its foremost apostle; he was welcomed and +heard in the border slave States. The authorities of the college, +alarmed by the audacity of their pupils, tried to restrain the movement, +and the result was a great secession of students. + +The seceders proposed to form a theological department at Oberlin +College (established two years before) if they could have Charles G. +Finney, the famous revivalist, as their teacher. But Finney declined to +take the place until the conservative trustees consented to admit +colored youths to the College; and thus Oberlin became an anti-slavery +stronghold. + +As the anti-slavery movement developed, the call for immediate +liberation became more insistent and imperative. The colonization method +lost credit. Slavery was coming to be regarded by its opponents not +merely as a social evil to be eradicated, but as a personal sin of the +slave-holder, to be renounced as promptly as any other sin. John Wesleys +words were a keynote: "Instantly, at any price, were it the half of your +goods, deliver thyself from blood-guiltiness!" A Virginia minister, Rev. +George Bourne, published in 1816 _Slavery and the Book Irreconcilable_, +in which he said: "The system is so entirely corrupt that it admits of +no cure but by a total and immediate abolition." Two other Southern +ministers, James Duncan and John Rankin, wrote to the same effect. In +England, the abolition of slavery in the West India colonies was being +persistently urged; the impulse was a part of the philanthropic movement +that went along with the evangelical revival, and Wilberforce was its +leader. These English abolitionists were coming to "immediatism" from +1824, and their influence told in America. + +Among the most unselfish and devoted laborers for the slave was Benjamin +Lundy. He was a Quaker by birth and training; he overtaxed his strength +and permanently impaired his hearing by prematurely trying to do a man's +work on his father's farm in New Jersey, and settled at the saddler's +trade in Wheeling, Va., in 1808. With the outlawing of the African slave +trade, there was beginning the sale of slaves from Virginia to the +Southern cotton-fields, and the sight of the sorrowful exiles moved +Lundy's heart to a lifelong devotion of himself to pleading the cause of +the slave. Infirm, deaf, unimpressive in speech and bearing, trudging on +long journeys, and accepting a decent poverty, he gave all the resources +of a strong and sweet nature to the service of the friendless and +unhappy. He supported himself by his trade, while he lectured and wrote. +He established in 1821 a weekly _Genius of Universal Emancipation_, at +Mt. Pleasant, O., starting without a dollar of capital and only six +subscribers; and at first walking twenty miles every week to the +printing press, and returning with his edition on his back. Four years +later he moved his paper to Baltimore. Anti-slavery agitation was still +tolerated in the border States, though once Lundy was attacked by a +bully who almost murdered him. When the impending election of Jackson +in 1828 came as a chill to the anti-slavery cause, the waning fortunes +of his paper sent Lundy to Boston to seek aid. There he found sympathy +in a number of the clergy, though fear of arousing the hostility of the +South kept them cautious. Dr. Channing wrote to Daniel Webster, +expressing the fullest sympathy with Lundy's devotion to freedom, but +also the gravest apprehension that unless the slaveholders were +approached in a spirit of friendliness rather than denunciation, there +would result a sectional strife fraught with the greatest danger. We +should say to the South, wrote Channing, "Slavery is your calamity and +not your crime"; and the whole nation should assume the burden of +emancipation, meeting the expense by the revenue from the sale of public +lands. In this brief letter of Channing's there is more of true +statesmanship than in all the utterances of the politicians of his day. + +But Lundy (himself not given to denunciation) made one convert of a very +different temper from Channing's or his own--William Lloyd Garrison, a +young man educated in a printing-office, fearless, enthusiastic, and +energetic in the highest degree. Quickly won to the emancipation idea, +and passing soon to full belief in immediate and uncompensated +liberation, he allied himself with Lundy as the active editor of the +_Genius_, while the older man devoted himself to traveling and +lecturing. The _Genius_ at once became militant and aggressive. The +incidents which constantly fell under Garrison's eye--slave auctions and +whippings--fanned the fire within him. One day, for example, a slave +came into the office, told his story, and showed the proofs. His master +had lately died, leaving him his freedom, which was to be legally +effected in a few weeks; but in the meantime the overseer under whom he +worked, displeased at his way of loading a wagon, flogged him with a +cowhide so severely that his back showed twenty-seven terrible gashes. +Garrison appealed to the master's heirs for redress, but was repelled +with contumely. Presently he assailed an old fellow-townsman in +Newburyport, Mass., because a ship he owned had been employed to +transport a cargo of slaves from Baltimore to New Orleans. The +denunciation was unmeasured; the ship-owner brought suit, and as some +points in the article were not sustained by the evidence, Garrison was +fined $100. Unable to pay he went to jail, bearing his captivity with +courage and high cheer, till Arthur Tappan, a New York merchant and a +leader in the anti-slavery cause, paid his fine and released him. The +_Genius_ being ruined, Garrison transferred his field of labor to +Boston, where, at the beginning of 1831, he started the weekly +_Liberator_. He and his partner, Isaac Knapp, did all the work of every +kind, living principally on bread and water, and with only six hours a +week, and those at midnight, for Garrison to write his articles. The +paper's motto was: "Our country is the world, our countrymen are all +mankind." In his salutatory Garrison wrote: "I will be as harsh as truth +and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think +or speak or write with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on +fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife +from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate +her babe from the fire into which it has fallen,--but urge me not to use +moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest--I will not +equivocate--I will not excuse--I will not retract a single inch--and I +will be heard!" + +While Garrison's language was constantly such as to arouse passion to +the boiling point, he was always in theory a supporter of peace, opposed +to war under any conditions, and even to resistance of force by force. +But in 1829 there appeared a pamphlet of a different tenor; an +_Appeal_, by Walker, a Boston negro, addressed directly to the slaves. +It was a fiery recital of their wrongs and an incitement to forcible +redress. Its appearance in the South caused great excitement. The +Governors of Virginia and Georgia sent special messages to their +Legislatures about it. Garrison wrote of it, in the _Genius_: "It +breathes the most impassioned and determined spirit. We deprecate its +publication, though we cannot but wonder at the bravery and intelligence +of its author." Garrison's biographers--his sons--speak of Walker as "a +sort of John the Baptist to the new anti-slavery dispensation." It was +well for the Baptist that his head was out of Herod's reach. The Georgia +Legislature passed in a single day a bill forbidding the entry of free +negroes into the State, and making "the circulation of pamphlets of evil +tendency among our domestics" a capital offense. + +Large as these events loom in the retrospect, they were comparatively +little noticed in their time. Virginia held in 1830 a convention for the +revision of her constitution; among its members were Madison, Monroe, +and Randolph; and emancipation was not even mentioned. Jefferson was +dead, and the spirit of Jefferson seemed dead. Then the unexpected +happened. There was a negro preacher, a slave named Nat Turner. He was a +man of slight figure, reputed among his people a sort of prophet, +addicted to visions and rhapsodies. He planned in 1831 an uprising of +the slaves. He circulated among them a document written in blood, with +cabalistic figures, and pictures of the sun and a crucifix. One night he +and a group of companions set out on their revolt. Others joined them +voluntarily or by impressment till they numbered forty. They began by +killing Turner's master and his family; then they killed a lady and her +ten children; they attacked a girls' boarding-school and killed all the +inmates. Houses stood open and unguarded, and most of the white men were +away at a camp-meeting. From Sunday night till Monday noon the band went +on its way unchecked, and killed sixty persons. Then the neighborhood +rallied and overcame them; slew several on the spot; but held the rest +for trial, which was held regularly and fairly, and thirteen were +executed. The origin of the outbreak remained mysterious. Turner said on +his trial that he had not been unkindly treated, and there was no +evidence of provocation by special abuse. There was no trace of any +instigation from the North in any form. It seemed not a stroke for +freedom by men worthy to be free; not even a desperate revolt against +intolerable wrong; but more like an outbreak of savagery, the uprising +of the brute in man, thirsty for blood. The fear at first prevailed that +there existed a widespread conspiracy, and various legislation for +protection and repression was enacted or discussed. + +But the larger mind of Virginia was moved toward a radical treatment of +the disease itself, instead of its symptoms. In the next session of the +Legislature, 1831-2, proposals for a general emancipation were brought +forward, and the whole subject was canvassed in a long and earnest +debate. For slavery on its merits hardly a word of defense was spoken. +The moral condemnation was not frequent or strong, but the economic +mischief was conceded by almost all. It was recognized that labor was +debased; manufactures and immigration were discouraged; the yeomanry +were leaving the State. One bold speaker declared that the masters were +not entitled to compensation, since property condemned by the State as a +nuisance brings no award of damages to the owner. But the general +agreement was that emancipation should be compensated and gradual, and +that the blacks must be removed from the State. One plan was that they +should be deported in a body to Africa; another, that the +increase--about 6000 a year--should be so deported; while Thomas +Jefferson Randolph urged a plan which recalled that framed by his uncle, +Thomas Jefferson, half a century before. He proposed that the owner +should maintain the slave-child till the age of eighteen or twenty-one, +his labor for the last six or eight years being regarded as compensation +for the expense of infancy; and that the slave should then be hired out +till he had earned his passage to Africa. But, whatever the method, let +decisive action be taken, and taken now! The Legislature, it is said, +was largely made up of young and inexperienced men. Would not the +courage and hopefulness of Virginia youth essay this great deliverance? +Older voices bade them to the task. Said the Richmond _Enquirer_ (edited +by the elder Ritchie), January 7, 1832: "Means, sure but gradual, +systematic but discreet, ought to be adopted for reducing the mass of +evil which is pressing upon the South, and will still more press upon +her the longer it is put off. We say, now, in the utmost sincerity of +our hearts, that our wisest men cannot give too much of their attention +to this subject, nor can they give it too soon." It was one of the +decisive hours of history: + + Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, + In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side. + +But the task was too great, or the life-long habit of the slave-owner +had been too enervating. The apparent expense, the collision of +different plans, the difficulty in revolutionizing the whole industrial +system, the hold of an aristocracy affording to its upper class a +fascinating leisure and luxury--these, and the absence of any high moral +inspiration in the movement, brought it to naught. Instead of decreeing +emancipation, the Legislature fell back on the policy of stricter +repression. It enacted that the advocacy of rebellion by writing or +printing should be a penitentiary offense, and to express the opinion +that masters had no rights to their slaves was made punishable by a fine +of $500 and one year in jail. To advise conspiracy was treason and its +punishment death. It had been enacted a year before that no white man be +allowed to assemble slaves to instruct them in reading and writing; and +to this it was now added that neither slaves nor free negroes be allowed +to preach. + +And so Virginia abdicated her old-time leadership in the cause of human +rights, and the primacy of the South passed to South Carolina and to +Calhoun, the champion of slavery. + +In the meantime the organization of the radical anti-slavery force went +on at the North. In 1832 Garrison, Oliver Johnson and ten others +constituted themselves the New England Anti-slavery Society. Almost its +first attack was directed against the Colonization Society, Garrison +being always as fierce against half-way friends as against pronounced +foes. In 1833 a little group of more moderate but resolute men organized +a local association in New York city, and under their call the American +Anti-slavery Society held its first meeting in Philadelphia, in +December. Among the New York leaders were Arthur and Lewis Tappan, +merchants of high standing and men of well-balanced and admirable +character; with them were associated Joshua Leavitt and Elizur Wright. +Among the Massachusetts recruits was Whittier. The sixty-four members +were largely made up of merchants, preachers, and theological students. +Almost all were church members; twenty-one Presbyterians or +Congregationalists, nineteen Quakers, and one Unitarian,--Samuel J. May. +There was a noticeable absence of men versed in public affairs. The +constitution was carefully drawn to safeguard the society against the +imputation of unconstitutional or anarchic tendencies. It declared that +the right to legislate for the abolition of slavery existed only in the +Legislature of each State; that the society would appeal to Congress to +prohibit the interstate slave trade, to abolish slavery in the District +of Columbia and the territories, and to admit no more slave States; and +that the society would not countenance the insurrection of slaves. +Garrison, who had been visiting the Abolitionists in England, was not +among the signers of the call to the convention, and the constitution +was hardly in the line of his views; but he wrote a declaration of +principles which after some debate was adopted. It was impassioned and +unsparing; pictured the woes of the slaves and the essential wickedness +of the system; denounced compensation and colonization; declared that +"all laws admitting the right of slavery are before God utterly null and +void" and "ought instantly to be abrogated"; and called for a universal +and unresting agitation. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CALHOUN AND GARRISON + + +Thus, with the beginning of the second third of the nineteenth century, +the issue as to American slavery was distinctly drawn, and the leading +parties to it had taken their positions. Let us try to understand the +motive and spirit of each. + +In the new phase of affairs, the chief feature was the changed attitude +of the South. In the sentiment of its leading and representative men, +there had been three stages: first, "slavery is an evil, and we will +soon get rid of it"; next, "slavery is an evil, but we do not know how +to get rid of it"; now it became "slavery is good and right, and we will +maintain it." To this ground the South came with surprising suddenness +in the years immediately following 1833. What caused the change? The +favorite Southern explanation has been that the violence of the +Abolitionists exasperated the South, checked its drift toward +emancipation, and provoked it in self-defense to justify and extend its +system. This may be effective as a criticism of the extreme +Abolitionists, but as regards the South it is rather a confession than a +defense. On a subject involving its whole prosperity, its essential +character, its relation to the world's civilization, did it reverse its +course at the bitter words of a few critics? If that were true, it would +bespeak passionate irritability, an incapacity for the healthy +give-and-take of practical life, in keeping with the worst that could be +said of the effect of slavery on the master. In truth the violence of +Garrison and his few followers was but a minor element in the case. +Slavery had become immensely profitable; it was the corner-stone of a +social fabric in which the upper class had an extremely comfortable +place; it was involved with the whole social and political life of the +section. It was too important to be dealt with half-heartedly: it must +be accepted, justified, believed in,--or it must be abandoned. John +Randolph of Roanoke had said of slavery: "We are holding a wolf by the +ears; it is perilous alike to hold on or to let go." But one or the +other must be done, and the South elected to keep on holding the wolf. + +The better to understand the developments of the following years, it +will be well to consider a group of representative men,--Calhoun, +Garrison, Birney, Channing, and Webster. + +Calhoun had many of the elements of high statesmanship--clear views, +strong convictions, forcible speech. He was ambitious, but in no ignoble +fashion; he often served his country well, as in his efficient +administration of the war department under Munroe, his protest against +the spoils system and the personal government of Jackson, and his +influence in averting war with England over the Oregon boundary in +1845-46. After the Presidency was clearly out of his reach--from +1832--he was growingly identified with and devoted to the interests of +his own section, yet always with a patriotic regard for the Union as a +whole. He had that fondness for theories and abstractions which was +characteristic of the Southern statesmen, fostered perhaps by the +isolated life of the plantation. With this went a kind of provincialism +of thought, bred from the wide difference which slavery made from the +life of the world at large. When Calhoun, in one of his Senate orations +was magnifying the advantage of slave over free labor, Wade of Ohio, who +sat listening intently, turned to a neighbor and exclaimed: "That man +lives off of all traveled roads!" He had neither the arts nor the +magnetism of the popular politician; he won no such personal following +as Clay and Jackson; but the South more and more accepted him as the +most logical and far-seeing champion of its peculiar interests. + +His personality had much in common with Jonathan Edwards. There was in +both the same inflexible logic and devotion to ideas, the same personal +purity and austerity. The place of the mystic's fire which burned in +Edwards was taken in Calhoun by a passionate devotion to the +commonwealth. In both there was a certain moral callousness which made +the one view with complacence a universe including a perpetual hell of +unspeakable torments; while the other accepted as the ideal society a +system in which the lowest class was permanently debased. Each was the +champion of a cause destined to defeat because condemned by the moral +sentiment of the world,--Edwards the advocate of Calvinism, and Calhoun +of slavery. + +Calhoun is to be regarded as a typical slave-holder of the better class. +He owned and cultivated a plantation with several hundred slaves; spent +much time upon it; made it profitable, and dispensed a generous +hospitality. Such a plantation was a little community, organized and +administered with no small labor and skill; with house servants, often +holding a friendly and intimate relation with the family; with a few +trained mechanics and a multitude of field hands. As to physical comfort +the slaves were probably as well or better provided than the bulk of +European peasantry,--this on the testimony of witnesses as unfriendly to +slavery as Fanny Kemble and Dr. Channing. Order and some degree of +morality were enforced, and religion, largely of the emotional type, +prevailed widely. So much may be said, perhaps, for the average +plantation, certainly for the better class, and a very large class. +Joseph Le Conte, the eminent scientist, a writer of the highest credit, +in his pleasing autobiography describes his boyhood on a Georgia +plantation, and characterizes his father as a man of rare excellence to +whom he owed the best of his mental inheritance. He writes of him: "The +best qualities of character were constantly exercised in the just, wise, +and kindly management of his 200 slaves. The negroes were strongly +attached to him, and proud of calling him master.... There never was a +more orderly, nor apparently a happier working class than the negroes of +Liberty county as I knew them in my boyhood." + +Against this description are to be set such statements as this made by +Frederick Law Olmsted, after many months of travel in the South: "The +field hand negro is on an average a very poor and a very bad creature, +much worse than I had supposed before I had seen him and grown familiar +with his stupidity, indolence, duplicity, and sensuality. He seems to be +but an imperfect man, incapable of taking care of himself in a civilized +manner, and his presence in large numbers must be considered a dangerous +circumstance to a civilized people." Olmsted saw no resource but gradual +emancipation with suitable training. A resident of this same Liberty +county, Rev. C. C. Jones, himself a staunch supporter of slavery, but +urgent for giving better religious instruction to the slaves, wrote in +1842; "That the negroes are in a degraded state is a fact, so far as my +knowledge extends, universally conceded.... Negro marriages are neither +recognized nor protected by law. Uncleanness--this sin may be considered +as universal.... They are proverbial thieves." But how could "religious +instruction" produce chastity in those for whom the law did not +recognize marriage, or honesty in those who themselves were stolen? + +But the bright side of the medal, which had so dark an obverse, was the +interpretation on which Calhoun and the slave-holding class took their +stand. They resolutely ignored the frequent abuses and the essential +degradation of manhood. They fashioned the theory--it was the old +familiar theory of past ages, but had fallen out of sight in the +enthusiasm of the revolutionary period--that society rightly and +properly is constituted with a servile class as its base. Calhoun +declared: "I hold that there never has yet existed a wealthy and +civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in +point of fact, live on the labor of the other." And generally, he adds, +the condition of the laborer has been worse than it now is in the South. +In advance of civilization, he declares, there always comes a conflict +between capital and labor; and this conflict the South avoids by +unflinchingly holding the laborer in his subject condition. + +Calhoun is dead, and slavery is dead, but the ideas he then avowed are +still powerfully, if more latently, asserting themselves in our social +order. + +For these theories the slave-holders now found justification from the +ministers of religion. The South held more tenaciously than any other +section to the old-fashioned type of Christianity. In earlier days, +religious teachers--as in the unanimous vote of the Presbyterian General +Assembly in 1818--had held slavery to be "utterly inconsistent with the +law of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves." But +now the Southern ministers of all denominations appealed for ample +justification to slavery as it was permitted under the Jewish law, and +as it existed in the time of Christ and the Apostles, and was unrebuked +by them. They went further back, and in the curse pronounced by Noah +upon the unfilial Ham and his posterity, they found warrant for holding +the African in perpetual bondage. So the South closed up its ranks, in +Church and State, and answered its critics with self-justification, and +with counterattack on what it declared to be their unconstitutional, +anarchic, and infidel teachings. + +The agitation against slavery took on a new phase with the appearance of +Garrison and his founding of the _Liberator_ and the New England +Anti-slavery Society in 1831. Garrison was filled and possessed with one +idea--the wrongs of the slave, and the instant, pressing, universal duty +of giving him freedom. It was in him an unselfish and heroic passion. +For it he cheerfully accepted hardship, obloquy, peril. He saw no +difficulties except in the sin of wrongdoers and their allies; the only +course he admitted was immediate emancipation by the master of his human +property, and the instant cooeperation and urgency of all others to this +end. His words were charged with passion; they kindled sympathetic souls +with their own flame; they roused to a like heat those whom they +assailed; and they sent thrills of alarm, wonder, and wrath, through the +community. Wherever the _Liberator_ went, or the lecturers of the new +anti-slavery societies were heard, there could be no indifference or +forgetfulness as to slavery. Hitherto, to the immense mass of people +throughout the North, it had been a far-away and unimportant matter. Now +it was sent home to the business and bosoms of all men. + +The anti-slavery movement changed its character. Garrison entered on a +very active campaign, lecturing and establishing local societies. +Prominent among his assistants was George Thompson, one of the English +Abolitionists, who, after the emancipation of the West India slaves by +the British government at a cost of L20,000,000, came to this country +and acted as Garrison's ally, winning some converts by his eloquence, +but heightening the unpopularity of the movement through the general +hostility to foreign interference. The early societies had been largely +in the border States, and their efforts had an immediate object in the +political action of their own communities. Now, the resentment and fear +of the slave-holding interest soon drove them out of those communities. +They spread faster than ever,--in a few years it was said that they were +1300,--but were confined to the free States. What immediate and +practical aim could they pursue? It was the question of practical action +that brought Garrison's views to a sharp test, and soon divided him from +the great body of anti-slavery people. + +In Garrison's mind there was room for only one idea at a time. Slavery +was a crime, a sin, an abomination,--that to him was the first, the +last, the whole truth of the matter. He had little education, and he had +not in the least a judicial or an open mind. It was to him clear and +certain that the blacks were in every way the equal of the whites. Of +the complexity of human society; of the vital necessity of a political +bond uniting communities, and of the inevitable imperfections and +compromises which are the price of an established social order; of the +process of evolution by which humanity slowly grows from one stage into +another; of the fact that the negro was in some ways better as a slave +in America than as a savage in Africa, and that there must be other +intermediate stages in his development; of the consideration due to +honest differences of opinion and to deeply-rooted habits--of all this +Garrison was as ignorant as a six-years-old child. When facts came in +his way, he denied them; when institutions stood across his path, he +denounced them; when men differed from him, he assailed them. + +As to a practical course of action by Northern people, he was absolutely +without resource. How were they to free the slaves? Not by force--force +was to Garrison as wicked as slavery itself. By their votes? That was +only possible under the government as ordained by the Constitution; and +the Constitution allowed no action against slavery except by each State +for itself. The worse then for the Constitution! Ere many years Garrison +declared, and put as a standing heading to the _Liberator_: "The United +States Constitution Is a Covenant with Death and an Agreement with +Hell." He went further; for a time at least he held that all human +governments, as resting on force, were sinful, and to be ignored, or +passively submitted to, without taking active part. He declared the +Union, as a compact with slave-holders, was worthy only to be dissolved. +But how even dissolve it, since he counselled his followers not to vote? +And if it were dissolved, how would the slaves be any nearer freedom? +Was there any possible good outcome to non-voting and dissolution of the +Union, except that there would then be no complicity with slave-holders? +And would such escape from complicity be any help to the slave, any +service to humanity, anything more than an egotistic separation from +political society, a mere refined selfishness? + +Such questions never troubled Garrison. Instead of answering them, he +found something else to denounce. The churches he thought were derelict, +in that they did not bear testimony against slavery. True, most of the +great religious bodies of the country were soon rent asunder on the +question: Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, were divided between +North and South, because neither side could tolerate the other's +position on slavery. But nothing satisfied Mr. Garrison. To him the +churches were "cages of unclean birds and synagogues of Satan." + +But if the gun was ill-aimed, at least the recoil was prodigious. It is +unreasonable to attribute principally to the violence of the _Liberator_ +the new and determined rally of the South in defense of +slavery,--Calhoun and his followers had far wider grounds for their +action than that,--but undoubtedly that violence helped to consolidate +and intensify the Southern resistance. The Abolitionist papers were at +first sent all over the South. The Southerners saw little difference +between such papers as the _Liberator_ and such direct incitements to +insurrection as Walker's _Appeal_; and the horrors of Nat Turner's +rising were fresh in mind. They put all Abolitionist teaching under a +common ban. At the North, the anti-slavery cause became associated in +the popular mind with hostility to the government, to the churches, to +the established usages of society. It was Charles Sumner who said: "An +omnibus load of Boston Abolitionists had done more harm to the +anti-slavery cause than all its enemies." + +Garrison's own following was soon divided, and a large part drew away +from him. The most important division came on the question of political +action, when, in the Presidential election of 1840, the practical wing +entered into the political field, as the inevitable and only arena for +effective action; nominated a candidate, and laid the foundation for the +election of Lincoln twenty years later. In the American Anti-slavery +Society there came a contest; Garrison triumphed by a narrow vote, but a +secession followed. Of his immediate and permanent allies the most +important was Wendell Phillips. He threw himself heart and soul into the +cause; he gave to it an educated and brilliant mind, and a fascinating +oratory; he was as uncompromising and censorious as Garrison. + +Garrison always held a place of honor and friendship among the +Abolitionists, even those who refused to follow his leadership. In +private life his genial and winning traits were as marked as was his +fierceness on the platform. The term "Abolitionist" is somewhat +indefinite, but it may best be defined as denoting a person to whom the +supreme interest in public affairs was the extinction of slavery. It +included not only those who shared Garrison's ideas of non-voting and +peaceable disunion, but those, too, like Birney and Whittier, who +respected the Constitution and worked for their cause through a +political party. The term also applied to the few who, like John Brown, +would attack slavery by force of arms. On the other hand, the name +Abolitionist did not properly belong to those who were opposed to +slavery, but held that opposition along with other political tenets and +not as a supreme article of faith. These were best included under the +general term of "anti-slavery men," a designation accepted by many of +the Free Soil, Whig and Democratic parties, and later by the Republican +party. The classification cannot be made exact, but the word +"Abolitionists" generally designated the men and women to whom the +extinction of slavery was a primary interest, and who gave to it their +habitual and earnest attention, through the anti-slavery societies and +otherwise. In this broader sense, the Abolitionists were a notable +company. They were bound together by a disinterested and noble +sentiment, and by sacrifices to the cause. The hostility aroused by +Garrison, Phillips, Pilsbury, and a few like-minded associates, extended +to many who went to no such extremes. The anti-slavery speakers were +sometimes mobbed: once in Boston a rope was round Garrison's neck and +his life was in peril; meetings were broken up; and the respectable part +of the community sometimes encouraged or tolerated these assaults. +Actual physical injury was very rare, but a hostile social atmosphere +was the frequent price of fidelity to conscience. + +Among the most notable of the leaders was Gerritt Smith. He took active +part in politics, and was for a time in Congress. He is finely +characterized by Andrew D. White: + +"Of all tribunes of the people I have ever known he dwells in my memory +as possessing the greatest variety of gifts. He had the prestige given +by great wealth, by lavish generosity, by transparent honesty, by +earnestness of purpose, by advocacy of every good cause, by a superb +presence, and by natural eloquence of a very high order. He was very +tall and large, with a noble head, an earnest yet kindly face, and of +all human voices I have ever heard his was the most remarkable for its +richness, depth, and strength." + +Women took a prominent and honorable part; the venerable and beautiful +Lucretia Mott gave her benign presence to the gatherings; Lydia Maria +Child made heavy sacrifices in the good cause. In the common ardor, and +with a Quaker precedent, women took part as speakers. Women's rights was +closely united with anti-slavery; and hence came a fresh odium from +conservative quarters, while the admirable bearing of the leading women +won growing favor for both lines of emancipation. The makers of the new +American literature were friends of the anti-slavery cause. Emerson gave +to it his words of serene inspiration. Whittier was among its ardent +apostles, shared in its political activity, and sang lyrics of freedom. +Bryant was its strong advocate in journalism. Lowell, drawn by his noble +wife, came as a strong ally, and the Biglow Papers gave what had been +greatly lacking,--the salt of humor. + +The Abolitionists might be compared to a comet,--a body with a bright +head and a nebulous tail. Like all radicals and reformers they had a +fringe of unbalanced and crotchety folk. It must be said, too, that +absorption in a topic remote from the concerns of one's daily life is +apt to be somewhat distracting and demoralizing. Dr. Joseph Henry +Allen--an admirable and too little known writer--has in an eloquent and +beautiful passage described the Abolitionists (though he was not one of +them) as the devotees of a genuine and heroic religion. But any +adequate religion must find its main application in the duties and +services of the immediate present; and the men and women who were +possessed day and night by the wrongs of those to whom they could render +little service, were apt to be thrown out of touch with near and homely +relations, and become what are now called "cranks." + +But to appreciate the service of the Abolitionists we must remember that +up to the birth of the Republican party in 1854 almost all of the +political leaders and men of public affairs, as well as most of the +churches, colleges, and professional educators, held aloof from the +anti-slavery cause. With a few exceptions, they left the work of +educating public sentiment, and shaping some policy on the supreme +question, to be done by this little company,--of lecturers, ministers, +literary men and women. These did loyally and bravely according to their +lights; and they had their reward, outwardly in unpopularity and +sometimes persecution, but inwardly in a social atmosphere within their +own body, warm, joyful, and religious; and the sense of alliance with +the Divine Force in the universe. Said Wendell Phillips: "One man with +God is a majority." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +BIRNEY, CHANNING, AND WEBSTER + + +Of the moderate wing of the anti-slavery men, a good representative was +James G. Birney. With the fine physical presence and genial manhood of +the typical Kentuckian, he had a well-balanced mind and a thorough +loyalty to the sense of duty, which broadened as he grew. Removing to +Alabama, he became anti-slavery in his sentiments, and he was a friend +not only of the negro, but of all who were oppressed. As the legal +representative of the Cherokee nation he stood for years between the +Indians and those who would wrong them. He identified himself for a time +with the colonization cause; and, finding himself growing powerless in +Southern communities, he removed to Ohio, where there was a strong and +vigorous anti-slavery propaganda. One incident of his life in Cincinnati +illustrates the concrete form which slavery sometimes took. A Missourian +owned a slave girl who was his own daughter, a cultivated and refined +woman. He took her to the East for a visit, treated her habitually as +one of his own family, but refused her prayers for freedom. Dreading the +possibilities of her lot, she made her escape in Cincinnati; and, +concealing her identity and history, she got a situation as a servant in +Mr. Birney's family. One day when he was absent from the city she came +home in terror; she had been recognized on the street by two +professional slave-catchers; now she told her story and implored +protection. In vain,--the officers of the law dragged her from the +house; a judge gave speedy sentence that she was a slave; she was taken +sobbing to jail; and the next day she was carried down the river to New +Orleans, where she was sold on the auction block,--and never heard of +again. + +Birney took part in the work of the new anti-slavery societies, but he +did not follow Garrison's no-government theories. He favored for a while +the policy of throwing the anti-slavery strength for such congressional +nominees of the regular parties as favored their views, and several +candidates were chosen in this way. But when Clay became pronounced +against the Abolitionists, and even John Quincy Adams, after championing +the right of petition, voted against the abolition of slavery in the +District of Columbia, Birney and his sympathizers gave up hope of help +from existing parties, and organized their own party for the election of +1840. Its principles were resistance to slavery extension, and +opposition to slavery so far as was practicable under the +Constitution,--the principles later of the Republican party. Birney was +nominated for President, and this handful of voters was the seed of the +harvest twenty years later. He was again the candidate in 1844, with an +increased support, and the party now was named "The Liberty Party." + +A leader and type of the moderate anti-slavery sentiment was William +Ellery Channing. In Channing was a blending of high moral ideals, +intelligent views of human nature and society, an apostle's earnestness +wedded with "sweet reasonableness," and a personal character of rare +symmetry and beauty. He was an evolutionist and not a revolutionist. +Foremost among the group of New England ministers who broadened and +ripened out of the orthodoxy of their day, and were ostracized by their +former brethren, he was forced into the position of leader of a new +sect, but his utterances and spirit were always those of a minister of +the church universal. He was the early advocate of most of the +religious and social reforms which have since come to the front. By +preference, he always used the methods of peace and persuasion. He had +made early acquaintance with slavery in a two-years' residence in +Richmond while a young man. He was always opposed to it, but his +attention was long absorbed by the immediate needs of his own people. He +spent half a year in Santa Cruz, for his health, in 1830-1,--just when +Garrison was starting the _Liberator_,--and slavery came home to him +with new force. The plantation on which he lived was one of the best in +the West Indies. The proprietor had taken a pride in the character and +condition of his slaves. But he had fallen into bankruptcy, his estate +had been sold, and the new proprietor left it in charge of an overseer +who was a passionate and licentious man, under whom the slaves suffered +a very different treatment. Most pathetic incidents came under Dr. +Channing's notice. But from all he saw about him he concluded that the +physical sufferings of the slaves had been exaggerated by report; that, +with occasional cruelties, they were better off as to physical comfort +than most of the European peasantry. He writes to an English +correspondent, "I suspect that a gang of negroes receive fewer stripes +than a company of soldiers of the same number in your army"; that they +are under a less iron discipline and suffer incomparably less than +soldiers in a campaign. But he adds, and always insists, that their +condition degrades them intellectually and morally, lowers them toward +the brutes, and in this respect the misery of slavery cannot be +expressed too strongly. Marriage is almost unknown; family life, with +its mutual dependence and the resulting tenderness, scarcely exists; and +thus "the poor negro is excluded from Nature's primary school for the +affections and the whole character." "The like causes are fatal to +energy, foresight, self-control." + +The inspiration of Channing's creed, the soul of the new movement in +religion, was the potential nobility of human nature--a nobility to be +made real by utmost effort of the individual, and by all wisest +appliances of society. It was from this standpoint that he judged +slavery, and in this spirit that while still in Santa Cruz he began to +write his treatise upon it. + +Returning to Boston, he spoke with clearness and weight to his +congregation: "I think no power of conception can do justice to the +evils of slavery. They are chiefly moral, they act on the mind, and +through the mind bring intense suffering to the body. As far as the +human soul can be destroyed, slavery is that destroyer." Having borne +his testimony, he devoted himself to the general work of his ministry. +The violence of the men who had come to the front in Abolitionism was +not only against his taste and feeling, but against his deep +convictions; as he had written years before to Webster, he saw in these +denunciations of the slave-holder seeds of a harvest of sectional hate +and national disaster. + +A characteristic conversation with him is recorded by Rev. Samuel J. +May, himself in full alliance with the Abolitionists, but a man of great +sweetness and sanity, never diverted from his religious ministry or +losing his mental balance. Dr. Channing dwelt on the excesses of the +Abolitionists until Mr. May was aroused, and broke out: "Dr. Channing, I +am tired of these complaints! The cause of suffering humanity, the cause +of our oppressed, crushed, colored countrymen, has called as loudly upon +others as upon us, who are known as the Abolitionists. But the others +have done nothing. The wise and prudent saw the wrong, but did nothing +to remove it. The priest and Levite passed by on the other side; the +children of Abraham held their peace, until 'the very stones have cried +out' against this tremendous wickedness. The people who have taken up +the cause may lack the calmness and discretion of scholars, clergy, and +statesmen,--but the scholars, clergy, and statesmen, have done nothing. +We Abolitionists are just what we are,--babes and sucklings, obscure +men, silly women, publicans, sinners; and we shall manage the matter we +have taken in hand just as might be expected of such persons as we are. +It is unbecoming in able men, who stood by and would do nothing, to +complain of us because we manage this matter no better." + +And so the torrent of words dashed upon the silent listener, until the +speaker suddenly bethought himself and stopped in abashment,--this man +he was rebuking had been to him as a father in God, his kind friend from +childhood, and first among the great and good. Almost overwhelmed by his +own temerity, he watched the agitated face of his hearer and waited in +painful suspense for the reply. At last, in a very subdued manner and in +his kindest tones of voice, he said, "Brother May, I acknowledge the +justice of your reproof; I have been silent too long." + +May's appeal had only quickened a little the sure work of Channing's +conscience. A few months later, in December, 1835, he published his +short treatise on _Slavery_. No weightier word on the subject was ever +spoken. If mankind were moved by their higher reason the North would not +have waited twenty years to be converted to anti-slavery by _Uncle Tom's +Cabin_. And if the South had been wise in her day, she would have +listened to this noble and persuasive utterance. No passion sullied its +temper; slave and slave-holder were held in equal regard; the case was +pleaded on irresistible grounds--of facts beyond question and rooted in +the very constitution of human nature. The needed, the righteous, the +inevitable reform, was shown as part of the upward movement of humanity, +and as appealing to every consideration of practical wisdom and of +justice. The little book of 150 pages deserves to be held as a classic +in American history. + +Channing never lost the sense of proportion in his own work. He went on +giving inspiration and leadership to religious thought and to social +advance. It was neither necessary nor possible for him to be in close +sympathy or habitual alliance with the extreme Abolitionists. But he +vindicated the right of free speech when it was denied them, and he was +recognized by the best of their number as a friend of the cause. Mrs. +Lydia Maria Child,--like Mr. May, one of the finest spirits among the +Abolitionists--wrote: "He constantly grew upon my respect, until I came +to regard him as the wisest as well as the gentlest apostle of humanity. +I owe him thanks for preserving me from the one-sidedness to which +zealous reformers are so apt to run. He never sought to undervalue the +importance of anti-slavery, but he said many things to prevent me from +looking upon it as the only question interesting to humanity." + +Side by side with the anti-slavery sentiment was growing another +sentiment--distinct from it, at first often in practical hostility to +it, but at last blending with it for a common triumph. It was the +sentiment of American nationality--the love of the Union. The separate +colonies were brought together in the Revolution by a common peril and a +common struggle. Then their tendency to fall apart was counteracted by +the strong bond of the Constitution and the Federal government. Diverse +interests and mutual distrust still tended to draw them asunder. With +the continuance of the Union, the strengthening of the tie by use, the +hallowing of old associations under the glamour of memory, and the +growth of the new bonds of commerce and travel, the sense of a common +country and destiny began to take root in the hearts of men, and on +occasion disclosed itself with the strength and nobility of a heroic +passion. True, a new rift was appearing, in the doctrine of +nullification and the question of slavery, but this evoked at times a +more militant and again a more appealing aspect in the sentiment of +union. Jackson seemed to rise from the rough frontiersman to the +guardian of the nation when he gave the word, "The Federal Union--it +must be preserved!" Clay found the noblest exercise of his eloquence and +his diplomacy in evoking the national spirit and in harmonizing the +differences which threatened it. But the most stirring voice and +effective leadership was that of Daniel Webster. + +As Webster is judged in the retrospect, we see that he was not so much a +statesman, still less a moral idealist, as an advocate. His lucidity of +statement and emotional power were not matched by constructive ability. +His name is associated with no great measure of administration, no large +and definite policy. He was luminous in statement rather than sagacious +in judgment, an advocate rather than a judge. On the platform or in the +Senate he was still pre-eminently the lawyer, in that, like a lawyer, he +was the representative and exponent of established interests,--not the +projector of new social adjustments. Civil law represents a vast +accumulated experience and tradition of mankind; it has been slowly +wrought out, as a regulation and adjustment of existing interests; with +an effort toward equity, as understood by the best intelligence of each +period, but always with immense regard for precedent and previous usage. +It was in this spirit, highly conservative of what has already been +secured, and extremely cautious toward radical change, that Webster +habitually dealt with political institutions. It was characteristic of +him that in the Massachusetts constitutional convention in 1820 he +pleaded strongly for the retention of the property qualification of +voters for State senators. But when the tide moved irresistibly toward +manhood suffrage, he acquiesced. + +But conservative as he was by nature, he was in profound sympathy with a +sentiment which while rooted in the past was yet in the '20s and '30s a +young, plastic, growing idea,--the idea of American Union, indissoluble, +perpetual. No voice was so powerful as Webster's to fill the minds and +hearts of man with this lofty passion. His orations at Plymouth Rock, at +Bunker Hill, and upon the simultaneous deaths of Adams and Jefferson, +his vindication of the national idea against the localism of Hayne and +Calhoun,--were organ-voices of patriotism. They thrilled the souls of +those who listened; they went over the country and printed themselves on +the minds of men; school-boys declaimed passages from them; they became +part of the gospel of the American people. + +We may quote a single passage from the address inspired by that dramatic +circumstance, the death at once of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, on +the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence: "It cannot +be denied, but by those who would dispute against the sun, that with +America and in America a new era commences in human affairs. This era is +distinguished by free representative governments, by entire religious +liberty, by improved systems of national intercourse, by a newly +awakened and an unconquerable spirit of free inquiry, and by a diffusion +of knowledge through the community, such as has been before +altogether unknown and unheard of. America, America, our country, +fellow-countrymen, our own dear and native land, is inseparably +connected, fast bound up, in fortune and by fate, with these great +interests. If they fall, we fall with them; if they stand, it will be +because we have maintained them.... If we cherish the virtues and the +principles of our fathers, heaven will assist us to carry on the work +of human liberty and human happiness. Auspicious omens cheer us. Great +examples are before us. Our own firmament now shines brightly upon our +paths. Washington is in the upper sky. These other stars have now joined +the American constellation; they circle round their center, and the +heavens beam with new light. Beneath this illumination let us walk the +course of life, and at its close devoutly commend our beloved country, +the common parent of us all, to the Divine Benignity." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE UNDERLYING FORCES + + +Two master passions strove for leadership in the mind and heart of +America. One was love of the united nation and ardor to maintain its +union. The other was the aspiration to purify the nation, by removing +the wrong of slavery. Unionist and Abolitionist stood face to face. +After many years they were to stand shoulder to shoulder, in a common +cause. In a larger sense than he gave the words, Webster's utterance +became the final watchword: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and +inseparable." + +In the retrospect of history, our attention naturally fastens on the +conspicuous and heroic figures. But we must not forget the underlying +and often determining forces,--the interests, beliefs, and passions, of +the mass of the community. And, while listening intently to the +articulate voices, the impressive utterances, we are to remember that +the life of the community as of the individual is shaped oftenest by the +inarticulate, unavowed, half-unconscious sentiments: + + Below the surface stream, shallow and light, + Of what we say we feel,--below the stream, + As light, of what we think we feel, there flows + With noiseless current, strong, obscure and deep, + The central stream of what we feel indeed. + +The underlying human force in the slavery question was the primitive +instinct in man to keep all he has got; the instinct of the man who +lives at another's expense to keep on doing so. That underlay all the +fine theories about differences of race, all the theological deductions +from Noah's curse upon Canaan. Another great and constant factor was the +absorption of men and communities, not personally concerned in a social +wrong, in pursuits and interests of their own which shut out all outlook +beyond. In our day we hear much about the crowding rush of material +interests, but that crowd and rush was felt almost as much in the +earlier generations, when hardly less than the most strident tones of +the agitator could pierce the absorption of the street and market-place. +There was the inertia of custom; there were the commercial interests +closely interwoven of the Southern planter and the Northern +manufacturer; there was the prejudice of color and race; and all these +influences, open or latent, told powerfully for keeping slavery as it +was. + +The great default, the fatal failure, was the omission of the Southern +whites, especially their leaders by education and by popular +recognition, to take deliberate and systematic measures for the removal +of slavery. Difficult? Yes, very. Impossible? Why, almost every other +country of North and South America,--including the Spanish-Americans on +whom the English-Americans look down with such superiority,--these all +got rid of slavery without violence or revolution. Whatever the case +required,--of preparation, compensation, new industrial +arrangement,--the Southern whites had the whole business in their hands, +to deal with as they pleased. Whatever cries might be raised by a few +for instant and unconditional emancipation, there never was a day when +the vast mass of the American people, of all sections, were not avowedly +and unmistakably committed to letting the Southern States treat slavery +as their own matter, and deal with it as they pleased, provided only +they kept it at home. Excuses for non-action there were, of +course,--the perplexities of the situation, the irritation of criticism +from without,--but Nature has no use for excuses. If there is a cancer +in the system it is useless to plead the expense of the surgery or the +pain of the knife. The alternative is simple--removal or death. + +It is always impossible to distinguish closely in the causes of events +between the action of human will and the wider forces which we call +Nature or Providence. But in some eras we distinguish more clearly than +in others the effect of human personalities. For example, in the making +of the Constitution we see a difficult situation taken wisely and +resolutely in hand by a group of strong men; they made themselves a part +of Fate. But in the fluctuating history of slavery, with its final +catastrophe, we seem to be looking at elemental movements; masses of men +drifting under impulses, with no leadership adequate to the occasion. +The men who seemingly might have mastered the situation, and brought it +to a peaceful and right solution, either could not or would not do it. + +What happened was, that two opposite social systems, existing within the +same political body, came into rivalry, into hostility, and at last into +direct conflict. In the early stages, slavery had on its side the +advantage of an established place under the law, the support of its +local communities becoming more and more determined, the long-time +indifference and inertia of the free States, custom, conservatism, +timidity, race prejudice. But against all this were operating steadily +two tremendous forces. In the race for industrial advantage which is at +last the decisive test, free society was superior to slave society by as +much as the freeman is superior to the slave. The advantage of the +Northern farmer or mechanic over the negro slave was the measure of the +advantage of the North over the South. In increase of wealth; in +variety, intensity, and productiveness of social life; in immigration; +in intellectual progress, the free States outstripped the slave States +by leaps and bounds. And, again, in the conscience of humanity,--in +mankind's sense of right and wrong, which grows ever a more potent +factor in the world's affairs,--the tide was setting steadily and +swiftly against slavery. To impatient reformers who, as Horace Mann +said, were always in a hurry, while God never is,--the tide might seem +motionless or refluent, as to him who looks hastily from the ocean +shore; but as the sea follows the moon, the hearts of men were following +the new risen luminary of humanity's God-given rights. + +And so, under each special phase of the conflict, slavery had against it +that dominant force which acts on one side in the material progress of +society, and on the other side in the human conscience; that +force--"some call it Evolution, and others call it God." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE MEXICAN WAR + + +We have seen that about 1832-3 a new distinctness and prominence was +given to the slavery question by various events,--the substantial +victory of the South Carolina nullifiers, and the leadership thenceforth +of the South by Calhoun; Nat Turner's rising, and the rejection by +Virginia of the emancipation policy; the compensated liberation of the +West India slaves by the British Government; and the birth of aggressive +Abolitionism under the lead of Garrison. We have now to glance at the +main course of history for the next twenty years. Party politics had for +a time no direct relation to slavery. The new organizations of Whigs and +Democrats disputed on questions of a national bank, internal +improvements, and the tariff. The Presidency was easily won in 1836 by +Jackson's lieutenant, Van Buren; but the commercial crash of 1837 +produced a revulsion of feeling which enabled the Whigs to elect +Benjamin Harrison in 1840. His early death gave the Presidency to John +Tyler of Virginia, who soon alienated his party, and who was thoroughly +Southern in his sympathies and policy. + +The newly aroused anti-slavery enthusiasm in the North found expression +in petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. +It was not intrinsically a great matter, but it was the one point where +the national authority seemed clearly to have a chance to act--questions +of new territory being for the time in abeyance. Petitions poured in on +Congress with thousands of signatures--then with tens, then hundreds of +thousands. There was a hot struggle as to whether the petitions should +be received at all by the Senate and House. John Quincy Adams, willing +after his Presidency to serve in the humbler capacity of congressman, +was the champion of the right of petition. Calhoun had entered the +Senate in 1832 and remained there with a brief intermission until his +death in 1850. He stood independent of the two great parties, with his +own State always solidly behind him, and with growing influence over the +whole South. He was the leader in opposing the admission of the +petitions. He maintained that any discussion in Congress of such a topic +was injurious and incendiary; he voiced the new sentiment of the South +that all agitation of slavery was an invasion of its rights. "Hands +off!" was the cry. The question was settled in 1836, after long debates, +by another compromise, proposed by James Buchanan of Pennsylvania; the +petitions were given a formal reception, but instantly rejected without +debate. + +Another burning question was the circulation of anti-slavery documents +through the Southern mails. In 1835 a mob in Charleston broke open the +post-office, and made a bonfire of all such matter they could find. The +social leaders and the clergy of the city applauded. The +postmaster-general under Jackson, Amos Kendall, wrote to the local +postmaster who had connived at the act: "I cannot sanction and will not +condemn the step you have taken." Jackson asked Congress to pass a law +excluding anti-slavery literature from the mails. Even this was not +enough for Calhoun; he claimed that every State had a right to pass such +legislation for itself, with paramount authority over any act of +Congress. But the South would not support him in this claim; and indeed +he was habitually in advance of his section, which followed him +generally at an interval of a few years. Congress refused to pass any +law on the subject. But the end was reached without law; Southern +postmasters systematically refused to transmit anti-slavery +documents--even of so moderate character as the New York _Tribune_--and +this was their practice until the Civil War. "A gross infraction of law +and right!" said the North. "But," said the South, "would you allow +papers to circulate in your postoffices tending directly to breed revolt +and civil war? If the mails cannot be used in the service of gambling +and lotteries, with far more reason may we shut out incitements to +insurrection like Nat Turner's." + +On a similar plea all freedom of speech in Southern communities on the +question of slavery was practically denied. Anti-slavery men were driven +from their homes. In Kentucky, one man stood out defiantly and +successfully. Cassius M. Clay opposed slavery, advocated its compensated +abolition, and was as ready to defend himself with pistols as with +arguments. He stood his ground to the end, and in 1853 he settled Rev. +John G. Fee at Berea, who established a group of anti-slavery churches +and schools, which was broken up after John Brown's raid, but after the +war was revived as Berea College. But as a rule free speech in the South +was at an end before 1840. No man dared use language like that of +Patrick Henry and Madison; and Jefferson's _Notes on Virginia_, if newly +published, would have been excluded from the mails and its author +exiled. + +South Carolina passed a law under which negro seamen on ships entering +her ports were put in jail while their vessel remained, and if the jail +fees were not paid, they were sold into slavery. When Massachusetts +seamen suffered under this law, the State government in 1844 dispatched +an eminent citizen, Samuel Hoar, to try to secure a modification of the +enactment. Arriving in Charleston, accompanied by his daughter, Mr. Hoar +was promptly visited in his hotel by a committee of prominent men and +obliged to leave the city and State at once. + +The North had its share of violence. In Connecticut a school for negro +children, kept by two white women, was forcibly broken up. In Illinois +in 1837 an anti-slavery newspaper office was destroyed by a mob, and its +proprietor, Elijah P. Lovejoy, was murdered. + +In the Presidential election of 1840 slavery was almost forgotten. The +Whigs were bent on overthrowing the Democratic administration, to which +they attributed the hard times following 1837; and they raised a popular +hurrah for the candidate of the "plain people," William Henry Harrison +of Indiana, who had won a victory over the Indians at Tippecanoe. In a +canvass where "log-cabins" and "hard cider" gave the watchwords and +emblems, national politics played little part. But now first those +resolute anti-slavery men who were determined to bring their cause +before the people as a political issue, and fight it out in that arena, +with solid ranks be their forces ever so small,--came together and +nominated for the Presidency James G. Birney. They could give him but a +handful of votes, but it was the raising of a flag which twenty years +was to carry to victory. Birney, never an extremist, had grown to a full +recognition of all that was at stake. He wrote in 1835: "The contest is +becoming--has become--not one alone of freedom for the blacks, but of +freedom for the whites.... There will be no cessation of the strife +until slavery shall be exterminated or liberty destroyed." + +For a dozen years there had been only skirmishing. Now came on a battle +royal, or rather a campaign, from 1844 to 1850,--the annexation of +Texas, the war with Mexico, and the last great compromise. Texas, a +province of Mexico after Mexico became free from Spain, received a +steady immigration from the American Southwestern States. These +immigrants became restive under Mexican control, declared their +independence in 1835, and practically secured it after sharp fighting. +Slavery, abolished under Mexico, was re-established by the republic of +Texas. From the character of its population, it seemed to gravitate +toward the United States. The keen eyes of the Southern leaders were +early fixed upon it. Annex Texas, and a great field of expansion for +slavery was open. Its votes in the Senate and House would be added to +the Southern column, and from its immense domain future States might be +carved. As early as 1829 Lundy's and Garrison's _Genius_ had protested +against this scheme. The time was now ripe for carrying it out. Calhoun +was again the leader. He claimed to be "the author of annexation," and +with good reason. He exchanged the Senate for Tyler's cabinet as +Secretary of War in 1844, the change being engineered by Henry A. Wise, +one of the rising men in Virginia,--for the express purpose of bringing +in Texas. A treaty of annexation was negotiated with Texas, and sent to +the Senate. There were difficulties; the Texans had cooled in their zeal +for annexation; and the American Senate was not over-favorable. To give +the necessary impetus, Calhoun,--so says Van Holst, in his excellent and +not unfriendly biography,--fell below his habitual sincerity, and +misrepresented a dispatch of the English Foreign Secretary, Lord +Aberdeen, as showing a disposition on England's part to get hold of +Texas for herself. It was a Presidential year; the Democratic convention +nominated James K. Polk of Tennessee, and passed a resolution favoring +annexation. But Calhoun had now shown his motive so plainly that the +country took alarm, and the Senate rejected the treaty. The Whigs +nominated Clay. He was believed to be opposed to the annexation scheme, +but his hunger for the great prize betrayed him into an equivocal +expression, which lost him the confidence of the strong anti-slavery +men. Again they nominated Birney,--taking now the name of the Liberty +party--and gave him so many votes that the result was to lose New York +and Michigan for Clay, and Polk was elected. The administration now +claimed--though in truth the combined Whig and Liberty vote put it in a +minority--that it had received a plebiscite of popular support on its +annexation policy. Thus emboldened, its friends,--knowing that they +could not yet count on the two-thirds vote necessary for a senatorial +confirmation,--dropped the treaty altogether, and brought into Congress +a joint resolution affirming the annexation of Texas to the Union. This +won the necessary majority in both houses, and as the last act of +Tyler's administration Texas was declared a State. + +Calhoun now returned to the Senate,--his temporary substitute promptly +vacating at his word. Thus far he had triumphed. But his associates in +their elation were eager for another conquest. Texas is ours, now let us +have California and the Pacific! But to that end, Mexico, reluctant to +yield Texas, and wholly unwilling to cede more territory, must be +attacked and despoiled. At that proposal Calhoun drew back. It does not +appear that he had any scruples about Mexico. But, keener-sighted than +his followers, he knew that any further acquisitions to the West would +be stoutly and hopefully claimed by the North. His warning was in vain; +he had lighted a fire and now could not check it. The next step was to +force Mexico into a war. She claimed the river Nueces as her boundary +with Texas, while Texas claimed the Rio Grande. Instructions were +quietly given to General Taylor, in January, 1846, to throw his small +force into the disputed territory, so near the Rio Grande as to invite a +Mexican attack. The Mexican force did attack him, and President Polk +instantly declared that "war existed by the act of Mexico"--thus +allowing Congress no chance to pass on it. As is the way of nations, +fighting once begun, every consideration of justice was ignored and the +only word was "our country, right or wrong." Congressmen of both parties +voted whatever supplies were needed for the war; and the Whigs, trying +to throw the blame on the President, put no obstacles in the way of his +conquest of Mexico. Only one man in Congress spoke out for justice as +higher than party or country. Thomas Corwin of Ohio, in a powerful +speech, denounced the whole iniquitous business, and declared that were +he a Mexican facing the American invaders of his home, "I would welcome +them with hospitable hands to bloody graves!" + +The war called out another voice that went home to the heart of the +people,--the voice of James Russell Lowell in the "Biglow Papers." In +the homely Yankee vernacular he spoke for the highest conscience of New +England. The righteous wrath was winged with stinging wit and lightened +with broad humor. He spoke for that sentiment of the new and nobler +America which abhorred slavery and detested war, and saw in a war for +the extension of slavery a crime against God and man. The politician's +sophistries, the respectable conventionalities current in church and +state, found no mercy at his hands: + + Ez fer war, I call it murder,-- + There you hev it plain and flat: + I don't want to go no furder + Than my Testyment fer that: + God hez sed so plump an' fairly, + It's ez long ez it is broad, + An' you've got to git up airly + Ef you want to take in God. + + 'Tain't your eppyletts an' feathers + Make the thing a grain more right; + 'Tain't a follerin' your bell-wethers + Will excuse ye in his sight; + Ef you take a sword and draw it, + An' go stick a feller thru, + Guv'ment ain't to answer for it, + God'll send the bill to you. + + Massachusetts, God forgive her, + She's a kneelin' with the rest, + She, that ought to hav' clung forever + In her grand old eagle-nest. + + * * * * * + + Let our dear old Bay State proudly + Put the trumpet to her mouth, + Let her ring this messidge loudly + In the ears of all the South: + + "I'll return ye good fer evil + Much ez we frail mortals can, + But I won't go help the Devil + Makin' man the cus o' man; + Call me coward, call me traitor, + Jest ez suits your mean idees, + Here I stand a tyrant-hater, + An' the friend o' God and Peace." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +HOW DEAL WITH THE TERRITORIES? + + +Meanwhile, the American army,--accepting as its sole part to obey +orders, not questioning why,--though such officers as Grant and Lee had +no liking for the task set them,--and reinforced by volunteer regiments +from the Southwest,--was steadily fighting its way to the Mexican +capital; Taylor's force advancing from Texas, while Scott moved from +Vera Cruz. The Mexicans resisted bravely, but were beaten again and +again, and upon the capture of the city of Mexico they gave up the +contest. + +Spite of the _eclat_ of victories, the war had been so little popular in +the North that the congressional election of 1846 displaced the +administration majority in the House and gave the Whigs a preponderance. +But, with the excitement of the complete victory over Mexico in the next +year, came a fresh wave of the aggressive temper. It was freely +advocated that Mexico should be annexed bodily. Against this madness +Henry Clay spoke out with his old-time power. Clearly the country would +tolerate no such extreme, and the annexationists contented themselves +with mulcting Mexico, upon the payment of $6,000,000, of the vast +territory known as California. + +Then set in with full vigor the controversy over the new territory which +Calhoun had foreseen. Calhoun had been left in a sort of isolation by +his defection from the administration upon the war, but he did not break +with President Polk; for the reason, says Von Holst, that he wanted to +save his influence to oppose the tendency to a war with England. Oregon +had been held in joint occupancy by the two nations for many years; now +a line of demarcation was to be drawn, and there was a loud popular +demand for maintaining at any cost the extreme northern line of +latitude--it was "Fifty-four-forty or fight." But the sense of the +country was against coming to extremities, and Calhoun--a statesman when +slavery was not concerned--threw his influence with the moderate +sentiment which secured the acceptance of the line of 49 degrees. But he +looked with foreboding eyes on the deepening conflict of the sections +and the advantage which gravitated toward the North;--from political +causes, he declared, unwilling or unable to recognize that the +industrial superiority lay inevitably with free labor. He met the danger +with a bolder and more advanced claim. The South, he declared, had had +enough of compromise over territory; it must now fall back on its +ultimate right under the Constitution; and that right was that slaves, +being lawful property, might be taken into any territory of the United +States, and Congress had no right to forbid their introduction; neither +had Congress a right to refuse admission of any State whose people +desired to retain slavery. This was a claim for the nationalization of +slavery; and it was not until after Calhoun's death that the South came +to this position, staked its cause upon it, and when it was rejected by +the popular vote broke with the Union. + +But Calhoun's logic and passion had not yet brought his section up to +his own position, and over the division of the newly acquired territory +North and South disputed as before. While the war was still waging, +President Polk asked for an appropriation to be expended as compensation +for new territory; and David Wilmot, a Democratic member from +Pennsylvania, moved that a proviso be added, stipulating that from any +new territory acquired by purchase slavery should be excluded. This was +passed by the House, but rejected by the Senate. The Senate was long the +stronghold of the South, the States having an equal representation, +while in the House the greater increase of free State population gave +them a fresh advantage at each new census and apportionment. The "Wilmot +proviso" was for some years the watchword of the anti-extensionists. To +the typical Northerner, it seemed monstrous that slavery should be +introduced by law in territory where it had no previous existence. To +the typical Southerner it seemed no less unjust that his peculiar +institutions and usages should be excluded from the common domain, for +which his section had paid its share of money and more than its share of +blood. + +While the question of the new territory had scarcely taken definite +form, there came the Presidential election of 1848. In the Whig +convention Clay's ambition received its final disappointment; Webster +had hardly a chance; all the statesmen of the party were set aside in +favor of General Zachary Taylor of Louisiana, an upright, soldierly man, +a slaveholder, entirely unversed in civil affairs, and his claim resting +solely on successful generalship in the war. The Democrats nominated +Lewis Cass of Michigan, a mediocre politician, regarded by the South as +a trustworthy servant. The third party displayed new strength, and +exchanged the name of "Liberty" for "Free Soil." Under the stimulus of +recent events recruits of power and promise came to its standard. In +Massachusetts it gained such men as Samuel Hoar, Charles Sumner, Charles +Francis Adams, and Henry Wilson from the Whigs; and from the Democrats, +Robert Rantoul and N. P. Banks. Wilson and Charles Allen, delegates to +the Whig convention, declared,--when that body in its resolutions +absolutely ignored the question of slavery extension, and sank all +principles in a hurrah for "Old Rough and Ready,"--that they would no +longer support the party. They went home to work with their old +friends, the "Conscience Whigs," for the success of the Free Soil party, +whose convention was to meet at Buffalo. To that convention came strong +allies from Ohio. There were Joshua Giddings, for years one of the few +congressmen classed distinctly as anti-slavery, and Salmon P. Chase. New +York State offered a reinforcement strong in numbers, but in some +respects questionable. The anti-slavery Democrats in the State, +nicknamed "Barnburners"--because "they would burn the barn to get rid of +the rats"--were ready to break with their party, but their quarrel was +partly a personal one. They were welcomed, however, and from their ranks +was selected the Presidential candidate--of all men, ex-President Martin +Van Buren, known of old as "the Northern man with Southern principles," +but willing now to Northernize his principles with the Presidency in +view. Such a nomination went far to take the heart out of the genuine +anti-slavery men; and the strong name of Charles Francis Adams for +vice-president could not make good the weakness of the head of the +ticket. Should a real Free Soiler vote for Van Buren,--the probable +effect being to improve Cass's chances over Taylor, just as the Birney +vote four years earlier had beaten Clay and brought in Polk and all his +consequences--or vote for Taylor, trusting to his personal character and +the influences surrounding him for a practical advantage to the side of +freedom? The latter alternative was the choice of many, including Horace +Greeley and his associates, Thurlow Weed and William H. Seward. With +such help, and mainly on his strength as a military hero, Taylor was +elected. In the result there was considerable hope for the anti-slavery +cause. For Seward, who had been chosen to the Senate from New York, was +very influential with the new President, and Seward was one of the +coming men, clearly destined to be a leader among those who were to +succeed the great triumvirate of Clay, Calhoun, and Webster. He was +high-minded, cultivated, and united lofty ideals with practical wisdom. +A thorough constitutionalist, he believed there were legitimate ways of +advancing freedom under the Constitution; and in a speech at Cleveland +he had declared: "Slavery can be limited to its present bounds; it can +be ameliorated; it can be abolished; and you and I must do it." Ohio +sent to the Senate another of the coming men, Salmon P. Chase, +resembling Seward in his broad and philosophical views and his firm but +constitutional opposition to slavery. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE COMPROMISE OF 1850 + + +To win California as slave territory the Southern leaders had forced the +war on Mexico. The territory was won, and no political force had +developed strong enough to halt their progress. But now came a check +from the realm which could not be cajoled or brow-beaten,--the world of +natural and industrial forces. Gold was discovered in California. There +was a rush of immigrants, and a swift opening and settlement of the +country. The pioneers--hardy, enterprising and democratic--had no use +nor room for slaves. They held a convention, with the encouragement of +President Taylor; framed a Constitution in which slavery was excluded +from the future State--this by unanimous vote, including the 15 +delegates who had come from slave States; and the popular vote ratified +the proposed Constitution by 10 to 1. Then they asked for admission to +the Union. + +The Southern faction was wrathful. The extremists were for excluding the +new State unless slavery was permitted. But it was clear that slavery +could not be forced on a State against the wish of its entire people. +Then compensation was sought in concessions to be made by the North. The +remainder of the new domain, Utah and New Mexico, was not ripe for +Statehood; but let slavery, it was urged, be established as a +territorial condition. Then came up another grievance of the South. Its +fugitive slaves, escaping over the border line, were systematically +helped, either to make their way to Canada and the protection of the +British flag, or to safe homes in the Northern States. Naturally the +slaves who dared the perils of escape were either the most energetic or +the most wronged, and sympathy for them at the North was active and +resourceful. Along their most frequented routes of flight were +systematic provisions of shelter and help, known as "the underground +railroad." The Federal Constitution required their return, but this task +had been left to State laws and courts, and was performed slackly, if at +all. The total number of fugitives was not large nor the pecuniary loss +heavy, but the South was exasperated by what it considered a petty and +contemptible depredation. So there was a demand that the Federal +government should undertake and enforce the return of fugitive slaves. + +Congress opened the session of 1849-50 amid great excitement and +confusion. Once more Clay came forward to reconcile the disputants. Clay +in these last days was at his best. He was no longer swayed by +Presidential aspirations. When in 1849 the Kentucky Constitution was to +be revised, he wrote a letter strongly favoring a gradual emancipation +and colonization. This had no effect, but Clay's unshaken hold on his +State was shown by his unanimous re-election to the Senate. There he at +once entered upon his last great effort at national reconciliation. He +introduced a bill providing for a series of concessions on both sides. +California was to be admitted as a free State; and New Mexico and Utah +were to be organized as territories, leaving the question of slavery for +future settlement. Slavery was to continue in the District of Columbia, +but the slave trade was to be forbidden there. Texas was to cede to New +Mexico a disputed strip of territory, which presumably would ultimately +become free; and was to be compensated by a large grant from the Federal +territory. A law was to be passed for the return of fugitive slaves by +Federal authority. + +Over these measures the debate was long and hot. Clay pleaded that by +his scheme the advantages were fairly balanced between North and South. +He urged that the rising spirit of disunion at the South should be +disarmed by reasonable concessions. He appealed to the North for +concessions and to the South for peace. When Jefferson Davis, Senator +from Mississippi, declared that the plan conceded nothing to the South, +and demanded that the Missouri compromise line be extended to the +Pacific (bisecting California), with the express establishment of +slavery south of that line, Clay declared that no earthly power should +make him vote for the establishment of slavery anywhere where it had had +no previous existence. To do so, he said, would be to incur from future +inhabitants of New Mexico the reproach which Americans justly applied to +their British ancestors for fastening the institution on them. But he +would spare Southern sensibilities by withholding an explicit exclusion +of slavery from New Mexico; Nature and the future would attend to that. +Against any right of secession, against any possibility of peaceful +secession, he declared with strongest emphasis: "War and dissolution of +the Union are identical; they are convertible terms; and such a war!" +Fighting for the extension of slavery, the sympathies of all mankind +would be against the South. + +The venerable old man, speaking with all the sincerity and warmth of his +heart and with all the powers of his mind, was heard, says Schurz, by a +great and brilliant audience. His first faltering words were followed by +regained power; the old elevation of sentiment, the sonorous flow of +words, the lofty energy of action, were enhanced by the pathetic sense +that this was the final effort. + +More pathetic, tragic even, was the last speech of Calhoun, read for him +while he sat in his senatorial chair; the tall form bowed by age and +weakness, the gaunt, impressive face furrowed by the long strife for a +doomed cause, but the old fire still alight in the dark eyes and in the +resolute spirit. He recognized that the strife of the sections was +radical, and that the proposed compromises and palliatives were weak and +temporary. He declared that the South had been thwarted in its rights +from the ordinance of 1787 until now; that the equilibrium would be +destroyed past hope if California and New Mexico were to become free +States; and that the only effective resource lay in some constitutional +amendment to safeguard the rights of the South. What amendment could +effect this, he did not say. But it transpired later that he had in mind +the election of two Presidents, one from each section,--a fantastic and +impossible scheme. In truth, Calhoun in this last utterance was less a +statesman aiming to guide events than a prophet predicting an inevitable +woe. He was too wise to share the elation with which hot-heads talked of +an independent South, and it was with sad forebodings that he sank to +his grave. + +When on the 7th of March Webster rose to speak, the Senate and the +country hung on his words. He too was drawing toward the end, but his +powers were unabated. Hope was strong that in him would be found the +champion of freedom. But the key of his speech was a view of the +situation, not as a contest between freedom and slavery, but as an +opposition of geographical sections, inflamed by extremists on both +sides. The mischief, he declared, was due to Southern disunionists and +Northern Abolitionists. The remedy was a calm, patriotic temper; the +rebuke of fanaticism of both kinds, and the acceptance of reasonable +accommodations and adjustments. He approved substantially the scheme +proposed by Clay. The formal exclusion of slavery from New Mexico was an +unnecessary affront to the South; natural conditions would prevent +slavery there. A fugitive slave law was fairly required by the +Constitution and the South had a right to claim it. He, like Clay, +declared peaceable secession an impossibility, and his speech, +impressive throughout by the power of a lucid and massive intellect, +rose at its close to lofty eloquence in a plea for the maintenance of +the Union and a warning of the catastrophe which secession would +precipitate. + +The defect of the speech was its complete failure to recognize the wrong +and mischief of slavery. Webster had rarely shown himself a moral +idealist, except as to the sentiment of patriotism. He was identified +with the prosperous and "respectable" classes, and the sufferings of the +poor and oppressed woke little sympathy in him. These limitations had +always been apparent, and while Clay seemed to grow finer and gentler +with advance of years, Webster's course was the other way. That imperial +and commanding presence, with its imposing stature and Jove-like visage, +was the tenement of a richly dowered nature. He had not only great +powers of intellect, but warm affections, generous sentiments, and +wholesome tastes for humanity and the outdoor world, but his moral +fiber, never of the stanchest grain, had been sapped by prosperity. He +was self-indulgent in his personal habits and heedless of homely +obligations. His ambition was strong, and as the favor of the South had +come to be the almost necessary condition of the Presidency, he could +not escape the suspicion of courting that favor. He was in substantial +agreement with Clay as to the compromise measures, but the Kentuckian +rose higher than his section and his look was forward; while Webster was +distinctly below the characteristic temper of New England, and his +movement was retrograde. The anti-slavery men mourned his 7th of March +speech as a great apostasy, and Whittier branded it in his poem of +"Ichabod," which fell with Judgment-day weight. Yet it was not an +apostasy, but the natural culmination of his course; and in spite of its +error, he still was true to the characteristic sentiment of his best +period, the love of the Union. His voice like Clay's gave +inspiration--it may well have been a decisive inspiration--to the cause +which triumphed at Gettysburg and Appomattox. Whittier himself, in a +later poem, recognized the patriotic service of the man whom, in the +heat of conflict, he had so scathingly denounced. + +Congress, and especially the Senate, was at this time full of brilliant +men. Among the leaders of the extreme South were Mason of Virginia, +Butler of South Carolina, Davis of Mississippi, and Soule of Louisiana. +From this element came plentiful threats of disunion. But these threats +were met with stern answers. When President Taylor heard of them the +stout old soldier answered that such language was treasonable, and if +necessary he would himself take command of the army that should put down +rebellion. Disunion, he said, is treason; and to one questioning him, he +answered with a soldier's oath that if anyone really attempted to carry +it out, they should be dealt with by law as they deserved, and executed. +Clay's language was no less explicit. When Senator Rhett in Charleston +proposed to raise the flag of secession, and his colleague, Barnwell in +the Senate, half indorsed his words, Clay said, with a lightning flash +that thrilled the audience, that if Senator Rhett followed up that +declaration by overt acts "he will be a traitor, and I hope he will meet +the fate of a traitor!" Clay went on to say that if Kentucky should ever +unfurl the banner of resistance unjustly against the Union, "never, +never will I engage with her in such a cause!" + +There was in Congress a new element, of the smallest in numbers, but +with the promise and potency of a great future. Four days after Webster, +Seward spoke in the Senate. He advocated the admission of California as +a free State, with no additions or compromises. No equilibrium between +freedom and slavery was possible; if established to-day it would be +destroyed to-morrow. The moral sentiment of the age would never permit +the enforcement of a law requiring Northern freemen to return slaves to +bondage. The entire public domain was by the Constitution devoted to +union, justice, defense, welfare, and liberty; and it was devoted to the +same noble ends by "a higher law than the Constitution." The extension +of slavery ought to be barred by all legal means. Threats of disunion +had no terrors for him. The question was "whether the Union shall stand, +and slavery, under the steady, peaceful action of moral, social, and +political causes, be removed by gradual voluntary effort and with +compensation; or whether the Union shall be dissolved and civil war +ensue, bringing on violent but complete and immediate emancipation." + +Salmon P. Chase of Ohio spoke to similar effect. If, he said, the claims +of freedom are sacrificed here by forms of legislation, "the people will +unsettle your settlement." "It may be that you will succeed in burying +the ordinance of freedom. But the people will write upon its tomb, 'I +shall rise again.'" + +The disunionists found that they had little popular support behind them. +A convention at Nashville, held to promote the interests of the South, +refused to countenance any extreme measures. General Taylor steadily +favored the admission of California as a free State, with no +qualifications or accompaniments. Then, while the result in Congress +hung doubtful, in the summer of 1850, President Taylor died. His +successor, Vice-President Millard Fillmore of New York, was a man of +fair ability and cautious or timid disposition; an opponent of Seward in +the politics of their State. He favored the compromise, and called +Webster to his cabinet. The administration's influence seemed to turn +the scale, and Clay's series of measures were adopted one by one. There +was dissatisfaction at the South and indignation at the North. The +territorial settlement was substantially in the North's favor. But the +exasperating fact, and pregnant with consequences, was the Fugitive +Slave law. Its provisions were intolerable to the popular conscience. +All citizens were liable to be called to aid in the pursuit and arrest +of a fugitive. He was to be tried before a United States commissioner, +whose decision was final. A man accused of a crime punishable by a small +fine or a brief imprisonment was entitled to a verdict from an impartial +jury of twelve; but a man whose freedom for life was at stake was at the +mercy of a single official. + +Most of the Northern States sooner or later passed "Personal Liberty +laws," which, without directly assuming to nullify the Federal statute, +aimed to defeat its enforcement. They contained such provisions as the +exemption of State officials and State buildings from service in the +rendition of fugitives, and the right of alleged fugitives to be taken +by _habeas corpus_ before a State tribunal. So against the charge of +inhumanity in the Fugitive Slave law, the South brought the +counter-charge of evasion bordering on defiance of a Federal statute. +Few renditions were attempted. Sometimes they were met by forcible +resistance. An alleged fugitive, Jerry, was rescued by the populace in +Syracuse. A negro, Shadrach, arrested as a fugitive in Boston in 1851, +was set free and carried off by a mob. There was a spasm of excitement +in Congress, but it was brief and resultless. Later, in 1854, when the +anti-slavery tide was swiftly rising, came the rendition of Anthony +Burns, who was taken through the streets of Boston under a strong guard +of Federal troops and State militia, while the popular wrath and grief +at the sight swelled the wave which the repeal of the Missouri +compromise had started on its inevitable way. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A LULL AND A RETROSPECT + + +After the half-year's debate over the compromise of 1850 came a time of +political quiet. "The tumult and the shouting died." It seemed more than +a temporary lull. In a great tide of material prosperity, the country +easily forgot the slaves; if out of sight, they were, to most, out of +mind. Webster's speech had a deep significance. He was identified in +Massachusetts with the classes representing commercial prosperity, +social prominence, and academic culture. In these classes, throughout +the North, there was a general apathy as to slavery. The temper of the +time was materialistic. There was indeed enough anti-slavery sentiment, +stirred by the 7th of March speech and the Fugitive Slave law, to change +the balance of power in Massachusetts politics. The Democrats and the +Free Soilers made a coalition, and it triumphed over the Whigs. The +Democrats took the State offices, with George S. Boutwell as Governor; +and Charles Sumner--a scholar, an idealist, an impressive orator, and a +pronounced anti-slavery man, though never an Abolitionist,--was sent to +the Senate to reinforce Seward and Chase. + +The Presidential election of 1852 came on. In the Whig convention +Fillmore had some support, especially from the South; Webster had most +of the Massachusetts votes and scarce any others; and choice was made of +General Winfield Scott, in the hope of repeating the victory of 1848 +with another hero of the Mexican war. It was to Webster a blow past +retrieval; in bitterness of spirit he turned his face to the wall, in +his old home at Marshfield, and died. The Democratic convention +hesitated between several Northern politicians of trustworthy +subserviency to the South,--Cass, Douglas, and Buchanan--and its choice +fell upon Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire, an amiable man, of fair +ability, but easy to manage; he, too, the winner of a trifle of military +glory in the Mexican conquest. Both conventions professed entire content +with the settlements of the compromise. The Free Soilers nominated John +P. Hale of New Hampshire, and made their familiar declaration of +principles. But they had lost their Democratic allies of four years +earlier, and threw only 150,000 votes--less by 100,000 than at the +previous election. The Whig party proved to be on the verge of +dissolution. It had lost its hold on the "conscience vote" of the North, +and was less trusted than its rival by the South. Pierce was chosen by a +great majority; he carried every State except Vermont, Massachusetts, +Kentucky, and Tennessee. + +Party politics were dull; commercial and material interests seemed +wholly in the ascendant, and the anti-slavery cause was at a low ebb. +But many things had happened in two decades, below the surface current +of public events, and, just on the threshold of a new era, we may glance +back over these twenty years. All the European world had been full of +movement. France had passed through three revolutions. Germany, Austria, +and Italy had undergone a political upheaval and subsidence; and the +liberal reverses of 1848 were the precursors of national unity and +constitutional freedom in the near future. + +England had gone steadily on in the path of conservative progress; had +widened its suffrage by the Reform Act of 1832; had relieved distress +and disarmed discontent by the free trade policy of Sir Robert Peel; her +factory legislation had met a crying need of the new industrial epoch, +and she had pacified and energized Canada by giving her +self-government. Meanwhile American progress had been along lines of its +own. The country had grown at a tremendous rate, and mainly at the North +and West. Immigration had poured in from Europe, and the stream of +native stock from the seaboard States to the West had hardly slackened. +It was the epoch of the railroad and the telegraph. Manufactures had +increased and multiplied; acres fell under cultivation by the million. +In this industrial growth the North had far outstripped the South. +Calhoun had urged the construction of railroads to link the eastern and +western parts of the South, but the political motive could not supply +the want of industrial force. The figures of the census of 1850 were +more eloquent than any orator as to the relative effects of free and +slave labor. Intellectually the period had been prolific. Emerson had +risen, the bright morning star of American literature. Bryant, +Hawthorne, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, were telling their stories or +singing their songs. Theology was fruitful of debate and change. The +Unitarian movement had defined itself. Presbyterians and +Congregationalists were discussing the tenets of old school and new. For +"women's rights" a strong and promising advance had been made, in the +face of unpopularity and derision. Religious revivals, foreign missions, +social reforms, were making active way. From all this intellectual and +social movement, unless we except the emotional revivals of religion, +the South stood apart. Literature it had virtually none; its theology +was only conservative and defensive; at most so-called reforms it looked +askance. + +In two respects the South had an advantage. Its social system was +aristocratic; above the slaves came the non-slave-holding whites, +including a great mass of the ignorant and degraded; but at the summit +the slave-holding class had a social life in many ways attractive and +delightful. The slave-holders, all told, numbered some 350,000. The +controlling element consisted of the large planters, with the affiliated +members of the liberal professions. Plantation life at its best had a +great deal of beauty and charm. A degree of improvidence and +"shiftlessness," by Northern standards, was not inconsistent with free +hospitality, a generous outdoor life, an old-time culture with an +atmosphere of leisure and courtesy, superior in its way to what the busy +and bustling North could show. The charming and chivalrous "Colonel +Carter of Cartersville" had many a prototype in real life. A higher type +was sometimes bred in Southern society; it was not without some reason +that Virginians claimed that the mold which produced Washington was not +broken when it could yield a Robert Lee. There was a somber side; +plantation life was often a rank soil for passions of tyranny and +license. But its better fruitage added an element to the composite +American type which could not and cannot be spared. + +The other advantage the South possessed was the devotion of its +strongest men to political life. The loss of commerce and literature was +the gain of politics. The typical Southern leader was apt to be both a +planter and a lawyer, with a strong and active interest in public +affairs. Political oratory was a favorite resource in the +sparsely-settled districts. The personal force which in the North was +scattered among twenty fields was here centered mainly in one. This +feature of Southern society worked together with the fact that the +section had in slavery a common interest and bond. That interest of the +entire section, led by its ablest men, came naturally to be the dominant +factor in American public life. When it could not rule through its own +men, it found agents in subservient Northern politicians. And so it came +about that in the early '50s the South, while outstripped altogether in +population, wealth, industrial and intellectual achievement, was yet in +substantial control of the governmental power. In the North, by the very +magnitude of the commercial and industrial development the moral +sentiment in public affairs seemed submerged or at least eclipsed. + +It was during such a period of apathy that there was held an +anti-slavery meeting at which two negroes were present, Sojourner Truth, +an old woman whose shrewdness matched her fervor, and Frederick +Douglass. Douglass was the son of a white father and a slave mother; he +taught himself to read and write, made his escape into freedom, gained +an education, and became an effective speaker for the anti-slavery +cause. On this occasion he spoke with power and passion of the gloomy +prospects of their people; government, wealth, social advantage, all +were on the side of their oppressors; good people seemed indifferent to +their wrongs; was there indeed any help or hope? Then rose Sojourner +Truth, and looking at him said only, "Frederick! Is God dead?" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +SLAVERY AS IT WAS + + +And now, in the year 1852, there befell an event perhaps as momentous in +American history as any between the establishment of the Constitution +and the Civil War. A frail little woman, the wife of an obscure +theological professor in a Maine village, wrote a story, and that story +captured the heart of the world. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say +that _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ converted the North to the cause of the slave. +The typical Union volunteer of 1861 carried the book in his memory. It +brought home to the heart of the North, and of the world, that the slave +was a man,--one with mankind by that deepest tie, of human love and +aspiration and anguish,--but denied the rights of a man. + +The book was a birth of genius and love. It is absolutely +sweet-spirited. Its intense and irresistible plea is not against a class +or a section, but against a system. It portrays among the Southern +slave-holders characters noble and attractive,--Mrs Shelby, the faithful +mistress, and the fascinating St. Clare. The worst villain in the story +is a renegade Northerner. Its typical Yankee, Miss Ophelia, provokes +kindly laughter. The book mixes humor with its tragedy; the sorrows of +Uncle Tom and the dark story of Cassy are relieved by the pranks of +Black Sam and the antics of Topsy. With all its woes, the story somehow +does not leave a depressing effect; it abounds in courage and action; +the fugitives win their way to freedom; the final impulse is to hopeful +effort against the wrong. Its basal motive was the same as that of the +Abolitionists, but its spirit and method were so different from +Garrison's that it won response and sympathy where he had roused +antagonism. Against pharisaical religion it uses effective +satire,--which was intensified in its successor, _Dred_,--but the +Christianity of faith and life is its animating spirit. No book is +richer in the gospel of love to man and trust in God. Its rank is high +in the new literature which has stimulated and led the great modern +movement for the uplifting of the poor and oppressed. Its place is with +Victor Hugo's _Les Miserables_ and Tolstoi's _War and Peace_. + +The motive of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ was an appeal to the heart of the +American people. There was no reference to political action, far less +any suggestion of servile insurrection, and there was no discussion of +methods of emancipation. The book set forth an organized, monstrous +wrong, which it was in the power of the American nation, and above all, +of the Southern people, to remove. The effect at the North was +immeasurably to widen and deepen the conviction of the wrong of slavery, +and the desire to remove it. But the way to practical action did not +open; and strangely enough there was at first no visible effect on +politics. The political logic of the situation led straight, as a first +step, to the support of the Free Soil party. But though _Uncle Tom's +Cabin_ appeared (as a book) in April, 1852, and its popularity was +instant, the Presidential election seven months later showed a Free Soil +vote less by 100,000 than four years before. The political effect of the +book was to appear only when public events two years later gave a sudden +spur to the hesitating North. + +The South turned a deaf ear to the appeal. It shut the book out from its +borders as far as it could, and one who inquired for it in a Southern +bookstore would probably be offered _Aunt Phillis's Cabin_ or some +other mild literary anti-toxin. The South protested that the book's +picture of slavery was untrue and unjust. It was monstrous, so they +said, that their labor system should be shown as having its natural +result in the whipping to death of a saintly negro for his virtuous +conduct. Another reply was: "If the book is true, it is really a eulogy +of slavery, for it depicts slavery as producing in Uncle Tom a perfect +character." + +To the objections to the fidelity of her portraiture Mrs. Stowe replied +with _A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin_,--a formidable array of proved facts, +as to the laws of the slave States, and specific incidents which +paralleled or exceeded all she had told. As now judged, the novel has +some serious imperfections as a picture of slavery. Probably the most +important of these was expressed by Judge Tourgee, para-phrasing the +proverb about the Russian and the Tartar: "Scratch one of Mrs. Stowe's +negroes, and you will find a white man." She failed adequately to +differentiate the two races, and described the negro too much from such +specimens as Uncle Tom and George and Eliza Harris. She had never lived +in the South, and her knowledge was obtained from observation in the +border town of Cincinnati, from acquaintance with fugitives, and from +the reports of Northern travelers--all interpreted with the insight of +genius and the impulse of philanthropy. Her avowed purpose was not to +make a literal or merely artistic picture, but to show the actual wrongs +and legalized possibilities of wrong which called for redress. It did +not lessen the justice of her plea, that the mass of negroes were more +degraded than she knew, or that their average treatment was kinder than +her portrayal showed. + +But a true historical judgment of slavery must rest on a comparison of +documents. The story told from the master's standpoint should be heard. +Among the faithful and graphic narrations of this sort may be named Mrs. +Burton Harrison's _Flower de Hundred_,--a volume of personal +reminiscences of Virginia before the war. It is a charming story, +without motive other than the pleasure of recalling happy memories, and +it describes a society of various and vivid charm. The mention of the +slaves is occasional and incidental; but the description of the +plantation hands, and especially the household servants, trusted and +beloved, gives a sunny and doubtless a real side of slavery. Another +book is fuller and more impressive in its treatment. It might be said +that every American ought to read _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ as a part of his +education, and to follow it with two other books of real life. One of +these is _A Southern Planter_,--a biography of Thomas Dabney, of +Virginia and later of Mississippi, written by his daughter. It is a +story amply worth reading for its human interest, and for its +presentation of a man of noble and beautiful character. One is enriched +by the acquaintance, even through a book, of a man like Thomas Dabney. +And it is most desirable for the Northerner to vivify his impression of +the South by the knowledge of men like him. We are misled by general and +geographical terms: "an Englishman" is a vague and perhaps unattractive +term to an American until he knows, in books or in flesh and blood, a +few Britons of the right stamp. And so South and North need mutual +interpretation not alone through their historic heroes, but through the +best of their everyday people. And of those best, surely Thomas Dabney +was one,--a strong, tender, noble man, fulfilling each relation in +family and society with loyal conscience and sympathetic heart. + +From the book we can give but a few instances of plantation life as such +a man made it. When he was to move from Virginia to Mississippi he +called together all his slaves,--some hundreds--and told them he wanted +to take none of them against their will, and especially he would not +break up any families. If any of them had wives or husbands on other +plantations, he would sell or buy, just as they wished, so that every +family should stay or go together. Every one of them elected to go with +their old master. Settled in Mississippi, his cotton plantation became +the admiration and envy of the neighbors, for the size of the crops as +well as the condition of the workers. Their comfort was amply secured. +The general rule was three hours' rest at midday and a Saturday +half-holiday. At the height of the season hours were longer, but there +was a system of prizes, for four or five months in the year, from $1 a +week to a picayune; with an extra prize of a $5 gold piece for anyone +picking 600 pounds a day; and these prizes roused such interest and +excitement that some of the ambitious ones had to be compelled to leave +the field at night, wishing to sleep at the end of their row. The +inefficient were gently tolerated; severe punishment was held to be +alike cruel and useless; an incompetent servant was carried as a burden +from which there was no escape. Such endurance was the way of all good +masters and mistresses at the South,--"and I have known very few who +were not good," adds the writer. The plantation trained and kept its own +mechanics; two each of carpenters, blacksmiths, millers, with five +seamstresses in the house. In the house, under the mistress's eye, were +cut and made the clothes of all the negroes, two woolen and two cotton +suits a year, with a gay calico Sunday dress for each woman. The women +were taught sewing in the house. When their babies were born a nurse was +provided, and all the mother's work done for her for a month, and for a +year she was allowed ample leisure for the care of the baby. The sons of +the family taught reading to those who wished to learn. Some of the +house servants were very fine characters; the sketch of "Mammy Maria" +one would gladly reproduce. When secession came on, Thomas Dabney +altogether disapproved, and foresaw the ruin of the South. He proposed +to his wife that they close up their affairs, and go to live in England. +Her reply was: "What will you do with Abby? and with Maria and Harriet, +and their husbands and children, and the rest of our people?" That was +unanswerable. So he stayed, and with his family shared the +fighting,--for, the war begun, Dabney gave his hearty support to the +Southern cause, and his sons went to the field,--shared the hardships of +a devastated country, the social chaos that followed, and the slow +reconstruction,--a more intrepid and lovable figure in adversity than +before. + +His daughter writes: "In the family of Thomas Dabney the first feeling +when the war ended was of joy that one dreadful responsibility at least +was removed. Gradual emancipation had been a hope and a dream not to be +realized." "A hope and a dream,"--it does not appear that it had ever +been seriously considered as a purpose or a duty. "Not an intelligent +white man or woman in the South," says the writer, "would now wish +slavery restored." But why,--it is impossible not to return to the +question,--why had the South done nothing to rid itself of the evil? Why +had it centered its political energies in maintaining and extending it? +Why had it revolted from the Union and invited war and ruin, for a +system which when once removed it recognized as a burden and a curse? No +right minded man can ponder that question without taking a step further, +and asking whether the evils in our present industrial system shall be +allowed to go on till they bring down the temple on our heads, or be met +with deliberate and resolute cure. And the good and conscientious man +who does his best under the existing system--as Thomas Dabney did under +slavery--is yet derelict unless he gives his thought and effort to such +radical amendment as the system may need. + +There is yet another book in illustration of slavery which ought to be +read by every American. It is Fanny Kemble Butler's _A Residence on a +Georgia Plantation_. She was a woman of unusual genius, character, and +sensibility; the inheritor of a great dramatic talent, and a brilliant +actress until she married Mr. Butler of Georgia, and left the stage to +live with him on the plantation owned by himself and his brother. After +no long period she left her husband, not taking the world into her +confidence as to her domestic affairs, but returning to the stage as a +dramatic reader, and passing into honored private life. After the +outbreak of the Civil War she published, with some reserves and some +additions, the journal she had kept during her life on the plantation. +As to her personal relations, except as touching the slaves, the book is +entirely reticent, but it is plain that slavery as she saw it made life +under those conditions literally intolerable. Below all special +cruelties, she writes, she felt the ever-present, vivid wrong of living +on the unpaid labor of servants. The special wrongs were constant. Thus +she describes the parting of a family of slaves, and the husband's awful +distress. She tells of the head-driver, Frank, an every way superior +man, left at some seasons in sole charge of the plantation; but his wife +was taken from him and made the mistress of the overseer. There was +Engineer Ned, intelligent and capable, and himself not badly treated, +but with a wife broken down by being driven to field work too soon after +the birth of a child. Half the women on the plantation were diseased +from the same cause. One woman brought to her mistress a pitiful tale of +such suffering. A little later the mistress learned that the woman, on +the ground that this visit had caused her day's labor to come short, +had received a flogging. She appealed to her husband, but he refused to +interfere. "To Mr. ----'s assertion of the justice of poor Theresa's +punishment, I retorted the manifest injustice of unpaid and enforced +labor; the brutal inhumanity of allowing a man to strip and lash a +woman, the mother of ten children; to exact from her toil which was to +maintain in luxury two idle young men, the owners of the plantation. I +said I thought female labor of the sort exacted from these slaves, and +corporal chastizement such as they endure, must be abhorrent to any +manly or humane man. Mr. ---- said he thought it was disagreeable, and +left me to my reflections with that concession." Presently he refused to +listen to any more such petitions from her. She writes: "A wild wish +rose in my heart that the river and the sea would swallow up and melt in +their salt waves the whole of this accursed property of ours." + +The principal physical hardships, she writes, fell to the women. The +children and the old people are idle and neglected; the middle-aged men +do not seem over-worked, and lead a mere animal existence, in itself not +peculiarly cruel or distressing, but with a constant element of fear and +uncertainty, "and the trifling evils of unrequited labor, ignorance the +most profound (to which they are condemned by law), and the unutterable +injustice which precludes them from all the merits and all the benefits +of voluntary exertion, and the progress that results from it." + +Her eye notes closely the faces about her. When she gathers the slaves +to read prayers to them, she observes "their sable faces, so many of +them so uncouth in their outlines and proportions, and yet all of them +so pathetic, and some so sublime in their expression of patient +suffering and religious fervor." She says: "Just in proportion as I have +found the slaves on this plantation intelligent and advanced, I have +observed this pathetic expression of countenance in them, a mixture of +sadness and fear." The plantation, she writes, was well reputed, and its +management was considered above the average. + +Her analysis of the master class in the South is keen and striking. "The +shop is not their element, and the eager spirit of speculation and the +sordid spirit of gain do not infect their whole existence, even to their +very demeanor and appearance, as they too manifestly do those of a large +proportion of the inhabitants of the Northern States. The Southerners +are infinitely better bred men, according to English notions, than the +men of the Northern States. The habit of command gives them a certain +self-possession, the enjoyment of leisure a certain ease. Their +temperament is impulsive and enthusiastic, and their manners have the +grace and spirit which seldom belong to the development of a Northern +people; but upon more familiar acquaintance the vices of the social +system to which they belong will be found to have infected them with +their own peculiar taint; and haughty, over-bearing irritability, +effeminate indolence, reckless extravagance, and a union of profligacy +and cruelty which is the immediate result of their irresponsible power +over their dependents, are some of the less pleasing traits." + +She gives another and darker picture of the planter class. It goes +without saying that it is only a part of the class to which it fairly +applies: "A nation, for as such they should be spoken of, of men whose +organization and temperament is that of the southern European, living +under the influence of a climate at once enervating and exciting, +scattered over trackless wildernesses of arid sand and pestilential +swamp, intrenched within their own boundaries, surrounded by creatures +absolutely subject to their despotic will; delivered over by hard +necessity to the lowest excitements of drinking, gambling, and +debauchery for sole recreation; independent of all opinion; ignorant of +all progress; isolated from all society--it is impossible to conceive a +more savage existence within the border of any modern civilization." The +picture of the poor whites is graphic and somber, but space must limit +these quotations. + +She gives credit for the habits of courage and command, which are bred +in the upper class, as when she tells of a heroic rescue from a +shipwreck: "The devil must have his due, and men brought up in habits of +peremptory command over their fellowmen, and under the constant +apprehension of danger and awful necessity of immediate readiness to +meet it, acquire qualities precious to themselves and others in hours of +supreme peril." + +She touches repeatedly on the social restrictions on free speech; thus, +speaking of two gentlemen, one a clergyman: "They seem good and kind and +amiable men, and I have no doubt are conscientious in their capacity of +slave holders; but to one who has lived outside this dreadful +atmosphere, the whole tone of their discourse has a morally muffled +sound which one must hear to be able to conceive." She observes that +whenever she discusses slavery with people she meets, they waive the +abstract right or wrong of the system. Now and then she gets a bit of +entire frankness, as when a very distinguished South Carolinian says to +her, "I'll tell you why abolition is impossible; because every healthy +negro can fetch $1000 in Charleston market at this moment." + +She generalizes as to the effects of emancipation in a way which later +events completely justified. Unlike the West Indies, she says, the South +is not tropical, and will not yield food without labor, and necessity +would compel the liberated blacks to work. That they would not work, and +the ground would lie idle, was, as we know, the bogy which was held up +to scare away from emancipation--just as in our own day the danger of +race mixture is made a bogy to scare away from social justice. But the +event proved that Fanny Kemble was right in her predictions, in which +indeed she was at one with other candid observers at the time. As to +gradual emancipation, she believed it unwise--the system, she writes, is +too absolutely bad for slow measures. Had she owned her husband's +plantation, she would at once have freed the slaves, and hired them, if +only as a means of financial salvation. + +She pronounces _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ to be no exaggeration. Her own story +of facts gives a darker impression than Mrs. Stowe's novel. It may be +asked, why, at this distance, revive the tragic tale? The answer is, +that the truth of history is precious, and our present problems cannot +be understood if we shut our eyes to their antecedents. Just now there +is a fashion, among many Southern writers on the negro question, of +beginning their story with the wrongs and sufferings of the +reconstruction period. Now, it was indeed deplorable, and a thing not to +be forgotten, that ignorant negroes sat in the Senate chambers of South +Carolina and Mississippi, that taxes were excessive, and the public +business mismanaged. But, in the broad view, it is well to remember that +a few years earlier very much worse things than these were happening, +and that a system which made cattle of men and women might be expected +to avenge itself. + +Another work may be merely mentioned as illuminating the facts of +slavery. It is Frederic Law Olmsted's three volumes of travels in the +slave States. He studied them with the eyes of a farmer and a practical +man; a well-equipped, fair, and keen observer. His testimony, already +touched on in these chapters, is very strong as to the economic mischief +of the system, its frequent cruelties, its demoralization of both +master and slave, and the absolute need of its ultimate extinction. From +his pages we can borrow but one or two passages. The contrasts of +slavery are epitomized in two plantations he found side by side in +Mississippi. On one the slaves had good food and clothes, were not +driven hard, were given three stops in the day for meals, and had the +time from Friday night till Monday morning for themselves. In this time +the men cultivated gardens and the women washed and sewed. They were +smartly dressed, and seemed very contented; many could read and write; +on Sundays there was a church service and a Sabbath school taught by +their mistress, both of which they could attend or not as they pleased. +On the other plantation, owned by a religious woman, the working hours +were from 3.30 A. M. to 9 P. M. The slaves had only Sunday free from +labor, and on that day there were three services which they had to +attend under penalty of a whipping. They were never allowed off the +plantation, and were whipped if they talked with slaves from other +plantations. Said a neighbor, "They can all repeat the catechism, but +they are the dullest, laziest, and most sorrowful negroes I ever saw." + +As to the possibilities of gradual emancipation, which he favored, +Olmsted wrote that in Cuba every slave has the right of buying his own +freedom, at a price which does not depend on the selfish exaction of his +master, but is either a fixed price or is determined in each case by +disinterested appraisers. "The consequence is that emancipations are +continually going on, and the free people of color are becoming +enlightened, cultivated, and wealthy. In no part of the United States do +they occupy the high position which they enjoy in Cuba." So much for the +despised Spanish-American. + +From a still different standpoint--that of the non-slaveholding +Southern white--the system was reviewed and scathingly judged in +Helper's _The Impending Crisis_. But that, like _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, was +not merely a book, but an event, and as such is to be mentioned in its +place among events. The general survey of the slave system in itself +need not here be carried further. As to its essential character and +basal principle, no truer word was ever spoken than that which Mrs. +Stowe puts in the mouth of the slaveholder St. Clare: + +"The short of the matter is, cousin, on this abstract question of +slavery there can, as I think, be but one opinion. Planters, +who have money to make by it,--clergymen, who have planters to +please,--politicians, who want to rule by it,--may warp and bend +language and ethics to a degree that shall astonish the world at their +ingenuity; they can press Nature and the Bible, and nobody knows what +else, into the service; but, after all, neither they nor the world +believe in it one particle the more. It comes from the devil, that's the +short of it,--and to my mind, it's a pretty respectable specimen of what +he can do in his own line. You seem to wonder; but if you will get me +fairly at it, I'll make a clean breast of it. This cursed business, +accursed of God and man, what is it? Strip it of all its ornament, run +it down to the root and nucleus of the whole, and what is it? Why, +because my brother Quashy is ignorant and weak, and I am intelligent and +strong,--because I know how, and can do it,--therefore I may steal all +he has, keep it, and give him only such and so much as suits my fancy. +Whatever is too hard, too dirty, too disagreeable, for me, I may set +Quashy to doing. Because I don't like work, Quashy shall work. Because +the sun burns me, Quashy shall stay in the sun. Quashy shall earn the +money, and I will spend it. Quashy shall lie down in every puddle, that +I may walk over dry-shod. Quashy shall do my will, and not his, all the +days of his mortal life, and have such chance of getting to heaven, at +last, as I find convenient. This I take to be about what slavery is." + +St. Clare goes on to say that "for pity's sake, for shame's sake, +because we are men born of women and not savage beasts, many of us do +not and dare not--we would scorn to--use the full power which our savage +laws put into our hands." In truth, a compilation of the slave laws was +one of the most convincing arguments against the whole system. + +This book is characterized by Charles G. Ames,--whose long life of noble +service to humanity included earnest work among the anti-slavery +pioneers: "To my mind, the heaviest blow, though probably not the most +telling one, ever struck against our slave system as a system was the +compilation and publication of Stroud's _Slave Laws_--a codification +from the statute-books of the Southern States of their own barbarous +methods of legislation, made necessary for the protection of the +peculiar institution. All the recent sentimental defenses of it, as +gentle, humane, and patriarchal, seem utterly to ignore the rugged +facts, which Lawyer Stroud's book made as plain as the stratification of +the rocks to the eye of the geologist." + +In its actual administration, the system was in a measure softened and +humanized. It was more humane in the border than in the cotton and sugar +States, and it was generally better when a plantation was managed by its +owner than when left to an overseer,--as the plantation of Fanny +Kemble's husband had been left. But in one respect its disastrous effect +was everywhere felt. By associating manual labor with the stigma of +servitude, it bred, in free men, a strong disrelish for work,--a most +demoralizing and ruinous influence. Inefficiency and degradation were +the marks of the non-slaveholding whites. The master class missed the +wholesome regimen of toil. Nature is never more beneficent than when +she lays on man the imperative command "Thou shalt work." Of all ways of +evading it the worst is to shift the burden to another man. In being +driven to do other men's work as well as his own the negro found some +compensation, but his enslaver paid a constant and heavy penalty. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS + + +The foremost politician of the Northwest, in the early '50s, was Stephen +A. Douglas, United States senator from Illinois. He was a native of +Vermont, and had early gone West and pushed his fortunes with energy, +audacity, and shrewdness. He was an effective, popular speaker; and his +short and stout frame and large head had won for him the nickname of +"The Little Giant." He was a leader in the Democratic party, and a +prominent Presidential candidate, but never identified with any great +political principle or broad policy. He was chairman of the Senate +committee on Territories, and early in the session of 1853-4 he +introduced a bill for the organization of a vast section hitherto known +as "the Platte country," a part of the Louisiana purchase, lying next to +the western tier of States, and stretching from Indian Territory to +Canada; all of which was now to constitute the Territory of Nebraska, +or, as it was soon divided, the two Territories of Nebraska and Kansas. +This region had as yet been scarcely touched by permanent settlers, but +it was the next step in the great onward march toward the Pacific. It +lay north of the line of 36 degrees 30 minutes, above which it had been +declared by the compromise act of 1820 slavery should never be extended. +Douglas incorporated in his "Kansas-Nebraska" bill, a clause declaring +that the prohibition of slavery north of 36 degrees 30 minutes, by the +act of 1820, had been "superseded by the principles of the legislation +of 1850," and was "inoperative and void." Later he added the +explanatory clause: "It being the true intent and meaning of this act, +not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it +therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and +regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to +the Constitution of the United States." On its face, this was a proposal +to withdraw the congressional prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern +territory, and remand the question to the territorial population. But +the latent purpose to distinctly favor slavery was proved when Senator +Chase moved an additional clause: "Under which (the Constitution) the +people of the Territory, through their appropriate representatives, may, +if they see fit, prohibit the existence of slavery therein"; and Douglas +and his followers, in defiance of consistency, instantly threw this out. +The meaning of the whole business was unmistakable; under the pretext of +"popular sovereignty,"--Douglas's favorite watchword--the bars were +thrown down and slavery was invited to enter. + +The proposal took the country completely by surprise. The South was not +asking for any such advantage as was offered, but was prompt to accept +it. This of course Douglas had expected, and in this lay his personal +gain as a Presidential candidate. But he had utterly misjudged the +temper of the North. The general acquiescence in the compromise of 1850 +might seem to indicate a weariness or indifference as to the slavery +question. But just as in 1820 and in 1850, again there sprung up a wide +and deep hostility to any extension of slavery, and now the old +restraints on that hostility were gone, and its sources were newly +filled. For now Clay and Webster were dead, and the case itself offered +no room for compromise; no offset was possible. And the anti-slavery +feeling had strengthened immensely throughout the North. Under the +stimulus of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, the inhumanity of the system had made +the deepest impression on the popular imagination and conscience. To +this system it was now proposed to throw open all the fair and fertile +Northwest, in effect from the Mississippi to the Pacific. The North +awoke like a giant from sleep. The old party organizations went down in +the shock; a new party came instantly to birth; and the last triumph of +slavery in Congress gave the signal for a six-years' campaign, ending in +the triumph of the Republicans and the appeal of the South to +revolution. + +The debate in Congress was hot through the winter and spring of 1854. In +the Senate, Seward and Sumner and Chase had been reinforced by such +allies as Benjamin Wade of Ohio, Hamilton Fish of New York, Solomon Foot +of Vermont, and William P. Fessenden of Maine. The supporters of the +bill, with such leaders as Douglas and Cass from the North and Mason and +Benjamin from the South, proved finally to number three-fourths of the +Senate. In the House, party lines were completely broken, and the +division was almost equal,--the bill passed by 113 to 110. Its +supporters included all the Southern and just half of the Northern +Democrats, and two-thirds of the few Southern Whigs. Its opponents were +all the Northern and a third of the Southern Whigs, with half of the +Northern Democrats and the four Free-Soilers in the House. + +The bill finally passed on the 25th of May, 1854, and there instantly +began a hot battle for the congressional election. On the very next +morning,--so Henry Wilson relates,--a meeting of about twenty members of +the House was held; among their leaders were Israel Washburn, Jr., of +Maine, and Edward Dickinson and Thomas D. Eliot of Massachusetts; and it +was agreed that the best hope lay not in the Whig organization, but in a +new party, for which the name "Republican" was chosen; and of which +this occasion might now be considered the birth and christening. It +came to its earliest maturity in Michigan, where the Whigs and Free +Soilers united in the new party and carried the autumn election. But in +most Northern States there was political confusion, heightened by the +sudden appearance of the "American" party. This was the political +development of the "Know-nothing" secret society, which came into +existence the year before, on the basis of the exclusion of recent +immigrants from political power. Its special animus was hostility to the +Irish Catholics, and in various parts of the country it had for a year +or two a mushroom growth. In Massachusetts, where the Whigs clung +obstinately to their tradition and their social prestige, and the +Republican party was at first only a continuance of the Free Soil, the +Know-nothings won in 1854 a sweeping victory, carrying the State by +almost two to one and electing all the members of Congress. That shrewd +politician, Henry Wilson, contributed to the result; was elected to the +United States Senate; and led the anti-slavery element which controlled +the American party in Massachusetts and a year or two later divided its +national organization. In other States, the term "anti-Nebraska" was the +basis of a temporary union, such as in Ohio had a majority of 70,000. In +New York the influence of Greeley, Seward, and Weed prolonged the Whig +organization as an anti-Nebraska party. The roster of the new Congress +was a jumble of Democrats, Whigs, Republicans, Americans, and +anti-Nebraskans. But the general result was clear; Douglas's bill had +turned an overwhelming administration majority into a minority of the +popular vote; and the political revolution had carried the House in the +first engagement. The result crystallized a year later, when an +obstinate battle of many weeks for the House speakership ended in the +election of Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts. + +The immediate practical effect of the Kansas-Nebraska Act was to throw +the political destiny of those Territories into the hands of the future +settlers. There were men at the North who were prompt to see and seize +the opportunity. In February, 1854, three months before the bill became +law, the New England Emigrant Aid Society was incorporated in +Massachusetts. Its originator was Eli Thayer of Worcester, and among its +active promoters was Edward Everett Hale. In the following July it sent +to Kansas a colony of twenty-four, speedily followed by another of +seventy, which founded the town of Lawrence. Other colonies followed +from various Northern States, and other settlements were made. The +natural westward movement of an active population seeking new homes and +personal betterment was augmented and stimulated by a propaganda of +freedom. Whittier gave the colonists a marching song: + + We cross the prairies as of old + Our fathers crossed the sea, + To make the West as they the East + The home of liberty. + +A counter movement was started from the South. Missouri was its natural +base. But Missouri furnished the material and leadership for another +kind of crusade. The rough and lawless element of a border community was +brought out in its worst character by the appeal to champion the cause +of slavery. Men high in political life were ready to utilize such +forces. The first settlers of Lawrence, before they had time to raise +their houses, were visited by a ruffianly mob from Missouri, who tried +by threats and show of force to drive them from the Territory, but +failed. When in November the first election was held for Territorial +delegate to Congress, there was a systematic invasion by bands of +Missourians, who captured the polling-places and elected their +candidate by 3000 votes; though it was afterward proved that there were +only half that number of voters resident in Kansas. + +In 1855 the first Territorial Legislature was elected by a similar +invasion of armed men, which chose the entire body. A foremost leader in +these operations was United States Senator Atchison of Missouri. +President Pierce's administration recognized the usurping faction. It +sent a succession of governors--Reeder, Shannon, Geary, Walker (the last +was sent by President Buchanan)--who, with the exception of the +incompetent and worthless Shannon, were by the inexorable facts of the +situation won to the side of the Free-State men, and accordingly lost +favor and their office. Meantime the usurping Legislature had enacted an +extraordinary code of laws. By these statutes, decoying a slave from his +master was punishable by death or hard labor for ten years; the +circulation of writings inciting to revolt was made a capital offense; +and the assertion by speech, writing, or the circulation of any book or +paper, that slavery was not lawful in the Territory, was punishable by +two years' hard labor. + +It was not in the blood of free men to submit to such usurpation and +tyranny. In the autumn of 1855 the Free State party held a convention, +adopted a State constitution, and petitioned for admission to the Union. +They elected State officers with Charles S. Robinson as Governor. This +organization had really no legal standing; in form it was revolutionary. +But the Free State party were not only resolute, but adroit. They had no +mind to actively rebel against the United States Government, or come +into collision with its forces. Governor Robinson, their foremost +leader, was a man of New England birth, who had served a profitable +apprenticeship in the settlement of California, and learned a lesson +amid the complications of Federal authority and pioneer exigencies. +Counseled by him and men of like mind, the Free State party, while +maintaining the form of a State government, and disavowing the +Territorial Legislature as fraudulent, always deferred to any express +mandate of Federal authority. The Federal troops in the Territory were +commanded by Colonel Sumner, afterward a distinguished commander in the +Union army, and Governor Robinson (_The Kansas Conflict_), credits him +with a loyal and generally successful purpose to preserve order and +peace. In the mixed population there was much bad blood, many threats, +and occasional violence, but no general conflict. The "border ruffians" +were often insulting, and some murders were committed, but the Free +State men kept steadily on the defensive, though there was among them a +faction which favored more aggressive measures. + +At last, a Free-State man was wantonly murdered; then an eye-witness of +the murder was got away on an apparently trumped-up charge; this was +followed by a bloodless rescue and the witness was carried off to +Lawrence. Then a sheriff with his posse went to Lawrence to arrest one +of the rescuers. In the night the sheriff was fired at and wounded. He +retreated; and immediately afterward a formidable demonstration was made +against the town of Lawrence. The situation was peculiar. Many of the +Free-State men were armed; contributions had been openly taken in the +North for this purpose, and "Sharpe's rifles" was one of the familiar +words of the day. But this policy was fixed--to disown and disobey the +authority of the Territorial Legislature, but never to oppose or resist +a United States official. In this way, says Robinson, the entire odium +of all oppressive proceedings was fixed on the Federal administration; +"the more outrages the people could get the government to perpetrate +upon them the more victories they would gain, and this simply because +the field of battle embraced the entire country, and the chief +victories at this stage were to be moral, political, and national." + +The Territorial authorities were bent on breaking down, if possible, the +passive resistance of the Free-State men. Indictments were found, by a +Federal grand jury, against a number of members of the Free-State +government for "constructive treason," and they were put under arrest. +Indictments were also found against two printing offices in Lawrence, +and the principal hotel in the town. A large force of Missourians, led +by a United States marshal, advanced on the town. The inhabitants +protested, but agreed to respect the United States authority. The hotel +and the two printing offices were accordingly destroyed. A considerable +amount of lawless pillaging was done, and Governor Robinson's house was +burned. Then the force was withdrawn. + +The Free-State leaders, as Robinson states, were in no wise cast down by +the course of events. Their actual losses had not been great; the +temporary confinement of a few of their men did not seriously disturb +them; and they considered that by their self-restraint and +non-resistance they had put their enemies thoroughly in the wrong, and +gained a most valuable vantage-ground for the ensuing Presidential and +congressional elections--an estimate which the result fully justified. + +But in their party were some spirits to whom these peaceful tactics were +distasteful. Chief in this number was John Brown--little known to the +world at large till a later time. He and his family of sons had made +their homes in Kansas, impelled partly by the hostility to slavery which +in him was a master passion. He was a man personally upright and kindly, +of only moderate interest and capacity for the ordinary practical +affairs of life, given to brooding on public events and ideal causes, +and viewing them with a fanatic's narrowness and a fanatic's +absorption. He was a belated Puritan, and his natural place would have +been with Cromwell's Ironsides. His ideas were largely influenced by his +reading of the Bible, especially of the Old Testament. Of the modern +State and the duties of the modern citizen he had no rational idea. +Following the Old Testament analogy, he conceived of the slaveholders as +the enemies of God--like the Canaanites; and he came to imagine for +himself a mission like one of the Hebrew leaders. His favorite hero +seems to have been Gideon, and to assail and overcome the Midianites, a +handful against a host, became his dream. + +How the peaceful tactics of the Free-State party suited his temper may +be easily guessed, and four days after the attack on Lawrence (which was +May 20, 1856), he acted on a plan of his own. At the head of a small +group of men, including two of his sons and a son-in-law, he went at +night down Pottawatomie creek, stopping at three houses. The men who +lived in them were well-known pro-slavery men; they seem to have been +rough characters; their most specific offense (according to Mr. Sanborn, +Brown's biographer and eulogist), was the driving from his home by +violent threats an inoffensive old man. John Brown and his party went +down the creek, called at one after the other of three houses; took five +men away from their wives and children; and deliberately shot one and +hacked the others to death with swords. + +Mr. Sanborn's defense of this act is: "Brown long foresaw the deadly +conflict with the slave power which culminated in the Civil War, and was +eager to begin it, that it might be the sooner over." He begins his +chapter on "The Pottawatomie Executions": "The story of John Brown will +mean little to those who do not believe that God governs the world, and +that he makes his will known in advance to certain chosen men and +women, who perform it consciously or unconsciously. Of such prophetic +heaven-appointed men, John Brown was the most conspicuous in our time, +and his life must be construed in the light of that fact." He also +declares that the "execution" of these five men was an offset to the +killing of five Free-State men by various persons during the preceding +twelve-month, and that it was calculated to strike wholesome terror into +evil-doers. The ethics, theology, and statesmanship of this defense are +possible only to one bent on making Brown a hero at any cost. + +The natural result of the Pottawatomie "executions,"--in which John +Brown's complicity was for a time concealed--was a series of +retaliations on both sides, and a state of affairs far more anarchic +than Kansas had known before. This lasted through the summer of 1856. +The general impression on the country was to strengthen the opposition +to the usurpation of the Territorial Legislature, and to the +administration which sustained it. In September there came a crisis. +Another and graver attack on Lawrence was threatened, and this time a +vigorous resistance was probable. But a new and able governor, John W. +Geary of Pennsylvania, had been dispatched by President Pierce, with +imperative instructions to pacify the Territory, as a pressing political +necessity. Geary met Robinson--the treason prisoners had already been +released--and as the two men had been near each other in the California +troubles and thus had the advantage of a mutual acquaintance, an +understanding was soon reached; Geary called off the dogs of war, and a +time of quiet followed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +"FREMONT AND FREEDOM" + + +The Congress of 1855-6, divided between an administration Senate and an +opposition House, accomplished little but talk. One chapter of this talk +had a notable sequel. Charles Sumner, in an elaborate and powerful +oration in the Senate, denounced slavery, "the sum of all villainies," +and bitterly satirized one of its prominent defenders, Senator Butler of +South Carolina. He compared Butler to Don Quixote, enamored of slavery +as was the knight of his Dulcinea, and unconscious that instead of a +peerless lady she was but a wanton. The response to the speech was made +by a nephew of Senator Butler and member of the House, Preston S. Brooks +of South Carolina. He entered the Senate chamber during a recess, +accompanied and guarded by a friend and fellow member, Lawrence Keitt; +approached Sumner as he sat writing at his desk, and without words +felled him to the ground with a heavy cane, and beat him about the head +till he was insensible. Sumner, a man of fine physique, was for a long +time an invalid from the assault, and was unable for years to resume his +place in the Senate. + +It was not so much the individual act of Brooks as its treatment by his +party and section that gave the deepest significance to the deed and +produced the most lasting effect. A friendly magistrate sentenced Brooks +to a nominal fine and so forestalled further prosecution. His party +friends in Congress left all public rebuke of the deed to Republicans. A +motion to expel Brooks and Keitt from the House failed of the necessary +two-thirds vote. They resigned, and were promptly and triumphantly +re-elected. Noisy applause of the attack came from all parts of the +South, with a stack of canes marked "Hit him again." That better class +of Southerners by whom the assault was felt, as one of them expressed it +long afterward, "like a blow in the face," made no demonstration. So far +from losing caste, as a gentleman or a public man, Brooks not only kept +his place in society, but was honored a few months later with a public +banquet, at which such men as Butler and Toombs and Mason joined in the +laudations, and gave a background to the scene by free threats of +disunion if the Republicans elected their President. + +This treatment of Brooks made an impression at the North far beyond the +first hot indignation at his brutal outrage. The condonation and +applause of that outrage was taken as sure evidence of a barbaric state +of opinion, the natural accompaniment of slavery. What made the matter +worse was that the assault had a technical justification under the code +of honor which it was Brooks's pride as a Southern gentleman to observe. +The code called on a man who had given offense by his words to meet the +offended man in a duel, and if he refused, he was fairly subject to +public disgrace or even physical chastisement. Such a theory and +practice, and the sentiments associated with it, stamped slavery with a +heavier condemnation than orator or novelist could frame. + +This one week in May, 1856, was dark with omens of impending +catastrophe. On May 20 Lawrence was devastated; on the 22d, Sumner was +assaulted; and on the 24th took place the Pottawatomie massacre. A +shadow as of impending doom was reflected in Mrs. Stowe's second +anti-slavery novel, _Dred_, which appeared about this time. While +lacking the inspiration and power of _Uncle Tom's_ Cabin, it had in the +main a similar tone of humanity, sympathy and fairness. Again the better +element of the Southern whites was portrayed, in the benevolent +slave-holder Clayton; the brave Methodist preacher, Father Dickson; and +the book's heroine, Nina Gordon. There were realistic and graphic +pictures of the negro at his best, in Old Tiff and Milly. The +sophistries and time-serving of ecclesiastics were fairly pictured. The +fundamental attitude of the law in regarding the slave as the creature +of his master's convenience was shown with historic fidelity. But the +book took its name from a negro, half-prophetic, half-crazed, who +maintained in the Dismal Swamp a refuge for slaves, and purposed an +uprising to conquer their freedom. To Southern imaginations it might +well recall Nat Turner and the horrors of his revolt. Mrs. Stowe +inevitably idealized everything she touched; and to idealize the leader +of a servile insurrection might well be regarded as carrying fire into a +powder magazine. The moving expostulation of the Christian slave Milly +with Dred, the death of Dred, the frustration of his plans, and the +pitiful wrongs he sought to redress, veiled from the Northern reader the +suggestion of other dangers and tragedies to which the Southern reader +was keenly alive. As we read the book now, the glimpses of coming terror +and disaster in Dred's visions seem like a presage of the war which in +truth was only four years away. + +But the prevailing temper of the time was as yet little clouded by any +such forebodings. It was a great wave of popular enthusiasm, sane, +resolute, and hopeful, which moved forward in the first Presidential +campaign of the Republican party in 1856. The convention met at +Philadelphia in June. Its temper was well described in a letter from +Samuel Bowles to his paper, the _Springfield Republican_,--which which +from moderate anti-slavery Whig had become ardently Republican when the +Missouri compromise was repealed.[1] + +"Certainly we never saw a political convention in which there was so +much soul as in that at Philadelphia. It was politics with a heart and a +conscience in it. Cincinnati (the Democratic convention) gathered the +remains of a once powerful national party and contributed to its further +sectionalization and destruction. Philadelphia called together the +heart, the independence, and the brains of all parties, to establish a +broader and juster nationality. Such a fusion of contradictory elements +was never witnessed in this country before since the times of the +Revolution. Nor could it happen now save under a great emergency, and +from a controlling necessity. Such a combination of the material and +mental forces of the republic as was represented in the Philadelphia +convention, and united in its enthusiastic and harmonious results, has +more power than any political combination ever formed before in this +country, and cannot in the nature of things be long kept in the +background. There is no law more certain than that which will throw such +a union of the moral strength, intellectual activity, and youthful +energy of the nation into supremacy, and that right speedily. It may be +delayed for a season, but its course is onward and its victory is +certain." + +The declaration of principles dealt wholly with the slavery issue. It +asserted that under the Constitution, as interpreted by the Declaration +and the ordinance of 1787, slavery had no right to exist in any of the +national Territories. It called on Congress to prohibit in the +Territories "the twin relics of barbarism, slavery and polygamy." It +dwelt with great emphasis on the wrongs of the Kansas settlers; the +establishment of a Territorial Legislature by a fraudulent vote; its +outrageous statute-book; the sustaining of the usurpation by the Federal +government; the resulting disorder and violence. Congress was asked to +admit Kansas to the Union under its Free State organization. Nothing was +said as to the fugitive slave law. There was an express disclaimer of +any interference with slavery in the States. The doctrine of the party +was embodied in a phrase which became one of its mottoes: "Freedom +national, slavery sectional." + +For its Presidential candidate the convention passed by all the +well-known political leaders, and chose Col. John C. Fremont of +California. Fremont, after a scientific and military education, had +distinguished himself by a series of brilliant exploring expeditions in +the farthest Northwest, marked by scientific achievement and stirring +adventure. Arriving in California at the outbreak of hostilities with +Mexico, he rallied and led the American settlers and drove the Mexicans +from the territory. He took a leading part in organizing the State, and +establishing freedom in its Constitution; and was elected to the United +States Senate as a Free-Soil Democrat. His term as Senator was too brief +to win eminence, but his career as a whole had been singularly various +and distinguished. He was young; he had manly beauty, and a rare +personal fascination. His brilliant and charming wife won favor for him. +Even his name gave aid to the cause, and "Fremont and freedom" became +the rallying cry of the campaign. + +But Fremont's personality was an altogether minor element in the +strength with which the Republican party first took the field, and won, +not yet the country, but the strongholds of the North. The new party +gave expression and effect to the anti-slavery sentiment which had +become so deep and wide. It was wholly dissociated from the extremists +who had shocked and alarmed the conservatism of the country; and +Garrison and Phillips had only impatience and scorn for its principles +and measures. Its leadership included many men experienced in +congressional and administrative life, men like Seward and Sumner and +Chase and Wade and Fessenden and Banks, who had matched themselves +against the best leaders of the South and the South's Northern allies. +It brought together the best of the old Whig, Democratic, and Free Soil +parties. In its rank and file it gathered on the whole the best +conscience and intelligence of the North. After the election the +_Springfield Republican_ pointed out that the party's success had been +exactly along the geographical lines of an efficient free-school system, +and it had been defeated where public schools were deficient, as in +Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, and the solid South. + +The immediate and burning issue of the campaign was Kansas. Whatever the +exact right and wrong of its local broils, there was no question of the +broad facts--the fraudulent election of the Legislature, the character +of its statute-book, and its support by President Pierce's +administration. It was the wrongs of the Kansas settlers far more than +the wrongs of the Southern slaves on which the Republican speakers and +newspapers dwelt. In truth the animus of the party was quite as much +the resentment by the North of Southern political aggression as it was +regard for the slaves or thought of their future condition. The policy +of excluding slavery from the Territories, and thus naturally from the +new States, tended ultimately to its discouragement and probable +extinction where it already existed. But any such result appeared very +remote. + +The opposition to the Republican party was weighty in numbers, but +inharmonious and with no definite creed. The Democratic platform was an +equivocation. It declared for "non-interference by Congress with slavery +in State or Territory." But this left it an open question whether any +one could "interfere." Could the people of a Territory exclude slavery +if they wished? Or did the Constitution protect it there, as Calhoun and +his followers claimed? An ambiguity was left which permitted Calhoun men +and Douglas men to act together against the common foe. + +The Democratic candidate was James Buchanan of Pennsylvania. He was one +of those men, decent and respectable, who go through a life of +office-seeking and office-holding without a particle of real leadership, +and are forgotten the moment they leave the stage unless circumstance +throws them into a place so responsible as to reveal their glaring +incompetence. He had escaped the odium which Pierce and Douglas had +incurred, through his absence as Minister to England. There he had +distinguished himself chiefly by his part in a conference at Ostend, in +1854,--incited by President Pierce and his Secretary of State, William +L. Marcy of New York,--where he had met Mason of Virginia and Soule of +Louisiana, ministers respectively to France and Spain; and they had +issued a joint manifesto, declaring that the possession of Cuba was +necessary to the peace and security of the United States, and the island +should be obtained from Spain, with her consent if possible but without +it if necessary. This became a recognized article in the Democratic and +Southern policy. The Republican platform of 1856 denounced the Ostend +manifesto, as the doctrine that "might makes right," "the highwayman's +plea." It was left for a latter-day Republican to give to the same +doctrine the politer name of "international eminent domain." + +The American or Know-nothing party nominated ex-President Fillmore and +adopted a platform inclining toward the Southern position. There was a +secession of a Northern element, which nominated Banks, but he declined +and supported Fremont. All the opponents of the Republican party laid +stress on its sectional character. Both its candidates (for +vice-president, William L. Dayton of New Jersey), were from the North; +its creed aimed solely at the restriction of the South's peculiar +institution; south of Mason and Dixon's line, it had an electoral ticket +in four States only--Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Kentucky--and +cast hardly 1000 votes. But the South itself had so completely +ostracized even the most moderate anti-slavery sentiment that free +political action was impossible. Thus, Professor Hedrick of the +University of North Carolina said in reply to a question that he favored +Fremont for President; and being denounced for this by a newspaper, he +wrote to it a letter, saying in a modest and straightforward way that he +had made no attempt to propagate his views, but he did desire to see the +slaves free. The students burned him in effigy; the college authorities +forced him to resign; a mob attacked him and he was driven from the +State. It was in the same State that a college professor's right to free +speech on a burning social question was vindicated by his students, his +colleagues, and the community, in 1903, and that Trinity College became +a leader in courageous and progressive sentiment on the questions of +the hour. Few were the men bold enough even to try the question of +personal independence in 1856. The suppression of free speech was in +itself one of the strongest possible arguments for the Republican cause. +The liberty of white men was at stake. + +Conservatism, apprehension, timidity, in various phases, told against +the new party and its candidate. Northern commerce was largely bound up +with Southern interests. The threat of disunion weighed with some; +Grant, in his memoirs, says it was this that led him to vote for +Buchanan. Others shrank from trusting the helm in a tempest to hands as +untried as Fremont's. The mob who hated "niggers" swelled the opposition +vote. Taking advantage of the Know-nothing feeling, the fiction was +persistently circulated that Fremont was a Catholic. The disorder in +Kansas was pacified by the dispatch of a new Governor, Geary, to +reassure the North. Finally, money was spent on a scale unknown before +to defeat the Republican party,--itself in the stage of poverty and +virtue,--and spent probably with decisive effect in the critical October +election in Pennsylvania. + +Against these disadvantages the young party made head gallantly. It +fired the youth of the North with an ardor unknown since the early days +of the republic. It inspired the poets of the people. Great crowds sang +the strains of the Marseillaise, with the refrain: + + Free speech, free press, free soil, free men, Fremont and victory! + +The older heads were satisfied by the moderation and wisdom of the +party's principles. The reasonable element among the Abolitionists +hailed this first great popular advance, and allied themselves with it. +Whittier was the chief minstrel of the campaign. Of those to whom "the +Union" had been the talismanic word, that part which cared for nothing +better than the Union as it was, with slavery and freedom mixed, +supported Buchanan or Fillmore. The part that loved the Union as a means +to justice and freedom were for Fremont. + +The October elections in Pennsylvania and Indiana showed that the first +Presidential battle was lost. November confirmed that verdict. New +England, New York, Ohio, Illinois, and the Northwest, had been +outweighed by the South and its allies, and Buchanan was the next +President. But never was defeat met with better courage or higher hopes +for the next encounter. Some unknown poet gave the battle-song: + + Beneath thy skies, November, + Thy skies of cloud and rain, + Around our blazing camp-fires + We close our ranks again. + Then sound again the bugle! + Call the battle roll anew! + If months have well nigh won the field + What may not four years do? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: A word should be said as to the frequency with which the +_Springfield Republican_ is quoted in this work. The author wrote an +earlier book, _The Life and Times of Samuel Bowles_, (Century Co.)--the +founder of the Republican. As the background of his life, a careful +study was made of the political events during his years of editorial +activity, 1844-77. The original matter for this was largely drawn from +the files of the _Republican_. In studying the whole ground afresh for +the present history, advantage was taken of this material, and further +citations were drawn from the same paper. The interpretation of current +events by an independent and sagacious newspaper yields invaluable +material for the historian; and my study of the _Republican_, from the +repeal of the Missouri compromise in 1854 to the present, has heightened +my respect for the breadth, sobriety, and moral insight with which it +judged the questions of the day.] + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THREE TYPICAL SOUTHERNERS + + +In the group of leaders of public sentiment in the '30s and '40s, as +sketched in Chapter V, some of the foremost--Clay, Webster, and +Birney--were influential in both sections of the country. But in the +next decade the division is clear between the leaders of the South and +of the North. Let us glance at two separate groups. + +Jefferson Davis was in many ways a typical Southerner. He was a sincere, +able, and high-minded man. The guiding aim of his public life was to +serve the community as he understood its interests. Personal ambition +seemingly influenced him no more than is to be expected in any strong +man; and, whatever his faults of judgment or temper, it does not appear +that he ever knowingly sacrificed the public good to his own profit or +aggrandizement. But he was devoted to a social system and a political +theory which bound his final allegiance to his State and his section. +After a cadetship at West Point and a brief term of military service, he +lived for eight years, 1837-45, on a Mississippi plantation, in joint +ownership and control with an older brother. In these early years, and +in the seclusion of a plantation, his theories crystallized and his +mental habits grew. The circumstances of such life fostered in Southern +politicians the tendency to logical and symmetrical theories, to which +they tenaciously held, unmodified by the regard for experience which is +bred from free and various contact with the large world of affairs. +Davis fully accepted the theory of State sovereignty which won general +favor in the South. In this view the States were independent powers, +which had formed with each other by the Constitution a compact, a +business arrangement, a kind of limited partnership. If the compact was +broken in any of its articles, or if its working proved at any time to +be unsatisfactory and injurious, the partners could withdraw at will. +This theory found more or less support among the various utterances and +practices of the framers of the Constitution and founders of the +government. In truth, they had as a body no consistent and exact theory +of the Federal bond. Later circumstances led their descendants to +incline to a stronger or a looser tie, according to their different +interests and sentiments. The institution of slavery so strongly +differentiated the Southern communities from their Northern neighbors, +that they naturally magnified their local rights and favored the view +which justified them in the last resort in renouncing the authority of +the Union if it should come to be exercised against their industrial +system. State sovereignty was the creed, and the slavery interest was +the motive. + +To a man living like Davis on his own plantation, the relation of master +and slave seemed a fundamental condition of the social order. Not only +his livelihood rested on it, but through this relation his practical +faculties found their field; his conscience was exercised in the right +management and care of his slaves; there was a true sentiment of +protection on his side and loyalty on theirs. His neighbors and friends +were situated like himself. The incidental mischiefs of the system, the +abuses by bad masters, the ignorance and low morality of the +slaves,--these things they regarded, let us say, as an upright and +benevolent manufacturer to-day regards the miseries of sweatshops and +the sufferings of unemployed labor. Such things were bad, very bad, but +they were the accidents and not the essentials of the industrial +system. They resented the strictures of their critics; they were +apprehensive of the growing hostility in the North to their +institutions; if the national partnership was to last they must have +their rights under it; and one of those rights was an equal share in the +national domain. + +Davis entered into active politics when he was elected to Congress in +1844. Repudiation was then in favor in Mississippi, and he opposed and +denounced it. He supported the Mexican War in the most practical way, by +taking command of a volunteer regiment from Mississippi. He served with +distinguished gallantry, and was severely wounded at Buena Vista. After +the war he entered the United States Senate. He supported the compromise +of 1850, regarding it as substantially a continuance of the truce +between the sections, and not now sympathizing with those who threatened +disunion. Later, President Pierce made him Secretary of War; in the +Cabinet he was the leading spirit; and this, with a weak President, +meant large power and responsibility. He showed the extent of his +partisanship by supporting with the full power of the administration the +Territorial government imposed on Kansas by a palpably fraudulent vote. + +In 1856 he returned to the Senate, and came to be recognized as the +foremost champion of the Southern interest. He was not a leader in any +such sense as Jefferson or Clay or Calhoun; but he was a representative +man, thoroughly trusted by his associates, their most effective +spokesman, and going by conviction in the midstream of the dominant +tendency. He had that degree of ambition which is natural and normal in +a strong man. He was an effective and elegant orator. When secession +came he was not its originator, but one of a set of men--on the whole +the most considerate and influential men of the Gulf and cotton +States--who took the responsibility of leading their section into +revolution, in the interest of slavery. + +In this typical Southern leader, as in his class, were blended the +elements of a disposition and will that would halt before no barrier to +its claim of mastery. A slaveholder, accustomed to supremacy over his +fellowmen as their natural superior; a planter, habituated to the +practical exercise of such supremacy over hundreds of dependents; a +member of an aristocracy, the political masters of their section, and +long the dominant force in the nation; a theorist, wedded to the dogma +of State sovereignty, and convinced of the superiority of Southern +civilization; the self-confident and self-asserting temper bred by such +conditions--here was a union of forces that would push its cause against +all opposition, at the cost if need be of disunion, of war, of all +obstacles and all perils. + +By a natural exaggeration, at a later time the President of the +Confederacy was regarded at the North as the very embodiment of its +cause. To the unmeasured hostility on this account was added the +opprobrium of deeds in which he had no part. He was charged for a time +with complicity in the murder of Lincoln. He was branded with +responsibility for the miseries in Andersonville and the other +prison-pens in the war,--but without a particle of evidence. Admiration +was yielded by the North to Stonewall Jackson even in his life-time; +there was early recognition of Lee's magnanimous acceptance of defeat; +but the bitterest odium was long visited upon Davis. It was heightened +by the tenacity with which his intense nature clung to "the lost cause" +as a sentiment, after the reality was hopelessly buried. The South +itself gave its highest favor to Lee, its most effective defender, and a +man of singularly impressive character; while Davis's mistakes of +administration, and his reserved and over-sensitive temper chilled a +little the recognition of his disinterested and loyal service. But in +the retrospect of history he stands out as an honorable and pathetic +figure. The single warping influence of his whole career was the mistake +he shared with millions of his countrymen,--the acceptance and +exaltation of slavery. He was faithful to his convictions; he was free +from covetousness and meanness; and in his personality there were high +and fine elements of manhood. "A very intense man and a very lovable +man" was the judgment of one who was his intimate associate through the +war. + +"Love of power was so much weaker in him than love of his theories that +when Congress passed laws enlarging his prerogatives he wrote long +messages declining them on constitutional grounds." A friend described +him as "a game-cock--with just a little strut." Said one who stood in +close relations with him: "He was so sensitive to criticism and even to +questioning that I have passed months of intimate official association +with him without venturing to ask him a question." Pure in his personal +morals, but never having made a religious profession, under the +responsibilities of the Presidency he turned for support to religion, +and was confirmed in the Episcopal Church. Under imprisonment, +indignities, obloquy, long seclusion with the memories of a ruined +cause, he bore himself with manly fortitude and dignity. Schooled by +inexorable reality, he finally acquiesced in the established order, and +his last public words were of fidelity and faith for the new America. + +Before the war, Robert Toombs of Georgia played some such part to the +Northern imagination as Phillips or Sumner to the Southern. He was +regarded as the typical fire-eater and braggart. He was currently +reported to have boasted that he would yet call the roll of his slaves +at the foot of Bunker Hill monument. But in truth this ogre was made of +much the same human clay as the Massachusetts Abolitionists. He is well +pictured, together with Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, in Trent's +_Southern Statesmen of the Old Regime_,--a book admirable in its spirit +and its historic fidelity. Both Toombs and Stephens represented, as +compared with Davis, the more moderate sentiment of the South, until +they parted company with each other on the question of secession. Trent +prefaces the companion portraits with a sketch of the typical Georgian; +his State, like the other Gulf States, less civilized and orderly than +Virginia and South Carolina, less critical and more enthusiastic; the +Georgian, "the southern Yankee," "loving success, strength, +straightforwardness, and the solid virtues generally, neither is he +averse to the showy ones; but above all he loves virtue in action." +Among Southerners, says Trent, the Georgian is nearest to a normal +American. Toombs inherited property; grew up like other Southern boys of +the prosperous class; rode and hunted and studied a little in the +interims. As a lawyer, he would not take a case unless satisfied of its +justice. He was of robust physique, vigorous intellect, and high +spirits; and he was happy in his family life. + +Stephens worked his way up from poverty, and never lost an active +sympathy with the struggling. He helped more than fifty young men to get +an education. He was of a slight and fragile frame, and had much +physical suffering, which he bore with indomitable courage. His +conscientiousness was almost morbid. His temperament was melancholy, and +his life was lonely. In early life he was twice in love, but poverty +forbade his marriage. He was a clear and logical thinker, much given to +refined exposition of constitutional theories, but deficient in large +culture and philosophy. He held the doctrine of State sovereignty, but +from first to last he opposed secession as against the true interest of +the States. At the beginning of his career he was active in opposing +the vigilance committees organized to harry anti-slavery men. He +supported the annexation of Texas, though objecting to doing it in the +interest of slavery,--slavery, he said, was a domestic matter, which the +Federal government had no call to take care of. He and Toombs generally +stood together, as Whigs and Unionists. They opposed the Mexican War, on +the ground that the Union was not to be extended by force; neither, they +both said later, was it to be maintained by force. But they opposed the +exclusion of slavery from the Territories by the Wilmot proviso; and in +the debate Stephens declared that the morality of slavery stood "upon a +basis as firm as the Bible," and as long as Christianity lasted it could +never be considered an offense against the divine laws. The two men did +yeoman's service in carrying through the 1850 compromise, and afterward +in persuading Georgia not to take part in the Nashville convention--a +disunionist scheme which proved abortive. They, with Howell Cobb, held +Georgia for the compromise and for the Union, and thus fixed the pivotal +point of Southern politics for the next decade. They became leaders in +the Constitutional Union party, which, in Georgia, succeeded the Whig. +They made vigorous and successful fights against the Know-nothing folly. +They accepted the gains which came to the South through Douglas's +breaking down of the Missouri compromise, and, a little later, the Dred +Scott decision of the Supreme Court; but they diverged from Davis, by +not favoring the active intervention of Congress to protect slavery in +the Territories. Toombs was accused of abetting Brooks's attack on +Sumner, which he disclaimed; but he found nothing to hinder his taking +part in a banquet in Brooks's honor a few months later, and on this most +ill-omened occasion he joined in the threats of disunion if Fremont +should be elected. But still the catastrophe lingered, and seemed +improbable. Stephens left Congress in 1858. Two years more, and +secession became a burning question; Stephens and Toombs took opposite +sides, but, the issue decided, they both made common cause with their +State. Toombs served in the Confederate Cabinet and Army. Stephens, +vice-president of the Confederacy, seven years after the close of the +war again became a member of the House; an attenuated figure, confined +to a wheel-chair, but still vital and vigorous; respected by all; his +presence a visible symbol of the spanning of "the bloody chasm." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +SOME NORTHERN LEADERS + + +Turning now to the North, the principal leaders in its political life +have already been mentioned, except Lincoln, whose star had not yet +risen; but it is worth while to glance at some of those who, apart from +Congress and public office, were molding public sentiment. Perhaps the +man of the widest influence on public opinion was Horace Greeley. +Through his _New York Tribune_ he reached an immense audience, to a +great part of whom the paper was a kind of political Bible. His words +struck home by their common sense, passion, and close sympathy with the +common people. A graduate of the farm and printing office, he was in +close touch with the free, plain, toiling, American people, and in no +man had they a better representative or a more effective advocate. There +was in him something of John Bright's sturdy manhood, direct speech and +devotion to human rights; something, too, of Franklin's homely +shrewdness,--though little of Franklin's large philosophy or serenity. +He was at first a Henry Clay Whig, and always a zealous protectionist; +then in alliance with the anti-slavery element in the party, and soon +the leading Republican editor. He was a lover of peace, in active +sympathy with social reforms, sometimes betrayed into extravagances, but +generally guarded by his common sense against extremists and +impracticables. His limitations were a want of large culture, a very +uncertain judgment in estimating men, and a temperament liable to such +sudden ebb and flow that he fell sometimes into rashness and sometimes +into panic. But he was disinterested and great-hearted. Other men +broadened the _Tribune's_ scope; its editorial tone was for its audience +persuasive and convincing; and the _Tribune_ was one of the great +educational influences of the country. Beside it stood the _New York +Times_, edited by Henry J. Raymond, an advocate of moderate anti-slavery +and Republican principles, with less of masterful leadership than the +_Tribune_, but sometimes better balanced; and the _Herald_, under the +elder James Gordon Bennett, devoted to news and money-making, and +pandering to Southern interests. + +The clergy at the South were by this time generally united in the +defense of slavery. At the North, there was great variety among them. +Many ministers ignored slavery as apart from their province. Many spoke +of it occasionally as a sin, but regarded it as little concerned with +that daily life of their people which was their main concern. A few +treated it as a great national wrong, speaking such denunciation as the +Hebrew prophets gave to the national sins of their people; and of these +some were driven from their pulpits. A few expressed open sympathy or +apology for slavery,--such as Dr. Nehemiah Adams, of Boston, and Bishop +Hopkins, of Vermont. + +The foremost preacher in America was Henry Ward Beecher. He was above +all things a preacher,--charged with a great spiritual message; of +extraordinary and various eloquence, dramatic, inspiring, thrilling; +impelled and sometimes controlled by a wonderful imagination. He was +taking a leading part in transforming the popular belief. Theology has +radically altered under two influences,--the new view of facts given by +science, and a higher ethical and spiritual feeling. It was under the +ethical and spiritual impulse that Beecher so altered the emphasis of +the traditional theology, so dwelt on the love of God, on Christ's +character as the revelation of God, on the opportunities and +incitements of daily life, on all the hopeful and joyful aspects of +existence,--that in the minds of his hearers the harsher elements, not +only of Calvinism, but of the whole traditional orthodoxy, melted as +imperceptibly and steadily as icebergs melt when they drift southward. +He always avoided any avowed or precipitate break with the old system of +dogma,--partly from a personal sentiment associated with the faith of +the fathers; partly from an instinctive preference of practical and +emotional over intellectual methods; and partly from a studied regard to +the most effective results,--a shrewdness which tempered his +impetuosity. + +In these stirring days Beecher began to take active part in political +discussion,--rarely in his pulpit, but as an occasional speaker at +political meetings, or as a writer in the New York _Independent_. His +ground was that of moderate anti-slavery and Republicanism. Shut off on +the political platform from the highest flights of his pulpit oratory, +he yet had large scope for his ideality, his common sense, his rich and +abounding humor, his marvelous range of illustration from all things in +earth and heaven. As the public questions of the day came still closer +home to the business and bosoms of men, he dealt with them more freely +in his preaching, though never to the subordination of the personal +religious life as the paramount interest. One scene in his church comes +vividly to mind; after the sermon, he stated the case of a little slave +girl, allowed to come North on the chance of her being ransomed; and +after a few moving words, he set her beside him--a beautiful, +unconscious child--and money rained into the contribution boxes till in +a few minutes the amount was raised, and the great congregation joined +in a triumphant closing hymn. + +Of a different type was Theodore Parker. He stood in his pulpit, the +embodiment of courageous attack on every falsehood and abuse as it +appeared to the lofty and luminous mind of the preacher. With his +prophecy there mingled no expediency. He spoke the truth as he saw it, +and let consequences take care of themselves. For a generation, the +Unitarian ministers had denied the doctrine of the Trinity, but they +held the founder of Christianity in such reverence that they would +scarcely define his divine or semi-divine nature. Parker spoke +frankly of Jesus as a man, and a man liable to imperfections and +mistakes, while he honored him as the greatest leader of humanity. The +Unitarians,--their intellectual radicalism kept well in check by the +conservatism natural to their social and ecclesiastical traditions,--had +held to a decided supernaturalism. Parker put religion on a purely +natural basis, and sent home to men's consciousness the ideas of God and +immortal life. His sermons were iconoclastic, but his prayers were full +of reverence, aspiration, and tenderness. He was ostracized by most of +the Unitarian churches, and dreaded by the orthodox, but he was a power +in Boston and in America. He attacked social wrongs as fearlessly as he +discussed theology. Against slavery he struck as with a battle ax. He +was not greatly concerned with constitutions or tolerant of compromises. +When a fugitive slave was seized in Boston, Parker took active part in a +project of rescue. He roused the conscience of New England and the +North. He died at fifty, just before the Civil War, consumed by his own +fire. + +The fable of the traveler who clung the closer to his cloak when the +wind tried to strip it off but cast it aside when addressed by the sun's +genial warmth, had an illustration in the many who surrendered their +prejudice and selfishness, not at the bidding of the stormy reformers, +but touched by the serene light of Emerson. Emerson's specific influence +on slavery or any other social problem is hard to measure, for his power +was thrown on the illumination and inspiration of the individual man. +But in the large view his was an incomparable influence in diffusing +that temper of mingled courage and sweetness, the idealist's vision and +the soldier's valor, which is the world's best help and hope. He spoke +out against slavery whenever he saw that his word was needed; he +vindicated the right of the Abolitionists to free speech, whether they +spoke wisely or not; and in some of his poems, as the "Concord Ode," and +"Boston Hymn," he thrillingly invoked the best of the Puritan and +Revolutionary temper to right the wrongs of the present. It was said of +him that he gave to the war for the Union, "not one son, but a +thousand." But he also gave watchwords that will long outlast the issues +of the war and our issues of to-day. The homely yet soaring idealism of +the true American will always answer to the word, "Hitch your wagon to a +star." + +The group of writers who gave brilliancy to this period have already +been cited as champions of freedom. Most effective in his advocacy was +Whittier, who, in early days, took active part in politics as a Free +Soiler, and afterward did greater service by the lyrics of freedom, +which like his songs of labor and poems of home life and religion, went +to the heart of the common people as no other American voice has done. +One who reads Whittier to-day may be allowed to wish that he had known +the sunny as well as the shady side of Southern life; and that, as in a +later poem he softened his fierce criticism on Webster, so he had +celebrated the virtues and graces of his white countrymen below the +Potomac and the Ohio, as well as the wrongs of his black countrymen. +Lowell, usually a scholarly poet, spoke to the common people nobly for +peace and freedom in the Biglow Papers. In 1857 the _Atlantic Monthly_ +was started under his editorship, the organ at once of the highest +literary ability of New England, and of pronounced anti-slavery and +Republican sentiment. After he gave up the editorship in 1862, he wrote +at intervals of a few years the second series of Biglow Papers, and his +"Commemoration Ode" was the noblest literary monument of the triumph of +Union and freedom. + +Longfellow's main vocation was away from the turmoils of the hour. He +interpreted to America the art, the culture, the legends of Europe and +the Middle Ages; he found the poetry in the early soil of America, as in +"Hiawatha" and "Evangeline." He was not deaf to the wrongs of the slave, +and gave to them some touching poems. But his finest contribution to the +national idea was the apostrophe to the Union which crowns "The Building +of the Ship." It was written in 1849, in the stress of the struggle over +California, and it may well last as long as the nation lasts. The poem +is an idyl of the ship-building folk and the sea; the consummation is +the bridal of the captain and the builder's daughter, and the launching +of the ship, christened "The Union"--emblem of the wife's and husband's +voyage begun together on the sea of life; then,-- + + Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! + Sail on, O Union, strong and great! + Humanity with all its fears, + With all the hopes of future years, + Is hanging breathless on thy fate! + We know what Master laid thy keel, + What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, + Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, + What anvils rang, what hammers beat, + In what forge and what a heat + Were shaped the anchors of thy hope! + Fear not each sudden sound and shock, + 'Tis of the wave and not the rock; + 'Tis but the flapping of the sail, + And not a rent made by the gale! + In spite of rock and tempest's roar, + In spite of false lights on the shore, + Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea! + Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee. + Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, + Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, + Are all with thee,--are all with thee! + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +DRED SCOTT AND LECOMPTON + + +Under Buchanan's administration, 1857-61, three events befell which were +like wedges riving farther and farther apart the national unity. They +were the Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court, the Lecompton +constitution in Kansas, and John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry. + +President Buchanan declared in his inaugural that the people of a +Territory had a right to shape their institutions in their own way, but +as to how far that right extended before they organized as a State, the +United States Supreme Court was the proper arbiter. Two days after the +inaugural, the Supreme Court announced its decision, in a case made up +expressly to test the status of slavery in the Territories. Suit was +brought before it to obtain freedom for Dred Scott, who being held as a +slave in Missouri had been taken by his master to reside for a time in +Illinois, and afterward at Fort Snelling in unorganized territory north +of 36 degrees 30 minutes, and so free under the Missouri compromise. It +was claimed that by being taken upon free soil, in State or Territory, +he became free. The court, in an elaborate opinion delivered by +Chief-Justice Taney, dismissed the case for want of jurisdiction, on the +ground that no person of slave descent or African blood could be a +citizen of the United States or be entitled to sue in its courts. The +court affirmed that the sweeping language of the Declaration, that "all +men are born free," had no application to negroes, because at that time +they were generally regarded "as so far inferior that they had no +rights which the white man was bound to respect." The case being thus +thrown out of court, all further discussion of its merits was +superfluous--a mere _obiter dictum_, without legal force. Nevertheless, +the court through its chief-justice went on to pronounce upon the +plaintiff's claim and declare it baseless; on the ground that inasmuch +as a slave was lawful property, and the Constitution decreed that no man +should be deprived of his property without due process of law, therefore +an act of Congress declaring in effect that when carried beyond a +certain line a slave was lost to his master, was unconstitutional and +void. Thus the court set aside as invalid the exclusion of slavery from +the Territories by Congress. As to the effect of a slave's residence in +a free State by his master's act, followed by a return to a slave +State,--the court held that this question belonged properly to the +Missouri courts, which had decided against the slave's claim. + +Two of the justices, McLean and Curtis (Northern Whigs), dissented +emphatically from the decision. Justice Curtis pointed out, as to the +alleged incapacity of the negro for citizenship at the era of the +Constitution, that at that period free negroes had the right of suffrage +in five of the thirteen States. As to the argument against depriving a +man of his property, the contention of the Republicans was that slaves +were property, not by the common usage of mankind, but only by local +law, and that when a slaveholder moved into a Territory he did not carry +with him that local law by which alone a man could be held as a chattel. +But the authoritative voice of the highest court in the land had +proclaimed these amazing propositions,--that the guarantee of freedom to +the Northwest, which the nation had accepted for a third of a century, +was invalid, and that no person with negro blood had any civil rights as +a citizen of the United States. + +When, forty years later, a law of Congress establishing an equitable +income tax was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and a +Democratic national convention protested against that decision, the +Republican papers of the day denounced the protest as hardly less than +treason. But the Republicans of an earlier day were not so reverential +toward the Supreme Court as an infallible authority. Could the court as +a finality outlaw the negro from the common rights of man, and prevent +Congress from establishing freedom in the national domain? Not so +thought the men who led the Republican party and the sentiment of the +North. The New York Legislature, for example, promptly enacted that +African descent should not disqualify from State citizenship; that any +slave brought into the State by his master became free, and any attempt +to hold him was a penal offense. It passed a resolution declaring that +the Supreme Court had lost the confidence and respect of the people. +Lincoln said in his dry way that the Republican party did not propose to +declare Dred Scott a free man (by the way, he was soon manumitted by his +former master's daughter)--but neither did they propose to accept the +court's decision as a political rule binding the voters, or Congress, or +the President; and they intended so to oppose it as to have it reversed +if possible, and a new judicial rule established. Seward was very +outspoken. He said a year later, in the Senate, "The people of the +United States never can and never will accept principles so +unconstitutional, so abhorrent. Never, never! Let the court recede. +Whether it recede or not, we shall reorganize the court, and thus reform +its political sentiment and practices, and bring them in harmony with +the Constitution and the laws of Nature." + +The court's decision, _obiter dictum_ and all, extended only to the +power of Congress over the Territories. What a Territorial Legislature +might do by way of excluding slavery had not been passed on; and +Douglas thus found room for his doctrine of "popular sovereignty." But +as to just what that meant, he was adroitly non-committal, till the more +adroit Lincoln in the joint debate in 1858 drew from him the statement +that a Territorial Legislature might by "unfriendly legislation" +practically exclude slavery--a committal which ended his favor from the +South. + +But meanwhile attention was focused on a different and more concrete +question. Buchanan began his administration with an effort to pacify +Kansas, by sending a new governor, Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi, +with strong pledges from the President that the people should have fair +dealing. But the situation was badly complicated. The Legislature had +provided for a convention to frame a State Constitution. This was to be +elected on the basis of a census taken by the county officials. But the +Free State men having never recognized this Territorial Legislature, and +having kept up the form of a State government of their own, there were +no officials to take the census and register the votes in fifteen out of +the thirty-four counties, and the registration was confined to the part +of the Territory lying convenient for invasion from Missouri. Under +these circumstances the Free State party resisted all Governor Walker's +appeals to take part in the election, and the convention was chosen by a +small vote. It met at Lecompton, and drew up a constitution. One article +provided for the exclusion of free negroes, and another forbade any +amendment for seven years. One section affirmed ownership of slaves as +an inviolable right of property, and forbade any adverse legislation; +and this section alone of the Constitution was submitted to the popular +vote. A vote of the people was ordered, as between "constitution with +slavery" and "constitution without slavery." The Free State men scouted +the whole proceeding, and refused to vote. So, by the form of a popular +election, the "constitution with slavery" was adopted. + +The administration now gave its whole strength to the admission by +Congress of Kansas with the Lecompton constitution. The same election +that made Buchanan President had made the House as well as the Senate +Democratic. But it was no longer the disciplined and docile Democracy of +old. The proposal to admit a State under a constitution of which only a +single article had been submitted to even the form of a popular vote, +was too obnoxious for any but the most unflinching partisans. It was +impossible to a leader whose watchword was "popular sovereignty." + +Douglas broke squarely with the administration, and acted with the +Republicans against the bill. He came in close touch with their leaders, +and his open accession to their party seemed probable. Meanwhile in the +Democratic party he had a small following in Congress and a large +following among the people. The struggle in Congress over the Lecompton +bill was obstinate. Senator Crittenden of Kentucky,--belonging nominally +to the remnant of the American party, which sheltered some of the +moderate Southerners, and himself one of their best leaders--proposed a +bill submitting the entire Constitution to a direct popular vote. This +was defeated in the Senate, but passed by the House, with the support of +the Republicans. A committee of conference sought for some agreement, +and found a singular one: a bill proposed by and named from Mr. English, +a Douglas Democrat from Illinois. It provided that the Constitution +should be submitted to a popular vote; if accepted, Kansas was at once +to become a State and receive an immense land grant; if rejected, it was +to remain a Territory until it had the population requisite for one +representative in the House,--93,340,--and get no land grant. The +combination of a bribe and a threat gave an almost grotesque air to the +proposition. Party lines were broken in the vote; Douglas and a part of +his associates joined with the bulk of the Republicans in opposing the +bill; but enough of both sides saw in it the best they could get, to win +a majority in both houses, and the English bill became law, in April, +1858. + +In the previous summer, the assurances of Governor Walker and the advice +of sagacious politicians like Henry Wilson had induced the Free State +men to give up their separate organization and take part in the election +of the Territorial Legislature. They carried the election by two to one. +But again fraud was attempted. From a hamlet with eleven houses was sent +in a return of 1624 votes,--the names, it was found, copied in +alphabetical order from a Cincinnati directory; and from another +district an equally dishonest return was made; and the two would have +changed the majority in the Legislature. This catastrophe was averted by +the firmness of Walker, who threw out the fraudulent returns. In this he +was vainly opposed by the Territorial chief justice, a servile partisan. +After this the President turned against Walker and in the following +December drove him into resignation. He protested in an indignant letter +that the President had betrayed and deserted him, and that his policy +had saved the Territory from civil war and brought the entire people +together for the first time in a peaceable election. + +Indeed the troubles of Kansas were practically ended. The people +rejected the Lecompton constitution and its land grant by a heavy +majority. They framed and ratified a Constitution of their own at +Wyandotte, and came into the Union as a free State when secession had +left the Republicans in full control of Congress in the winter of +1860-1. + +The accession of Kansas to the Free States was full of significance. It +was fresh evidence that in the actual settlement of the new country the +inevitable preponderance lay with free labor. Its industrial advantage +could not be overborne by a hostile national administration, nor by the +inroads of aggressive and lawless neighbors. The management of their +affairs by the Free State settlers was a great vindication of the +methods of peace. The guerrilla warfare undertaken by Brown and his +party had won no real advantage. The decisive triumph came from the +habitual self-control of the Free State men, their steady refusal to +resist the Federal authority, and the sympathy they thus won from the +peaceful North, turning at last the scales of Congressional authority in +their favor. Thus far, peace and freedom moved hand in hand. + +The tide in the country was running strongly with the Republicans. The +alliance with Douglas failed, because his price was the Senatorship from +Illinois, and the Republicans of that State were "willing to take him on +probation, but not to make him the head of the church." They named +Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for the Senatorship, and these two +men held a series of joint debates which fixed the attention of the +country; with the result that Lincoln won the popular majority, but +Douglas the Legislature and the Senatorship. In the country at large, +the Republicans made such gains, in this election of 1858, that they won +the control of the National House. The Whigs were defunct, the Americans +were a dwindling fraction; the "Constitutional Union" party held a +number who sought peace above all things; but the great mass divided +between the Republicans and the Democrats. Douglas, the most dextrous of +rope-dancers, had regained his place as the foremost man in his old +party. The Republicans held firmly to their constitutional principles; +but the depth of the antagonism of the two industrial systems grew ever +more apparent. Lincoln had declared: "A house divided against itself +cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half +slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not +expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. +It will become all one thing or all the other." Seward, too, had said: +"The United States must and will, sooner or later, become either +entirely a slave-holding or entirely a free-labor nation." Between the +two systems there was an "irrepressible conflict." But he added that he +desired and expected the triumph of freedom "not otherwise than through +the action of the several States, co-operating with the Federal +Government, and all acting in conformity with their respective +constitutions." Yet over these utterances of Lincoln and Seward some +conservatives in the party shook their heads, as liable to be +misinterpreted and to needlessly alarm the South. But men more radical +than Lincoln and Seward were coming to the front. Sumner was silenced +for the time, but among the leaders of Massachusetts now appeared John +A. Andrew, her future war Governor, large-brained and large-hearted. In +this year, 1858, at the State convention of which he was president, he +said, "I believe in the Republican party because I believe that slavery, +the servitude of humanity, has no business to exist anywhere; because it +has no business to exist and no right to be supported where the sun +shines or grass grows or water runs." + +One of the sensations of the time was a book, dated 1857, which showed a +rift in the solid South. It was _The Impending Crisis_, by Hinton Rowan +Helper, a North Carolinian by long descent, birth, and residence; the +son of "a merciful slave-holder"; writing at the age of twenty-seven. +His standpoint was that of the non-slave-holding Southern white. "Yankee +wives"--so he begins--"have written the most popular anti-slavery +literature of the day. Against this I have nothing to say; it is all +well enough for women to give the pictures of slavery; men should give +the facts." His method is largely the comparison of the industrial +progress of the two sections, and his chief arsenal is the United States +census. North and South started, he says, with the establishment of the +government and the North's abolition of slavery, with advantage in soil, +climate, rivers, harbors, minerals, forests, etc., on the side of the +South, but in sixty years she has been completely outstripped. He +brackets Virginia and New York; at the start, Virginia had twice the +population of New York; now New York's population doubles Virginia's. +Virginia's exports have been about stationary at $3,000,000; New York's +have risen from $2,500,000 to $87,000,000. New York almost trebles +Virginia in valuation, even including slaves. So he compares North +Carolina and Massachusetts; the empty port of Beaufort and the teeming +one of Boston; the northern State with a production from manufactures, +mines, and mechanic arts double the whole cotton crop of the South. So +he compares South Carolina and Pennsylvania. Again: Sail down the Ohio, +and you will find the lands on the right bank worth double and treble +those on the left bank,--slavery makes all the difference. The hay crop +of the free States is worth more in dollars and cents than all the +cotton, tobacco, rice, hay, and hemp, in the slave States. The marble +and free-stone quarries in New England yield more wealth than all the +subterranean deposits in the slave States. And so for many pages he goes +on piling Pelion upon Ossa with his figures. He pictures the South's +economic dependence: "In infancy we are swaddled in Northern muslin; in +childhood we are humored with Northern gewgaws; in youth, we are +instructed out of Northern books; at the age of maturity, we sow our +wild oats on Northern soil.... In the decline of life we remedy our +sight with Northern spectacles, and support our infirmities with +Northern canes; in old age we are drugged with Northern physic; and +finally, when we die, our inanimate bodies, shrouded in Northern +cambric, are stretched upon the bier, borne to the grave in a Northern +carriage, entombed with Northern spade, and memorized with a Northern +slab!" + +Land in the Northern States averages $28.07 an acre in value, and in the +Southern States it is $5.34. The difference measures the robbery +committed on a community of 10,000,000 by the 350,000 slave-holders. +These "chevaliers of the lash" he arraigns with a rhetoric compared to +which Sumner's and Phillip's words were pale. The slave-holders are +worse, he declares, than thieves, for they steal from all. They are +worse than common murderers, for they issue to themselves licenses to +murder; the slave who resists may be killed. He is for no +half-measures,--he avows himself a free-soiler, an emancipationist, an +abolitionist, a colonizationist. "The liberation of five millions of +'poor white trash,' from the second degree of slavery, and of three +millions of miserable kidnapped negroes from the first degree, cannot be +accomplished too soon." The process is simple and easy; emancipation +will be followed by such an instant rise in all values and in general +prosperity that the slave-owners themselves will be recouped. Let each +of these, he says, give to each slave his freedom and $60 in money; half +that sum will transport him to Liberia, whither all should go. He +foresees the tempest which his book will arouse. "What are you going to +do about it? Something dreadful as a matter of course? Perhaps you will +dissolve the Union. Do it, if you dare! Our motto, and we would have you +understand it, is the abolition of slavery and the perpetuation of the +American Union. If by any means you do succeed in your treasonable +attempt to take the South out of the Union to-day, we will bring her +back to-morrow,--if she goes away with you, she will return without +you." In his closing paragraph he predicts the election to the +Presidency in 1860 of some anti-slavery Southerner, of the type of +Cassius M. Clay, or James G. Birney, and in 1864, of a Northerner like +Seward or Sumner. And he thus concludes: "Furthermore, if in these or in +any other similar cases the oligarchy do not quietly submit to the will +of a constitutional majority of the people, as expressed at the +ballot-box, the first battle between freedom and slavery will be fought +at home--and may God defend the right!" + +The book raised a tempest of denunciation. The more it was denounced the +more it was read. It was easily "the best-selling book" of the time. The +concrete reply of the party criticised was first to drive Helper out of +North Carolina. Next his book was condemned in a resolution proposed at +the opening of Congress in 1859-60, and aimed especially at John +Sherman, of Ohio, the Republican candidate for speaker, who had signed a +qualified recommendation of the book. After a long contest the +Republicans dropped Sherman for Pennington, of New Jersey, whom they +elected. _The Impending Crisis_ was a portent and an impulse of the +coming catastrophe. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +JOHN BROWN + + +About this time there was a revival of activity in the slave trade +between Africa and Cuba. The American Government had always acted +half-heartedly in its co-operation with the British Government for the +suppression of this traffic. Now it happened that some British cruisers +in the West Indies stopped and examined some vessels under the American +flag, suspected of being slavers. This was resented by the American +Government, which sent war ships to the scene and took the British +Government to task. In Congress both parties joined in denunciation of +British aggression. The right of search, exercised by England for the +reclamation of her seamen from American vessels, had been one of the +grounds of war in 1812. It had been left unmentioned in the treaty of +peace, but England had silently relinquished the practice. Now, at the +demand of the United States, she expressly relinquished the right of +search in the case of supposed slave ships under the American flag, +unless the result should justify the suspicion. Thus the honor of the +Stars and Stripes was vindicated,--and the flag was made a great +convenience to slavers. The administration, however, bestirred itself +toward doing its own share in the work of sea-police, and several slave +ships were captured. The crew of one of these were acquitted, by a +Charleston jury, against the clearest evidence. There was some open talk +in the Southern papers of legalizing the traffic. But the trade was +destined to a discouraging check a year or two later, when President +Lincoln signed the first death warrant of the captain of a slaver. + +After the Kansas troubles had subsided, John Brown sought some way to +make a direct attack on slavery. For many years he had brooded on the +matter, in the light of his reading of the Old Testament, and he felt +himself called to assail it as the Jewish heroes assailed the enemies of +Jehovah and his people. As early as 1847 he had disclosed to Frederick +Douglass, during a visit to Brown's home in Springfield, Mass., a plan +for freeing the slaves. He did not contemplate a general insurrection +and slaughter. But he proposed to establish a fugitive refuge in the +chain of mountains stretching from the border of New York toward the +Gulf. "These mountains," he said, "are the basis of my plan. God has +given the strength of the hills to freedom; they were placed here for +the emancipation of the negro race; they are full of natural forts, +where one man for defense will be equal to one hundred for attack; they +are full also of good hiding-places, where large numbers of brave men +could be concealed, and baffle and elude pursuit for a long time.... The +true object to be sought is, first of all, to destroy the money-value of +slave property; and that can only be done by rendering such property +insecure. My plan, then, is to take at first about twenty-five picked +men, and begin on a small scale; supply them arms and ammunition, and +post them in squads of five on a line of twenty-five miles. The most +persuasive and judicious of them shall then go down to the fields from +time to time, as opportunity offers, and induce the slaves to join them, +seeking and selecting the most restless and daring." + +It was substantially this plan to which Brown now returned, and he +sought aid among those men at the East who had backed the Free State +cause in Kansas. He was not known to them, as he has been presented to +the reader, as the chief actor in the Pottawatomie massacre, but as a +bold guerrilla chief, who had lost a son in the Kansas strife. Even so, +he was a recognized dissenter from the peace policy which had finally +won success for freedom in the Territory. But there were men in the +anti-slavery ranks who were impatient of the whole policy of peace, and +the impressive personality of Brown won some of these to active support +of his project. Among them were Theodore Parker, Gerritt Smith, Dr. S. +G. Howe, George L. Stearns, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Franklin B. +Sanborn, who formed a secret committee to forward this plan. They were +not informed of its details, but knew its general scope. To a +considerable number Brown was known as a hero of past fights and not +averse to fresh ones. He visited Concord, where he spoke at a public +meeting, and made a great impression on Emerson, Alcott, and Thoreau. +Alcott made a pen-picture of him. "I think him equal to anything he +dares,--the man to do the deed, if it must be done, and with the +martyr's temper and purpose. Nature obviously was deeply intent in the +making of him. He is of imposing appearance personally,--tall, with +square shoulders and standing; eyes of deep gray, and couchant, as if +ready to spring at the least rustling, dauntless yet kindly; his hair +shooting backward from low down on his forehead; nose trenchant and +Romanesque; set lips, his voice suppressed yet metallic, suggesting deep +reserves; decided mouth; the countenance and frame charged with power +throughout." + +Emerson, from his own observation and from hearsay, drew his spiritual +portrait: "For himself, Brown is so transparent that all men see him +through. He is a man to make friends wherever on earth courage and +integrity are esteemed,--the rarest of heroes, a pure idealist, with no +by-ends of his own. Many of us have seen him, and everyone who has heard +him speak has been impressed alike by his simple, artless goodness and +his sublime courage. He joins that perfect Puritan faith which brought +his ancestor to Plymouth Rock, with his grandfather's ardor in the +Revolution. He believes in two articles--two instruments, shall I +say?--the Golden Rule and the Declaration of Independence; and he used +this expression in a conversation here concerning them: 'Better that a +whole generation of men, women, and children should pass away by a +violent death, than that one word of either should be violated in this +country.'... He grew up a religious and manly person, in severe poverty; +a fair specimen of the best stock of New England, having that force of +thought and that sense of right which are the warp and woof of +greatness.... Thus was formed a romantic character, absolutely without +any vulgar trait; living to ideal ends, without any mixture of +self-indulgence or compromise, such as lowers the value of benevolent +and thoughtful men we know; abstemious, refusing luxuries, not sourly +and reproachfully, but simply as unfit for his habit; quiet and gentle +as a child, in the house. And as happens usually to men of romantic +character, his fortunes were romantic." + +But the romance in this portrait is due quite as much to the imagination +of the artist as to the character of the subject. Emerson seems to have +entirely overlooked in his estimate of Brown that he had no rational +idea of the moral obligations of the citizen to the civil government and +to the peace of society; and that his conscience in its apparent +simplicity was really in dire confusion. The sentence he quotes from +Brown's conversation has its practical commentary in Brown's acts. He +was as ready to take the sword, to redress what he considered a breach +of the Golden Rule or the Declaration of Independence, as if mankind had +not for thousands of years and with infinite cost been building up +institutions for the peaceful settlement of difficulties. In Kansas he +saw in the political struggle simply an issue to be tried out by force +between good men and bad men; and he made himself executioner of a group +of men he considered bad, thereby plunging into a series of murders +utterly repugnant to his natural humanity. He afterward justified the +deed, without avowing his own part in it, which was not fully known till +twenty years later. After Harper's Ferry, the _Springfield Republican_ +(which judged him very favorably), speaking partly from personal +knowledge gained during his residence in Springfield, said: "He is so +constituted that when he gets possessed of an idea he carries it out +with unflinching fidelity to all its logical consequences, as they seem +to him, hesitating at no absurdity and deterred by no unpleasant +consequences to himself personally. He is a Presbyterian in his faith, +and feels that it is for this very purpose that God has reared him up." + +When a man is so possessed by the conviction that he is God's instrument +as to set himself outside of ordinary human morality, he is presumably +on the verge of shipwreck. The _Republican_, while emphasizing the +popular estimate of John Brown as "a hero," coupled with this the +characterization of him as "a misguided and insane man." + +The project he was now pressing--the establishment of a mountain refuge +for fugitive slaves, working toward the depreciation of slave property, +and the ultimate extinction of the system--had a certain superficial +plausibility; and it seemed to avoid the inhumanity of general +insurrection. But it was at the best hardly more than a boy's romance, +and at the last moment Brown abandoned it for a still more impracticable +plan. + +On the morning of October 17, 1859, the little town of Harper's Ferry, +on the upper Potomac, awoke to the amazing discovery that in the night +the buildings of the United States armory had been seized and held by a +company of armed men, white and black; that they had gathered in a +number of prisoners, including some prominent citizens; and that their +design was to free the slaves. Brown had struck his blow. With eighteen +faithful associates, including three of his sons, he had lurked near the +town till all was ready; then in the night he had marched in and seized +the armory, and brought in as prisoners some of the neighboring planters +who were told they were held as hostages. Other citizens were captured +almost without resistance in the early morning hours, till the prisoners +were twice the number of their captors. But there was no rising of the +negroes. Brown, after his first easy success, stayed still as if +paralyzed. Either he had no further plan, or his judgment and will +failed him at the crisis. His complete failure to improve his +first advantage--whether the weakness lay in his plan or the +execution--indicated the radical unsoundness which underlay his +impressive exterior. The town rallied its forces, surrounded the armory, +and a fight was kept up through the afternoon. At night Colonel Robert +E. Lee with a force of troops arrived from Washington, and the next +morning they easily stormed the armory, which had lost half its +garrison, including two of Brown's sons, and Brown and the rest of his +party were made prisoners. + +The country was in a state of profound peace; Kansas had fallen out of +mind; the Presidential election was a year away; and even political +discussion was languid. The news of the raid came as an utter surprise. +Brown was unknown to the general public, and beyond the patent fact of +an attempted slave insurrection there was at first general bewilderment +as to the meaning of the event. Brown's secret committee,--ignorant of +his exact plan, most of them having had but little to do with him, and +none of them expecting the blow when it fell,--were in no haste to +enlighten the public, or acknowledge their responsibility. But Brown +became his own interpreter. The ubiquitous _New York Herald_ reporter +was instantly on the ground, and never were interviews more eagerly read +and more impressive in their effect than Brown's replies to his various +examiners. A prisoner, wounded, in the shadow of a felon's death, the +old man bore himself with perfect courage and composure. Asked on what +principle he justified his acts, he replied: "Upon the Golden Rule. I +pity the poor in bondage, that have none to help them; that is why I am +here; not to gratify any personal animosity, revenge, or vindictive +spirit. It is my sympathy with the oppressed and wronged, that are as +good as you and as precious in the sight of God." The Virginians +recognized his sincerity and integrity. The Governor of the State, Henry +A. Wise--an extreme Southerner in his politics--visited Brown, and said +publicly: "They are mistaken who take Brown to be a madman. He is a +bundle of the best nerves I ever saw,--cut and thrust and bleeding and +in bonds. He is a man of clear head, of courage, fortitude, and simple +ingenuousness. He is cool, collected, and indomitable, and it is but +just to him to say that he was humane to his prisoners, and he inspired +me with great trust in his integrity as a man of truth. He is a fanatic, +vain and garrulous, but firm, truthful, and intelligent." + +For Brown and his associates there could be but one conclusion to the +business. They were put on trial for treason and murder. They had a fair +trial, and indeed the case admitted of no doubt. They were sentenced to +be hanged, and the sentence was carried out, within six weeks of their +act. + +At the North, Brown was widely honored as a hero and a martyr. No one +defended his act,--a slave insurrection, in whatever form, found no +public justification. Probably a considerable majority of the community, +including all the more conservative political elements, condemned the +man and his deed, and perhaps justified his execution. But wherever +anti-slavery feeling was strong, and with a multitude who, apart from +such feeling, were sensitive to striking qualities of manhood, there was +great admiration and sympathy for Brown and sorrow for his fate. John A. +Andrew spoke a common feeling when he said: "Whatever may be thought of +John Brown's acts, John Brown himself was right." Emerson eulogized him +in daring words. If, he said, John Brown is hung, he will glorify the +gallows as Jesus glorified the cross. On the day of his death the church +bells were tolled in many a Northern town. Said the _Springfield +Republican_ the next morning: "There need be no tears for him. Few men +die so happily, so satisfied with time, place, and circumstance, as did +he.... A Christian man hung by Christians for acting upon his +convictions of duty,--a brave man hung for a chivalrous and +self-sacrificing deed of humanity,--a philanthropist hung for seeking +the liberty of oppressed men. No outcry about violated law can cover up +the essential enormity of a deed like this." + +Never was a man dealt with more generously by posthumous fame. In the +Civil War, two lines of verse, fitted to a stirring melody, became the +marching song of the Union armies: + + John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave + His soul is marching on! + +This was the last touch of the apotheosis; John Brown became to the +popular imagination the forerunner and martyr of the cause of Union and +freedom. + +At the North, one immediate and lasting effect of the tragedy was to +intensify the conviction of the essential wrong of slavery. However +mistaken was Brown's way of attack, it was felt that nothing short of an +organized system of injustice and cruelty could have inspired such a man +to such an attempt. The very logic of facts, which compelled Virginia in +self-defense to hang him, showed the character of the institution which +needed such defense. Yes, it was necessary to hang him,--but what was +the system that made necessary the sacrifice of such a life? + +But Andrew's words "whatever may be thought of John Brown's acts"--call +for further consideration. What were his acts, and what were their +consequences? A part of the answer was seen in the bodies of men of +Harper's Ferry, lying in the streets, peaceful men with wives and +children, slain for resisting an armed invasion of their quiet little +village. The first man to fall was a negro porter of a railway train, +who, failing to halt when challenged by one of Brown's sentinels, was +shot. The second man killed was a citizen standing in his own doorway. +The third was a graduate of West Point who, hearing of trouble, came +riding into town with his gun, and was shot as he passed the armory. + +Among the letters that came to Brown in prison was one from the widow of +one of the Pottawatomie victims, with these words: "You can now +appreciate my distress in Kansas, when you then and there entered my +house at midnight and arrested my husband and two boys, and took them +out in the yard, and in cold blood shot them dead in my hearing. You +can't say you did it to free our slaves; we had none and never expected +to own one; but it only made me a poor disconsolate widow with helpless +children." + +Brown's first plan, of drawing off the slaves to a mountain +fortress,--peaceable only in semblance, and involving inevitable +fighting,--he exchanged at last for a form of attack which was an +instant challenge to battle. In a conference with Frederick Douglass, on +the eve of the event, Douglass vainly urged the earlier plan, but found +Brown resolved on "striking a blow which should instantly rouse the +country." On the day of his death, Brown penned these sentences and +handed them to one of his guards: "I, John Brown, am now quite certain +that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with +blood. I had, as I now think vainly, flattered myself that without very +much bloodshed it might be done." But no man so directly and +deliberately aimed to settle the difficulty by bloodshed as he. It is +thus that men make God responsible for what themselves are doing. + +The Civil War when it came brought enough of suffering and horror. But +it was mild and merciful compared to what a slave insurrection might +have been. And it was essentially a slave insurrection that Brown aimed +at. The great mass of the Northern people would have recoiled with +abhorrence from a servile revolt. But who could wonder if the Southern +people did not believe this, when they saw honors heaped on a man who +died for inciting such an insurrection? How could they nicely +distinguish between approval of a man's acts and praise for the man +himself? If the North had one thinker who set forth its highest ideals, +its noblest aims, that man was Emerson. Yet Emerson passed Brown's acts +almost unblamed, and named his execution together with that on Calvary. +Not all the disclaimers of politicians, the resolves of conventions, +could reassure the South, after that day of mourning with which Northern +towns solemnized John Brown's death. What wonder that an ardent +Southerner like Toombs, speaking to his constituents a few months later, +called on them to "meet the enemy at the door-sill." And what wonder +that the Southern people were inclined as never before to look upon the +Northern people as their foes? + +The more deeply we study human life, the more do we realize that as to +individual responsibility "to understand is to forgive." Half a century +after the event, we may well have forgiveness--not of charity, but of +justice--for John Brown, and for the Governor who signed his +death-warrant; we can sympathize with those who honored and wept for +him, and with those who shuddered at his deed. But, for the truth of +history and for the guidance of the future, we must consider not only +the intentions of men, but the intrinsic character of their deeds; not +only John Brown himself, but John Brown's acts. And in that long series +of deeds of violence and wrong which wrought mutual hatred and +fratricidal war between the two sections of a people, that midnight +attack on the peaceful Virginia village must bear its heavy +condemnation. Hitherto aggression had been almost entirely from the +South; this was a counter-stroke, and told with dire force against the +hope of a peaceable and righteous settlement. + +Probably most readers of to-day will wonder at the degree of admiration +and praise which Brown received. It must be ascribed in part to some +quality in his personality, which cast a kind of glamour on some of +those who met him, and inspired such highly idealized portraiture as +Emerson's. But there remains the extraordinary fact that men like +Theodore Parker and Gerritt Smith and Dr. S. G. Howe gave countenance +and aid to Brown's project. Before history's bar, their responsibility +seems heavier than his; they, educated, intelligent, trained in public +service; he an untaught, ill-balanced visionary, who at least staked his +life on his faith. Their complicity in his plot illustrates how in some +moral enthusiasts the hostility to slavery had distorted their +perception of reality. Such men saw the Southern communities through +the medium of a single institution, itself half-understood. They saw, so +to speak, only the suffering slave and his oppressor. They failed to see +or forgot the general life of household and neighborhood, with its +common, kindly, human traits. They did not recognize that Harper's Ferry +was made up of much the same kind of people, at bottom, as Concord. They +did not realize that a slave insurrection meant a universal social +conflagration. Indeed, Brown's original scheme of a general flight of +slaves to a mountain stronghold had a fallacious appearance of avoiding +a violent insurrection, and it was with the background of this plan that +Brown, a wounded prisoner with death impending, appealed to the Northern +imagination as a hero and martyr. + +But this glorification of him wrought a momentous effect in the South. +It is best described by those who witnessed it. John S. Wise, son of the +Governor who signed Brown's death-warrant, writes in his graphic +reminiscences, _The End of an Era_: "While these scenes were being +enacted"--the trial and execution of Brown and the Northern comments--"a +great change of feeling took place in Virginia toward the people of the +North and toward the Union itself. Virginians began to look upon the +people of the North as hating them, and willing to see them assassinated +at midnight by their own slaves, led by Northern emissaries; as flinging +away all pretense of regard for laws protecting the slave-owner; as +demanding of them the immediate freeing of their slaves, or that they +prepare against further attacks like Brown's, backed by the moral and +pecuniary support of the North. During the year 1860 the Virginians +began to organize and arm themselves against such emergencies." + +The spirit of proscription against all anti-slavery men broke out +afresh. At Berea, Kentucky, a little group of anti-slavery churches and +schools had been growing for six years, championed by the stalwart +Cassius M. Clay, and with the benignant and peaceful John G. Fee as +their leader. A month after Brown's foray a band of armed horsemen +summoned twelve of their men to leave the State. Governor Magoffin said +he could not protect them, and with their families they went into +exile--stout-heartedly chanting at their departure the 37th Psalm: "Fret +not thyself because of evil-doers." + +In the South itself there had been developing recently an antagonism to +the slave power. Its strength lay not in the moral opposition to +slavery, which indeed always existed, but was quiet and apparently +cowed; but rather in the growing class of city residents,--merchants and +professional men,--whose interests and feelings were often antagonistic +to the large planters. The hostility to slavery on economic grounds, and +in the white man's interest, found passionate expression in Helper's +_Impending Crisis_, and in a milder form was spreading widely. But at +the menace of invasion and servile insurrection all classes drew +together. Especially the women of the South became suddenly and +intensely interested in the political situation. The suggestion of +personal peril appealed to them, and to the men who were their natural +defenders. The situation is well described in Prof. J. W. Burgess's _The +Civil War and the Constitution_,--a generally impartial book, written +with personal appreciation of the Southern standpoint: "No man who is +acquainted with the change of feeling which occurred in the South +between the 16th of October, 1859, and the 16th of November of the same +year can regard the Harper's Ferry villainy as anything other than one +of the chiefest crimes of our history. It established and +re-established the control of the great radical slaveholders over the +non-slaveholders, the little slaveholders, and the more liberal of the +larger slaveholders, which had already begun to be loosened. It created +anew a solidarity of interest between them all, which was felt by all +with an intensity which overbore every other sentiment. It gave thus to +the great radical slaveholders the willing physical material for the +construction of armies and navies and for the prosecution of war." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN + + +Every American may be presumed to be familiar with the external facts of +Abraham Lincoln's early life,--the rude cabin, the shiftless father, the +dead mother's place filled by the tender step-mother; the brief +schooling, the hungry reading of the few books by the fire-light; the +hard farm-work, with a turn now of rail-splitting, now of flat-boating; +the country sports and rough good-fellowship; the upward steps as +store-clerk and lawyer. But the interior qualities that made up his +character and built his fortune will bear further study. + +He was composed of traits which seemed to contradict each other. In a +sense this is true of everyone. Dr. Holmes says (in substance): "The +vehicle in which each one of us crosses life's narrow isthmus between +two oceans is not a one-seated sulky, but an omnibus." Sometimes, as +depicted in that wonderful parable, _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, one +inmate ejects the others. But in Lincoln the various elements were +wrought as years passed by into harmony. + +He was prized among his early companions as a wit and story-teller. The +women complained because at their parties all the men were drawn off to +hear Abe Lincoln's stories. When he came to be a public speaker, he +feathered the shafts of his argument with jest and anecdote. The vein of +humor in him was rich and deep; it helped him through the hard places. +When as President he announced to his cabinet the Emancipation +Proclamation, he first refreshed himself by reading to them a chapter +from Artemus Ward. + +His early growth was in rough soil, and some of the mud stuck to +him,--his jests were sometimes broad. But if coarse in speech he was +pure in life, and neither the rancor of political hate nor the research +of unsparing biographers ever charged him with an unchaste act. + +Along with this rollicking fun he had a vein of deepest melancholy. In +part it was temperamental. The malarial country sometimes bred a strain +of habitual depression. His mother was the natural daughter of a +Virginia planter, and had the sadness sometimes wrought by such +pre-natal conditions; it was said she was never seen to smile. Lincoln's +early years had hardships and trials, over many of which he triumphed, +and triumphed laughing; but there were others for which there was +neither victory nor mirth. Some of his early letters of intimate +friendship (as given in Hay and Nicolay's biography), show a singular +capacity for romantic affection, and gleams of hope of supreme +happiness. But death frustrated this hope, and the disappointment +brought him to the verge of insanity. In his domestic life,--it was an +open secret,--he had some of the experience which disciplined Socrates. +Perhaps we go to the root of his sadness if we say that in his deepest +heart he was a passionate idealist, and by circumstances he was long +shut out from the natural satisfaction of ideality. His partner Herndon +said of him, "His melancholy dripped from him as he walked." + +Out of these experiences he brought a great power of patience and a +great power of sympathy. These armed him for his work. He became +invincible against the perversities and follies of men, and the blows of +fate. He ripened into a tenderness such as prompted him, when burdened +with cares beyond measure, to give a sympathetic hearing to every mother +who came to the President with the story of her boy's trouble. + +To take another brace of qualities, he was at once a powerful fighter +and an habitual peace-maker. His long, gaunt, sinewy frame, and his +tough courage, made him a formidable antagonist, but it was hard to +provoke him to combat. Lamon,--whose biography is a treasury of good +stories, sometimes lacking in discretion, but giving an invaluable +realistic picture,--relates an encounter with the village bully, Jack +Armstrong. The "boys" at last teased Lincoln into a wrestling match, and +when his victory in the good-natured encounter provoked Jack to unfair +play, Abe shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. Then he made peace with +him, drew out the better quality in him; and the two reigned "like +friendly Caesars" over the village crowd, Abe tempering Jack's +playfulness when it got too rough, and winning the boys to kindly ways. + +In that day and region, men were very frank about their religious +beliefs and disbeliefs. The skepticism or unbelief which lies unspoken +in the hearts of a multitude of men,--silent perhaps out of regard to +public opinion, perhaps from consideration for mother or wife--found +free and frequent utterance in the West, long before Robert Ingersoll +gave it eloquent voice. Lincoln, though we have called him an idealist +at heart, habitually guided himself by logic, by hard sense, and by such +evidence as passes in a court of law. He was one of the class to whom +books like Tom Paine's _Age of Reason_ appealed strongly. In early life +he wrote a treatise against Christianity. A politic friend to whom he +showed his manuscript put it in the stove, but the writer was not +changed in his opinions. To Christianity as a supernatural revelation he +never became a convert, but the belief in "a Power that makes for +righteousness" grew with his growth and strengthened with his strength. + +With deepening experiences, the awe and mystery of life weighed heavily +on him. When travelling on circuit, his days spent in law-cases, +diversified with sociability and funny stories, he would sometimes be +seen in the early morning brooding by the fire-place with hands +outspread, and murmuring his favorite verses,--a soliloquy on the +mournfulness and mystery of life: "Oh, why should the spirit of mortal +be proud!" + +In his early youth he read eagerly and thoroughly such few books as came +in his way. Later, his taste for reading seemed to grow less. He had a +keen instinct for reality, and perhaps he found little in books that +satisfied him. For poetry and philosophy he had small aptitude, and in +science he had no training. What books he read he seemed to digest and +get the pith of. Once, made suddenly conscious by defeat of his lack of +book-culture, he took up Euclid's geometry, and resolutely studied and +re-studied it. Doubtless that helped him in the close logic which often +characterized his speeches. The strength of his speeches lay in their +logic, their close regard to fact, their adaptation to the plain people +of whom he was one, their homely illustrations, and, as the years +developed him, an appeal to some high principle of duty. His chief +library was men and women. From them, and from his own experience, he +drew the elements of his politics, history, philosophy. + +He had the ambition natural to a man of high powers. With all his genial +sociability, he was in a way self-centered. His associates often thought +him,--and Lamon shares the opinion--not only moody and meditative, but +unsocial, cold, impassive; bent on his own ends, and using other men as +his instruments. Partly we may count this as the judgment of the crowd +to whom Lincoln's inner life was unimaginable. He shared their social +hours, and then withdrew into thoughts and feelings and purposes which +he could share with no one. Doubtless, too, he was in fault for some of +that neglect of the small courtesies and kindnesses which besets men +whose own thoughts fascinate them too strongly. There is a graphic +touch, in the story of his love affairs, of a girl who rejected his +advances because she had seen him on a hot day walk up a hill with a +woman and never offer to relieve her of the baby she was carrying. + +As a lawyer he won more than ordinary success, making good his lack of +erudition by shrewdness and knowledge of human nature. It was observed +that he always tried a case honestly and fairly; that he was not fond of +controversy, and always preferred to settle a case out of court; that he +never argued well or strongly unless his conviction was fully on his +client's side; that, if unconvinced himself, he simply brought forward +the proofs which fairly counted on his side, and left the decision to +others; and that he was so little attentive to gain that, although he +became one of the leading lawyers of Illinois, he never accumulated much +money. + +His fairness as a lawyer, and his integrity in politics, won his popular +nickname of "Honest Abe." Perhaps honesty, in its fullest sense, was his +central quality. He was always true to the truth as he saw it--true in +thought and word and deed. One feels in his printed speeches that he is +trying to see and to say things as they are. He had not the aid of the +mystic's vision, in which the moral universe is revealed in such +splendor that to accept and obey it is pure joy. But he saw and felt and +practiced the homely obligations of honesty and kindness. His education +came largely as at successive epochs there were disclosed to him new +heights of moral significance in the life of the nation; and as fast as +such disclosures came to him he set himself to obey them with absolute +loyalty. + +His conscience was not of the self-contemplating and self-voicing kind. +He was chary of words about duty. It has been alleged that the typical +New Englander is afflicted with "a chronic inflammation of the moral +sense." Such a malady does exist, though many a New Englander is bravely +free from it, while it is not unknown in Alaska or Japan. From such an +over-conscientious conscience, and from its incidents and its +counterfeits, there is bred a redundancy of verbal moralising. That was +not a foible of Lincoln. The sense of moral obligation underlies his +weightier utterances, as the law of gravitation underlies scientific +demonstrations,--not talked of, but assumed. + +Lincoln's political career gave high promise at the start. He seemed to +have the qualities for success,--ambition, shrewdness in managing men, +power as a speaker, integrity which won general confidence, ideals not +too high above the crowd. Yet his success was so moderate that in +contrasting himself with Senator Douglas, at the outset of their debate +in 1858, he declared that, "With me the race of ambition has been a +failure,--a flat failure; with him it has been one of splendid success." +There were reasons for it: Douglas had given himself without reserve to +his personal advancement, and Lincoln had been hampered by regard for +other men and for larger ends. After one term in Congress as a Whig, +1847-8, he retired in deference to the fashion of "rotation" between +localities. When roused to new activity by the anti-Nebraska campaign in +1854, he was the favorite candidate of his party for the senatorship; +but seeing that the knot of men who held the balance of power were +gravitating to the other side, he insisted on withdrawing in favor of +Lyman Trumbull, as a stronger candidate, who accordingly won the day. +Before the revival of the slavery issue, there had been nothing in the +old-time Whig and Democratic contests to appeal to the deeper elements +in Lincoln's nature, and personal ambition alone was not strong enough +to push him to eminence. Though he could handle men skillfully, he had a +distaste for the petty arts of the politician's trade. "Politics," he +said, "is the combination of individual meannesses for the general +good." And he had small relish for the game, until "the general good" +loomed clear and large. + +His attitude on slavery was typical of the men at the North who were at +once humane and regardful of the established order. He gave his general +position, in homely and graphic fashion, in a letter to his old friend, +Joshua F. Speed, of Kentucky, in 1855. This was at the time he referred +to when he wrote: "I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of +the Missouri Compromise roused me again." To Speed he wrote: "I +acknowledge your rights and my obligations under the Constitution in +regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted +down and caught, and carried back to their stripes and unrequited toils; +but I bite my lips and keep quiet. In 1841, you and I had together a +tedious low-water trip in a steamboat from Louisville to St. Louis. You +may remember, as well as I do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the +Ohio there were on board ten or a dozen slaves shackled together with +irons. That sight was a continued torment to me; and I see something +like it every time I touch the Ohio or any other slave border. It is not +fair for you to assume that I have no interest in a thing which has, and +continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought +rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do +crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the +Constitution and the Union. I do oppose the extension of slavery, +because my judgment and feelings so prompt me; and I am under no +obligations to the contrary." + +It was this strong regard for the established law of the land which set +the moderate anti-slavery men apart from the Abolitionists of the +extreme type. And up to this time, Lincoln, though hostile to slavery, +had not been especially concerned as to the nation's dealing with it. +But now came the opportunity and call to resist its extension into the +territories, and with the response to that call came the sense that a +great contest was impending between right and wrong, between the good of +the many and the selfishness of the few. + +Lincoln had close at hand a friend to spur him on. His law-partner, +William H. Herndon, was an enthusiastic radical in politics and +religion. He was an Abolitionist, and a follower of Theodore Parker. He +had long plied Lincoln with Parker's sermons and with anti-slavery +literature. When in 1856 Herndon and his friends began to organize to +support armed resistance in Kansas, Lincoln remonstrated with them +successfully. Then came the parting of the ways,--Republican, Democrat, +or Know-nothing? The Illinois Abolitionists threw themselves heartily +into the Republican movement. At its first State convention, at +Bloomington, Lincoln was the great figure. The faithful Herndon, his +missionary zeal rewarded at last by such a convert, describes in glowing +language the speech of Lincoln,--which so carried him away that after +trying for fifteen minutes to take notes as usual, he threw away his +pencil. "Heretofore, and up to this moment, he had simply argued the +slavery question on grounds of policy,--on what are called the +statesman's grounds,--never reaching the question of the radical and the +eternal right. Now he was newly baptized and freshly born; he had the +fervor of a new convert; the smothered flame broke out; enthusiasm +unusual to him blazed up; his eyes were aglow with an inspiration; he +felt justice; his heart was alive to the right; his sympathies, +remarkably deep for him, burst forth, and he stood before the throne of +the eternal Right, in presence of his God, and then and there unburdened +his penitential and fired soul. This speech was fresh, new, genuine, +odd, original; filled with fervor not unmixed with a divine enthusiasm; +his head breathing out through his tender heart its truths, its sense of +right, and its feeling of the good and for the good. If Lincoln was six +feet four inches high usually, at Bloomington he was seven feet, and +inspired at that." + +But the prairie fire was slow to light. Five days after the convention, +Herndon and Lincoln got up a ratification meeting in Springfield. There +were posters, illuminations, a band of music,--and at the appointed +hour, one man in the hall besides Lincoln and Herndon! Lincoln took the +platform, began with words half-sad, half-mirthful, and concluded: "All +seems dead, dead, dead; but the age is not yet dead; it liveth as sure +as our Maker liveth. Under all this seeming want of life and motion, the +world does move nevertheless. Be hopeful. And now let us adjourn, and +appeal to the people." + +The prairie caught fire at last. The Republicans carried Illinois that +autumn for Fremont. Two years later, Lincoln and Douglas traversed the +State in their famous series of joint debates. The main issue was +slavery in the territories; the background was the general attitude of +the white man toward the negro. Douglas held that the whole business was +a question for white men only. If they wanted slavery in any Territory, +let them have it. If they did not want it, let them keep it out--unless +the Supreme Court forbade. Lincoln summed up this "popular sovereignty" +doctrine: "If one man wants to make another man a slave, a third man has +no right to prevent him!" His position was that the nation's duty was to +hold the common domain for freedom, and that this was the business of +Congress. Douglas constantly twitted Lincoln with belief in negro +equality. This Lincoln disclaimed; he did not believe in the negro's +equality with the white man; did not believe in making him a voter or a +juror; but because an inferior, had a negro no rights? Lincoln's +anti-slavery position was very moderate; in reply to Douglas's +challenge, he disclaimed any disposition to agitate against the fugitive +slave law; as to practical restriction, he had nothing to urge except +exclusion from the territories. Here he was emphatic, and he protested +earnestly against Douglas's "not caring whether slavery was voted up or +voted down." + +The best test which the debate gave of his quality was the memorable +passage in which he declared his conviction that "A house divided +against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot +permanently endure half slave and half free." In this he rose above his +wonted level, and spoke with a prophet's forecast. He read this passage +in advance to a group of the party leaders. Though, after this bold +opening, the speech was only a calm and weighty argument that the +interest of slavery was being deliberately and systematically promoted +by all branches of the Democracy,--yet all, except Herndon, were alarmed +at this passage, and besought Lincoln to withhold it. But he answered +soberly and half-mournfully that it expressed his full conviction, and +he would face defeat rather than suppress it. In the immediate result, +it injured his cause; a general comment of Republicans, through the +campaign, says Herndon, was "Damn that fool speech!" + +Douglas won the Legislature and the senatorship, though Lincoln won the +popular majority. When he was asked how he felt about his defeat, he +answered: "I feel as the boy did when he stubbed his toe,--he was too +big to cry, and it hurt too bad to laugh!" The country at large, which +had closely watched the debate, forgot him for two years. Early in 1860 +he was invited to lecture in New York. He was not regarded as a +Presidential candidate; and when he appeared,--in clothes full of +creases from his carpet-bag, with no press copy of his speech and not +expecting the newspapers to report it--he was such a figure as to his +audience in Cooper Institute seemed to give little promise. But he +carried them with him completely, and the next morning the seven-column +report in the _Tribune_ told the country that in this man there was a +new force to reckon with. The speech ranks with the great historical +orations of the country. The first part was a careful review of the +position which the signers of the Constitution took in their individual +capacity as to the right of Congress to regulate or exclude slavery from +the territories. He showed by specific proof that of the thirty-nine +signers twenty-one voted definitely on various occasions for +Congressional Acts which did so exclude or regulate slavery; and that of +the remaining eighteen almost all were known to have held the same +opinion. This was a masterly refutation of the claim of Douglas and the +Democracy that the fathers of the nation were on their side as to the +territorial question. Lincoln then passed to a broader view, and +inquired: What can we do that will really satisfy the South? Every word +is sober, temperate, well-weighed. The South, he showed, is really +taking very little interest now in the Territories. It is excited about +the John Brown raid, and accuses the Republican party of responsibility +for that. But not a single Republican was implicated in the raid--not +one. You, said Lincoln, addressing the South--interpret your +constitutional rights in a different way from what we do, and say if we +do not admit your interpretation,--if we elect a Republican +president,--you will break up the Union. But this is simply the +highwayman's plea. What, then, can we Republicans do to satisfy the +South? We must not only let them alone, but somehow convince them that +we do let them alone. In a word, this and this only will convince them; +we must cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. +And this must be done thoroughly,--done in acts as well as in words. +Silence will not be tolerated; we must place ourselves avowedly with +them. "Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, +suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in +politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and +return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our +Free-State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from +all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe +that all their troubles proceed from us." + +Thus he concludes: "If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand +by our duty fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of +those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied +and belabored,--contrivances such as groping for some middle ground +between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should +be neither a living man nor a dead man,--such as a policy of 'don't +care' on a question about which all true men do care,--such as Union +appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to disunionists, reversing +the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous, to +repentance,--such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay +what Washington said and undo what Washington did. Neither let us be +slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened +from it by menaces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons to +ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith, +let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it." + +In behalf of the South, Jefferson Davis, at about this time, presented +in the Senate, as their ultimatum, a set of resolutions. These called +for the recognition of slave-property as an indefeasible right of +territorial settlers, entitled to congressional protection; for the +enforcement of the fugitive slave law, and the repeal of the "personal +liberty laws" by which it was hindered or nullified in many States; and +in general, for the rebuke of all anti-slavery agitation. This was an +exact equivalent of Lincoln's interpretation of the South's demand; the +North must say that slavery is right, and act accordingly. And this was +indeed an ultimatum, with the distinct intimation: "This, or we dissolve +the Union." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE ELECTION OF 1860 + + +Now came on the battle in the Presidential convention. The Democratic +convention was dramatic and momentous. It met at Charleston, S. C., in +the last days of April, 1860. The struggle was between Douglas and the +extreme South. The contest was not over the nomination, but on the +resolutions. The Douglas party proposed the reaffirmation of the +Cincinnati platform of 1856, of which the kernel lay in the words: +"Non-intervention by Congress with slavery in State or Territory"; and +to this they would now add only a clause referring doubtful +constitutional points to the Supreme Court. But the Southern party would +accept nothing short of an affirmation that in the Territories until +organized as States, the right of slave-holding was absolute and +indefeasible, and Congress was bound to protect it. On this issue the +dispute in the convention was obstinate and irreconcilable. + +The South had long held unbroken sway in the Democracy and in the +nation. It had absolutely controlled the last two administrations, +though headed by Northern men. Its hold on the Senate had been unbroken, +and temporary successes of the Republicans in the House had borne no +fruit. The Supreme Court had gone even beyond the demands of the South. +Only in Kansas had its cause been lost, because the attempt to coerce a +whole territorial population had at last provoked revolt in the Northern +Democracy. The breach had been in some sort healed, but the leader of +the revolt was not forgiven or trusted. Meantime the alarm at John +Brown's raid had intensified the South's hostility to all opponents or +critics. All through the winter there had been constant expulsion of +anti-slavery men from that section. And now the Southern forces mustered +in the convention of the party they had so long controlled, insistent +and imperious, rejecting anything short of the fullest affirmation of +their claims in the territories. + +Douglas was not on the ground, but through his lieutenants, and still +more through the spirit he had infused into his followers, he was a +great and decisive power. In the Senate he had been almost isolated +among the Democrats; of late only Senator Pugh of Ohio had stood with +him against the administration. But he had appealed to the people, and +they had answered the call of the sturdy, audacious leader. However he +might at times court the favor of the South, he really stood for a broad +and simple principle,--the right of the majority of white men to rule. +For the negroes he cared nothing. But, in the territories, the majority +of white men should have slavery or not as they pleased. In the +Democratic party, the majority should control. And, in the last resort, +in the nation itself the majority should rule. Douglas thus stood +squarely for the rule of the majority within the white race. The +Republicans coupled with the supremacy of the legal majority in the +nation the right and obligation of the majority to maintain the personal +freedom of the negro, except where the Constitution allowed the States +to maintain slavery. The Southern Democracy asserted as its paramount +principle the right of slave-holding wherever the flag flew, except +where the State constitution forbade. If that right was denied or +limited--by a majority in the Democracy, or by a majority in the +nation--then beware! + +The Douglas men met the threat with a defiance,--not wordy, but +resolute. In Charleston, the stronghold and citadel of the South, with +their leader absent, with the disruption of the party impending, they +stood their ground. The majority should rule, or they would know the +reason why! They decisively outvoted their opponents as to the platform. +Then the delegates from South Carolina and the Gulf States deliberately +and solemnly marched out of the hall, and organized a separate +convention. With that act the rift began to open which was to be closed +only after four years of war. + +With what expectation did the extreme South thus break up the party? Did +they believe that their Northern associates would again capitulate, as +they had done so often before? Failing that, did they not know that a +divided Democracy meant victory for the Republicans? and had they not +committed themselves in that event to dissolve the Union? Were they +deliberately courting disunion, and wilfully throwing away the large +chance of continued dominance within the Union which a united Democracy +might have? Did they really attach supreme importance to this dogma +about the territories, when Kansas had shown how inevitably the local +population must determine the question, even against the efforts of the +Federal Government? Did the Southern leaders prefer the election of a +Republican, their open opponent, to Douglas, their friend and half-ally? +To such questions as these there can be little more than a conjectural +answer. It would be most interesting to know the true thoughts and +purposes of the leading delegates. We shall see a little later the +interpretation given by one of their defenders. But the strong +presumption is that their action was the fruit less of a policy than of +a temper. They had long been growing into a disposition which could +brook no resistance and no contradiction. The irresponsible power of the +master over his slaves; the domination of the slave-holding class over +the local communities, and the expulsion of their opponents; the control +of the government by a united South over a divided North,--these things +had bred a self-confidence and self-assertion which would stop at +nothing. The slave-holding principle, in full flower, was a principle +which recked nothing of legal majorities or governments. Its basis was +force, and it would use whatever force was necessary to maintain itself. + +The Douglas Democrats were still patient. Left with the original +convention in their hands, they declined to press their advantage. The +traditional rule required a two-thirds vote to nominate; and it was +agreed that for this purpose the seats left vacant by the seceders must +be counted,--which would prevent the nomination of Douglas. +Administration men from the North had stayed in the convention when +their Southern friends left. The body adjourned, to meet in Baltimore in +the last of June. The rival convention met in Richmond only to adjourn +to the same time and place. But any hopes of reunion were vain. Neither +side would yield. In the regular convention, to some of the vacant seats +Douglas delegates had in the interim been chosen. They were admitted, +against the protest of the administration minority, who found in this a +pretext for withdrawing and joining the seceding convention. With these +went a majority of the Massachusetts delegates, including Benjamin F. +Butler and Caleb Cushing; Cushing had been president of the Charleston +body. The two conventions now made their respective nominations. With +Douglas was joined for Vice-President Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia. +The seceders nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky and Joseph Lane +of Oregon. Breckinridge was Vice-President under Buchanan; a man of +character and ability, of fine presence and bearing, a typical +Kentuckian, afterward a general in the Confederate service. + +Alexander H. Stephens in his _War Between the States_--perhaps the best +statement of the Southern side of the whole case that has ever been +made,--says that this secession from the party was made (against his own +judgment) not recklessly, nor to provoke disunion, but with the +expectation of electing Breckinridge. The calculation was that with four +Presidential candidates there would be no choice by the people, and, the +election being thrown into the House, Breckinridge would be chosen; or, +if the House could not choose, Lane would surely be elected by the +Senate. This, says Stephens, was the view of President Buchanan, of +Breckinridge, Davis and a great majority of the Charleston seceders. +Stephens himself considered this a most precarious and hazardous +calculation, wholly insufficient for so grave a step. So obviously sound +was this judgment, that we inevitably recur to the belief that the +Southern secession was inspired not by calculation, but by a temper of +self-assertion, which fitted its hopes to its wishes. + +The "Constitutional Union" party--legatee of the Whig and American +parties--held a convention at Baltimore in May; resolved simply for the +maintenance of the Union and Constitution and the enforcement of the +laws; and nominated John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of +Massachusetts. It was the refuge of those who disliked the whole +sectional controversy, and were indifferent to both pro-slavery and +anti-slavery claims in comparison with peace and union. It held a middle +position, geographically as well as in sentiment, and was strong in the +border States. + +The Republican convention met in Chicago in May. It was a more +sophisticated body than its predecessor of 1856; with less of youthful +and spontaneous enthusiasm for a principle, and more of keen maneuvering +for the candidates. But it represented a disciplined and powerful +party, clear and strong in its essential principles, and looking +confidently to a national victory as almost within its grasp. The +platform affirmed its familiar doctrines as to slavery, and threw out +various inviting propositions as to foreign immigrants, a homestead law, +a Pacific railroad, etc. The vote of Pennsylvania being important and +doubtful, a bait was thrown out in a high-tariff resolution. When a year +or two later the exigencies of the war demanded a large revenue, this +was obtained partly by a high tariff. In these circumstances originated +the Protectionist character of the Republican party; a character +confirmed by the natural alliance of the favored interests with the +favoring power. + +The most prominent and in a sense logical candidate was William H. +Seward. As Governor and then Senator of New York, as a polished and +philosophic orator, as a man whose anti-slavery and constitutional +principles were well understood,--he was easily in the popular estimate +the foremost man of the party. Lincoln was in comparison obscure; his +fame rested mainly on his achievements as a popular debater; he was +wholly unversed in executive work and almost equally so in legislation; +highly esteemed in his own State, but little known beyond its borders. +He had been proposed for the Presidency only a week before in the State +convention, with great hurrahing for "the rail-splitter," "honest old +Abe." It seemed hardly more than one of the "favorite son" candidacies +which every canvass knows in plenty. But he was supported by a group of +very skillful Illinois politicians. They worked up the local sentiment +in his favor; they filled the galleries of the Wigwam at daylight of +the decisive day, and they took quieter and effective measures. Simon +Cameron claimed to control the vote of Pennsylvania in the convention, +and a bargain was made with him that if Lincoln were elected he should +have a seat in the Cabinet. Lincoln was not a party to the compact, but +when informed of it afterward he reluctantly made good his part. The +same thing was done with the friends of Caleb B. Smith of Indiana, and +with a like sequel. + +Meantime, Seward met such difficulties as always beset the first +favorite in a race. The old alliance between Seward, Weed and Greeley, +had been broken, with anger and resentment on Greeley's part, and he was +now on the floor of the convention actively opposing his old ally. +William M. Evarts led the New York delegation for Seward. Edward Bates +of Missouri had some support, as more moderate than Seward in his +anti-slavery principles, but he was too colorless a candidate to draw +much strength. One of Seward's friends, in seeking to win over the Bates +men, declared that Lincoln was just as radical as Seward. A newspaper +containing this being shown to Lincoln, he penciled on the margin a +reply which was forwarded to his supporters, "Lincoln agrees with Seward +in his irrepressible-conflict idea, and in negro equality; but he is +opposed to Seward's higher law." The "irrepressible conflict" was the +exact counterpart of the "house divided against itself." "Negro +equality" marked a distinct advance since the Douglas debate two years +before, and such advance, gradual but steady, was characteristic of +Lincoln. It was no less characteristic of him to disclaim the "higher +law" doctrine,--an obligation recognized by the individual conscience as +paramount to all human enactments. Indeed Seward, though the phrase was +his, was as little an idealist of the individual conscience as was +Lincoln. + +Of the circumstances just mentioned, a part belongs to the undercurrents +which few spectators at the time discerned. What the crowd and the world +saw was three successive ballots. First, Seward, 173-1/2; Lincoln, 102; +Cameron, 50-1/2; Chase and Bates following close. Then Cameron's name +was withdrawn, and Lincoln shot up abreast of Seward. A third ballot, +and Lincoln went up, up till he touched the line of a clear majority. +Then the Wigwam roared; the guns boomed; in the first subsidence of the +cheering Evarts gallantly moved that the choice be made unanimous,--and +the tall, homely Illinois lawyer was the Republican candidate for the +Presidency. If the result was not without its illustrations of his own +definition of politics--"the combination of individual meannesses for +the general good,"--he at least had sacrificed nothing of his +convictions, had not worked for his own elevation, or smirched his +hands. And, unproved though he was as to administrative power and +seamanship in a cyclone, there was yet a singular and intrinsic fitness +in his candidacy. His recognized quality was that which is basal and +dear to the common people, honesty; honesty in thought, word and act. In +his convictions, he was near to the great mass of the party of freedom +as it actually was; frankly opposed to slavery, but reverent and +tenacious of the established order, even though it gave slavery a +certain standing-ground. He had, too, that intimate sympathy with the +common people, that knowledge of their thoughts and ways, that respect +for their collective judgment and will as the ultimate arbiter--which +are the essential traits in a great leader of democracy. + +In the four-sided canvass which followed, the lines were not strictly +geographical. The Republican party indeed took its Vice-Presidential +candidate from the North--Hannibal Hamlin of Maine; for no Southern man +was likely to invite exile or worse by taking the place; and the +Republican electoral tickets had no place or only a nominal one south of +Mason and Dixon's line, except in Missouri, where the emancipation idea +was still alive. But the three other parties contested with each other +in all the States. In Massachusetts, the Breckinridge party had as its +candidate for Governor the unscrupulous Butler; and among its +supporters was Caleb Cushing, erudite, brilliant, conscienceless, and a +pro-slavery bigot. At the South, the Douglas party had considerable +strength. The hot-heads who had split the Democracy and were ready to +divide the nation had by no means an undisputed ascendency. Stephens and +Toombs parted company; they headed respectively the Douglas and +Breckinridge electoral tickets in Georgia. Davis spent part of the +summer in privacy at the North; he saw enough to convince him that the +North would fight if challenged, but the warning was in vain. + +The special interest of the campaign centered in the menace of disunion. +The territorial question in itself had grown almost wearisome, and had +no immediate application. The fugitive slave law had fallen into the +background; renditions were so uncertain and dangerous that they were +seldom attempted. John Brown's foray was to the North a bygone affair, +with no dream of its repetition. The few promoters of his project had +shrunk back at the catastrophe; the mass of the people had always looked +on it as a crazy affair; and with personal sympathy or honor for him, +the raid was almost forgotten,--but the South could not so easily +forget. But the living and burning issue was the threat of secession if +Lincoln should be elected,--a threat made openly and constantly at the +South. The campaign was full of bitterness. "Black Republicans" was a +term in constant use. The violent language was not all at the South. +Cushing declared, when in the preceding autumn Massachusetts reelected +Banks as governor, "A band of drunken mutineers have seized hold of the +opinion of this commonwealth--the avowed and proclaimed enemies of the +Constitution of the United States,"--with further hysteric talk about +the ship of state, with the pirate's flag at the masthead, drifting into +the gulf of perdition. The New York _Herald_ was full of wild and +inflammatory words. Papers of a different character--like the Boston +_Courier_, representative of the party which included Everett and +Winthrop--habitually charged the Republican party with John Brownism and +disunionism. The South not unnaturally believed that the North was +seriously divided, and could never hold together against its claims. But +most Northern people regarded the disunion threats as mere +gasconade,--meant only to carry an election, and then to be quietly +dropped. But if they were meant in earnest--well, there would be +something to be said, and done too, on the other side. + +Douglas, with almost no chance of success, made a bold and active +canvass. Through this year he showed a courage far higher than the mere +dexterity which had been his chief distinction before. In part, it was +an expression of a changing temper in the people. He stood openly and +stoutly for the principle of majority rule. While speaking at Wheeling, +Va., he was questioned as to whether he held that the election of +Lincoln would justify secession. He answered promptly that it would not, +and if secession were attempted, he would support a Republican President +in putting it down by force. That pledge to the country he redeemed, +when at the outbreak of the war he gave his immediate and full adherence +to President Lincoln,--representing and leading the "War Democrats" who +practically solidified the North, and insured its victory. At Wheeling, +he passed on the question answered by him for Breckinridge to answer. +But Breckinridge ignored the challenge,--a silence which was what the +lawyers call a "pregnant negative." + +November brought victory to the Republicans. In the popular vote, +Lincoln had about 1,860,000; Douglas, 1,370,000; Breckinridge, 840,000; +and Bell, 590,000. The electoral votes stood--or would have stood, if +the electoral conventions had all met--Lincoln, 180; Breckinridge, 72; +Bell, 39; Douglas, 12. Lincoln carried every Northern State except New +Jersey; Douglas, only part of New Jersey and Missouri; Bell, Virginia, +Kentucky and Tennessee; Breckinridge, all the rest of the South. The +successful candidate was thus in a popular minority,--no new thing. The +distinctively Southern candidate was doubly in a minority. The +supporters of Lincoln, Douglas and Bell, were all to be counted against +the extreme Southern claim, and much more against any assertion of that +claim by secession. Unitedly, their support outnumbered that of +Breckinridge by more than four to one. If ever a party was fairly and +overwhelmingly out-voted, it was the party whose central doctrine was +that slavery must be protected in the United States territories. + +Now the question was, would that party acquiesce in the decision of the +majority? At every previous election in the nation's history the +minority had acquiesced promptly and loyally. When Jefferson was +elected, New England looked on the new President as a Jacobin in +politics and an infidel in religion. But New England acquiesced without +an hour's hesitation. When Jackson was chosen, his opponents saw in him +a rude and ignorant demagog. But the anti-Jackson people accepted the +new President as they had accepted Monroe and Adams. In the choice of +Buchanan, the Republicans saw an assertion of the nationalism of +slavery, and a menace of the subjugation of Kansas. But the supporters +of Fremont recognized Buchanan as unhesitatingly as if he had been their +own choice. What was the meaning of popular government, except that the +minority should submit to the legitimate victory of the majority? On +what did the nation's existence rest, but the loyalty of its citizens to +the nation's self-determination in its elections? And now, would the +minority resist the decision of the majority? Would the Southern States +attempt to break up the Union? The North could not and would not +believe it. But there was a strong party at the South which was fully +convinced that the election of Lincoln was the crown of a series of +grievances which justified the South in withdrawing from the Union; that +such withdrawal was a clear constitutional right; and that the honor and +interest of the South demanded that it be made. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +FACE TO FACE + + +To understand the meaning of secession and the Civil War which followed +it, we must fathom the thoughts and feelings of the opposing parties. +Let us suppose two representative spokesmen to state their case in turn. + +Let the Secessionist speak first. The Secessionists were not at first a +majority of the people of the Southern States, but it was their view +which prevailed. What that view was we know certainly and from abundant +evidence,--the formal acts of secession, the speeches of the leaders in +Congress and at home, the histories since written by the President and +Vice-President of the Confederacy, and countless similar sources. This, +substantially, was the Secessionist's position:-- + +"This Union is a partnership of States, of which the formal bond is the +Constitution; the vital principle is the enjoyment by each section and +community of its rights; and the animating spirit is the mutual respect +and good-will of all members of the Union. The Northern people have +violated the provisions of the Constitution; they have infringed the +essential rights of the Southern communities, and threatened to invade +them still further; and they have displaced the spirit of mutual +good-will by alienation, suspicion, and hostility. The formal bond of +the Union being thus impaired, and its vital spirit lost, we propose +explicitly and finally to dissolve this partnership of States, and +reorganize our Southern communities in a new Confederacy. + +"We charge you of the North with explicit violation of the Constitution +in the matters of the territories, the Supreme Court and the fugitive +slaves. + +"You deny our right to carry a part of our property,--our unquestioned +property under the Constitution,--into the territories which belong +equally to the whole nation, and which have been acquired by our +treasure and our blood not less than by yours. You prevent slave-holders +from participating in the colonization of this domain, and thus +determine in advance that its future States shall exclude our +institutions. You thus unfairly build up a political preponderance, +which you use for the discouragement and injury of our industrial +system. + +"Against this wrong we have appealed to the Supreme Court, and secured +its express affirmation of the right to carry slave property, equally +with any other property, into the territories. This solemn decree of the +highest judicial authority you set at naught and defy. You say you will +reorganize the court and reverse the decision. You do not even wait for +that; you assume in party convention to reverse the mandate of the +Supreme Court. You not only contradict its declaration that slavery in +the territories is protected by the Constitution; you go farther, and +affirm that Congress has no authority to protect it there. + +"The Constitution affirms that fugitives from labor must be returned to +their masters. A Federal statute provides for such return. That statute +is not only decried by your orators and resisted by your mobs; it is +contravened and practically nullified by statutes in all the free +States. + +"These specific wrongs against us are inspired by a disposition which in +itself dissolves the bond of friendship between you and us,--a spirit of +open and avowed hostility to our social and industrial system. The Union +as our fathers established it, and as alone it has any value, is not a +thing of mere legalities,--it must be a true union of hearts and hands, +a spirit of mutual confidence and respect among the various communities +of one people. But for many years our most characteristic Southern +institution has been widely and loudly denounced among you as wicked and +inhuman. It has been proclaimed as 'the sum of all villainies.' We have +been held up to the reprobation of the world as tyrants and +man-stealers. Those at the North who disapproved of such abuse have +failed to silence or repress it. This denunciation has spread until +apparently it has won the preponderating sentiment of the North. A +national household in which we are thus branded as sinners and criminals +is no longer a home for us. + +"This hostility has borne its natural fruit in open attack. A peaceful +Virginia village has been assailed by armed men, its citizens shot down +while defending their homes, and the summons given for servile +insurrection with all its horrors. The leader in this crime, justly +condemned and executed under Virginia's laws, has been widely honored +throughout the North as a hero and martyr. By the light of that applause +we must interpret the real feeling of the North, and its probable future +course toward us. + +"The Presidential election has now been won by a party whose avowed +principle is the restriction of slavery, while its animating spirit is +active hostility to slavery. We cannot trust the Republican party in its +profession of respect for the Constitution. Even in its formal +declaration it ignores a Supreme Court decision, and advances a +revolutionary doctrine as to slavery in the territories. Its elected +candidate has declared that 'this government cannot endure permanently +half slave and half free.' The party's only reason for being is +opposition to slavery, and there is every probability that this +opposition will, with growing power and opportunity, be directed against +the system as it now exists in our Southern States. + +"The spirit of the American Union is dissolved already, when its chief +magistrate has been elected by the votes of one section and by a party +animated solely by hostility to the industrial and social system of the +other section. The formal bond of the Union can hereafter be only an +instrument to harass and destroy our liberties. We therefore propose +that that bond be at once and finally cancelled. It is and has been from +the beginning the right of any State to withdraw from the national +partnership at its own pleasure. We call on our brethren of the South to +take prompt action for the deliberate, legal and solemn withdrawal of +their States from the Union, and their organization in a new +Confederacy." + +So in effect spoke the leading spirits of the Gulf and Cotton States as +soon as Lincoln was elected in November, 1860. Less promptly, coming +only gradually into unison, but with growing clearness and emphasis, +spoke the dominant spirit of the North in the months between Lincoln's +election and inauguration. This in substance was the Northern reply to +the Secessionist:-- + +"We deny that we have violated the Constitution, that we have wronged +you, or that we intend to wrong you. We have taken no advantage of you +beyond the legitimate victories of political controversy. We are loyal +to the Constitution, and to that which is deeper and higher than the +Constitution,--the spirit of American nationality. + +"Taking up your specific charges,--the status of slavery in the various +territories has been debated and battled in Congress and among the +people for seventy years, and as now one decision and now another has +been reached it has been accepted by all until peaceably changed. For +six years past it has been the cardinal question in national politics. +Within that period three views have been urged,--that slavery goes by +natural and constitutional right into all the territories, that the +matter is to be settled in each territory by the local population, and +that slavery should be excluded by national authority from all the +territories. For this last view we have argued, pleaded, waited, until +at last the supreme tribunal of all--the American people in a national +election--has given judgment in our favor. + +"You cite the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court as establishing +slavery in the territories. But you wrest from that decision a force +which it does not legally carry. The best lawyers are with us as to +this. The court at the outset dismissed the case for want of +jurisdiction, because Dred Scott, being a negro, could not be an +American citizen, and therefore had no standing before the court. This +being said, the court by its own decision could go no farther with the +case. When a majority of the judges went on to discuss the status of +slavery in the territories,--as it might have come up if they had gone +on to try the case on its merits--they were uttering a mere _obiter +dictum_,--a personal opinion carrying no judicial authority. The attempt +to make these side-remarks a decisive pronouncement on the supreme +political question of the time is beyond law or reason. It is +preposterous that the court's incidental opinion, on a case which it had +disclaimed the power to try, should invalidate that exclusion of slavery +by national authority which had been affirmed by the great acts of 1787 +and 1820, and had been exercised for seventy years. + +"As to fugitive slaves, the Personal Liberty laws are designed to +safeguard by the State's authority its free black citizens from the +kidnapping which the Federal statute, with its refusal of a jury trial, +renders easy. If they sometimes make difficulty in the rendition of +actual fugitives,--you must not expect a whole-hearted acceptance of the +role of slave-catchers by the Northern people. You have the Federal +statute, and may take what you can under it,--but if under the bond +Shylock gets only his pound of flesh, there is no help for him. + +"Come now to your broader complaint, that the spirit of the Union has +been sacrificed by Northern hostility toward your peculiar institution. +True, you have had to put up with harsh words, but we have had to put up +with a harsh fact. You have had to tolerate criticism, but we have had +to tolerate slavery under our national flag. It is an institution +abhorrent to our sense of right. We believe it contrary to the law of +God and the spirit of humanity. We consider it unjust in its essential +principle, and full of crying abuses in its actual administration. Its +existence in one section of the Union is a reproach to us among the +nations of the earth, and a blot on the flag. Yet we so thoroughly +recognize that our national principle allows each State to shape its own +institutions that we have not attempted and shall not attempt to hinder +you from cherishing slavery among yourselves as long as you please. If, +for the vast and vital interests bound up with the unity of this nation, +we can tolerate the presence within it of a system we so disapprove, +cannot you on your part tolerate the inevitable criticism which it calls +out among us? + +"If mutual grievances are to be rehearsed, we have our full share. What +has become of the constitutional provision which guarantees to the +citizens of every State their rights in all the States? When black +seamen, citizens of our commonwealths, enter South Carolina ports, they +are thrown into jail or sold into slavery. If we send a lawyer and +statesman to remonstrate, he is driven out. Our newspapers are excluded +from your mails. You have extinguished free speech among your own +citizens. If the Republican party is sectional, it is because any man +who supports it, south of the Ohio, is liable to abuse and exile. You +have shaped our national policy in lines of dishonor. With your +Northern allies you have forced war on a weak neighbor and despoiled her +of territory. You have poured thousands of fraudulent voters into +Kansas, have supported their usurping government by Federal judges and +troops, and have tolerated the ruffians who harried peaceful settlers. +One of your congressional leaders has answered a senator's arguments by +beating him into insensibility, and you have honored and reelected the +assailant. And now, when we have fairly won the day in a national +election, and for purposes peaceful, constitutional, and +beneficent,--you propose to break up the nation, and reorganize your +part of it expressly for the maintenance and promotion of slavery. + +"With such complaints on your part, and such complaints on ours, what is +the manly, the patriotic, the sufficient recourse? That which we offer +is that you and we, the whole American people, go forward loyally and +patiently with the familiar duties of American citizens. Let Time and +Providence arbitrate our controversies. Let us trust the institutions +under which for seventy years our nation has grown great; let us, now +and hereafter, acquiesce in that deliberate voice of the people which +our fathers established as the sovereign authority. For thirty years you +have had in the Presidency either a Southerner or a Northern man with +Southern principles,--and we acquiesced. Now we have chosen a genuine +Northerner,--will not you acquiesce? Four years ago the Presidential +contest was held on the same lines as this year; you won, and we +cheerfully submitted,--now we have won, will not you loyally submit? We +disclaim any attack on your domestic institutions. The invasion by John +Brown was repudiated by practically the entire North. Honor for a brave, +misguided man meant no approval of his criminal act. For the advance of +our distinctive principles,--inimical, we own, to your system of slave +labor,--we look only to the gradual conversion of individual opinion, +and to the ultimate acceptance by your own people of the principles of +universal liberty. We believe that civilization and Christianity must +steadily work to establish freedom for all men. On that ground, and in +that sense, do we believe that 'this government cannot permanently +endure half slave and half free.' Pending that advance, we propose only +to exclude slavery from the common domain; to tolerate slavery as +sectional, while upholding freedom as national. If you are still +dissatisfied, yet is it not better to bear the evils that we have than +fly to others that we know not of? Nay, do we not too well know, and +surely if dimly foresee, the terrific evils which must attend the +attempted disruption of this nation? + +"A nation it is, and not a partnership. A nation, one and inseparable, +we propose that it shall continue. We deny that the founders and fathers +ever contemplated a mere temporary alliance dissoluble at the caprice of +any member. To the Union, established under the Constitution, just as +earnestly as to the cause of independence, they virtually pledged 'their +lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.' With every year the +nation has knitted its texture closer, as its benefits increased and its +associations grew. A nation is something other than a pleasure party, or +a mutual admiration society,--it includes a principle of rightful +authority and necessary submission. The harmony vital to national unity +is not merely a mutual complacence of the members,--at its root is a +habitual, disciplined obedience to the central authority, which in a +democracy is the orderly expressed will of the majority. You cannot +leave us and we cannot let you go. And if you attempt to break the bond, +it is at your peril." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +HOW THEY DIFFERED + + +If the typical Secessionist and the typical Unionist, as just described, +could rally a united South and a united North to their respective views, +there was no escape from a violent clash. Whether the two sections could +be so united each in itself appeared extremely doubtful. But below these +special questions of political creed were underlying divergences of +sentiment and character between North and South, which fanned the +immediate strife as a strong wind fans a starting flame. There was first +a long-growing alienation of feeling, a mutual dislike, rooted in the +slavery controversy, and fed partly by real and partly by imaginary +differences. Different personal and social ideals were fostered by the +two industrial systems. The Southerner of the dominant class looked on +manual labor as fit only for slaves and low-class whites. His ideal of +society was a pyramid, the lower courses representing the physical +toilers, the intermediate strata supplying a higher quality of social +service, while the crown was a class refined by leisure and cultivation +and free to give themselves to generous and hospitable private life, +with public affairs for their serious pursuit. He regarded the +prominence of the laboring class in Northern communities as marking the +inferiority of their society, and in the absorption of the wealthier +class in trade he read a further disadvantage. The virtues he most +honored were courage, courtesy, magnanimity,--all that he delighted to +characterize as "chivalry." He was inclined to consider the North as +materialistic and mercenary, and even its virtues as based largely on +"honesty is the best policy." + +This low opinion was heartily reciprocated by the Northerner. He +believed the very foundation of Southern society to be injustice,--the +unpaid labor of the slave,--and the superstructure to correspond. He +looked on the slave-holders as cruel to their slaves and arrogant +toward the world at large, especially toward himself. The popular +opinion of slavery fastened on its abuses and ignored its mitigations. +On the average reader of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, Legree made a deeper +impression than St. Clare or Mrs. Shelby. + +Even the religious and intellectual life of the two sections had grown +unsympathetic and often antagonistic. The South held tenaciously to the +traditional orthodox theology. In the North there was free discussion +and movement of thought. Even the conservative Presbyterian church had +its New School and Old School; and in New England the Congregational +body was divided by the birth and growth of Unitarianism. At all this +turmoil the South looked askance, and was genuinely shocked by the +disintegration of the old creed. The North in turn looked with something +like suspicion, if not scorn, on a Christianity which used the Bible as +an arsenal to fortify slavery. The Northern brood of reforms and +isms,--wise, unwise, or fantastic,--moved the South to a hostility which +made little discrimination between the idealism of Emerson, the +iconoclasm of Parker, and the vagaries of "free love." The group of +literary lights,--Bryant, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Holmes, and +their compeers,--won Southern dislike by their hostility to slavery. The +South itself, singularly barren of original literature,--its prolific +new births in our own day are one of the most conspicuous fruits of +emancipation,--clung fondly to the classical and feudal traditions, and +hardly admitted any literary sovereign later than Scott and Byron. + +In a national union, as in marriage, there may be long continuance and +even substantial happiness in spite of many differences. So was it with +England and Scotland, so is it with Germany and with Italy. But in +slavery there was so profound an incompatibility with the fact and idea +of personal freedom as held by the American people at large, that the +inevitable opposition of the two systems was desperate almost beyond +cure. That opposition, and all the attendant circumstances of +divergence, were aggravated in their divisive effects by the extreme +bitterness of the foremost debaters on both sides. The very nature of +the subject tempted to vehement criticism, and defense of equal +vehemence. But there was a great aggravation of bitterness when, in the +van of the attack on slavery, the temper of Woolman and Lundy, of +Jefferson and Franklin and Channing, was replaced by the temper of +Garrison and his followers. Their violence inflamed alike the North and +the South, and, with the answering violence it provoked, worked the two +peoples into a largely false and unjust conception of each other's +character. The South's retort was no less passionate in words, while in +act it took form in expulsion of citizens and suppression of free +speech. Garrison's burning words, and the polished invective of +Phillips, live in literature; the wrath which answered them in Southern +orators and newspapers has left less of record; but on both sides the +work was effectually done of sowing mutual suspicion and hate. + +If only North and South could have known each other's best, as they knew +each other's worst! They were kept apart by the want of any stream of +migration between them, like that which united East and West, with the +resulting network of family connections and friendly intercourse. +Sometimes a Northern visitor, or an English traveler like Thackeray, saw +and appreciated the cultivated society of Charleston or Richmond, or +plantation life at its best,--a hospitable, genial, outdoor life, with +masters and mistresses who gave their best thought and toil to the care +of their servants. Sometimes a Southerner had a revelation like that of +General Zachary Taylor, when, looking from one of the heights in +Springfield, "the city of homes," on a landscape thick dotted with the +cheerful abodes of an industrial community, he exclaimed: "You can see +no such sight as that in a Southern State!" And always there were some +men and women who out of wide knowledge or a natural justice recognized +and loved the people of the whole land. But too frequently, in those +days, the Southerner saw in the North only a mass of plebeian laborers +excited by political and religious fanaticism; while the Northerner +looked south to a group of tyrannical and arrogant slaveholders lording +it over their victims. To the one, the typical figure of the North was +John Brown; to the other, the representative of the South was Brooks of +South Carolina. + +There were two other marked differences between the sections. The first +was the greater concentration of interest in the South on national +politics, and the leadership conceded to the political class. In the +North, the general occupation in laborious and gainful pursuits, +and the wide variety of social interests which competed for +attention,--education, reform, the debating society, the +town-meeting,--all acted to hold men in other fields than those of +national politics. The best brains were invited by commerce, the +factory, the railroad, the college, the laboratory, the newspaper,--as +well as by the Capitol. But to the Southern planter and his social +compeer no pursuit compared in attraction with the political field, and +above all the public life of the nation. The mass of the people, +especially in the country districts, found in the political meeting an +interest whose only rival was the camp-meeting. Besides, when the +burning political question was slavery, it came home to the business and +bosoms of the South, while to the North it was remote. And thus, when +the secession movement broke upon the land, the Southern people grasped +it with a concentration, energy, and response to their habitual leaders, +in strongest contrast to the surprise, hesitation, and division, which +at first characterized the North. + +And, as the last distinction to be here noted, one section was far more +habituated than the other to methods of physical force in private and +public affairs. It was an instance of this that the duel was in common +practice at the South up to the Civil War, while at the North it had +disappeared sixty years earlier, after the encounter of Burr and +Hamilton. At the South the street affray was common. There is a picture +of Southern life which ought to have a wide reading, in _Kate Beaumont_, +a story of South Carolina, written by J. W. De Forest, a Northerner and +a Union soldier. Its tone is sympathetic, and neither the negro nor the +sectional question plays a part. It portrays admirable and delightful +people; old Judge Kershaw is indeed "the white rose of South Carolina +chivalry," and the Beaumonts and McAllisters, with all their foibles, +are a strong and lovable group. But the pistol is the ready arbiter of +every quarrel; the duelist's code is so established that it can hardly +be ignored even by one who disapproves it; and the high-toned gentleman +is no whit too high for the street encounter with his opponent. Old-time +Southerners know how faithful is that picture. So, too, the Southern +people turned readily to public war. They supplied the pioneers who +colonized Texas and won by arms its independence of Mexico. They not +only supported the Mexican war by their votes, but many of the flower +of their youth enlisted for it. From their young men were recruited the +"filibusters" who, from time to time, tried to revolutionize or annex +Cuba or some Central American State. The soldier figured largely in the +Southern imagination. But the North inclined strongly to the ways of +peace. That is the natural temper of an industrial democracy. It is the +note of a civilization advanced beyond slavery and feudalism. And of the +moral leaders of the North, some of the foremost had been strong +champions of peace. Channing had pleaded for it as eloquently as he +pleaded for freedom. Intemperance, slavery, and war had been the trinity +of evil assailed by earnest reformers. Sumner had gone to the length of +proclaiming the most unjust peace better than the justest war,--an +extreme from which he was destined to be converted. Garrison and +Phillips, while their language fanned the passions whose inevitable +tendency is toward war, had in theory declared all warfare to be +unchristian. And, apart from sentiment or conviction, the industrial and +peaceful habit was so widely diffused that it was questionable how much +remained of the militant temper which can and will fight on good +occasion. The South rashly believed that such temper was extinct in the +North, and the North on its part doubted how far the vaunts of Southern +courage had any substance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +WHY THEY FOUGHT + + +Now, when the issue was about to be joined, let it be noted that +Secession based itself, in profession and in reality, wholly on the +question of slavery. There lay the grievance, and for that alone a +remedy was to be had even at the price of sundering the Union. Later, +when actual war broke out, other considerations than slavery came into +play. To unite and animate the South came the doctrine of State rights, +the sympathy of neighborhood, and the primal human impulse of +self-defense. But the critical movement, the action which first sundered +the Union and so led to war,--was inspired wholly and solely by the +defense and maintenance of slavery. The proposition is almost too plain +for argument. But it receives illustration from the great debate in the +Georgia Legislature, when Toombs advocated Secession and Stephens +opposed it. Toombs, evidently unwilling to rest the case wholly on +slavery, alleged three other grievances at the hands of the North--the +fishery bounties, the navigation laws, and the protective tariff. +Stephens easily brushed aside the bounties and navigation laws as bygone +or unimportant. As to the tariff, he showed that the last tariff law, +enacted in 1857, was supported by every Massachusetts member of Congress +and every Georgia member, including Toombs himself. What further he said +belongs to a later chapter. But he was unquestionably right, and all +rational history confirms it, that the one force impelling the South to +Secession was the imperilled interest of slavery. + +But the resistance which Secession encountered from the North was from +the outset other and wider than hostility to slavery. Anti-slavery +feeling was indeed strong in the Northern heart; the restriction of +slavery was the supreme principle of the Republican party; the +resentment that the national bond should be menaced in the interest of +slavery gave force to the opposition which Secession instantly aroused. +But, on the one hand, the extreme opponents of slavery, Garrison and his +followers, were now, as they had always been, willing and more than +willing that the South should go off and take slavery with it. And on +the other hand, the anti-secessionists of the nation included a +multitude, North and South, who were either friendly to slavery or +indifferent to it. Even of the Republican party the mass were more +concerned for the rights of the white man than of the black man. They +were impatient of the dominance of the government by the South, and +meant to unseat the Southern oligarchy from the place of power at +Washington. + +They intended that the territories should be kept for the free +immigrant, who should not be degraded by slaves at work in the next +field. Only a minority of the party,--though a minority likely in the +long run to lead it--looked with hope and purpose to ultimate +emancipation. And when the question of Secession was at issue by the +people's votes and voice, and had not yet come to the clash of arms, the +rights and interests of the slave fell into the background. The supreme +question of the time was felt to be the unity or the division of the +nation. + +The Secessionists' plea was in two clauses; that their States were +aggrieved by Northern action, and that they had a legal right to leave +the Union without let or hindrance. A double answer met them, from their +fellow-Southerners that it was impolitic to secede, and from the North +that secession was illegal, unpermissible, and to be resisted at all +costs. + +The Secessionists were fluent in argument that the framers of the +Constitution intended only a partnership of States, dissoluble by any at +will. However difficult to prove that the original builders purposed +only such a temporary edifice, there was at least ground for maintaining +that they gave no authority for coercing a State into obedience or +submission, and indeed rejected a proposal to give such authority. If +there were no legal or rightful authority to keep a State in the Union +by force, then for all practical purposes its right to go out of the +Union was established. But against that right, as ever contemplated by +the fathers, or allowable under the Constitution, there was strong +contention on legal and historic grounds. + +But deeper than all forensic or academic controversy was the substantial +and tremendous fact, that the American people had grown into a nation, +organic and vital. That unity was felt in millions of breasts, cherished +by countless firesides, recognized among the peoples of the earth. + +There had developed that mysterious and mighty sentiment, the love of +country. It rested in part on the recognition of material benefits. From +the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes to the Gulf, the tides of +commerce flowed free, unvexed by a single custom-house. The Mississippi +with its traffic united the Northern prairies and the Louisiana delta +like a great artery. Safety to person and property under the laws, +protection by an authority strong enough to curb riot or faction at +home, and with a shielding arm that reached wherever an American +traveler might wander,--these benefits rooted patriotism deep in the +soil of homely usefulness. And the tree branched and blossomed in the +upper air of generous feeling. Man's sympathy expands in widening +spheres, and his being enlarges as he comes into vital union, first +with wife and children, then successively with neighborhood, community, +country, and at last with humanity. The Russian peasant, in his +ignorance and poverty, or facing the foe in war, is sublimated by his +devotion to the White Czar and Holy Russia. Still more inspiring and +profound is the patriotism of a citizen whose nation is founded on equal +brotherhood. Deeper than analysis can probe is this passion of +patriotism. Gladstone characterized it well, when, writing in August, +1861, he recognized among the motives sustaining the Union cause, "last +and best of all, the strong instinct of national life, and the +abhorrence of Nature itself toward all severance of an organized body." + +This sentiment, though strained and weakened in the South, was still +powerful even in that section. This was especially true of the border +States, where slavery was of less account than in the Gulf and Cotton +States. The spirit of Clay was still strong in Kentucky, and was +represented by the venerable John J. Crittenden in the Senate. Of a like +temper was John Bell of Tennessee, Presidential candidate of the Union +and Constitutional party in 1860. From the same State Andrew Johnson, in +the Senate, stood for the sturdy and fierce Unionism of the white +laboring class. Virginia was strongly bound to the Union by her great +historical traditions. North Carolina, Missouri, and Arkansas were, +until the war broke out, attached to the Union rather than the Southern +cause. It was in the belt of States from South Carolina to Texas, in +which the planter class was altogether dominant, that the interest of +slavery, and the pride of class and of State, had gradually loosened the +bonds of affection and allegiance to the national idea. Calhoun himself +had been an ardent lover of the Union. The clash between the national +and sectional interests had been to him a tragedy. Nullification was his +device for perpetuating the Union while allowing its members relief +from possible oppression,--but nullification had failed, in fact as in +logic. + +Now the Secessionists went further than Calhoun had ever found occasion +to go. They proposed to break up the nation, at first by the withdrawal +of their separate States, to be followed by the organization of a +Southern Confederacy. Their grievance was the restriction of their +industrial system, and its threatened destruction, and the failure of +the Union to serve its proper ends of justice and fraternity. But they +wholly disclaimed any revolutionary action. They maintained that the +withdrawal of their States was an exercise of their strictly legal and +constitutional right. This is the plea which is insistently and +strenuously urged by their defenders. Their foremost actors in the +drama, Davis and Stephens, became at a later day its historians, not so +much to record its events, as to plead with elaboration and reiteration +that Secession was a constitutional right. But all their fine-spun +reasoning ran dead against a force which it could no more overcome than +King Canute's words could halt the tide,--the fact of American unity, as +realized in the hearts of the American people. + +The mass of men live not by logic, but by primal instincts and passions. +Where one man could explain why the nation was an indestructible +organism rather than a partnership dissoluble at will, a thousand men +could and would fight to prevent the nation from being dissolved. But +here and there on this planet is a man who must think things through to +the end, and have a solid reason for what he does. Such a man was +Abraham Lincoln. He never could rest contented till he had worked the +problem out clearly in his own head, and then had stated the answer in +words that the common man could understand. Such an answer to the whole +Secessionist argument, quite apart from the slavery question, he gave in +one brief paragraph of his inaugural. "There is no alternative for +continuing the government but acquiescence on the one side or the other. +If the minority in such a case will secede rather than acquiesce, they +make a precedent which in turn will ruin and divide them; for a minority +of their own will secede from them, whenever a majority refuses to be +controlled by such a minority. For instance, why not any portion of a +new Confederacy, a year or so hence, arbitrarily secede again, precisely +as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who +cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper +of doing this. Is there such perfect identity of interests among the +States to compose a new Union as to produce harmony only, and prevent +renewed Secession? Plainly, the central idea of Secession is the essence +of anarchy." That was the key-word of the situation, in the court of +reason and conscience,--"the central idea of Secession is the essence of +anarchy." + +The system which the Secessionists proposed to break up had a part of +its highest value in that very division of authority between State and +nation which gave them their pretext for a separation. The Federal plan +was the special contribution of America to the evolution of popular +self-government. Until that step had been taken, not only did the +practical difficulties of democracy increase enormously with the +increase of area and population, but a vast centralized democracy was +liable to be itself an oppressive despotism, as France has learned at +bitter cost. The Federal plan, like most other great advances, came not +as the conception of an ingenious brain, but from the growth of social +facts. The thirteen colonies started and grew as individual offshoots +from Great Britain. Under a common impulse they broke loose from the +mother-country; then, by a common necessity, they bound themselves +together in a governmental Union, each member retaining jurisdiction in +such affairs as were its special concern. The resulting Federal Union +was a combination of strength and freedom such as the world had never +seen. With this for its organic form, with its spiritual lineage drawn +from the Puritan, the Quaker and the Cavalier, with Anglo-Saxon stock +for its core, yet with open doors and assimilating power for all races, +and with a continent for its field of expansion,--the American people +became the leader and the hope of humanity. This was the nation which +the Secessionists proposed to rend asunder. + +All government implies a principle of authority, and requires the +occasional sacrifice of the individual's pleasure. The national bond has +one strand in mutual good-will, but another strand is personal +sacrifice, and another is stern command. The Union required some +sacrifices, not only of material price,--as when a man pays just taxes, +or acquiesces in a fiscal system which he considers unjust,--but +sacrifices sometimes even of moral sentiment. Lincoln, explaining his +position in 1855 to his old friend Speed, of Kentucky, repelled the +suggestion that he had no personal interest in slavery. He says that +whenever he crosses the border he sees manacled slaves or some similar +sight which is a torment to him. "You ought to appreciate how much the +great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings in order to +maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union." + +That acquiescence,--a costly sacrifice to the higher good; and the +typical attitude of the Republicans and the moderate anti-slavery +men,--seemed to Garrison and Phillips and their school a sinful +compliance with evil. The extreme Abolitionists, as much as the +extremists of the South, were opposed to the Union. They had no +comprehension of the interests and principles involved in the +preservation of the national life. One of the pleasant traits told of +Garrison's private life is this: He was fond of music, especially +religious music, but had little cultivation in that direction; and he +would sit at the piano and pick out the air of the good old hymn-tunes +with one hand, not knowing how to play the bass which makes a harmony. +That was typical of his mental attitude,--he knew and loved the melody +of freedom, but the harmony blended of freedom and national unity he did +not comprehend. + +The Southern disunionists finally carried their section, but the +Abolition disunionists never made the slightest approach to converting +the North. It was not merely that many at the North were indifferent to +slavery, while to the whole community its interest was remote compared +to what it was to the South. There was another reason for the failure of +the Northern disunionists. Among the class to whom the appeal for +freedom came closest home, the idealists, the men of moral conviction +and enthusiasm, were many to whose ideality and enthusiasm American +unity also spoke with powerful voice. Patriotism was more to them than a +material interest, more than an enlarged and glowing sentiment of +neighborhood and kinship,--it was devotion to moral interests of which +the national organism was the symbol and the agent. They saw, as Webster +saw, that "America is inseparably connected, fast bound up, in future +and by fate, with these great interests,"--of free representative +government, entire religious liberty, improved systems of national +intercourse, the spirit of free inquiry, and the general diffusion of +knowledge. They looked still higher than this,--they saw that America +rightly tended toward universal personal liberty, and full opportunity +and encouragement to man as man, of whatever race or class. That was +what America stood for to those moral enthusiasts whose sanity matched +their ardor. They saw that this ideal was still in the future, and that +progress might be slow and difficult, but they were pledged in their +souls to pursue it. And, with that purpose at heart, they were ready to +maintain the national unity at whatever cost. + +This was the composite and mighty force against which the Secessionists +unwittingly set themselves,--the love of country, strong alike in the +common people and the leaders, a love rooted in material interest and +flowering in generous sentiment; and beyond that the moral ideals which, +born in prophets and men of genius, had permeated the best part of the +nation. With this, too, went the preponderance of physical resources +which free labor had been steadily winning for the North. Judging even +in the interest of slavery, was it not wise to acquiesce in the +election, to remain under the safeguards with which the Constitution +surrounded slavery in the States, to have patience, and to make the best +terms possible with the forces of nature and society? So urged the +wisest counselors, like Stephens of Georgia. But men rarely act on a +deliberate and rational calculation of their interests. They are swayed +by impulse and passion, and especially by the temper and habit which +have become a second nature. The leaders in Secession acted in a spirit +generated by the very nature of slavery, and fostered by their long +defense of slavery. That genesis of the movement is all the more +impressive when we recognize the high personal character of its leaders, +and acquit them of conscious motives of personal ambition. Slavery was +their undoing. The habit of absolute control over slaves bred the habit +of mastery whenever it could be successfully asserted. There grew up a +caste, its members equal and cordial among themselves, but +self-assertive and haughty to all besides. They brooked no opposition at +home, and resented all criticism abroad. They misread history and +present facts, misconceived their place in the order of things, and set +themselves against both the finest and the strongest forces of the +time. When the political party which had been their most effective tool +became difficult to handle, they broke it in two. When they could no +longer rule the nation, they set out to sunder it. + +Thus, after forty-five years, we try to trace the springs of +action,--action which at the time moved swiftly, in cloud and storm and +seeming chaos. We have endeavored to see a little of how the men of the +North and of the South thought and felt. Now let us see what they did. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +ON NIAGARA'S BRINK--AND OVER + + +The election of Lincoln in November, 1860, found South Carolina +expectant and ready for action. The Legislature was in session, and +immediately ordered an election to be held December 6 for a convention +to meet December 17, and pass on the question of Secession. The action +of the convention was in no doubt. + +Governor Pettus of Mississippi summoned a group of leading men to +consider the question of immediate Secession. In the conclave the +principal opponent of instant action was Jefferson Davis. His grounds +were prudential; he knew that the arsenals, foundries, and military +supplies were chiefly at the North; he foresaw a long and bloody war; he +advised that further efforts be made at compromise, or at least that +united action of the South be insured. This counsel prevailed, and the +convention was deferred until mid-January. + +In the Georgia Legislature it was proposed that the question of +Secession be at once submitted to a popular vote. Toombs and Stephens +threw each his whole weight respectively for and against Secession. +Stephens has preserved his own speech in full. He emphasized the gravity +of the South's grievances, and the need of redress from the North if the +Union was to permanently endure. But he denied that the danger was so +pressing as to justify immediate Secession. He pointed out that Lincoln +would be confronted by a hostile majority in the Senate, the House and +the Supreme Court, and could not even appoint his Cabinet officers +except with the approval of a Senate in which his opponents outnumbered +his friends. He urged that it was wise to wait for some overt aggression +on the President's part before seceding. He dwelt on the immense +advantages the Union had brought to all sections. He showed (as in our +last chapter) that Toombs could allege no injuries except such as +affected slavery. Georgia's wealth had doubled between 1850 and 1860. "I +look upon this country," he said, "with our institutions, as the Eden of +the world, the paradise of the universe. It may be that out of it we may +become greater and more prosperous, but I am candid and sincere in +telling you that I fear if we yield to passion, and without sufficient +cause shall take that step, that instead of becoming greater or more +peaceful, prosperous and happy,--instead of becoming gods we will become +demons, and at no distant day commence cutting one another's throats." + +Stephen's counsel was that the State should hold a convention, that with +the other Southern States it should draw up a formal bill of complaint +as to the personal liberty laws and the like, and if the North then +refused redress, secede. But whatever the State should do, he would +accept its decision, since the only alternative was civil war within the +State. He succeeded in having the convention deferred till January, and +the other Gulf States took similar action, while Virginia called a +convention for February 13. + +With the tide of secession rising swiftly in the South, and surprise, +consternation, and perplexity at the North, Congress met in early +December. President Buchanan, in his message, following the advice of +his attorney-general, Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania,--both of them +honest and patriotic men, but legalists rather than statesmen--argued +that Secession was wholly against the Constitution, but its forcible +repression was equally against the Constitution. Thus encouraged, the +Southern leaders confronted the Republicans in Congress,--how far would +they recede, how much would they yield, to avert Secession? Naturally, +the Republicans were not willing to undo the victory they had just won, +or to concede the very principle for which they had fought. But in both +Houses large committees were appointed and the whole situation was +earnestly discussed. On all sides violence was deprecated; there was +general dread of disruption of the Union, general doubt of the +feasibility of maintaining it by force, and the wide wish and effort to +find some practicable compromise. + +But there was no hesitation on South Carolina's part. Her convention +passed, December 20, an Ordinance of Secession; a clear and impressive +statement of her complaints and the remedy she adopts. The Federal +compact has been broken; the personal liberty laws violate the +Constitution; the Northern people have denounced as sinful the +institution of slavery; they have elected a man who has declared that +"this government cannot permanently endure half slave and half free"; +they are about to exclude Southern institutions from the territories, +and to make the Supreme Court sectional. "All hope of redress is +rendered vain by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested +a great political error with the sanction of a more erroneous religious +belief." So, from a partnership of which the letter has been broken and +the spirit destroyed, South Carolina withdraws. + +The State was, at least on the surface, almost unanimous,--in Charleston +only the venerable James L. Petigru ventured to call himself a +Unionist,--and was in high heart and hope for its new venture. But, +facing the palmetto flags so gayly unfurled to the breeze, still floated +the Stars and Stripes over a little garrison in Fort Moultrie, commanded +by Major Anderson. His supplies were low; should aid be sent him? No, +said Buchanan timidly; and thereat Cass withdrew indignantly from the +Cabinet, to be replaced as Secretary of State by Black, while the +vigorous Edwin M. Stanton took Black's former place; and Buchanan's +courage rose a little. At the request of the South Carolina authorities, +Floyd, the Secretary of War, had ordered Anderson to act strictly on the +defensive. Finding himself at the mercy of his opponents on the +mainland, he quietly withdrew his handful of men, on the night of +December 26, to Fort Sumter, whose position on an island gave +comparative security. The South Carolinians instantly occupied Fort +Moultrie and Castle Pinckney, and took possession of the custom-house +and post-office. They cried out against Anderson's maneuver as a breach +of good faith, and Secretary Floyd resigned, in sympathy with the +Carolinians. The President, heartened by his new counselors, dispatched +the steamer _Star of the West_ with supplies for Anderson, but she was +fired on by the South Carolinians and turned back, January 9. Resenting +the President's act, Thompson of Mississippi and Thomas of Maryland left +his cabinet. The President brought in General Dix of New York; Joseph +Holt, now Secretary of War, was a Southern loyalist, and in its last +months Buchanan's Cabinet was thoroughly Unionist. But in him there was +no leadership. + +Leadership was not wanting to the Secessionists. A movement like theirs, +once begun and in a congenial atmosphere, advances like a glacier by its +own weight, but with the pace not of the glacier but of the torrent. In +the country at large and at Washington there was confusion of counsels. +There was manifest disposition among the Republicans to go a long way in +conciliation. Of forcible resistance to Secession there was but little +talk. But that the Republicans should disown and reverse the entire +principles on which their party was founded was out of the question. On +the night of January 5 there met in a room at the Capitol the Senators +from Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and +Texas. They agreed on a common program, and telegraphed to their homes +that Secession was advisable at the January conventions and that a +common convention was to be held at Montgomery, Ala., in mid-February, +for the organization of the Southern Confederacy. Meantime, all United +States officials were to resign, and the Federal forts, arsenals and +custom-houses were to be seized. + +A last formal presentation of the Southern ultimatum was made by Toombs +in the Senate. It was the familiar demand--slavery in the territories; +slavery under Federal protection everywhere except in the free States; +fugitives to be returned; offenders against State laws to be surrendered +to justice in those States; inter-State invasion and insurrection to be +prohibited and punished by Congress. No partial concessions would +answer: this, or nothing! "Nothing be it then!" was the answer of the +Republicans: and Toombs, Davis, and their associates bade a stern and +sad farewell to their fellow-congressmen and went home to organize the +Confederacy. Congress took up fresh plans for reconciliation and +reunion. + +Mississippi, through its convention, seceded January 9, 1861. Florida +followed, January 10, and Alabama, January 11. Then, in the great +"keystone State" of Georgia, came deliberation and momentous debate. +Against immediate Secession, the policy of patience, of conference with +the other Southern States including the new "independent republics," and +a united remonstrance to the North, of which the rejection would justify +Secession,--this policy was embodied in a resolution presented by +Herschel V. Johnson and supported by all the eloquence and +persuasiveness of Stephens. Against him was the strong personal +influence of Howell Cobb, and the argument--which Stephens says was +decisive,--"we can make better terms out of the Union than in it." The +test vote was 164 to 133 for immediate Secession. On the motion of +Stephens the action was made unanimous. This accession of Georgia marked +the triumph of the Secessionists' cause; and most fitly, in a speech on +the evening of the same day, Stephens declared the fundamental idea of +that cause. Jefferson, he said, and the leading statesmen of his day, +"believed slavery wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically +... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the +assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy +foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the storm came +and the wind blew. Our new government is founded upon exactly the +opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon +the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that +slavery--subordination to the white race--is his natural and normal +condition. This, our new government, is the first in the history of the +world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." + +The Louisiana convention voted to secede January 26, and Texas February +1. The seven seceded States sent delegates to a convention which met at +Montgomery, February 4. They quickly organized the Confederate States of +America, with a Constitution closely resembling that of the United +States. One article forbade the foreign slave trade, except that with +"the United States of America," which was left subject to Congress. +Davis was elected President, by general agreement. He was clearly marked +for the place by ability, by civil and military experience, by +unblemished character, and by his record as a firm but not extreme +champion of the Secessionist cause. He disclaimed any desire for the +office, preferring the position which Mississippi had given him as +commander of her forces, but when the summons came to him at his +plantation home he promptly accepted. Stephens was chosen +Vice-President, in spite of his late and half-hearted adherence, to +conciliate Georgia and the old Whigs. In the Cabinet the leading figures +were Toombs of Georgia and Benjamin of Louisiana. + +With this purposeful, swift, and effective action, Secession seemed to +have reached its limit. The other Southern States held back. Among the +plain folk, not over-heated about politics, there was wide +disinclination to any such extreme measure as disunion. It was well +represented by Robert E. Lee, in whom the best blood and worthiest +tradition of Virginia found fit exemplar. He wrote to his son, January +23: "Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our +Constitution never expended so much labor, wisdom and forbearance, in +its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if +it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at +will." + +North Carolina voted against a convention by 1,000 majority. Tennessee +voted against it by 92,000 to 25,000. Arkansas postponed action till +August. Missouri held a convention which voted not to secede. In +Maryland the governor would not convene the Legislature, and an +irregular convention took no decisive action. Delaware did nothing. +Virginia held a convention, which was not ready for Secession, but +remained in session watching the course of events. The Kentucky +Legislature refused to call a convention, but pledged assistance to the +South in case of invasion. + +This last declaration illustrated the second line of defense, behind the +Secessionist advance. The sentiment was general throughout the South, +even among Unionists, that there must be no armed repression of +Secession. It rested partly on the theory of State Sovereignty, and +partly on the sympathy of neighborhood and of common institutions. Even +at the North there was wide disinclination to the use of force against +the Secessionists. The venerable General Scott, chief of the Federal +Army, gave it as his personal opinion that the wise course was to say, +"Wayward sisters, depart in peace." The New York _Tribune_, foremost of +Republican newspapers, declared: "If the cotton States wish to withdraw +from the Union, they should be allowed to do so." "Any attempt to compel +them to remain by force would be contrary to the principles of the +Declaration of Independence, and to the fundamental ideas upon which +human liberty is based." And again: "We hope never to live in a Republic +whereof one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets." Such +expressions were not uncommon among Republicans, and very frequent among +Democrats. Garrison and Phillips were loud in welcoming a separation. +But there were leaders like Wade of Ohio and Chandler of Michigan, whose +temper was very different, and ominous that the West would never consent +to a disruption of the nation. + +The governor of Virginia invited all the States to send delegates to a +Peace congress to find means to save the Union. Almost all sent +delegates, and the congress held long sessions, while the Senate and +House were essaying the same task. Little result came in either body, +because neither party would accept the other's concessions. The favorite +measure was that known as the Crittendon compromise, framed by the +Kentucky senator, of which the central feature was the extension of the +old Missouri compromise line of 36 degrees 30 minutes to the Pacific, +with express provision that all territory north of this should be free +and all south should be slave. To this the Republicans would not +consent, but they went far toward it by agreeing to a plan proposed by +Charles Francis Adams of Massachusetts,--that New Mexico (including all +present territory south of 36 degrees 30 minutes except the Indian +territory), be admitted as a State with slavery if its people should so +vote. They offered also to admit Colorado, Nevada, and Dakota as +territories, with no express exclusion of slavery. But neither side +would leave to the other the possible future extension to the South--in +Mexico and Cuba. Further, the Republicans showed a willingness to amend +the Personal Liberty laws, so far as they might be unconstitutional, and +to provide for governmental payment for fugitives who were not returned. +They expressed entire readiness to unite in a national convention for +the revision of the Constitution. And finally there was not only +proposed, but actually passed by the Senate and House, by two-thirds +majorities, at the very end of the session, a constitutional amendment +prohibiting any future amendment that should authorize Congress to +interfere with slavery in the States where it existed. + +In vain, all,--in vain for the Republicans to hold out the olive branch, +to mutilate their own principles, and to bar the door against any +ultimate constitutional abolition of slavery. Even the slave States +still in the Union were not to be satisfied by all this, and the +Confederacy gave it no heed. And now, in the background, was visible a +rising force, in which the temper was far other than compromise. The +most significant voice came from Massachusetts. After all the old +antagonism of Massachusetts and South Carolina,--after the clash of +Calhoun and Hayne with Webster, the expulsion of Samuel Hoar, the +assault of Brooks on Sumner,--the two commonwealths stood forth, each +the leader of its own section. It was a hostility which sprung from no +accident, and no remembrance of old feuds, but from the opposition of +two types of society, the oligarchic idea most fully developed in South +Carolina, the industrial democracy in Massachusetts. The new Governor of +the State was John A. Andrew, a man of clear convictions, a great heart, +and a magnanimous temper. His New Year's message to the Legislature +opened with a businesslike discussion of the State's finances and other +materialities. Thence he passed to national affairs; he defended the +Personal Liberty law, of which his more conservative predecessor, +Governor Banks, had advised the repeal, but which Andrew justified as a +legitimate defense against kidnapping; while suggesting that whatever +slaves South Carolina had lost from this cause were offset by +Massachusetts black seamen enslaved in her ports. Then he took up the +matter of disunion. "The question now is, Shall a reactionary spirit, +unfriendly to liberty, be permitted to subvert democratic republican +government organized under constitutional forms?... The men who own and +till the soil, who drive the mills, and hammer out their own iron and +leather on their own anvils and lapstones ... are honest, intelligent, +patriotic, independent, and brave. They know that simple defeat in an +election is no cause for the disruption of a government. They know that +those who declare that they will not live peaceably within the Union do +not mean to live peaceably out of it. They know that the people of all +sections have a right, which they intend to maintain, of free access +from the interior to both oceans, and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, +and of the free use of all the lakes and rivers and highways of +commerce, North, South, East and West. They know that the Union means +peace and unfettered commercial intercourse from sea to sea and from +shore to shore; that it secures us against the unfriendly presence or +possible dictation of any foreign power, and commands respect for our +flag and security for our trade. And they do not intend, nor will they +ever consent, to be excluded from these rights which they have so long +enjoyed, nor to abandon the prospect of the benefits which humanity +claims for itself by means of their continued enjoyment in the future. +Neither will they consent that the continent shall be overrun by the +victims of a remorseless cupidity, and the elements of danger increased +by the barbarizing influences which accompany the African slave trade. +Inspired by the ideas and emotions which commanded the fraternization of +Jackson and Webster on another great occasion of public danger, the +people of Massachusetts, confiding in the patriotism of their brethren +in other States, accept this issue, and respond in the words of Jackson, +'The Federal Union, it must be preserved.'... We cannot turn aside, and +we will not turn back." + +The crowded, anxious, hurrying months, brought the 4th of March, and +Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as President. His speeches on his way to +the capital,--pacific, reassuring, but firm for national unity and +liberty,--had in a degree brought him into touch with the mass of the +people. But when his gaunt and homely form rose to deliver the inaugural +address, it was as a little-known and untried man that he was heard. +That speech gave signal that the man for the hour had come. No words +could better describe its quality than "sweet reasonableness";--that, +and unflinching purpose. He began by earnest reassurances as to the +fidelity to the Constitution of himself and the party behind him. He +suggested the means and temper by which mutual grievances might be +approached. Then in his clear, logical fashion, and in the plain speech +of the common man, he showed that the Union is in its nature +indissoluble, older than the Constitution, unaffected by any attempted +Secession. His own official, inevitable duty is to maintain the Union. +But there need be no bloodshed or violence. "The power confided to me +will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places +belonging to the government, and collect the duties and imports; but +beyond what may be necessary for these objects there will be no +invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere." If +resident citizens will not hold Federal offices, there is to be no +intrusion of obnoxious strangers. The mails will be furnished wherever +they are wanted. "So far as possible the people everywhere shall have +that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought +and reflection." This will be his course unless events shall compel a +change. And then follows a most calm, rational, moving plea against +sacrificing a great, popular, orderly self-government, to individual +caprice or fancied wrongs; a demonstration, irresistible as mathematics, +that "the central idea of Secession is anarchy." "Unanimity is +impossible, the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is +wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy +or despotism in some form is all that is left." In the address there is +not one word of heat or bitterness; it is all in the spirit of his words +spoken in private, "I shall do nothing maliciously,--the interests I +deal with are too vast for malicious dealings." + +He does not belittle the complaints of the South, but pleads for mutual +forbearance. If there are defects in the organic framework of the +nation, let them be discussed and amended if necessary in a +constitutional convention. No justice can be done to this inaugural in a +condensation; it should be studied line by line; it is one of the great +classics of American literature and history. Thus he ended: "I am loth +to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. +Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of +affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every +battlefield and patriot's grave to every living heart and hearthstone +all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when +again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our +nature." + +Through the weeks that followed, Lincoln was plunged in a sea of +perplexities, while the nation seemed weltering in chaos, with nothing +clear but the steady purpose of the Confederate leaders to maintain +their position and achieve complete independence by the shortest road. +Lincoln had formed a Cabinet including some very able and some ordinary +men, with one--Seward--of highest promise and at first of most +disappointing performance. He regarded himself as the real power in the +administration; he underrated alike the gravity of the situation and the +President's ability to cope with it; he trusted to conciliation and +smooth assurance; and he tried to take the reins of control into his own +hands--an attempt which Lincoln quietly foiled. The President and his +Cabinet were as yet strangers to each other. In the Senate (the House +was not in session), Douglas assailed the President's position, and +declared three courses to be open: Constitutional redress of the South's +grievances; the acceptance of Secession; or its forcible +repression,--the first the best, the last the worst. Three commissioners +of the Confederacy were in Washington, refused official recognition, but +holding some indirect intercourse with Seward, which they apparently +misunderstood and exaggerated. A swarm of office-seekers, like Egyptian +locusts, beset the President amid his heavy cares. The border States, +trembling in the balance, called for the wisest handling. Heaviest and +most pressing was the problem what to do with Fort Sumter. Closely +beleaguered, with failing supplies, it must soon fall unless relieved. +Almost impossible to relieve or save it, said the army officers; easy to +slip in supplies, contradicted the naval officers. Leave Sumter to fall +and you dishearten the North, urged Chase and Blair in the Cabinet; +answered Seward, Reinforce it, and you provoke instant war. + +Lincoln answered the question in his own way. He was true to the +principle he had laid down in his inaugural,--to maintain the essential +rights of the national government, but with the least possible exercise +of force. He would "hold, occupy, and possess the property and places +belonging to the government, and collect the duties and imports"--that +and nothing more. Practically the only "property and places" now left to +the government at the South were Forts Sumter and Pickens. To yield them +without effort was to renounce the minimum of self-assertion he had +reserved to the nation. + +As to the means of supply, he had recourse to the best instrument that +offered,--a scheme proposed by Captain Fox, an energetic naval officer, +who planned a relief expedition of five vessels to be privately +dispatched from New York and try to run past the batteries. The +expedition was quickly fitted out and sent, in early April. According to +promise, in case of any such action, notice was telegraphed to the +Governor of South Carolina. He communicated with the Confederate +government at Montgomery. That government was bent on maintaining, +without further debate, its full sovereignty over the coasts and waters +within its jurisdiction. There is no need to impute a deliberate purpose +to rouse and unite the South by bloodshed, any more than there is reason +to impute to Lincoln a crafty purpose to inveigle the South into +striking the first blow. Each acted straight in the line of their open +and avowed purpose,--Lincoln, to retain the remaining vestige of +national authority at the South; the Confederacy, to make full and +prompt assertion of its entire independence. + +Orders were telegraphed from Montgomery, and General Beauregard, +commanding the Charleston forces, sent to Major Anderson a summons to +surrender. It was rejected; and the circle of forts opened fire and +Sumter fired back. The roar of those guns flashed by telegraph over the +country. In every town and hamlet men watched and waited with a tension +which cannot be described. All the accumulated feeling of months and +years flashed into a lightning stroke of emotion. All day Friday and +Saturday, April 12, 13, men watched the bulletins, and talked in brief +phrases, and were conscious of a passion surging through millions of +hearts. Saturday evening came the word,--the fort had yielded. After a +thirty-four hours' fight, overmatched, the expected relief +storm-delayed, his ammunition spent, his works on fire, Anderson had +capitulated. + +There was a Sunday of intense brooding all over the land. Next morning, +April 15, came a proclamation from the President. The laws of the United +States, it declared, were opposed and their execution obstructed in +seven States, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the +ordinary course of judicial proceedings; and the militia of the States, +to the number of 75,000 were called to arms for three months to suppress +the combinations and cause the laws to be duly executed. + +The North rose as one man to the call. Party divisions were forgotten. +Douglas went to the President and pledged his support. Regiments from +Pennsylvania and Massachusetts hurried to the capital. Every Northern +State hastened to fill its assigned quota of militia. No less promptly +the South rallied to defend the seceding States from invasion. The +Virginia convention voted Secession two days after the President's +proclamation, and the people's vote ratified it by six to one. North +Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas joined the Confederacy. Maryland, +Kentucky, and Missouri, wavered and were distracted, but as State +organizations remained in the Union, while their populations divided. + +Constitutional logic, argumentation, distinctions between holding the +national property and invasion, all vanished in the fierce breath of +war. Between union and disunion, argument was exhausted, and the issue +was to be tried out by force. In a day a great peaceful people resolved +itself into two hostile armies. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE CIVIL WAR + + +At the outbreak of war, what the Northerner saw confronting him was an +organized attempt to overthrow the government and break up the nation in +the interest of slavery. This as the essential fact took form in the +circle of fire let loose on a beleaguered fort, and the Stars and +Stripes lowered before an overwhelming force. Close following came the +menace against the national capital, for Washington was believed to be +in imminent peril. A Massachusetts regiment marching to its relief was +assailed by the populace of Baltimore; communication was cut; and the +city which was the centre and symbol of the national life seemed +stretching her hands in appeal to the country's faithful sons. To the +conscience, the heart, the imagination of the North, it was a war of +national self-defense,--a holy war. + +What the Southerner saw was an attempt to crush by force a legitimate +exercise of the right of sovereign States to an independent existence. +The typical Southerner, whether he had thought Secession expedient or +not, believed that each State was the rightful judge of its own course, +that the citizen's first allegiance was due to his State; and that the +attempt at coercion was as tyrannical as the refusal by Great Britain of +independence to the American colonies. And, apart from all political +theories, there instantly loomed on the horizon the armies of the North, +bearing down with fire and sword on the people of the Southern States. +The instinct of self-defense, and the irresistible sympathy of +neighborhood and community, prompted to resistance. Beyond doubt, the +typical Southern volunteer could say in all sincerity, as one of them +has expressed it: "With me is right, before me is duty, behind me is +home." + +So natural and profound was the motive on each side, when the war began. +Wholly different from the moral responsibility of those who initiated +Secession, is the case of those who afterward fought for what to each +side was the cause of home and country. But, driven though both parties +felt themselves to war, none the less terrible was the war in itself. +There are difficulties from which the only escape is through disaster. +John Morley writes: "It is one of the commonest of all cheap +misjudgments in human affairs, to start by assuming that there is always +some good way out of a bad case. Alas for us all, this is not so. +Situations arise, alike for individuals, for parties, and for States, +from which no good way out exists, but only choice between bad way out +and worse." For the American people, in the situation into which by sins +of commission and omission they had been brought, the only way out was +one of the worst ways that human feet can travel. + +It does not belong to this work to give a history of the Civil War. But +a truthful history might be written in a very different vein from the +accepted and popular narratives. These for the most part describe the +conflict in terms resembling partly a game of chess and partly a +football match. We read of grand strategic combinations, of masterly +plans of attack and admirable counter-strokes of defense. On the +battlefield we hear of gallant charges, superb rushes of cavalry, +indomitable resistance. Our military historians largely give us the +impression of man in battle as in the exercise of his highest powers, +and war as something glorious in the experience and heart-thrilling in +the contemplation. + +But a succinct account of the whole business would be to say that for +four years the flower of the country's population were engaged in +killing each other. All other industries were overshadowed by the +occupation of human slaughter. Shop and farm, church and college, school +and home, all were subsidiary to the battlefield. + +The battlefield itself is not easily conceived by the civilian, even +with the aid of poets and story-tellers from Homer to Kipling. The +reader, who has perhaps never seen a shot fired in anger, may have +chanced to witness a man struck down in the street by a falling beam or +trampled by a runaway horse. Or, as a better illustration, he may +remember in his own case some hour of sudden and extreme suffering,--a +hand caught by a falling window, a foot drenched by scalding water. +Intensify that experience, extend it through days, for the home couch +and the nursing of mother or wife put the bare ground and the onrush of +hostile men,--and you have the nucleus, the constituent atom, of a +battle. Multiply it by hundreds or thousands; give to each sufferer the +background of waiting parents, wife, children, at home; give to a part +death, swift or agonizing; to another part lifelong infirmity or +irritation,--and you begin to get the reality of war. + +It was Wellington who said that the worst sight on earth, next to the +field of defeat, was the field of victory. It was Lee who wrote from +Mexico to his son: "You have no idea what a horrible sight a +battle-field is." And he said that the strongest memory left from his +first battle was the plaintive tone of a little Mexican girl whom he +found leaning over a wounded drummer-boy. + +Men not only witness such carnage but inflict it, in the excitement of +battle, because animated by feelings of which only a part can rightly be +called heroic. Honor indeed is due to the subordination of personal fear +to the sense of duty and comradeship,--yes, high honor; and the appeal +of the soldier to the imagination, as a type of self-sacrifice and +nobility, has its element of truth. But the ordinary courage of the +battle-field is largely an excitement half-animal, half-contagious, +running often into savagery and insensate fury. In that situation the +highest and lowest elements in man come into play. For the most part +only the highest is portrayed for us by the historians and +romancers,--they keep the wild beast and the devil out of sight. Only in +these later days, when mankind begins to scrutinize its boasted glories +more closely, do Tolstoi in literature and Verestchagin in art give us +glimpses of the grim reality. + +An industry which has murder for its main output will have some +by-products to match. In the armies of both sides the human stuff was of +mixed character and motive. Some enlisted from pure patriotism,--for +Union, State, or Confederacy; some from thirst of adventure; others for +ambition; others for the bounty or under compulsion of the conscription +officer; many from the mere contagious excitement. Army life always +brings to many of its participants a great demoralization. Take away the +restriction of public opinion in a well-ordered community, take from men +the society of good women, and there will be a tendency to barbarism. A +civilized army has indeed a code and public opinion of its own, which +counts for some sterling qualities, but it is lax and ineffective for +much that goes to complete manhood. Just as the war left a host of +maimed and crippled, so it left a multitude of moral cripples. At the +reunion, around the "camp fire," with the reminiscences of stirring +times and the renewal of good comradeship runs a vein of comment which +the newspapers do not relate. "What's become of A.?" "Drank himself to +death." "And where is X.?" "Never got back the character he lost in New +Orleans,--went to the dogs." It is a chronicle not recorded on the +monuments, but remembered in many a blighted household. The financial +debt the war left behind it was not the heaviest part of the after-cost. + +Nor must there be forgotten the temper which war begets, of mutual hate +between whole peoples. Forty years later we bring ourselves,--some of +us, and in a measure,--to see that our opponents of either side had some +justification or some excuse; that they perhaps were honest as we. But +little room was there for such mutual forbearance of judgment while the +fight was on. For the average man, for most men, to fight means also to +hate. While the contest lasted, Northerners habitually spoke of their +foes as "the rebels,"--not in contumely, but as matter-of-fact +description. They were "rebels" in common speech, and when one warmed a +little they were "traitors." Good men said that now for the first time +they saw why the imprecatory Psalms were written,--theirs was the only +cursing strong enough for the country's enemies. Quite as hearty was the +South's detestation of the Yankee invaders and despots,--the fanatics +and their hired minions. The Southern feeling took the keener edge, +because sharpened by the bitter fact of invasion and the hardships it +brought. With them the home suffered, not only as at the North, by the +departure of father or son to danger or death; the Southern homes often +saw the foes in their midst, and sometimes suffered ravage and spoil. +"How can you expect me to be well reconstructed," asked a Virginian +after the war, "When I remember the family vaults in which the silver +plates were wrenched from the coffins by your soldiers?" When the +fighting was over, the life of the reunited nation had to work its way +for a generation,--and the end is not yet,--against the hostilities, the +rancors, the misunderstandings, generated in those four years of +strife. + +The reality of war where it fell heaviest,--in the border States, where +neighborhoods and families were divided, and both armies marched and +fought,--is touched by the graphic pen of a woman, Mrs. Rebecca Harding +Davis, who saw and felt a part of it: "The histories which we have of +the great tragedy give no idea of the general wretchedness, the squalid +misery, which entered into every individual life in the region given up +to the war. Where the armies camped the destruction was absolute. Even +on the border, your farm was a waste, all your horses or cows were +seized by one army or the other, or your shop or manufactory was closed, +your trade ruined. You had no money; you drank coffee made of roasted +parsnips for breakfast, and ate only potatoes for dinner. Your nearest +kinsfolk and friends passed you on the street silent and scowling; if +you said what you thought you were liable to be dragged to the county +jail and left there for months. The subject of the war was never +broached in your home where opinions differed; but one morning the boys +were missing. No one said a word, but one gray head was bent, and the +happy light died out of the old eyes and never came to them again. Below +all the squalor and discomfort was the agony of suspense or the +certainty of death. But the parsnip coffee and the empty purse certainly +did give a sting to the great overwhelming misery, like gnats tormenting +a wounded man." + +Visiting in war-time the sages of Concord, she saw the difference +between war as viewed by visionaries at a distance and the reality: "I +remember listening during one long summer morning to Louisa Alcott's +father as he chanted paeans to the war, the 'armed angel which was +wakening the nation to a lofty life unknown before.' We were in the +little parlor of the Wayside, Mr. Hawthorne's house in Concord. Mr. +Alcott stood in front of the fire-place, his long gray hair streaming +over his collar, his pale eyes turning quickly from one listener to +another to hold them quiet, his hands waving to keep time with the +orotund sentences which had a stale, familiar ring as if often repeated +before. Mr. Emerson stood listening, his head sunk on his breast, with +profound submissive attention, but Hawthorne sat astride of a chair, his +arms folded on the back, his chin dropped on them, and his laughing, +sagacious eyes watching us, full of mockery. + +"I had come up from the border where I had seen the actual war; the +filthy spewings of it; the political jobbery in Union and Confederate +camps; the malignant personal hatreds wearing patriotic masks, and +glutted by burning homes and outraged women; the chances in it, well +improved on both sides, for brutish men to grow more brutish, and for +honorable gentlemen to degenerate into thieves and sots. War may be an +armed angel with a mission, but she has the personal habits of the +slums. This would-be seer who was talking of it, and the real seer who +listened, knew no more of war as it was, than I had done in my +cherry-tree time, when I dreamed of bannered legions of crusaders +debouching in the misty fields." + +The youth who reads may ask in wonder, "And was then the war to which we +have been used to look back with exultation and pride,--was it but a +horror and a crime?" No; it was something other and more than that; it +had its aspects of moral grandeur and of gain for humanity; it was a +field for noble self-sacrifice, for utmost striving of men and deepest +tenderness of women, it had its heroes and martyrs and saints; it was in +the large view the tremendous price of national unity and universal +freedom. But in the exaltation of these better aspects, we have as a +people too much forgotten the other and awful side. That is what we need +now to be reminded of. For among our present dangers none is greater +than the false glorification of war. Against such glorifications stands +Sherman's word, "War is hell." And on that grand tomb with which our +greatest city crowns its proudest height is inscribed, as the one word +by which Grant forever speaks to his countrymen, "Let us have peace." + +The nobler side of the war is told and will be told in many a history +and biography, romance and poem. In the broad view, the grandest fact +was that a multitude of men and women felt and acted as never before for +a cause greater than any personal gain. Under the discipline of +sacrifice and suffering, and with the personal horizon widened to take +in nations and races, a multitude on the field and at home grew to +loftier stature. The hardships and perils which wrecked some +strengthened others. The development of energy and resource was beyond +measure. The North created armies and navies; it organized a new system +of finance; it transformed a peaceful industrial community into an +irresistible military force; and all the while it carried on its +productive industries with scarcely visible shrinkage; farm and mill, +school and college, kept on with their work. The South made itself into +a solid army of resistance; cut off from its accustomed sources of +supply, it developed for itself all the essentials of material life; it +showed an ingenuity and resourcefulness beyond all expectation; and the +fidelity of its slaves supplied its armies with food while keeping its +homes secure. In peace haunted always by latent dread of insurrection, +in war the South found its servants its best friends. So, in both +sections, wonders were wrought and deeds never dreamed of were achieved. + +In justly viewing the evil and the good of war, we must compare it with +other disturbances and catastrophes. The finest traits and highest +efficiency of men come out under disasters which yet it must be our +habitual effort to avert. It is the ship on the rocks, the theater on +fire, that shows the hero. But what should we think of one who ran a +ship on shore, or set fire to a theater, in order to call out heroism? +Exactly so are we to regard those who glorify war as in itself a fine +and admirable thing, a proper school and arena of manhood. The +refutation of such talk comes not so well from men of the church or +closet as from those who have drunk deepest of war's reality. A man of +exuberant vitality, whose personal delight in physical strife colors his +statesmanship, and who is exhilarated by the memory of a skirmish or two +in Cuba, may talk exultantly of "glory enough to go round," and preach +soldiering as a splendid manifestation of the strenuous life. But the +grim old warrior whose genius and resolution split the Confederacy like +a wedge, General Sherman, in the very midst of his task wrote to a +friend: "I confess without shame that I am sick and tired of the war. +Its glory is all moonshine. Even success, the most brilliant, is over +dead and mangled bodies, the anguish and lamentation of distant families +appealing to me for missing sons, husbands, and fathers. It is only +those who have not heard a shot, nor heard the shrieks and groans of the +wounded and lacerated (friend or foe), that cry aloud for more blood, +more vengeance, more desolation." + +One glance we here may give at the traits which against this dark +background shone with the light which redeems humanity. The worst scenes +of all were not on the battlefield but in the military prisons. At +Andersonville, and other points, thousands of Northern prisoners were +crowded together, with insufficient supply of unnutritious food, with +scanty and foul water; surrounded by harsh guards, quick to shoot if the +"dead line" was crossed by a foot; harassed by petty tyranny; starved, +homesick, diseased, dying like infected sheep. It is a black, black +page,--but let its blackness be mainly charged to war itself, and what +war always breeds. In Northern prisons, the rate of mortality was nearly +as high as in Southern; the work of hunger in the one was matched by +cold in the other. "All things considered," says J. F. Rhodes in his +impartial _History of the United States_, "the statistics show no reason +why the North should reproach the South. If we add to one side of the +account the refusal to exchange the prisoners"--a refusal based by Grant +at one time on the military disadvantage of restoring the Southern +prisoners to active service--"and the greater resources, and to the +other the distress of the Confederacy; the balance struck will not be +far from even." Enough for our present purpose that the Andersonville +prison-pen was a hell. Well, after a time the Union armies were +recruited by negroes, and the Confederates in resentment refused to +consider these when captured as prisoners of war, and would not include +them in the exchanges. Thereupon the Federal Government declared that +its negro soldiers must receive equal rights with the whites, and until +this was conceded there should be no exchange at all. Then some of the +Andersonville prisoners drew up a petition, and signed and sent it to +Washington, praying the government to hasten their release, and if +necessary to hold the question of negro prisoners for negotiation, while +pressing forward the liberation of its faithful and suffering white +soldiers. But promptly by others in the prison-pen a counter petition +was started, signed, and sent on. It ran in substance thus: "We are in +evil case, and we earnestly desire that you hasten our deliverance by +every means consistent with right and honor. But--honor first! Let the +nation's plighted faith to its black soldiers be kept, at whatever cost +to us. We ask you to still refuse all exchange of prisoners, until the +Osame treatment can be secured for black and white." Was ever a braver +deed than that? + +One picture more. In a military hospital at Washington, Walt Whitman was +engaged as a volunteer nurse. In a letter to a friend, he depicted in a +few sentences the tragedy of it all, and yet the triumph of the spirit +over the body and over death itself. He wrote of a Northern hospital, +but the like might be seen on Southern soil, as to-day among Russians or +Japanese,--it is the tragedy and triumph of humanity. "These thousands, +and tens and twenties of thousands, of American young men, badly wounded +... operated on, pallid with diarrhoea, languishing, dying with fever, +pneumonia, etc., open a new world somehow to me, giving closer insights, +... showing our humanity ... tried by terrible, fearful tests, probed +deepest, the living souls, the body's tragedies, bursting the petty +bonds of art. To these, what are your dreams and poems, even the oldest +and the tearfulest?... For here I see, not at intervals, but quite +always, how certain man, our American man,--how he holds himself cool +and unquestioned master above all pains and bloody mutilation.... This, +then, what frightened us all so long! Why, it is put to flight with +ignominy--a mere stuffed scarecrow of the fields. Oh, death, where is +thy sting? Oh, grave, where is thy victory?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +EMANCIPATION BEGUN + + +When the war began, the absorbing issue at the North was the maintenance +of the Union. The supreme, uniting purpose was the restoration of the +national authority. Slavery had fallen into the background. But it soon +began to come again to the front. Two tendencies existed at the North; +one, to seek the restoration of the old state of things unchanged; the +other, to seize the opportunity of war to put an end to slavery. + +The pressure of events raised special questions which must be met. As +soon as Northern armies were on Southern soil, slaves began to take +refuge in the camps, and their masters, loyal in fact or in profession, +followed with a demand for their return. Law seemed on the master's +side; but the use of the army, engaged in such a war, to send slaves +back to bondage, was most repugnant. At first some commanders took one +course, some another. General Butler, a volunteer from Massachusetts, +hit on a happy solution; he declared that slaves, being available to the +enemy for hostile purposes, were like arms, gunpowder, etc., "contraband +of war," and could not be reclaimed. The stroke was welcomed with cheers +and laughter; and "contraband" became a catchword. Congress, in March, +1862, forbade the army and navy to return fugitives. + +General Fremont was in command in Missouri. He was ardent and +uncompromising, and in August, 1861, he issued a drastic proclamation, +declaring the State under martial law, threatening death to all taken +with arms in their hands, and giving freedom to the slaves of all +rebels. The President remonstrated by letter against this too heroic +surgery, and when Fremont declined to modify his order, used his +authority to cancel it. The public reception of the incident marked and +heightened the growing division of sentiment; the conservatives and +especially the border State men, were alarmed and indignant at Fremont's +action, while he became at once a favorite of the strong anti-slavery +men. + +This divergence among his own supporters added another to the +complications which beset Lincoln and taxed him to the utmost. He had +extraordinary tact and shrewdness in managing men, and in dealing with +tangled situations. He showed this power toward his Cabinet officers, +who included the most various material,--Seward, accomplished, +resourceful, somewhat superficial, but thoroughly loyal to his chief +after he knew him, managing the foreign relations with admirable skill, +and somewhat conservative in his views; Chase, very able as a financier +and jurist, but intensely ambitious of the Presidency, regarded as a +radical as to slavery; Stanton, a great war minister but of harsh and +intractable temper. These men and their colleagues Lincoln handled so +skilfully as to get the best each had to contribute, and keep them and +the political elements they represented in working harmony. No less +successfully did he deal with Congress, guiding it to a great extent, +but acquiescing in occasional defeats and disappointments so patiently +that he disarmed hostility. He kept in closest touch with the common +people; he was accessible to every one, listened to each man's +grievance, remonstrance, or advice; and acquired an instinctive +knowledge of what was in the hearts and minds of the millions. + +In his own conduct, his guiding principle was fidelity to his official +duty as he read it in the Constitution and the laws. He felt the +specific, supreme task laid upon him to be the restoration and +maintenance of the Union. And to succeed in that, he knew he must +rightly interpret and enforce the general sentiment and desire of the +loyal people. If he let them become so divided as to no longer act +together, the cause was lost. And to follow any personal opinion or +conviction of his own, in disregard of his official duty, or in defiance +of the popular will, was to betray his trust. + +It was under these conditions that Lincoln dealt with slavery. No man +more than he detested the institution, or desired its removal. But he +felt that he had no right to touch it, except as empowered by the +Constitution and the laws, or as guided by the supreme necessity of +saving the nation's life. Beyond that he had no authority. Beyond that, +his position toward slavery must be like that of a President toward, for +example, a system of religion which he believed to be false and +injurious. Be he intensely orthodox, believing infidelity to be the road +to hell,--yet he must not as President, put a straw across the path of +the free-thinker. Be he as heretical as Thomas Jefferson, he must not +as President, any more than did Jefferson, lay a finger on the churches. +Just so did Lincoln feel himself restricted as to slavery,--he could not +touch it, except as the civil laws brought it within his province, or +unless as supreme military commander the laws and necessities of war +brought it within his authority. + +Congress soon proceeded to discuss questions about slavery. Sumner, the +foremost leader of the radicals, proposed resolutions, in February, +1862, declaring that the seceded States had by their acts extinguished +their State organizations and relapsed into a territorial condition, +subject only to Congress; and that slavery within them, existing only by +a local authority now defunct, was thus abolished. Congress would take +no such ground as that. But, as within its proper sphere, it abolished +slavery in the District of Columbia, in April, 1862, giving +compensation to owners at a maximum rate of $300 for each slave. And in +the following June, it abolished slavery in all the national +territories,--thus giving full force to the cardinal doctrine of the +Republican party up to the war. But the war had inevitably brought a +more radical issue to the front,--the question of slavery in the States. + +Under the name of a confiscation act, Congress passed a law, July 17, +1862, which declared freedom to all slaves of convicted rebels; to +slaves of rebels escaping within the army lines, or captured, or +deserted by their masters; and to all slaves of rebels found in places +captured and occupied by the Union army. This came near to making the +abolition of slavery follow exactly the progress of the Union arms. But, +leaving untouched the slave property of loyalists, it spared the +institution as a system. + +Lincoln, in many ways a man of the people by his convictions and +sympathies, in other aspects towered in solitude. He was almost unique +in that he could fight--fight if need were to the death,--with no spark +of hatred in his heart. In the midst of war he was a devoted +peace-lover. To an old friend, though a political opponent, Congressman +D. W. Voorhees, of Indiana, who called on him at the White House, he +said with a pathetic look of anxious pain: "Voorhees, doesn't it seem +strange that I should be here--I, a man who couldn't cut a chicken's +head off,--with blood running all around me?" While he was overseeing +campaigns, selecting and rejecting generals, learning the business of a +commander, keeping touch with all the great matters of administration, +besieged by office-seekers, importuned by people in all manner of +private troubles,--he found intervals in which to devise ways out of the +horrid business of war, ways that might lead both to peace and freedom. + +The key of the situation he thought lay largely with the border +States,--Maryland, Missouri and Kentucky,--all of them formally in the +Union, but their population divided, sending recruits to both armies, +and with hopes in the Confederacy that they might be entirely won over. +If they could be bound faster to the Union, if at the same time they +could be helped to make themselves free States,--then might the Union +cause be mightily helped, and at the same time the work of emancipation +be begun. Aiming at this result, Lincoln sent a message to Congress, +March 6, 1862, proposing this resolution: "That the United States ought +to co-operate with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment of +slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State, +in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and +private, produced by such change of system." He urged this with special +reference to its application in the border States; and, inviting the +Congressional members of these States in a body to the White House, he +pleaded with them earnestly to support the resolution, and apply the +plan. They listened, but were non-committal. Congress received the plan +coolly. The Radicals were little in the humor of compensating +slaveholders, and the Conservatives apprehended a progressive attack on +slavery. But the President's influence triumphed; the resolution passed +in mid-April; and the nation pledged itself to assist compensated +emancipation in any State that would adopt it. + +Nothing came of it. The border States did not move. Three months later, +July 12, their delegations were again invited to the White House. The +situation was at the gravest; McClellan's army had been baffled in the +desperate seven-days' fight; factions at the North were growing hot. +Lincoln pleaded reasonably, movingly, that they would bring decisive +help to the national cause, by committing their States to emancipation, +with help from the nation, gradually if they pleased, with colonization +if they desired--peace, union, freedom, all lay that way! Two days they +took to make answer, and then of the twenty-nine members only nine were +favorable; the rest with one accord began to make excuse,--and that hope +failed. + +Events were forcing on the question of slavery. In the previous May, +General David Hunter, in South Carolina, finding himself with 10,000 +fugitives in his camps, whom the laws forbade him to return to their +masters and did not permit him to hold as slaves, met the difficulty by +a proclamation, declaring that the martial law of the United States was +incompatible with slavery, and the slaves in his military +district--South Carolina, Georgia and Florida,--were set free. Again the +President overruled his subordinate, but in the proclamation he +distinctly said that the question of emancipation as a military +necessity belonged to himself as commander-in-chief. It was a note of +warning. Twenty years before, John Quincy Adams had written,--and the +words came from a conservative statesman of the highest standing: "I say +that the military authority takes for the time the place of all +municipal institutions, and slavery among the rest"; and had elaborated +and reiterated the doctrine that in case of war slavery might be +abolished by the commander. These statements had lately been recalled; +the action of Fremont and Hunter had given life to the idea; and Lincoln +now intimated that he might yet assume this authority. + +Party divisions had soon reappeared at the North. The Democrats were not +harmonious; a part called themselves "War Democrats," and a part were +ready to let the South go, or went as near that as they prudently could; +now one and now the other faction controlled the party according to time +and locality. The Republicans were more united, yet among them was a +cleavage between conservatives and radicals; the one taking for their +watchword, "the Constitution as it is and the Union as it was"; the +other eager to see the war turned against slavery; and both claiming the +President, and jealously watching any leaning on his part toward their +rivals. + +There was developing at the North a profound sentiment for attacking +slavery. The war was protracted beyond all early expectation; it was +costly, bitter, woeful. What was to be at last the recompense for all +this blood and tears? Was there, if victory came at last, to be with it +no advance, nothing but the old Union, half slave and half free? For +nothing better than this were sons, fathers, brothers, husbands to be +sacrificed? Was the nation crossing a Red Sea of anguish only to emerge +into the old bondage? Rather, let us fight at once for union and for +liberty! + +Those who voiced this cry could not always see the difficulties that +beset the President. Many of them failed to realize that at heart he was +as true to freedom as they. Even Lowell, in the later _Biglow Papers_, +which pleaded with deeper pathos and power than before for freedom--even +he could write of "hoisting your captain's heart up with a derrick." +Wendell Phillips on one occasion, impatient of Lincoln's attitude toward +the fugitive slave law, called him "the slave-hound from Illinois." +Beecher,--who did great service, especially by his speeches in +England,--wrote in the _Independent_ a series of articles, to spur the +President to more pronounced action. Some one gave the articles to +Lincoln; he sat down and read them all, then rose to his feet +exclaiming, "Am I a dog?" + +All this time the conservatives were no less urgent that the President +must make no move against slavery. Among their spokesmen was General +McClellan. On him rested the chief hope of the North for military +success during the year following the disaster of Bull Run. He was an +admirable organizer and a good theoretical strategist; his care for his +men won their affection; and sometimes in the field he struck heavy and +effective blows. But he was always prone to overrate the enemy's +resources and underrate his own; he was slow to follow up a success; and +he lacked the bulldog grip by which Grant won. Right on the heels of his +failure in the seven-days' fight in the Peninsula, he wrote a letter to +the President, from Harrison's Landing, July 7, 1862, lecturing him +severely as to the errors he must avoid. Nothing must be done or said +looking to confiscation, forcible abolition, or territorial organization +of the States. "Until the principles governing the future conduct of our +struggle shall be made known and approved, the effort to obtain +requisite forces will be almost hopeless. A declaration of radical +views, especially upon slavery, will rapidly disintegrate our armies." +This letter was given to the public, and on this platform McClellan +began to loom up as an opposition candidate for the Presidency. + +So Lincoln was buffeted on the right hand and on the left. In this +summer of 1862, Greeley wrote in the _Tribune_, August 20, an open +letter to the President, upbraiding him for his slackness against +slavery. Lincoln replied, August 22, in a letter which startled many of +his friends, and to this day bewilders those who do not understand the +man himself or the position in which he stood. He wrote: "I would save +the Union, I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution.... +My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not +either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without +freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all +the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and +leaving others alone, I would also do that." In fact, the last was the +course which he eventually took. + +This letter stated with full sincerity Lincoln's basal principle. It was +not necessary to add that the purpose was growing within him to save the +Union by freeing the slaves in the seceded States. The very growth of +that purpose made it necessary for him to freshly bind to himself the +conservatives whose only care was for the Union and not for +emancipation. Nothing could serve this purpose better than the +declaration in this letter to Greeley. In Lincoln, sincerity and +shrewdness were thoroughly blended. + +At a later day he told the artist Frank Carpenter, when he was to paint +"The Signing of the Emancipation Proclamation": "It had got to be +mid-summer, 1862. Things had gone on from bad to worse, until I felt +that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan we had been +pursuing; that we had about played our last card, and must change our +tactics or lose the game. I now determined upon the adoption of the +emancipation policy; and without consultation with, or the knowledge of, +the Cabinet, I prepared the original draft of the proclamation, and +after much anxious thought, called a Cabinet meeting upon the +subject.... I said to the Cabinet that I had resolved upon this step, +and had not called them together to ask their advice, but to lay the +subject-matter of a proclamation before them, suggestions as to which +would be in order after they had heard it read." This proclamation--the +first sketch--set forth that at the next meeting of Congress, four +months later, the President designs to again recommend a practical +measure for tendering pecuniary aid to any State then recognizing the +authority of the United States, which should have adopted, or should +thereafter adopt, gradual abolishment of slavery; that the object of +this is to promote the restoration of constitutional relations between +the general government and all the States; and finally, as +commander-in-chief, the President declares that from the first of +January next all slaves in States still rejecting the national authority +shall then and forever be free. + +The Cabinet were amazed--and divided. Only Stanton and Bates were for +immediate promulgation. Chase thought it would be better to leave the +matter to district commanders, but would support the proclamation as +better than inaction. Blair opposed it as likely to be unpopular and +lose the Fall election. All this Lincoln had weighed beforehand. But now +came a suggestion from Seward, that the immediate time was inopportune, +because just after military reverses (McClellan's Peninsula defeat) it +would seem like a desperate cry for help,--"our last shriek on the +retreat," as Lincoln phrased it. His judgment welcomed this as a wise +suggestion, and he put the draft of the proclamation aside and waited +for victory. Among the elements which entered into his decisions was a +subtle instinct as to when and how far he could command the support of +the various elements on whom success depended. His rare capacity as a +listener, and his keen sagacity, enabled him to divine that the hour was +at hand when a decisive move against slavery would attract more support +than it would repel. Seward's suggestion gave the final shape to his +purpose. + +This happened July 22, 1862; and when the President made his calm reply +to Greeley's onslaught a month later, the unsigned proclamation lay in +his desk, and he was still waiting for a victory before he issued it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +EMANCIPATION ACHIEVED + + +Instead of victory came defeat. Pope, taking the command after +McClellan's failure, was beaten and driven back in the second battle of +Bull Run, and matters were at the worst. McClellan was recalled; his +genius for organization rehabilitated the demoralized army; the +soldiers' confidence in their old chief gave them new courage. When Lee, +after a year on the defensive, took the offensive and entered Maryland, +he was beaten and turned back at Antietam. + +Then Lincoln summoned his cabinet again, September 22, 1862. Before he +spoke the momentous word, he freshened himself in his own way,--he said +that Artemus Ward had sent him his book, and he would read them a +chapter which he thought very funny; and read it he did, with great +enjoyment; the secretaries also laughing as in duty bound--all except +Stanton! Then the President became grave enough--he told them that he +had been thinking a great deal about the proclamation he had read them +two months before; that victory seemed to have brought a favorable +occasion; that when the rebel army was at Fredericksburg he determined +as soon as it was driven out of Maryland to proclaim emancipation. He +went on: "I said nothing to any one, but I made the promise to myself, +and,"--hesitating a little--"to my Maker." So now, he tells them, he +fulfills that promise. One last word,--some other might do better than +he; he would surrender his place to a better man if he saw the way; he +believes that he has not so much of the confidence of the people as he +once had, but on the whole he does not know that any one has more, and +at any rate there is no way for him to give place to any other. "I am +here; I must do the best I can, and bear the responsibility of taking +the course which I feel I ought to take." It is the counterpart of +Luther's "Here stand I; I cannot do otherwise; God help me!" + +Discussion in the Cabinet: general approval; slight modification only. +The proclamation runs on the original lines; compensated abolition +recommended; colonization favored; freedom to be declared next New +Year's day to all slaves in rebellious States: ultimate compensation +recommended for all loyal owners. The proclamation is issued, +September 23, 1862, and the nation is inexorably committed to +emancipation,--compensated if possible; forcible if necessary; partial +at first, but moving inevitably, swiftly, toward universal freedom. + +The proclamation with its sequence was the best Lincoln found himself +able to do. What he wanted to do,--his own ideal which he could not +bring his countrymen to accept,--was shown in his message to Congress +when it met in December. The main burden of that message was an earnest +plea for action on the line of compensated emancipation. The President +proposed an amendment to the Constitution, to this effect: every State +abolishing slavery before 1900 to receive compensation from the United +States, at some fixed rate, in government bonds; meantime, all slaves +freed by chances of war to remain free, with compensation to loyal +owners; Congress authorized to spend money for colonization of such as +wish to go. For the general plan of compensation Lincoln argues as +broadly and calmly as if dealing with a purely economic question, and +with the restrained fervor of the patriot and statesman. He dwells on +the vast growth which the country promises; on the increasing resources +which will make light the burden of ransoming the slaves; the safety of +a process of gradual liberation; the humane, economic, Christian +superiority of this settlement instead of prolonged war. This is the +close: "We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. In +giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free--honorable +alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or +meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this +could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just--a way which, +if followed, the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless." + +But as for practical effect, he might as well have read Dr. Watts's +Cradle-hymn to a couple of fighting bulldogs. The proposition of +compensated emancipation was thirty years too late. Now the blood of +both sections was up, the fighting animal in man let loose,--and they +would go on indefinitely killing and being killed, to free the slaves or +to hold them, but they would not lay down their arms and peacefully +share the light burden of emancipation. + +So came in New Year's day, 1863, and the final word was spoken, +declaring freedom to all the slaves in Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, +Alabama, Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and the greater portion of +Virginia and Louisiana; enjoining good order on the freedmen; and +opening the army and navy to their enlistment. "And upon this act, +sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the +Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment +of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God." + +How far, it may be asked, was the military necessity on which the +proclamation was based actually met by its results? Immediate gain, in a +military sense, did not accrue. Not a slave was freed except as the +ground was conquered foot by foot. But by opening the door to the +enlistment of negroes, there was soon a substantial advantage won to +the Union armies; for, enlisting by many thousands, they proved +themselves docile, trustworthy, and not lacking in courage. In the last +two years of the war, they added nearly 200,000 men to the Union forces. +They were not considered equal to white soldiers, for they succumbed far +more easily to wounds and disease; and though their officers were chary +of exposing them in battle, their mortality was greater than that of the +whites. In a sense broader than the military, the first results of the +emancipation policy were adverse. It was said by many that the +proclamation would "unite the South and divide the North." The seceded +States could hardly be more united than they were before, but a fresh +motive was added to their struggle. In the border States, there was a +wide alienation of slave owners and their sympathizers. At the North, a +similar effect was obvious at first. From the day of the first +proclamation, a war now evidently waged in part for emancipation lost +favor with many who cared nothing for the slaves. The elections two +months later, in November, 1862, were disastrous. New York, +Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana, all went against the +administration. Its majority in Congress was greatly reduced. + +But the emancipation proclamation had struck deep to the hidden springs +of power. For the exigencies of a prolonged and desperate struggle, it +had evoked the full power of a great sentiment. It had roused the +passion of freedom which nerves men to suffer and die. It was an +unselfish passion,--it was for the freedom of other men that the North +now fought. The loss of the half-hearted and the materialists was +outweighed by the enlistment of the enthusiasts for humanity. And the +sympathies of the nations, which had wavered while the Union cause was +declared to be apart from the slavery question, now swung weightily to +the side of the North, since it was avowedly the side of freedom. + +By his proclamation, Lincoln had,--to use his language to +Greeley,--"freed some and left others alone." He could not go further on +the ground of military necessity. But the work, or the promise, could +not be left in that imperfect shape. The natural resource was soon +found,--universal freedom by a constitutional amendment. This, the +Thirteenth Amendment, was brought forward in April, 1864, and received +more than the necessary two-thirds vote in the Senate--38 to 6; but in +the House (elected in the reaction of 1862) only 95 to 66. The next +winter it was brought up again in the same House, but a House +enlightened now by the Republican victory in Lincoln's re-election; and +strongly urged by him it won the necessary two-thirds vote--119 to 56. +The States had still to pass upon it, after the war, but to resist +emancipation then was fighting against the stars in their courses; and +only Kentucky and Delaware rejected the amendment, while Texas was +silent, and Alabama and Mississippi gave a qualified assent. The +amendment was declared adopted, December 18, 1865, and on that day +slavery in the United States came to an end. + +When the issue was finally shaped by the Emancipation Proclamation of +January 1, 1863, both sides set themselves anew for the grim +struggle--two years more of hard fighting. Since fighting it must be, +they bore themselves all, let us say, as brave men and women,--North and +South, white and black. The Confederates came often into dire +extremities. Men whose lives had been luxurious fared on the plainest +and hardest. Delicate women bore privations uncomplainingly, and toiled +and nursed and endured. Food, clothing, medicines were scant. Invasion +was borne, with its humiliation and suffering, its train of ravage and +desolation. The supporting motive was the common defense, the +comradeship of danger and of courage. The Confederacy and its flag had +won the devotion which sacrifice and suffering breed. Little thought was +there of slavery, little calculation of the future, as the siege grew +closer and the shadows darkened--but an indomitable purpose to hold on +and fight on. The chief hero of the Confederacy was Lee. He was the +embodiment and symbol of what the Southern people most believed in and +cared for. He was not one of those who had brought on the trouble; his +whole attitude had been defensive. He and his Army of Northern Virginia +were the shield of the South. A skilful commander, strong to strike and +wary to ward; his personality merged in the cause; gentle as he was +strong,--his army trusted and followed him with a faith that grew with +every victory, and did not wane under reverses. + +Let the negroes in the war-time be judged in the calm retrospect of +history. Their fidelity meant the security of the families on every +lonely plantation from Virginia to Texas. + +Instead of the horror of servile insurrection, women and children were +safe in their homes, supported and protected by their servants. It was +their labor that made it possible for the whole white population to take +the field. It was their fidelity and kindliness that kept the social +structure sound, even though pierced and plowed by the sword. Their +conduct was a practical refutation of the belief that they were in +general sufferers from inhuman treatment. It was a proof that slavery +had included better influences than its opponents had recognized. But it +suggested, too, that a people capable of such things under slavery were +fully ready for an upward step, and might be trusted with freedom. + +They gave another proof of fitness for freedom when, enlisted in the +Union armies, they showed the qualities of good soldiership. They +accepted discipline, and developed under it. They were brave in battle, +and in victory they were guiltless of excess. It was a wonderful epoch +in the race's history,--the transition from servitude to freedom,--and +in that ordeal, first as slaves and then as soldiers, they showed +themselves worthy of the deliverance that had come at last. + +As soldiers, they found leaders in the flower of the North. Such was +Robert Gould Shaw, of the best blood and training of Massachusetts; a +son of Harvard; serving from the first as private and then as captain; +called by Governor Andrew in 1863 to the command of the Fifty-fourth +Massachusetts, the first black regiment mustered into service; taking a +place which risked not battle peril only but social obloquy; training +his recruits into soldiers; leading them in a hopeless onset against the +batteries of Fort Wagner; falling at their head; buried in a ditch with +his men; honored in an immortal sculpture which portrays the young, +highbred hero in the midst of the humble, faithful men for whom he +gave his life. + +All the energies of the North were at the highest stretch. In those +whose hearts were in the strife, at home or in the field, there was a +great glow and elation. The intensity of the time communicated itself to +industry and trade. There was an almost feverish activity; with heavy +taxation and a fluctuating currency--gold was long at a premium of +250--mills and markets and stores were in full tide of operation. The +North matched the South in personal courage and generalship; and greatly +outweighed it in numbers, material, and in the productivity engendered +in a free, urban, industrial society. The passion of the war touched +everything. The churches were strongholds of the national cause. The +Sanitary and Christian Commissions kept camp and home in close touch. +But under all this stir was the tragedy of wide-spread desolation and +bereavement. The multitudinous slaughter of campaigns like the +Wilderness had an awful background of woful families. + +Arduous achievement, heroism and anguish, suffering and sacrifice for +the cause of the nation and humanity--that was the North's story in +those years. It is a sublime story as we look back: + + The glory dies not, and the grief is past. + +Once more the North was called on to solemnly decide, in the election of +1864. Against Lincoln was nominated by the Democrats, General McClellan, +himself a stainless soldier and a patriot, but supported by every +element of hostility to emancipation, of sympathy with the Southern +cause, and of impatience with the long and burdensome struggle. The +platform called for an immediate armistice, to be followed by a +convention of the States, or other peaceable measures for the +restoration of the Union. McClellan's letter of acceptance ignored the +platform, and declared strongly for the persistent maintenance of the +Union. The result of the election was a majority of 400,000 votes in +4,000,000 for Lincoln, every State supporting him save New Jersey, +Kentucky, and Delaware. + +It was the greatness of the prize at stake that justified the cost. +Lowell sang the true song of the war, when the end was almost reached, +in the poem that records the sore loss to his own family,--his three +nephews, "likely lads as well could be,"--slain on the battle-field. In +that lofty, mournful verse, there is no drum and trumpet clangor, but +the high purpose whose roots are watered by tears: + + Come, Peace, not like a mourner bowed + For honor lost an' dear ones wasted, + But proud, to meet a people proud, + With eyes thet tell o' triumph tasted! + + Come, with han' grippin' on the hilt, + An' step that proves ye Victory's daughter! + Longin' for you, our sperits wilt + Like shipwrecked men's on raf's for water. + + Come, while our country feels the lift + Of a gret instinct shoutin' "Forwards!" + An' knows thet freedom ain't a gift + Thet tarries long in han's o' cowards! + Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when + They kissed their cross with lips thet quivered, + An' bring fair wages for brave men, + A nation saved, a race delivered. + +With Grant and Lee locked in the last desperate struggle at Petersburg, +with final victory almost in sight, Lincoln spoke his second +inaugural,--too grave for exultation, with the note of humility and +faith. He is awed before the course of events since he stood there four +years ago. He feels the strangeness of both combatants appealing to the +same Bible and the same God. For himself and his people he utters the +fond hope, the fervent prayer, that "this awful scourge of war may pass +away." He accepts the suffering as the penalty of the nation--the whole +nation--for the sin of slavery. Humbly, resolutely, he faces with his +people the final effort, the sacred duty: "With malice toward none, with +charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the +right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the +nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for +his widow and his orphan, and to all which may achieve and cherish a +just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +RECONSTRUCTION: EXPERIMENTS AND IDEALS + + +"God uses a good many ugly tools to dig up the stumps and burn off the +forests and drain the swamps of a howling wilderness. He has used this +old Egyptian plow of slavery to turn over the sod of these fifteen +Southern States. Its sin consisted in not dying decently when its work +was done. It strove to live and make all the new world like it. Its +leaders avowed that their object was to put this belt of the continent +under the control of an aristocracy which believes that one-fifth of the +race is born booted and spurred and the other four-fifths ready for that +fifth to ride. The war was one of freedom and democracy against the +institutions that rest on slaves. It will take ten years for the country +to shed the scar of such a struggle. The state of society at the South +that produced the war will remain and trouble the land until freedom and +democracy and the spirit of the nineteenth century takes its place. Only +then can we grapple the Union together with hooks of steel, and make it +as lasting as the granite that underlies the continent." + +These were the brave words of a Southern newspaper, the Galveston +_Bulletin_, in January, 1867, in the mid-throes of reconstruction. So it +was that the best minds of the reunited nation foresaw and accepted the +path on which we still are slowly mounting; often slipping, stumbling, +falling, but still getting upward. + +When, on January 31, 1865, the vote of the House completed the +ratification by Congress of the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing +slavery, a burst of jubilant cheering swept the whole assembly, and a +wave of joy went through the North. Universal freedom seemed close at +hand. Two months more, and the Confederate capital fell, on April 3, and +still higher rose the triumph. Another week, and the North woke at +midnight, to forget sleep and rejoice as over the final +consummation,--Lee had surrendered! In those days it seemed to ardent +souls that all the sacrifices of the past four years were repaid, and +freedom and Union were completely won. + +But real freedom of men, true union of a nation, are not achieved by +votes of Congress alone, or victories of the sword. The first and worst +was over, yet the work was only begun. And these first steps had been by +a rough and bitter road, of which the next stage could not be smooth or +sweet. The plow of slavery had been followed by the harrow of +war,--blossoms and fruitage could not instantly follow. + +Lincoln practically made his own the motto ascribed to the Jesuits, "The +goal of to-day, the starting-point of to-morrow." Even before to-day's +goal was reached, his eye was measuring the next stage. While his +patient shoulders were still bowed under the weight of war, his hands +were reaching out to the work of reconstruction. In December, 1863, a +year after the Emancipation Proclamation, he issued another +proclamation. In this he offered full amnesty to all who had taken arms +against the government, on condition simply of an oath to support the +Constitution, and all laws and proclamations concerning slavery until +such were legally overruled. From this amnesty were excepted those who +had held diplomatic or high military offices in the Confederacy; those +who had left Congress or the army or navy to aid the Confederate cause; +and those who had maltreated negro prisoners of war. Whether Lincoln in +his own mind regarded the official classes as more blameworthy or more +dangerous than their followers, we can only surmise; but he doubtless +considered that public opinion was not ripe--the war being still +flagrant--for a wider offer of pardon. + +Further, he invited a return of the seceded States to their former +relations, under these conditions: Wherever a number of voters equal to +one-tenth of the registered list of 1860, having individually taken the +oath of allegiance, shall unite to form a loyal State government, their +organization will be recognized by the Federal government. It is +desirable to retain as far as practicable the old State boundaries, +constitution, and laws. Such a State government may make regulations for +the negroes,--if their freedom and education are provided for,--as a +"laboring, homeless, and landless class." The admission of +representatives and senators must depend on the action of Congress. + +Under this plan--regarded by the President as somewhat tentative and +provisional, and expressly made dependent on Congress for its +consummation by the admission of senators and representatives--within +the next twelve months governments were established in three States +where the Union arms were partly in the ascendant, Louisiana, Arkansas, +and Tennessee. Congress, in July, 1864, passed a reconstruction bill on +more radical lines; assuming that the rebel States were by their own act +extinguished as States and were to be created _de novo_; directing that +a provisional governor be forthwith appointed for every such State; +requiring the new Legislatures to abolish slavery, exclude high +Confederate officials from office, and annul the Confederate debt. The +President let this bill fail for want of his signature, and in a +proclamation explained his objections: He was not ready to accept the +"State suicide" theory; he did not want to rest the abolition of +slavery on the fiat of Congress (he was looking for the adoption of the +Thirteenth Amendment); and he was unwilling to sacrifice the provisional +governments already set up in Louisiana and Arkansas. If in any other +State a movement on the congressional plan was initiated, that might do +well; but for any hard-and-fast, all-round plan the time was not ripe. +The radicals, led by Wade and Henry Winter Davis, chafed bitterly, but +Lincoln was not an easy man to fix a quarrel on. + +In the following winter, 1864-5, the new Louisiana Legislature, +recognized and encouraged by the President, elected two senators who +applied at Washington for admission. The judiciary committee, headed by +Lyman Trumbull, reported in their favor, and the large majority of the +Senate took the same view. But Sumner was strongly opposed to beginning +the readmission of the rebel States to congressional power until the +rights of the freedmen were fully and finally established. Aided by two +other radicals, Wade of Ohio and Zachariah Chandler of Michigan, he +"talked against time," and defeated action until the end of the session. +Under senatorial usage it was legitimate--but it was exasperating. The +little world of Washington, always greatly given to tempests in a +teapot, looked for a break between the President and the foremost man of +his supporters. What it saw instead was, at the inauguration ball, Mr. +Sumner entering in company with the President and with Mrs. Lincoln on +his arm! No, Lincoln was not going to quarrel with Sumner--nor with any +one, if it lay with him. + +Richmond was taken, and through its streets moved the gaunt form of the +President, his eyes taking grave, kind note of all. Back to Washington, +and the supreme word comes at last. Lee has surrendered, the war is +over, the victory won! A cheering, exultant crowd beset the White +House. Lincoln came out on the balcony, said a word of response, and +invited them to come back two days later for a fuller word. When they +came again, he talked to them and to the country. His whole theme was, +What is our next duty? Here is the next step, the first of the "erring +sisters" to return is to be welcomed back. Louisiana has adopted a +constitution abolishing slavery, establishing public schools for black +and white alike, and allowing the Legislature at its discretion to +extend suffrage to the blacks. Under this constitution 12,000 voters +have been enrolled. The Legislature has met and ratified the Thirteenth +Amendment. Can we do better than to accept and restore them to the full +privileges of statehood? For them would it not also be wise to extend +the suffrage to the most intelligent negroes, and to those who have +served in the Union army? As to all the seceded States, the question +whether they have ever been out of the Union is "a merely pernicious +abstraction." The real question is, how to get them again into proper +practical relations with the Union. "Concede that the new government of +Louisiana is to what it should be only as the egg is to the fowl, we +shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it." Let +us be flexible as to our methods, inflexible as to vital principles. + +These were his last words to his countrymen. Three days later, April 14, +as he sat in Ford's theatre,--the strain of responsibility lightened by +an hour of kindly amusement--there fell on him, from an assassin's hand, +the stroke of unconsciousness and speedy death. For himself, how could +he have died better! At the summit of achievement, hailed by the world's +acclaim, in the prime of manly strength, unweakened by decay, unshadowed +by fear; a life of heroic service crowned by a martyr's death; a place +won in the nation's heart of such love and gratitude as has been given +to no other,--how better could he have died? + +But never was heavier bereavement than his death brought to the American +people. It was not sorrow only, but lasting loss, beyond estimation and +beyond repair. We know not how in the sum of things all seeming evil may +find place, but to human eyes seldom was man taken who could so ill be +spared. By nature and capacity he was above all else a peace-maker. +Called to be captain in a great war, his largest contribution to its +success had been in holding united to the common purpose men most widely +varying among themselves. He said, toward the end, that he did not know +that he had done better than any one else could, except perhaps at one +point,--he did think he had been pretty successful in keeping the North +united. And while he did this, while he kept radicals and conservatives, +Abolitionists and Unionists, New Englanders and Kentuckians, loyal to +the common cause, he also shaped that cause toward the highest aims that +his various constituency would admit. He could not bring them to his own +highest thought,--they would not be persuaded to try compensated +emancipation and peaceful reunion instead of war to the extremity. But +he did lift a war for the Union to a war for freedom also, and so direct +it that from the strife should emerge not the old, but a nobler nation. +And now, the harder half was to be done! Instead of generalship, +statesmanship; instead of animal courage, justice and kindness toward +former foes; instead of holding the North together, to bring North and +South together; that was the gigantic task now to be wrought. Who so fit +for it as he? And for want of him, grievous and slow has been the +journey. + +From the first thrill of passionate grief, men turned to ask anxiously +what the new President was to be. He had been selected with that +carelessness as to the Vice-Presidency which is a tradition of American +politics. Had the convention which renominated Lincoln chosen with care +the man best fitted to aid or possibly succeed him in his work--had they +for instance chosen John A. Andrew of Massachusetts--history might have +been very different. But they took Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, with +little scrutiny of his qualities, but desiring to broaden their ticket +by including a Southern Unionist. Johnson had been bred as a tailor, +with only the meagerest schooling, with no training in the law, going +straight from his trade into politics, and by native force rising to the +senatorship. He was regarded, and rightly, as a man of honesty, +patriotism, courage, and rough energy. He had been conspicuous in +denouncing the seceders with the heat of a border-State Unionist, and +something of the uncontrolled temper of the "poor white." "Treason must +be made odious," had been his cry, "traitors must be punished." In that +war-heated time, there were good men who thought they read the purpose +of the Almighty in removing the too kindly Lincoln, that the guilty +rebels might be more severely scourged. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +RECONSTRUCTION: THE FIRST PLAN + + +The new President gave at once the best possible reassurance as to his +general course by retaining all the members of Lincoln's Cabinet. They +remained, not as a temporary formality, but for a considerable time in +full harmony with the President. Chase having left the Cabinet for the +chief-justiceship, by far the two strongest secretaries remaining were +Seward and Stanton. Seward had been struck down at the same time with +Lincoln, and dangerously wounded, but after a few weeks was able to +resume his duties. Thus the two foremost men, after Lincoln, of the +Republican party, Sumner and Seward, had been murderously assaulted, yet +neither of them was embittered or altered in his course. Seward probably +had great influence on President Johnson's early measures. The degree of +that influence is a disputed point among historians, but the internal +evidence points strongly to his having had a large share in the +President's original plans, and materially aided their execution, though +Johnson's strong will and hot temper marred and thwarted Seward's +efforts. One of the secretary's special powers was a genial and +persuasive skill in conversation; his historic place as the Republican +premier gave him influence with the President; he had been in full +sympathy with Lincoln's late course; and his constitutional theories and +his optimism appear in the reconstruction scheme which the President +soon proposed. Responsibility had steadied and sobered Johnson; his +vindictiveness toward the South had disappeared,--one guesses with +Seward's aid; and his plan looked to a prompt and early return of the +seceded States. + +His proclamation of amnesty, indeed, issued May 29, was more numerous in +its exceptions than Lincoln's; including almost the entire official +class throughout the South, and adding all such as held property in +excess of $20,000,--which in theory was little other than an attempt to +behead the political community of all its intelligent or wealthy +members. But the added clause providing for a pardon of such by the +President on special application proved in practice more significant +than the formal exemptions. Scarcely an application for amnesty was +refused, and it is recorded that in less than a twelvemonth 14,000 such +applications were made and granted. + +On the same day, May 29, President Johnson by proclamation appointed a +provisional governor of North Carolina, and ordered an election of +delegates to a constitutional convention. By July 13, he had issued +similar proclamations for Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina +and Florida. Texas's turn came a little later, the last embers of the +war lingering there for a while. In Virginia, the President had +recognized a shadowy loyal State government which had kept up a nominal +existence. The three other seceded States,--Louisiana, Arkansas and +Tennessee,--had already the State governments established under Lincoln, +though unrepresented in Congress. + +These overtures for formal reconstruction came to communities +impoverished, forlorn, and chaotic, almost beyond imagination. Property, +industry, social order, had been torn up by the plowshare of war. The +prolongation of resistance until defeat was complete and overwhelming +had ended all power and all wish to contend with the inevitable. The +people, groping back toward even a bare livelihood,--toward some settled +order, some way of public and private life,--met eagerly the advances +of the President. Constitutional conventions were elected and met, +within the remaining months of 1865; they were chosen on the old basis +of suffrage, conditioned by the exceptions to amnesty and by the oaths +of allegiance; these conventions based the new constitutions largely on +the old; they affirmed the ordinances of secession to be null and void; +they repudiated the Confederate debt, and they declared that slavery no +longer existed. Legislatures were duly elected, and proceeded to enact +laws. They all ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, though Mississippi and +Alabama affixed some qualifications to their assent, while Texas was +still unreconstructed and could not act; and Kentucky and Delaware gave +a negative. The President and Secretary of State, December 18, declared +the adoption of the amendment by the vote of 31 States out of 36. +Slavery was finally and forever abolished. + +President Johnson used his influence to have the new constitutions open +the door to a qualified negro suffrage. He telegraphed to the +Mississippi convention, urging that the suffrage be extended to all +negroes who could read and write, or who possessed $250 worth of real +estate. Well would it have been if that appeal had been heeded. + +Thus far, reconstruction had moved with singular swiftness and ease. Too +swift and easy was the recovery to be trusted--so thought some--where +the disease had been so desperate. But the Cabinet, including the grim +and jealous Stanton, held with the President. More, the autumn +Republican conventions throughout the North passed resolutions cordially +approving the President's course and its results--all, with the ominous +exceptions of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, controlled respectively by +Thaddeus Stevens and Sumner, the leader of the House and the foremost +man in the Senate. + +Thus was initiated and begun the first of the three successive plans of +reconstruction. Before seeing its fate, it is opportune to consider the +general ideal of the situation, as presented by two of the greatest men +of the North, the two, we may say, who best comprehended the whole case; +the one standing in the Church and the other in the State, but alike in +breadth of mind and loftiness of spirit--Henry Ward Beecher and John A. +Andrew. + +During the war, the Northern churches had been centers of inspiration to +the national cause, and Plymouth church among the foremost. Beecher had +made a series of speeches in England in 1862, which did much to turn the +tide of English opinion. The disclaimers by the Federal Government of a +crusade against slavery had perplexed and divided the anti-slavery +sentiment of Great Britain; the issues at stake were little understood; +the stoppage of the cotton supply aroused a commercial opposition to the +war; there was some degree of aristocratic sympathy with the Southern +oligarchy; and a wider sympathy with the weaker of the two combatants +that was fighting pluckily against odds. The North had few strong +friends, except a group of radical leaders--Mill, Bright, Cobden and +their allies,--and a host of working people, including even the +suffering cotton operatives, who instinctively recognized and supported +the cause of the common people. Beecher's eloquent and lucid orations +went far to convince that the Union cause was the cause of liberty; and +no less effect was produced by the splendid courage and self-possession +with which he faced and mastered one audience after another where the +mob tried to howl him down. After the close of the war, when a company +went down to raise the Stars and Stripes once more over Fort Sumter, +Beecher was the chosen orator, and his speech was inspired by the spirit +of fraternity and reconciliation. In a sermon in his church, October 29, +1865, he outlined with a master's hand the principles of +reconstruction. The South should be restored at the earliest possible +moment to a share in the general government. Idle to ask them to repent +of secession; enough if they recognize that it is forever disallowed. +The best guarantee for the future is the utter destruction of slavery. +Let there be no further humbling: "I think it to be the great need of +this nation to save the self-respect of the South." What then are the +necessary conditions of reconstruction? The Southern States should +accede to the abolition of slavery by the Constitution. They should +establish the freedman's "right to labor as he pleases, where he +pleases, and for whom he pleases," with full control of his own +earnings; he should be the equal of all men before the courts. What +about suffrage? It is the natural right of all men, says Beecher; but, +tempering as usual his intellectual radicalism with practical +conservatism, he goes on: It will be useless to enforce negro suffrage +on the South against the opposition of the whites. As to the general +treatment of the freedmen, "the best intentions of the government will +be defeated, if the laws that are made touching this matter are such as +are calculated to excite the animosity and hatred of the white people in +the South toward the black people there. I except the single decree of +emancipation. That must stand, though men dislike it." But beyond that, +all measures instituted under the act of emancipation for the blacks in +order to be permanently useful must have the cordial consent of the wise +and good citizens of the South. "These men (the negroes) are scattered +in fifteen States; they are living contiguous to their old masters; the +kindness of the white man in the South is more important to them than +all the policies of the nation put together." As to suffrage, whatever +the colored man's theoretical right, "you will never be able to secure +it and maintain it for him, except by making him so intelligent that men +cannot deny it to him. You cannot long, in this country, deny to a man +any civil right for which he is manifestly qualified." It will be a +sufficient beginning if the vote is given to such as can read and write +and have acquired a certain amount of property. As a beginning, a +stepping-stone to larger things, it might suffice even to give the +suffrage to black men who have borne arms for the Union. And, +emphatically, the negroes should be given such education as will make +them worthy of citizenship. "You may pass laws declaring that black men +are men, and that they are our equals in social position; but unless you +can make them thoughtful, industrious, self-respecting, and intelligent; +unless, in short, you can make them what you say they have a right to +be, those laws will be in vain." The work of education should be done +for black and white alike; the South is not to be treated as a pagan +land to which missionaries are to be sent, but as part of our common +country, to which the richer and more prosperous section ought to give +aid. "I do not think it would be wise for the North to pour ministers, +colporteurs and schoolmasters into the South, making a too marked +distinction between the black people and the white. We ought to carry +the gospel and education to the whites and blacks alike. Our heart +should be set toward our country and all its people, without distinction +of caste, class, or color." + +Governor Andrew had been the fit leader of Massachusetts through the war +period. He was strong as an administrator; he inspired and voiced the +patriotism of the people; he supported the forward policy without +harassing the President; and he was the first governor to organize negro +troops. Now, on his retirement to private life, he gave a valedictory +address, January 4, 1866, which was a worthy sequel to his inaugural of +five years before. He specially emphasized the need of a generous and +inclusive policy toward the Southern people and their recent leaders. +"I am confident we cannot reorganize political society with any +security: 1. Unless we let in the people to a co-operation, and not +merely an arbitrarily selected portion of them. 2. Unless we give those +who are by intelligence and character the natural leaders of the people, +and who surely will lead them by-and-by, an opportunity to lead them +now.... The truth is, the public opinion of the white race in the South +was in favor of the rebellion." The loyalists were not in general the +strongest minds and characters, and when the revolution came they were +swept off their feet. For present purposes, there should be no +discrimination. "The capacity of leadership is a gift, not a device. +They whose courage, talents, and will, entitle them to lead, will +lead.... Why not try them? They are the most hopeful subjects to deal +with in the very nature of the case. They have the brain and experience +and the education to enable them to understand the exigences of the +present situation." + +The ideals thus presented by Beecher and Andrew,--as practical, we see +now after forty years, as they were lofty,--were at the time somewhat +like what Catholic theologians call "counsels of perfection"--precepts +of conduct too high to be practiced except by the saintly. They fell on +the ears of a people whose two sections had long been struggling in +deadly opposition, and who still surveyed each other through eyes +inflamed by the bitter struggle. Could it be hoped that the North would +invite co-operation as of fellow-patriots from those whom they had been +denouncing as arch-traitors? And was it to be expected that the South, +which had seceded and battled on the ground that the negro was fit only +for slavery, should at once begin heartily and practically to establish +and elevate him as a freeman? + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +CONGRESS AND THE "BLACK CODES" + + +Congress assembled at the beginning of December, 1865, and at the very +outset declared that the work of reconstruction must pass under its +hands. Before the President's message was read, Thaddeus Stevens, the +leader of the House, moved that a joint committee of fifteen on +reconstruction, be appointed by the House and Senate; and that until +that committee had reported no senator or representative from the lately +seceded States should be admitted. This action was taken at once, by a +large majority in both houses, and the committee was promptly appointed, +with Senator Fessenden at its head. Then the President's message was +read,--a very able paper, broad and statesmanlike in tone, recounting +the President's action and the choice of conventions and Legislatures in +the seceded States; their repudiation of secession and slavery; the +inauguration of loyal State governments;--this, with an invitation to +Congress to accept and co-operate in this policy, and a hopeful view of +the general situation. The message was favorably received, and for a +moment it looked as if the President and Congress might work in harmony. + +But the claim of Congress to a paramount voice in the settlement was +well based, not only in constitutional theory, but in the immediate +facts. Congress came fresh from the people; its members knew how the +currents of popular thought and feeling ran. The President was +comparatively out of touch with the nation; he had, so to speak, no +personal constituency; he was a Southern loyalist, apart from the mass +of both South and North. Further, this Congress was personally a strong +body of men. They represented in an unusual degree not merely the +average sentiment but the better sentiment of the North. To glance at a +few of their leaders: Thaddeus Stevens was a Pennsylvanian, a leader at +the bar, active in anti-slavery politics, conspicuous by his successful +defense of the State's public school system; a man of strong convictions +and strong passions, a natural fighter; skillful in parliamentary +management; vigorous and often bitter in debate; not scrupulous in +political methods; loyal to his cause and his friends, and vindictive to +his enemies; an efficient party leader, but in no high sense a +statesman. Up to his death in 1868 he exercised such a mastery over the +Republican majority in the House as no man since has approached. He is +sometimes spoken of as if he had been the ruling spirit in +reconstruction, but this seems a mistake. He was a leader in it, so far +as his convictions coincided with the strong popular current; but his +favorite ideas were often set aside. He was an early advocate of a wide +confiscation, but that policy found no support; and at the crucial +points of the reconstruction proceedings he was often thwarted and +superseded by more moderate men. + +Charles Sumner was a high-minded idealist and a scholar, devoted to +noble ends, but not well versed in human nature. He was a lover of Man, +but with men he was not much acquainted. His oratory was elaborate and +ornate, and he unduly estimated the power of words. Sometimes, says +Senator Hoar, he seemed to think the war was to be settled by +speech-making, and was impatient of its battles as an interruption--like +a fire-engine rumbling past while he was orating. But he had large +influence, partly from his thoroughly disinterested character, and +partly because beyond any other man in public life he represented the +elements of moral enthusiasm among the people. His counterpart was +Henry Wilson, his colleague in the Senate. Wilson had risen from the +shoe-maker's bench, and knew the common people as a cobbler knows his +tools. He was genial in temperament; public-spirited and generous in his +aims; a most skilful tactician, and not over-scrupulous. He joined the +Know-nothings, with no sympathy for their proscriptive creed, but in the +break-up of parties using them for the anti-slavery cause,--and to +secure his own election to the United States Senate. He was a good +fighter, but without rancor; and he was an admirable interpreter of the +real democracy. Senator Hoar, in his autobiography, graphically +describes how at some crisis Wilson would travel swiftly over the State, +from Boston to Berkshire, visit forty shops and factories in a day, talk +with politicians all night, study the main currents and the local +eddies; and after a week or two of this--seeming meanwhile to be backing +and filling in his own mind--would "strike a blow which had in it not +only the vigor of his own arm, but the whole vigor and strength of the +public sentiment which he had gathered and which he represented." + +Prominent in the Senate was "bluff Ben Wade" of Ohio, an old-time +anti-slavery man, radical, vigorous, a stout friend and foe. Another +conspicuous radical was Zachariah Chandler of Michigan. He was born in +New Hampshire, went West early in life, and was a chief organizer and +leader of the Republican party in Michigan. He was a mixture of Yankee +shrewdness and Western energy; patriotic, masterful, somewhat +coarse-grained and materialistic; and, like many of his associates, +better suited for controversy and war than for conciliation and +construction. Of a higher type were three men who stood near the head in +the Senate,--John Sherman of Ohio, Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, and +William P. Fessenden of Maine. In the qualities for solid work, few men +of his time surpassed Sherman. He was wise in framing legislation, and a +good administrator,--an upright, moderate, serviceable man. Trumbull, of +Connecticut birth, was well trained in the law and eminent as a +constitutional lawyer. He made his serious entrance into public life +along with Lincoln, and was his near friend and adviser. He was an able +though not a brilliant debater; a man of independent convictions and +thorough courage. Fessenden, like Trumbull, was entitled to rank as a +real statesman. Like Trumbull he had no popular arts, and where Trumbull +was reticent and withdrawn in manner, Fessenden was austere and +sometimes irascible. In private character both were above reproach. +Fessenden had a finely-trained and richly-equipped mind. In an +emergency, after Chase's retirement, he accepted the secretaryship of an +almost bankrupt treasury, and handled it well. His devotion to duty was +unreserved; he was an admirable debater; and he had the high power of +framing legislation. His was the most important work of the +reconstruction committee, and Trumbull, as chairman of the judiciary +committee, had a chief hand in the other leading measures. The Democrats +were few and not strong in leadership; their ablest man was Reverdy +Johnson of Maryland,---highly educated and large-minded. With these were +other senators of repute; and in the House there were abundant men of +mark,--Colfax, Blaine, Banks, Boutwell, Dawes, Conkling, Henry J. +Raymond, Randall, Hayes, Garfield, Bingham, Shellabarger, Voorhees, +Elihu B. Washburn;--space is wanting to name others, or to individually +characterize these. + +In estimating the work of reconstruction we must take account of the +character of the men who shaped it. Taking these leaders as a body, they +fall into groups,--Sumner for the uncompromising idealists; the radicals +by temperament, like Stevens, Wade, and Chandler; the men of higher +training, minds of the statesman's type, and a certain austerity of +temper, such as Fessenden, Trumbull, and Sherman. Among them all there +was a deficiency of that blending of large view, close insight, and +genial humanity, which marked Lincoln. Small discredit to them that they +were not his peers,--but the work in hand demanded just such a +combination. + +It is to be remembered that all of these, like the mass of the Northern +people, had been for many years contending with all their might for +certain ends, and in keenest hostility to the Southern whites. They had +fought for the Union and freedom; the South had fought for the +Confederacy and slavery. By sheer overpowering physical force the +Southern armies had been beaten down, and peace restored, and in name at +least the national authority re-established. But by conviction, habit, +instinct, these opponents yet hot from the battle-field would scrutinize +with jealous care the real success of their principles and the +disposition of their late foes. + +The President's policy, as laid down in his message, was at once +challenged in Congress. Stevens opened the debate in the House, and, +without directly assailing the President, antagonized his theory that +the States, like the Union, were indestructible, that secession had only +temporarily suspended their relation, and that they now by right +recurred at once to their normal position. Against this Stevens +maintained that by their rebellion these States had, as organizations, +committed suicide, that they now were in the position of conquered +territory, and that out of this territory Congress was to create new +States on whatever terms it judged most expedient. The President's +theory found an able supporter in Henry J. Raymond, who had just +exchanged the editorship of the New York _Times_ for a seat in Congress. +But he had only a single ally among his Republican colleagues, and the +lonely couple, with four Republican senators, proved to be the only +habitual supporters of the President in the party that had elected him. +But the Democrats came to his side with an alacrity that strengthened +the Republican opposition. Their party had as a whole leaned toward the +South during the war, and they now welcomed the easy terms held out by +the President to their old associates. The Republican doctrine was best +formulated by Shellabarger of Ohio, who, without going to the full +length of Stevens's theory, maintained the essential right of Congress +to lay down the conditions on which the seceded States could resume +their old relation with the Federal Government. That seemed the just and +inevitable logic of the situation; and it was expressed in as much +conformity with the Constitution as was practicable after the rude +jostle of a four years' war. + +Meantime, Republican leaders in the Senate--Sumner, Wilson and +Fessenden--were announcing the same doctrine, and were earnestly +declaring that the actual conditions of the South called for stronger +remedies than the President had provided. A joint resolution brought +before Congress a report which had been made to the President by Carl +Schurz, after a tour of several months for which he had been specially +commissioned. With this report, the President sent also one from General +Grant, whom he had asked, during an official trip of a few days, to +observe the general disposition and temper of the Southern people. Grant +stated his conclusion to be that "the mass of thinking men of the South +accept the present situation of affairs in good faith"; and that they +cordially acquiesce in the restoration of the national sovereignty and +the abolition of slavery; and Grant's name carried great weight. + +But Mr. Schurz's much longer and more careful study had brought him to +very different conclusions. He was a trained observer and thinker; a +German refugee after the disturbances of 1848; a leader among the +emancipationists in Missouri before the war, a general in the Union +army, and a political radical. Mr. Schurz recapitulated his observations +and conclusions, as he then reported them, in an article in _McClure's +Magazine_ for January, 1904; and they come now with increased weight +after a life-time of disinterested and sagacious public service. That he +found the Southern whites acquiescing in their defeat only as of +necessity, conquered but not convinced--is no matter of surprise; though +Mr. Schurz seems somewhat to have shared the Northern expectation that +their late foes should take the attitude of repentant sinners. But as to +their practical attitude toward the negro, his testimony is important. +He relates that he found the general assertion to be "You cannot make +the negro work without compulsion." This conviction he encountered +everywhere; all facts to the contrary were brushed aside, and every +instance of idleness or vagabondage was cited as proof positive of the +negro's unwillingness to labor. The planter who seriously maintained in +Mr. Schurz's presence that one of his negroes was unfit for freedom +because he refused to submit to a whipping, went only a little further +than his neighbors. + +As to actual behavior of the negroes, under this sudden and tremendous +change of condition, certain facts were noted; not a single act of +vengeance was charged against them; a great part, probably the large +majority, remained or soon went back to work for their old employers; +but a considerable part began an aimless roaming to enjoy their new +liberty, or huddle around the stations where the agents of the +Freedmen's Bureau doled out some relief. As to their education, popular +opinion was no less unfavorable than as to their labor. The common +expressions were "learning will spoil the negro for work," "negro +education would be the ruin of the South," and even "the elevation of +the blacks would be the degradation of the whites." In practical +application of these views, negro schools were frequently broken up and +the school-houses burned; and in many places they were only safe under +the immediate protection of the Federal troops. After many further +particulars, especially as to the oppressive laws passed by the new +governments, Mr. Schurz sums up: "To recapitulate; the white people of +the South were harassed by pressing necessities, and most of them in a +troubled and greatly excited state of mind. The emancipation of the +slaves had destroyed the traditional labor system upon which they had +depended. Free negro labor was still inconceivable to them. There were +exceptions, but, as a rule, their ardent, and in a certain sense not +unnatural, desire was to resist its introduction, and to save or restore +as much of the slave labor system as possible." + +It was the character of the laws and ordinances passed under these +circumstances which was to the better sentiment of the North the most +concrete and convincing argument against restoring the Southern States +by the short and easy road proposed by President Johnson. It is to those +laws, and the condition underlying them, that we must ascribe the +refusal of Congress--backed by Northern conviction--to confirm the early +restoration which at first seemed so promising. So those laws deserve +careful consideration, as well as the situation which led to them. + +The Southern people, blacks and whites, were in a position of almost +unexampled difficulty. To the ravages of war and invasion, of +impoverishment and bereavement--and, as it fell out, to two successive +seasons of disastrous weather for crops,--was added at the outset a +complete disarrangement of the principal supply of labor. The mental +overturning was as great as the material. To the negroes "freedom" +brought a vague promise of life without toil or trouble. The hard facts +soon undeceived them. But for the indulgent Providence they at first +hoped for, some occasional and partial substitute appeared in the +offices of the Freedmen's Bureau. This had been established by Congress, +in March, 1865, with the laudable design of helping to adjust the +freedmen to their new condition; to make temporary provision for the +extreme physical wants of some; to aid them in arrangements for labor +and education; and, as was at first contemplated, to lease to them +abandoned or confiscated lands, in plots of forty acres, for three +years. This land provision was soon abandoned, there being no +confiscation to provide the necessary land; but it started the +expectation of "forty acres and a mule," which misled many a freedman. +As chief of the Bureau was appointed General O. O. Howard, a +distinguished Union commander, of the highest personal character, and +entirely devoted to his new work; and under him was a commissioner with +a working force in each of the States. The Bureau accomplished +considerable good; but its administration on the whole was not of the +highest class; among its subordinates were some unfit men; and a good +deal of offense and irritation attended its operations. At most, it +touched only the circumference of the problem. Three and a half millions +of newly enfranchised, ignorant men, women and children! What should +provide for the helpless among them, especially for the children, whom +the master's care had supported? How should order be maintained in the +lower mass, half-brutalized, whom slavery had at least restrained from +vagabondage, rapine, and crime? And how should the whole body be induced +to furnish the dynamic, driving power of industry essential to the +community's needs? These questions the South essayed to answer in part +by a system of laws, of which we may take as a fair specimen the +legislation of Mississippi--the only State which had enacted this class +of laws before Congress met,--as they are summarized in the thorough and +impartial book of Professor J. W. Burgess, _Reconstruction and the +Constitution_. + +The law of apprenticeship ran thus: Negro children under eighteen, +orphans or receiving no support from their parents, to be apprenticed, +by clerk of probate court, to some suitable person,--by preference the +former master or mistress; the court to fix the terms, having the +interest of the minor particularly in view; males to be apprenticed till +end of twenty-first year, females to end of eighteenth. No other +punishment to be permitted than the common law permits to a parent or +guardian. If the apprentice runs away, he is to be apprehended and +returned, or, if he refuses to return, to be confined or put under bonds +till the next term of the court, which shall then decide as to the cause +of his desertion, and if it appears groundless compel his return, or if +he has been ill-treated fine the master not more than $100 for the +benefit of his apprentice. This statute seems not oppressive but +beneficent. + +The law of vagrancy provided that all freedmen having no lawful +employment or business, or who are found unlawfully assembling, and all +white persons so assembling in company with freedmen, or "usually +associating with freedmen, free negroes, or mulattoes, on terms of +equality," are to be deemed vagrants, and fined, a white man not more +than $200, a negro not more than $50, and imprisoned, a white man not +more than six months, a negro not more than ten days. If the negro does +not pay his fine within five days, he is to be hired out by the sheriff +to the person who will pay his fine and costs for the shortest term of +service. The same treatment is to be applied to any negro who fails to +pay his tax. This statute meant legal servitude for any negro not +finding employment, and the same penalty for a white man who merely +consorted with negroes on equal terms. + +The law of civil rights provided that all negroes are to have the same +rights with whites as to personal property, as to suing and being sued, +but they must not rent or lease lands or tenements except in +incorporated towns and cities, and under the control of the corporate +authorities. Provision is made for the intermarriage of negroes, and the +legalization of previous connections; but intermarriage between whites +and negroes is to be punished with imprisonment for life. Negroes may be +witnesses in all civil cases in which negroes are parties, and in +criminal cases where the alleged crime is by a white person against a +negro. Every negro shall have a lawful home and employment, and hold +either a public license to do job-work or a written contract for labor. +If a laborer quits his employment before the time specified in the +contract, he is to forfeit his wages for the year up to the time of +quitting. Any one enticing a laborer to desert his work, or selling or +giving food or raiment or any other thing knowingly to a deserter from +contract labor, may be punished by fine or imprisonment. No negro is to +carry arms without a public license. Any negro guilty of riot, affray, +trespass, seditious speeches, insulting gestures, language or acts, or +committing any other misdemeanor, to be fined and imprisoned, or if the +fine is not paid in five days to be hired out to whoever will pay fine +and costs. All penal and criminal laws against offenses by slaves or +free negroes to continue in force except as specially repealed. + +Many of these clauses speak eloquently for themselves, and as to the law +in general Professor Burgess, who certainly has no anti-Southern bias, +comments: "Almost every act, word or gesture of the negro, not +consonant with good taste and good manners as well as good morals, was +made a crime or misdemeanor, for which he could first be fined by the +magistrates and then be consigned to a condition of almost slavery for +an indefinite time, if he could not pay the bill." And Professor Burgess +adds, "This is a fair sample of the legislation subsequently passed by +all the States reconstructed under President Johnson's plan." + +The case against this class of laws may be left--in the necessary limits +of space--with this careful and moderate statement, though the +temptation is strong to quote from Mr. Schurz and other authorities +further specimens of the great body of harassing legislation, both state +and local;--the establishment of pillory and whipping-post; the +imposition of unjust taxes, with heavy license fees for the practice of +mechanic arts; requirements of certified employment under some white +man; prohibition of preaching or religious meetings without a special +license; sale into indefinite servitude for slight occasion; and so +on--a long, grim chapter. Whatever excuses may be pleaded for these +laws, under the circumstances of the South, all have this +implication,--that the negro was unfit for freedom. He was to be kept as +near to slavery as possible; to be made, "if no longer the slave of an +individual master, the slave of society." And further, as to the broad +conditions of the time, two things are to be noted. The physical +violence was almost wholly practiced by the whites against the negroes. +Bands of armed white men, says Mr. Schurz, patrolled the highways (as in +the days of slavery) to drive back wanderers; murder and mutilation of +colored men and women were common,--"a number of such cases I had +occasion to examine myself." In some districts there was a reign of +terror among the freedmen. And finally, the anticipation of failure of +voluntary labor speedily proved groundless. A law was at work more +efficient than any on the statute-books,--Nature's primal law, "Work or +starve!" Many, probably a majority of the freedmen, worked on for their +old masters, for wages. The others, after some brief experience of +idleness and starvation, found work as best they could. No tropical +paradise of laziness was open to the Southern negro. The first Christmas +holidays, looked forward to with vague hope by the freedmen and vague +fear by the whites, passed without any visitation of angels or +insurrection of fiends. In a word, the most apparent justifications for +the reactionary legislation,--danger of rapine and outrage from +emancipated barbarians, and a failure of the essential supply of +labor--proved alike groundless. + +As the facts of the situation became known, not only by Mr. Schurz's +report, but by news from the Southern capitals and by various +evidence--it was very clear that Congress could not and would not set +the seal of national authority on any such settlement as this. Granted, +and freely, that no millennium was to be expected, that a long and +painful adjustment was necessary,--yet it was out of the question that +any political theory or any optimistic hopes should induce acquiescence +in the legal establishment of semi-slavery throughout the South. It was +not Stevens's rancor, nor Sumner's unpracticability, but the serious +conviction of the North, educated and tempered by long debate and bitter +sacrifice, which ordained that the work of freedom must not be thrown +into ruins. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +RECONSTRUCTION: THE SECOND PLAN + + +Congress addressed itself, in the first instance, to extending and +prolonging that provision for the freedmen which it had already made +through the Freedmen's Bureau. A bill was reported, having the weighty +sanction of Senator Trumbull and the judiciary committee, greatly +increasing the force of officials under the Bureau; putting it under the +military administration of the President and so with the direct support +of the army; and broadening its functions to include the building of +school-houses and asylums for the freedmen, and a wide jurisdiction over +all civil and criminal cases in which local laws made an unjust +discrimination between the races. The bill passed the Senate and House, +by the full party majority. It was sent to the President, February 10, +1866, and nine days later he returned it with a veto message, calmly and +ably argued. He objected to the bill as a war measure after peace had +been proclaimed. He took exception to the intrusion of military +authority upon the sphere of the civil courts, and to the extension of +Federal authority in behalf of black men beyond what had ever been +exercised in behalf of white men. The message was strong enough to win a +few of the orthodox Republicans, including ex-Governor Morgan of New +York, and the two-thirds vote necessary to carry the bill over the veto +could not be gained. + +Up to this time there seems reason to believe that while the Republicans +in Congress were firm in claiming for that body a decisive voice in +reconstruction, yet a majority of them were more favorable to the policy +of President Johnson than to that of Sumner and Stevens. But now, upon +the necessity of safeguarding the freedmen by exceptional measures in a +wholly exceptional time, the preponderance of conviction turned against +him in Congress and in the country. His own acts quickly converted that +first opposition into hostility and alarm. + +Until now President Johnson, whatever dissent he might provoke, had +appeared as a dignified statesman. But three days after his veto, on +February 22--Washington's birthday--a cheering crowd called the +President to the balcony of the White House. They heard a speech,--how +different from what Lincoln had spoken in the same place in the previous +April. Johnson was exhilarated by his success, forgetful that he still +faced a hostile majority in Congress, exasperated by opposition, and +roused by the shouts of the crowd,--and his native passion and +coarseness came out. Sumner had been severe in his language; he had +likened President Johnson to President Pierce in the Kansas days, and +hinted a family resemblance to Pharaoh of Egypt. Wendell Phillips was in +his native element of denunciation. Now the President declared to his +applauding hearers that he had against him men as much opposed to the +fundamental principles of the government, and he believed as much +laboring to pervert or destroy them, as had been the leaders of the +rebellion,--Davis, Toombs, and their associates. To the responsive +cheers, and the cry for names, he answered by naming Stevens, Sumner and +Phillips. He rehearsed his rise from tailor to President, and declared +that a ground swell, an earthquake of popular support, was coming to +him. His speech brought surprise and dismay to the country. It fanned +into hot flame the opposition between President and Congress. In vain +did John Sherman,--who had conferred with the President in the summer, +and thought highly of his patriotism--now hold out the olive branch in +the Senate. A keen observer at Washington, Samuel Bowles,--who had held +a friendly attitude toward both the President and the party +leaders,--now wrote, February 26, "Distrust, suspicion, the conceit of +power, the infirmities of temper on both sides, have brought affairs to +the very verge of disorder and ruin." He dissuaded from taking sides in +the quarrel; there was too much right and too much wrong on both sides. +He urged, March 3,--and no doubt he represented the best sentiment of +the country: "The great point is to secure protection and justice for +the freedmen.... For the present the Freedmen's Bureau, military +occupancy, and United States courts, must be our reliance.... We want +the President firm and resolute on this point, and we want to arouse the +better class of the Southern people to do their duty in the same +regard." + +The weakness of the veto message on the Freedmen's Bureau bill had been +the absence of any solicitude for the welfare of the freedmen; +constitutional theory seemed to wholly supersede the practical necessity +of the case. Now Congress again approached the matter in the Civil +Rights bill, carefully formulated in the judiciary committee, thoroughly +debated and amended, and passed by both houses late in March. It +affirmed United States citizenship for all persons born in the country +and not subject to any foreign power; it declared for all citizens an +equal right to make and enforce contracts, sue, give evidence, hold and +sell property, etc.; full equality as to security of person and +property, as to pains and penalties,--in short, complete civil equality. +Original jurisdiction was given to United States courts, and to these +could be transferred any case involving these subjects begun in a State +court. The bill empowered the President to use the army for its +enforcement. All this was under authority of the Thirteenth Amendment. + +This, too, the President vetoed, as unnecessary, as employing the +military arm too freely, as extending unwisely the power of the Federal +Government, and as especially unwise legislation while eleven States out +of thirty-six were unrepresented in Congress. But the President was now +going in the face not only of the congressional majority but of the +North at large, which was unmistakably opposed to leaving the freedmen +with no protection against their old masters. The veto was overridden, +and became a law April 9. The Freedmen's Bureau bill, somewhat amended, +was again passed, this time over a veto, and became a law July 16. + +It was after the decisive victory over the President on the Civil Rights +bill that Congress took up the comprehensive measure which embodied its +own plan of reconstruction as a substitute for the President's. That +measure was the Fourteenth Amendment. It was drawn up by the +reconstruction committee, of which Senator Fessenden was chairman, and +probably his was the leading part in framing its provisions. The first +proposition was only to make the basis of congressional representation +dependent on the extension or denial of suffrage to the freedmen. This +was proposed January 22, 1866, and after some weeks' discussion passed +the House but failed in the Senate. It was replaced by a broader +measure, which was reported April 30, debated and amended for six weeks, +and finally in mid-June took the form in which it now stands in the +Constitution, and was approved by Congress. It then went before the +States for their action, with a tacit but strong implication that upon +its acceptance and adoption the lately seceded States would be fully +restored. It was in effect the plan of reconstruction first offered by +Congress, as a substitute for the President's. + +The first article of the amendment declares that all persons born or +naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States, and +of the State wherein they reside; and that all are entitled to the equal +protection of the laws. Another section guarantees the validity of the +public debt, and forbids payment of the Confederate debt or payment for +the emancipation of slaves. Both these articles appear at this distance +of time to be beyond question or criticism. Another article apportions +representation in Congress, as heretofore, according to population; but +further provides that any State which denies the suffrage to any part of +its adult male population, except for rebellion or other crime, shall +have its congressional representation reduced in the same proportion. It +will be remembered that under the old Constitution the basis of +representation was fixed by adding to the total of the free population a +number equal to three-fifths of the slaves. Now that the slaves had +become freedmen, the representation of the old slave States would to +that extent be increased. But it seemed neither just nor expedient to +permit such an increase of power, unless the class on whose enumeration +it was based were made _bona fide_ citizens, and sharers in this power. +If under this amendment the Southern States should choose to give the +vote to the freedmen, their total representation in Congress would be +raised from sixty-one to seventy. If they did not give it, their +representation would fall to forty-five. There was thus offered them a +strong inducement to establish impartial suffrage; while yet they were +at full liberty to withhold it at the price of some diminution of power +compared with communities adopting the broader principle. The +reconstruction committee had listened to prominent Southerners as to the +probable reception of this provision. Stephens thought his people would +consider it less than their due and would not ratify it. But Lee thought +that Virginia would accept it, and then decide the question of suffrage +according to her preponderating interest; that at present she would +prefer the smaller representation, but would hold herself ready to +extend the suffrage if at any time the freedmen should show a capacity +to vote properly and understandingly. + +So far, the Fourteenth Amendment seems now to embody a sound +statesmanship. But the remaining article must be judged by itself. It +excludes from all State and national offices all those, who, having +taken an official oath to support the Constitution, have afterward taken +part in insurrection and rebellion. This was ingeniously framed with an +appearance of justice, as if debarring from office only those who to +rebellion had added perjury. But, as a matter of ethics, the breaking of +official oaths is an inevitable incident of every revolution; and just +as war is held to suspend in a measure the command "thou shalt not +kill," so revolution must be held to cancel the obligation of official +oaths. The opposite view would affix the full guilt of perjury to many +leaders in the American Revolution, perhaps to Washington himself. It +was not really as perjurers that the excluded class were debarred from +office, but as prominent leaders in the rebellion, so marked by having +previously held office. It shut out, and was so intended, a class not +only very large in numbers but including the best intelligence and +social leadership of the South. To exclude these men from all political +leadership in the new regime was in flat defiance of that statesmanship, +as wise as magnanimous, which Andrew and Beecher had voiced. As one New +England observer put the matter, it would help matters greatly if no man +favored a government for others that he would not like to live under +himself; now how would it work in Massachusetts to exclude from the +government the whole Republican party? Yet the Democrats in the State +have ten times the knowledge, character and ability, that are possessed +in the South by the elements free from stain of rebellion. + +The disqualification, to be sure, was removable in each case by a +two-thirds vote of Congress. But it could not be foreseen how Congress +would be disposed; and in fact, the President's pardon, so freely given, +had been by Congress expressly deprived of any political value; being +held to exempt only from legal pains and penalties. The new exclusion, +if adopted, could hardly work other than disastrously. And, being +offered, as the entire amendment necessarily was, for acceptance or +rejection by all the States, this provision was as well suited to repel +the South as if it had been designed for that purpose. It offended that +loyalty to their tried leaders in stress and storm which is one of the +best traits in a people's character. Compare it with Beecher's saying of +a few months earlier, "I think it to be the great need of this nation to +save the self-respect of the South." The difference measures the degree +of the mistake under which the mass of the North were still laboring. +They looked upon the rebellion as a moral and personal crime. They had +no comprehension of the Southern standpoint; and, sure that their own +cause was just, they believed that their opponents were not only +mistaken but morally guilty. As it was hardly possible to suppose the +8,000,000 to have all gone wrong out of individual perversity, the +current view at the North was that Secession sprang from a conspiracy; +that its leaders had secretly plotted, like Aaron Burr, and thus misled +their followers. The impulse to inflict death or imprisonment or +confiscation on anybody was infrequent or short-lived; the desire for +such punishment lingered only in an irrational wish for vengeance on +Jefferson Davis. But, if the leading class in the society and public +life of the South were morally responsible for a great treason and +rebellion, it might seem not only just but wise to exclude them from the +new political order. + +The critics of the reconstruction policy are often challenged by its +defenders with the question, "But what better course can you suggest, +even now?" And the immense difficulty of the problem, even as calmly +viewed to-day by the closet student, may well make us charitable toward +the men who, for the most part, did the best they knew under the +immediate besetment of measureless perplexities and contradictions. But +while we may approve of their work in the rest of the Fourteenth +Amendment, with equal emphasis we may say: The mistake was great, in the +amendment and later, of shutting out the very men who should have been +included. Better by far would it have been to take their counsel and +co-operation even beforehand in planning the work of reconstruction. +Even as to that crucial point, the legislation oppressive to the +freedmen, and the deeper difficulty underlying it, the ingrained +Southern attitude toward the negro as an inferior being,--even as to +this, something might have been accomplished had the Southern men, who +went to Washington in the vain hope of immediate admission to Congress, +been met by a President of Lincoln's or Andrew's calibre. Even as it +was, there were signs of promise in Georgia,--so says Rhodes in his +excellent _History of the United States_. The newly elected Governor, +Judge Jenkins, a man of "universally acknowledged probity and +uprightness of character" made in his inaugural address (December 14, +1865) a strong plea for the negroes who had so faithfully cared for the +lands and homes and families of the soldiers in the field: "As the +governing class individually and collectively we owe them unbounded +kindness and thorough protection.... Their rights of person and +property should be made perfectly secure." To like effect spoke +Alexander H. Stephens, revered by all Georgians, February 22, 1866; +recalling the fidelity of the slaves during the war and the debt of +gratitude it created; the obligation of honor to the poor, untutored, +uninformed; asking for the negroes ample and full protection, with +equality before the law as to all rights of person, liberty and +property. And such equality the Georgia Legislature speedily ordained. +Tennessee did the like. Rhodes expresses confidence that by gentle +pressure from the President and Congress, Virginia, North Carolina and +Alabama could have been persuaded to similar legislation within a twelve +month, and the other States would have followed. + +The excluding article in the amendment was probably made as a concession +by the moderate Republicans to the radicals. It replaced an article +originally reported by the committee, excluding not only from office but +from the suffrage all who had taken part in the Rebellion, until July 4, +1870. The article as adopted was disliked by Sherman and Wilson, the +latter especially declaring his willingness to remove the +disqualifications as soon as possible after a settlement had been made. +In point of fact they were removed piecemeal by Congress almost as +freely as President Johnson had done the like, and were ended except for +a few hundred by a sweeping amnesty in 1872. + +Grant said to A. H. Stephens in April, 1866, "The true policy should be +to make friends of enemies." If these men, with a few others of like +temper in North and South, could have settled the terms of the new +order, a different foundation might have been laid. But in default of +any such happy, unlikely conjuncture of the right men in the right +place, it is the deep and wide tides of public opinion that largely +shape events. The average Southern view of the negro, and the average +Northern view of the "rebel," were the Scylla and Charybdis between +which the ship of state steered its troubled voyage. + +Returning now to the course of events,--Congress made it plain that the +acceptance of the Fourteenth Amendment would bring the restoration of +the South, not by a formal declaration, but by its action in promptly +admitting Tennessee when within a month it ratified the amendment. So +before the South and the country were now the two policies,--of Congress +and the President,--and the summer and autumn saw a general and eager +discussion. The South waited events, hoping for the President's success. +In the North there was at first a marked effort to rally conservative +men of both parties to his side. A great convention was held at +Philadelphia, promoted by the President, Seward, Weed and Henry J. +Raymond; with delegates from every State; the first day's procession led +by Massachusetts and South Carolina representatives arm-in-arm; Southern +governors and judges heartily assenting to the declaration that not only +is slavery dead, but nobody wants it revived; and with cordial +indorsement of the President's reconstruction policy. + +There was a counter-convention at Pittsburg; there were "soldiers' and +sailors' conventions" on both sides. From the Cabinet three members, +Speed, Denison and Harlan, resigned because their convictions were with +Congress; but Stanton remained as Secretary of War, though he was now a +bitter opponent of the President,--a safeguard over the army, as the +radical leaders considered him, and by his attitude and natural temper a +constant exasperation to his nominal chief. A fierce and bloody riot in +New Orleans, of which the precise causes were obscure, but in which the +negroes were the sufferers, heightened the Northern anxiety as to the +general situation. + +The popular tide evidently ran with Congress, yet Johnson had the +promise of very respectable support until he threw it away. His +extempore expressions suggested an overweening view of his own position. +To the committee reporting to him the Philadelphia convention, he said, +"We have seen hanging upon the verge of the government, as it were, a +body called, or which assumes to be, the Congress of the United +States--but in fact a Congress of only a part of the States." In +September he made a tour of the Northern States, taking in his train +Secretaries Seward and Welles, with Grant and Farragut;--"swinging round +the circle," he called his trip. He made addresses in the principal +cities, in which he denounced his opponents, sometimes with vulgar +abuse, bragged of his own rise from tailor to President, and bandied +words with the mob. He shamed many of the men of character--Beecher +among them--who had viewed him with favor. The tide turned +overwhelmingly against him. The November election returned a Congress +consisting in the House of 143 Republicans to 49 Democrats, with a +Senate of 42 Republicans to 11 Democrats. + +It was like the hand of Nemesis that the South, led to crushing defeat +by its slave-holding aristocracy, should now have its interests +sacrificed through the characteristic faults of one of its poor +whites,--his virtues overborne by his narrow judgment, uncontrolled +temper and coarse speech. + +Warned by the election, the South might well have accepted the +Fourteenth Amendment as the price of its restoration. But it failed to +read the handwriting on the wall. It could not yet brook acquiescence in +the exclusion of its old leaders, and the alternative of negro suffrage +or reduced power in Congress. The pride of race, the unquenched spirit +of the "lost cause," prompted it to stand out for better terms. During +the autumn and winter of 1866-7 the lately seceded States, except +Tennessee, rejected the amendment. So failed the first congressional +plan of reconstruction, as the President's earlier plan had failed. And +now there was small hesitation or delay in framing and enforcing the +final plan. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +RECONSTRUCTION: THE FINAL PLAN + + +The Congress which met in December, 1866, was the same body as in the +previous winter; but the prolonged contest, the President's misbehavior, +the South's rejection of the offered terms, and the popular verdict at +the November election, had strengthened the hands of the Republicans and +intensified their temper. Thaddeus Stevens brought in, February 6, 1867, +a bill which was trenchant indeed. It superseded the governments of the +ten unreconstructed States, divided their territory into five military +districts, placed their commanders under the orders, not of the +President, but of the general of the army, and suspended the habeas +corpus. It was military rule in its barest form, and for an indefinite +period. Blaine moved an amendment, specifying the terms on which the +States might be released from this military control and restored to +their normal status. But Stevens's despotic sway shut out the amendment +and carried the bill through the House. In the Senate, Sherman +successfully carried a substitute, much the same as the Blaine +amendment. This went back to the House, where a majority of Republicans +favored the change, but Stevens still opposed it, and had enough +followers to make together with the Democrats a majority that threw out +the whole measure. But success by such allies was undesired by the +radicals and alarming to the moderate Republicans. There was +reconsideration, minor concessions to Stevens, and the bill finally +passed February 20, not at all as he had designed it, but in a form due +either to Blaine or Sherman. It is singular that so important a measure +should be of doubtful paternity. It seems more like a production of +Sherman, who in constructive ability was far ahead of Blaine and of most +of his congressional colleagues. In its substance it represents +apparently the judgment and purpose of the great majority of the +Republicans in Congress. + +It is remarkable that so vital and momentous a law should have been +enacted with so little discussion. It was hurried through, in order that +its passage twelve days before the close of the session might prevent +the President from "pocketing" it--letting it fail for want of his +signature, without risking a veto. The debate, as Blaine reports it in +his _Twenty Years of Congress_, seems to have been mainly for the +scheme, and against the far more drastic proposal of Stevens and +Boutwell,--in opposing which Blaine himself seems to have done service +certainly as creditable as any in his checkered career. But the radical +character of the bill as passed, its great advance on all earlier +proposals, seems to have called forth hardly any challenge among the +Republicans. + +In a word, the law put the whole unreconstructed South,--all of the old +Confederacy except Tennessee,--under temporary military government, +subject to the President; and the commanders were at once to initiate +measures for new State organizations. They were to enroll all adult +males, white and black, as voters, except only such as the Fourteenth +Amendment would shut out from office; these voters were then to elect +delegates in each State to a convention; this body was to frame a +constitution incorporating permanently the same conditions of suffrage; +this constitution was then to be submitted to popular vote; and if a +majority ratified it,--if Congress approved it,--if the Legislature +elected under it ratified the Fourteenth Amendment,--and if and when +that amendment received enough ratifications to enact it,--then, at +last, each State was to be fully restored to the Union. + +On this plan the States were rapidly and finally reconstructed. Its +central feature was the enforcement of suffrage for the negroes +throughout the South. Of this tremendous measure, but small discussion +appears in the debate over the bill. But it seems to have had behind it +the prevailing sentiment of the North. A good witness on this point is +the Springfield _Republican_. That paper had strongly advocated the +adoption of the Massachusetts plan, a reading and writing qualification +for suffrage--the State's only good legacy from the Know-nothing period. +Of such a provision it said January 9: "It would be a most potent +stimulus to education, and once made the national rule there would be +such a studying of spelling books as never was seen before.... There can +be no sure reliance on the votes of blacks any more than of whites who +cannot read their ballots." But this plan found little popular favor. +The objection to it which we now recognize,--that the Southern States +might probably have forborne to educate the freedmen, and so left them +disfranchised,--was not then prominent. But there had not come to be a +general recognition at the North of the danger of ignorant suffrage. Of +the actual drift of opinion the _Republican_ said, March 3, that equal +suffrage is "the sole condition about which there is any approach to +unanimity among our people." + +To understand this opinion we must look back a little. The belief in +universal male suffrage was part of the Democratic movement that swept +almost unchallenged from Jefferson's time till Lincoln's. The mass of +ignorant immigrants gave some alarm, but they seemed to be successfully +digested by the body politic. Beecher, we have seen, thought suffrage a +"natural right," and that was a common doctrine. Besides, it was assumed +at the North that the negroes were naturally the friends of the +national government and of the party that had given them freedom. There +were politicians in plenty who looked to the negro vote to keep the +Republicans in control of the national government. Many of these +doubtless valued the party organization mainly as a means of +self-advancement; while others like Sumner devoutly believed that in the +Republican party lay the sole hope of justice and freedom. To the North +generally, the convincing argument for negro suffrage was that the +ballot would give the black man the necessary weapon for +self-protection. On this ground Mr. Schurz favored it in his report of +1865, and in reviewing the situation in 1904 he holds the same opinion. +The assumption in this view was that the freedmen and the former master +class were, and were to remain, natural enemies. Looking back to +slavery, which really combined an element of oppression with an element +of protection, the North saw only the oppression. Viewing the present, +it was not merely the State laws, but the frequent personal abuse of the +negroes which confirmed the idea that they must have the ballot for +self-protection. + +On broader grounds, the question was reasoned thus: "The logical, the +necessary ultimate step in the negro's elevation to full manhood is his +possession of the vote. By far the most desirable road to this +consummation would be a gradual and educational introduction of the body +of freedmen to the franchise. But toward such a course the South +shows no inclination. The alternative remains--in the brief period +during which the national authority can be applied to organic +reconstruction--of establishing universal manhood suffrage; with the +drawback of a present admixture of a large ignorant and unfit element; +with the great disadvantage, too, of further alienating the two races +for the present; but with the possibility and hope that the exercise of +the ballot will in itself prove educational, and that the Southern white +man and Southern negro will ultimately fare better than if the one is +allowed to permanently disfranchise the other." Something like this, +apparently, whether wise or unwise, was the predominant judgment of the +better class at the North. + +With others the argument was simpler. Blaine in his _Twenty Years_ gives +a common sentiment, himself in 1884 still concurring in it: "The North +believed, and believed wisely, that a poor man, an ignorant man, and a +black man, who was thoroughly loyal, was a safer and better voter than a +rich man, an educated man, and a white man, who in his heart was +disloyal to the Union." The _Republican_, on the contrary, expressed the +opinion: "It is better to be governed by ex-rebels than by fools." + +The Fourteenth Amendment had been put forward virtually as an +invitation. It was rejected by the South, and the new plan--military +government, to give place to new constitutions with universal +suffrage--was issued as a mandate. It was promptly carried out. In +little more than a twelvemonth, the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, +Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas had been reconstructed; their State +organizations were provisionally accepted by Congress in June, 1868; and +as their Legislatures at once ratified the Fourteenth Amendment and +secured its adoption, they were fully restored and their senators and +representatives admitted in July. Virginia and Mississippi managed to +stave off final action, hoping to escape the excluding clauses, until +after Grant's election to the Presidency in 1868; and their hopes were +justified when Grant gave his influence successfully with Congress +against the excluding clauses; so that these two States, with belated +Texas, were reorganized in the following year and admitted early in +1870. Georgia had troubles of her own, and a suspension by Congress +from full statehood for half a year; and her final admission, on July +15, 1870, marked definitely the end of the reconstruction process. The +registration of voters in the ten States had shown that in Alabama, +Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, the colored voters +were in a majority; in Georgia, the two races were about equal; and in +Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas and Texas, one-third or more were +colored. The preponderance of voting power had been given to a people +just out of slavery. The practical working of the plan, and the six +further years of Federal supervision over the South, belong to another +chapter. + +An episode in this story, though an important feature in a general +history, must be the impeachment of President Johnson in the spring of +1868. Though the main questions at issue were definitely settled, the +bitterness between the President and Congress lasted and increased. At +the same time with the final reconstruction measure, there was passed +the "Tenure of Office bill," which took away from the President the +power of removing his subordinates which all his predecessors had +enjoyed, and required the Senate's concurrence in removals as in +appointments. Some exception was made as to Cabinet officers; and the +President, exasperated beyond endurance by Stanton, after vainly, though +reasonably, asking the Senate to relieve him of his hostile secretary, +assumed the right to remove him by his own authority, and appointed Gen. +Lorenzo Thomas in his place, February 21, 1868. The House, in which the +radical temper had grown stronger than ever, in a blaze of excitement +voted the President's impeachment. He was tried before the Senate, the +House prosecutors being led by Stevens, Boutwell, and Benjamin F. +Butler, whose vindictive and unscrupulous personality had come to the +front. The President was defended by a group of the foremost lawyers in +the country, including Benjamin R. Curtis, Jeremiah S. Black, and +William M. Evarts. The only weighty article in the charge was that +concerning Stanton's removal, and upon this a legal defense was made +which now seems conclusive. But it has been justly said that the +President was on trial nominally for one class of offenses, but +practically for another--namely, his persistent opposition to the policy +of Congress. Party loyalty was invoked for his condemnation; the general +temper of the North was hot against him; wrath and tribulation were +predicted for any Republican senator who should vote for his acquittal. +In face of the storm, there were a few who quietly let it be known or +surmised that they should vote in their capacity as judges sworn to +follow the law and the facts, whatever the political consequences. The +decisive hour came, May 16, and the result no one could predict; the +Democratic senators and the four administration Republicans all would +sustain the President; seven additional votes would prevent the decisive +two-thirds condemnation. Man after man, Fessenden, Fowler, Grimes, +Henderson, Ross, Van Winkle, and Trumbull--Republicans all--voted "Not +guilty"; and, by nineteen to thirty-five, President Johnson escaped +deposition--to get rid of Stanton finally, and finish his term; to +return to the Senate from Tennessee; to take his place in history as an +honest and patriotic man, beyond his proper sphere, whose limitations +worked a part in the partial failure of reconstruction. The country +escaped a dangerous dislocation of the relation of Congress and the +executive, and the triumph of an exaggerated radicalism. The seven +independent senators sacrificed their future careers, and deserve the +perpetual gratitude of their country. + +And now it remained for the nation, through a Presidential election, to +pass upon the completed work. In the Democratic convention at New York, +in July, 1868, the reactionary and the progressive elements strove. A +new Democracy was growing, intent on administrative reform and moderate +Constitutionalism; Samuel J. Tilden of New York and his allies were +among the leaders; their candidate was Chief Justice Chase. Only the +incongruity with his judicial position marred the fitness of Chase's +candidacy. Lincoln, though he had his own troubles in dealing with him, +said, "Of all the great men I have known, Chase is equal to about one +and a half of the best of them." He had proved eminent on the bench as +in the Cabinet, and under his lead the Supreme Court gave a series of +conservative decisions on reconstruction questions which were a most +valuable contribution to the national stability and security--a vital, +though not to the popular eye a conspicuous service in the +reconstruction period. Against him, the candidacy of George H. Pendleton +of Ohio represented the element historically unfriendly to the war for +the Union, and intensely opposed to the reconstruction measures. He had +the support of the Southern delegates, present in full force, and +lending to the cheering the dominant note of the well-known "rebel +yell." The reactionists got their own way with the resolutions, which +declared the reconstruction acts to be "unconstitutional, revolutionary, +and void." On the new question which was looming up, of shirking the +national debt by payment in promises, the platform leaned strongly +toward repudiation. Pendleton's supporters, seeing their candidate could +not win, and determined that the other Ohio man, Chase, should not win, +thwarted their New York opponents by a clever trick, and successfully +rushed through the convention the nomination of its presiding officer, +Horatio Seymour of New York, against his protest and to the discomfiture +of his associates. An able, accomplished man, but reckoned half-hearted +in the war, and not rising to statesmanlike proportions, he could not +outweigh the mischievous platform and the Vice-Presidential candidate, +the hot-headed Gen. Francis P. Blair of Missouri, who had just proposed +measures nothing short of revolutionary to override Congress. Against +this combination the Republicans advanced securely to victory. Meeting +in Chicago in May, they showed a temper more moderate than that of +Congress; they of course condemned the President, but they refused to +censure the seven independent senators; and upon Carl Schurz's motion +passed a resolution welcoming back all former enemies now become loyal, +and favoring the early and rapid removal of disabilities. As to the +Presidential nomination, there was no division,--it was given +unhesitatingly, unanimously, heartily, to General Grant. His +steadfastness and success in war had been matched by his magnanimity in +victory and his prudence in the troubled times that followed. Of manly +simplicity and solid worth, sagacious and successful wherever he had +been tried, he seemed at once an embodiment of past victory and an +assurance of future safety. Of the thirty-four States that voted, all +but eight were for Grant and Colfax. Seymour had New York, New Jersey, +Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Oregon, Georgia, and Louisiana. The +popular vote was 3,012,000 for Grant and Colfax to 2,703,000 for Seymour +and Blair. + +The Republican convention had shirked the question of negro suffrage at +the North by referring it to the individual States. Its refusal in many +of the Northern States was felt as a discredit after it had been +enforced throughout the South. The Republicans in Congress took courage +from the election. The Fifteenth Amendment, forbidding the States to +deny the right to vote "on account of race, color or previous condition +of servitude," was brought forward in Congress in December, and passed +February 28, 1869. It was ratified in rapid succession by thirty States +out of thirty-seven,--Tennessee not acting, and negative votes being +given by California, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, and +Oregon,--and proclaimed as adopted, March 30, 1870. + +With Grant's election, and the last touches of reconstruction sure to +follow close, the North, as it were, drew a deep breath of relief. It +felt that the fundamental issues were settled. The war had preserved the +Union and destroyed slavery. The consummation had been fitly rounded out +by the changes in the Constitution. The Southern States were restored to +their places. Vast tides of material advance were setting in. New +questions were rising, new ideas were fermenting. Good-bye to the +past,--so felt the North,--to its injustice and its strife. As the +nation's chieftain had said, in accepting the call to the nation's +Presidency, "Let us have peace." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +RECONSTRUCTION: THE WORKING OUT + + +So the North turned cheerfully to its own affairs--and very engrossing +affairs they were--and the South faced its new conditions. It was still +struggling with the economic wreckage left by four years of battle, +invasion and defeat. It had borne the loss of its separate nationality +and the flag endeared by countless sacrifices. It had accepted the +sudden emancipation of its servile class by the conqueror's hand. It had +been encouraged by President Johnson to resume with little change its +old ways of government. For two years it had gone along precariously +with State organizations of the earlier pattern, subject to occasional +interruption by military authority or officials of the Freedmen's +Bureau. Then, in 1867, all State governments were set aside, and +military rule pure and simple held the field,--in most States for about +fifteen months; in Mississippi, Texas and Virginia, by their own choice, +for as much longer. Though as it was generally administered the military +government was just, as well as economical, yet its maintenance was a +bitter ordeal for a people with the American political habit; a people, +too, who had fought gallantly for four years; who had, upon accepting +their defeat, been assured that the object of their conqueror was +attained in restoring them to their old position, except for +emancipation of the slaves; and who now for a year or two longer were +held under martial law. + +At last--for most of them in mid-summer of 1868--they were again +restored to self-government of the American pattern. Self-government +for all, thought the North complacently; whites and blacks were equal, +not only as subjects of the law but as makers of the law; and so freedom +and democracy were established. But the Southern whites asked in dismay, +What kind of fellow-lawmakers have we got? The question answered itself. +The million or so of new voters were most of them ignorant in a sense of +which illiteracy gives but a hint. They were unversed even in genuine +family life; skilled only in manual industry; unpracticed in +citizenship; utterly untaught in the principles, the facts of history, +the theory and art of self-government, which make up the proper +equipment of the voter. A great part of them, field hands on the great +cotton and sugar plantations, were rude and degraded, trained to live +solely under close and constant control. + +How were the whites to deal with these new-made voters? From the +standpoint of expediency, three courses offered,--to conciliate and +educate them; to outvote them by massing the whites together; or to +suppress them by force or fraud. From the standpoint of unregenerate +human nature, the whites as a body at first took none of these +courses,--they stood apart from the whole business of politics, in wrath +and scorn. Unregenerate perhaps, but most natural, most human! At first, +some crude policy mingled with the sentiment that kept them aloof; there +was the hope that if the whites generally abstained from voting, at the +elections held in November, 1867, to pass on the question whether to +hold constitutional conventions, the proposal might fail for want of the +requisite majority of the registered voters. It was a fallacious hope; +suppose the conventions were to fail, what better terms were now to be +expected from Congress? But the conventions were all held; and as in the +same spirit most of the whites refused to vote for delegates, these were +chosen from the negroes, their friends from the North, and the few +Southern whites who accepted the inevitable. + +Is it not the wisest, the manliest course, to accept the inevitable? So +asked General Longstreet, in a letter to a friend, June 3, 1867. He had +just listened to Senator Wilson, and had been surprised by his fairness +and frankness. For himself he says, "I will be happy to work in any +harness that promises relief to our discomfited people, whether bearing +the mantle of Mr. Davis or Mr. Sumner." Negro suffrage is for the +present an established fact; if after a fair trial it works +disastrously, we will appeal to Congress to repeal it. "If every one +will meet the crisis with proper appreciation of our condition and +obligations, the sun will rise to-morrow on a happy people." But his +words fell on deaf ears, and when he acted with the Republicans he was +visited with ostracism, denunciation, and attack upon his war record. +The typical attitude, at first, was that of the planter who, after +listening to a discussion of the final reconstruction act, inquired, +"Does it say anything about raising cotton?" "No." "Then, damn Congress +and its laws! I'm going to raise cotton." So he and a good many others +gave themselves to raising cotton, and for a while left the choice of +State officers and legislators to "niggers," "carpet-baggers," and +"scalawags." A "scalawag" was any Southern white who allied himself +politically with the negroes, and a "carpet-bagger" was a Northern +adventurer, for whose worldly goods a gripsack sufficed,--or, in +general, any Northerner whatever. + +For the blacks, the sudden opening of political power and preferment, +however designed, was in effect a very doubtful benefit. It turned their +hopes and aspirations in a way which was really "no thoroughfare." To +the more promising and ambitious it offered sudden and brilliant prizes, +instead of the patient apprenticeship which they needed. Of those who +quickly rose to office, a few were by character and attainments really +fit for their position; many won favor by shallow arts; and others were +thrown up like driftwood by the tide. The negroes as a body could follow +only a personal leadership,--how many whites, North or South, really +follow any other?--could be organized in bodies, attached to a party +name and watchwords, and voted in mass by the men who had their +confidence. They understood that their freedom and their right to vote +had been given them by the North and by the Republican party, and to +that party they naturally turned. Their old masters--in many cases their +best friends--frankly told them they were unfit to vote, and wanted no +dealings with them in political affairs. So they found leadership +principally in the men who had come from the North. + +There was a Northern immigration which may be classified as business +men, teachers and adventurers. A considerable number sought an +opportunity in reviving and developing industry,--substantial men and +good citizens. Sometimes a patriotic motive mingled with the industrial. +Governor Andrew, on retiring to private life as a lawyer, tried for some +time to advance a company for bringing into conjunction Southern lands +and Northern enterprise and capital. There were various projects of this +kind, but they met with little success. Private individuals, however, +added something to the industrial and civic forces of the South. A +larger class were the teachers. Men and women by hundreds went to the +South, some sent by missionary organizations, some independently, to +organize schools and to teach the children of the freedmen. Many of them +were of the highest character, devoted, self-sacrificing, going to the +blacks simply because they supposed their need was greatest. But +Beecher's warning proved sound--because as a whole this movement took +the negroes as a distinct field, ignoring the needs of the whites, it +incurred odium as an alien and half-hostile work. The barbaric element +among the whites--and slavery had left a deep taint of barbarism--came +out at its worst in insults to the "nigger teachers," with occasional +burning of a school-house. The better social elements looked askance at +those whose presence was a reminder of conquest and humiliation. + +From the business and the educational immigration, a few Northern men +were drawn into public affairs, less by choice than by necessity of the +situation. With these mingled a different class, men who had been +disreputable hangers-on of the army or the Freedmen's Bureau, or who had +come for the sole purpose of plunder. It was a very mixed company of +whites and blacks that made up the conventions and then filled the +legislative halls and the public offices. The constitutions were not +badly framed, except as they, for the most part, continued the exclusive +clauses. The general legislation was various in its character. There +were some excellent features, above all the institution in every State +of a genuine public school system, where before there had been only +makeshifts or make-believes. Some other good constructive work was done, +toward establishing society on the new basis. Certainly nothing was +enacted so bad as the "black codes" of a few years earlier, not to speak +of the legislation under slavery. There were some unsuccessful attempts +at engrafting institutions, like the township system, which had worked +well in their native soil but could not be created out of hand. In +general the white leadership of the dominant party averted much that +might have been expected from the ignorance of its legislators as a +mass. But plenty of waste and mischief was wrought. Place a crowd of +hungry and untaught men next the public treasury with the lid off, and +some results are sure. The men will not be safer guardians of the +treasure for having had for most of their lives no property rights of +their own, not even the ownership of their own souls and bodies. Yet +most of the plunder seems to have gone into the pockets of knaves of the +superior race. There was a degree of extravagance, waste and corruption, +varying greatly with localities and times, but sufficient to leave a +permanent discredit on the Southern Republican governments as a class. +To judge accurately of the merits and demerits of these governments is +perhaps as difficult a task as historian ever undertook. So fierce is +the passion which invests these events in the memory of the present +generation, that it is almost hopeless to sift and adjudicate the sober +facts. Time has softened much; even the Civil War begins to stand forth +in some firmness of outline and clarity of atmosphere. But when we come +to reconstruction--grave historians grow almost hysterical, romancers +pass the bounds of possibilities, and even official figures contradict +one another with sublime effrontery. + +Yet this very passion of remembrance, which in one way obscures, in +another way illuminates the historical situation. The grievance most +profoundly felt in the reconstruction period was not unwise laws nor +waste of public money nor oppressive taxes. It was the consciousness by +the master class of political subjection to the servile class. It was +the spectacle of rude blacks, yesterday picking cotton or driving mules, +sitting in the legislators' seats and executive offices of Richmond and +Columbia, holding places of power among the people of Lee and Calhoun. +Fancy the people of Massachusetts, were the state-house on Beacon hill +suddenly occupied by Italian, Polish and Russian laborers,--placed and +kept there by a foreign conqueror. Add to the comparison the prouder +height of the slaveholder, and the lower depth of his serf. Put this as +the case of a people high-strung and sensitive, still fresh from the +passion of war, still smarting from defeat. They had fought to +exhaustion, and their banner had fallen without disgrace. Now the +victors who had won by superiority of force had placed their late +bondmen as their rulers. The offices from which their own captains and +chiefs were shut out were filled by plantation field-hands. + +It was not likely that the first attitude of scornful passivity would +long continue, and it did not. The warnings vainly uttered +beforehand,--that the natural leaders would surely lead, and had best be +won as allies, were proved right when it was too late. Said the +_Republican_, August 10, 1868, in protesting against the plan of the +party managers in organizing the Southern wing to consist mainly of the +blacks: "The Republican party cannot long maintain its supremacy at the +South by negro votes alone. The instincts of submission and dependence +in them and of domination in the whites, are too strong to permit such a +reversal of the familiar relations and the natural order. The +slave-holding element has learned to combine, conspire and command, in +the best school on earth, and they will certainly come to the top. Nor +is it desirable that such a state of things should continue." + +The old official class being excluded--to the number, it was estimated, +of 160,000,--and the stand-aloof policy, or drift rather, prevailing in +the political field, it was the more lawless element that first began to +conspicuously assert the white supremacy. There grew up an organization +called "the Ku-Klux Klan," designed at first partly as a rough sport and +masquerade, partly to overawe the negroes. There were midnight ridings +in spectral disguises, warnings, alarms and presently whippings and even +murders. The society, or imitations of it, spread over most of the +South. It was at its height in 1868-70, and in the latter year it +gradually gave way, partly owing to vigorous measures ordered from +Washington, and partly perhaps as legitimate political combinations +again occupied the whites. But it is to be noted that throughout the +decade of reconstruction, though the present fashion is to lay exclusive +stress on the wrong-doing of the negroes and their friends, yet the +physical violence, frequent and widespread, was almost wholly practiced +by the whites. + +From the political torpor, due to discouragement and resentment, there +was an early recovery. When it was found that cotton-planting pure and +simple, with ignoring of politics, resulted in heavy taxes for the +planter; when to the first numbness there succeeded the active +smart,--the whites betook themselves to the resource which in most +States soon proved adequate,--the ballot, and political combination. In +several States the whites were easily in the majority, and where they +were slightly outnumbered their superior intelligence soon gave them the +advantage. In Georgia, finally readmitted at the end of 1869, the +Democrats--constituting the great body of the whites--carried the +election in the next year, and remained in control of the State. +Virginia, which had advisedly kept under military rule until, with +President Grant's aid, she came in without the excluding clauses, early +in 1870, passed at once under Democratic rule. In the same year North +Carolina became Democratic. Texas and Arkansas remained under Republican +sway until the majority shifted to the Democrats in 1874. In Alabama, +the Democrats gained the Governorship and the lower House as early as +1870; two years later the result was disputed, the Democrats conceding +the Governor but claiming the Legislature, while the Republicans +organized a rival Legislature; the Republican Governor-elect called for +United States troops, which were promptly dispatched, and with their +backing a Republican Legislature was secured. In 1874 a Democratic +Governor and Legislature were chosen and installed without dispute. The +Federal interference in Alabama, and the experience of others of the +reconstructed States,--South Carolina, Mississippi, and +Louisiana,--recalls us to that phase of the history which deals with +Washington and the national government. + +Through the eight years of Grant's administration, the public life of +the nation was concerned mainly with clearing away the wreckage left by +the war. There was an enormous debt to be handled and an inflated +currency to be reduced; there was to be curbed administrative +extravagance and corruption, bred of profuse expenditure; a bitter +quarrel with England was to be guided toward war or peace; and the +disordered South was to be composed. These tasks were encountered by men +whose habits and sentiments had been formed in a long and desperate +contest, and in an atmosphere slowly cooling from the fiery glow of +battle. The soldier had to beat his sword into a plowshare, and small +wonder if the blacksmithing was sometimes clumsy. + +Grant was too completely a soldier to be changed into a statesman. He +could deal with a definite, limited, though gigantic business,--the +overcoming of the armies of the Confederacy. But it was beyond his power +to comprehend and master the manifold and intricate problems that center +in the Presidency. Given a specific, well-defined question, within the +reach of his sturdy sense and loyal purpose, and he could deal with it +to good effect, as he did with the English arbitration and the Inflation +bill. But he was incapable of far-reaching and constructive plans +carefully laid and patiently pursued. When he communicated to Congress +the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment, he urged in wise and forcible +language that the new electorate could only be qualified through +education, and that to provide such education was a pressing duty of +Congress so far as its power extended, and of the people through all the +agencies it could command. But having once said this, he let the subject +drop. National education for the freedmen was left unnoticed, save by an +occasional lonely advocate like Sumner. Nor did President Grant take any +personal and positive measures to win and hold the old South to the new +order; he failed to invite and consult its representative men, he made +no journeys among the people. + +In most matters of public policy, save in emergencies, Grant let matters +be shaped by the men whom he had taken into his counsel--in his official +Cabinet or the "kitchen cabinet"--and by the Republican leaders in +Congress, of whom the controlling group, especially in the Senate, were +in close touch with the White House. His affiliations were with men of +material power, men who had strongly administered civil or military +affairs, stout partisans, faithful friends and vigorous haters. His +tastes did not draw him to the idealists, the scholars, the reformers. +He was accessible to good fellowship, he was easily imposed on by men +who were seeking their own ends, and he was very slow to abandon any one +whom he had once trusted. Absolutely honest, the thieves stole all round +him. Magnanimous at heart, the bitter partisans often made him their +tool. Of the great questions of the time, the English quarrel was +brought to an admirable healing, under the management of the Secretary +of State, Hamilton Fish, in 1871, by the joint high commission, the +treaty of Washington, and the Geneva award. In the long contest for a +sound currency, the inflation policy received its death-blow by the +President's veto in 1874, and resumption was undertaken when Sherman +carried his bill through Congress in 1875. As to honesty of +administration, the president's good intentions were constantly baffled +through his misplaced and tenacious confidences. The vast expenditures +of the war, the cheating incident to its great contracts, the +speculation favored by a fluctuating currency, the huge enterprises +invited by the return of peace,--had infected private and public life +with a kind of fever; the treasury was an easy mark; and while the +people held to Grant for his personal honesty, and re-elected him, an +army of rogues throve under his lax administration. + +The let-alone policy toward the South, to which Grant was prompted both +by his virtues and his limitations, would not on the whole have been +unacceptable to the mass of the Southern whites. Left wholly to +themselves, those States would soon have righted themselves from the +unstable equilibrium in which they had been placed by the imposition of +an ignorant electorate. Natural forces,--just or unjust, benignant or +cruel,--would soon have reversed the order. But the nation at large +would not at once abandon its protectorate over its recent wards, the +freedmen. For their greatest need, education, it assumed no +responsibility. But when stories were rife of abuse and terrorism under +the masquerade of the Ku-Klux, Congress interfered, even if by some +stretch of its constitutional power, to bring the raiders under the arm +of Federal law. When elections were reported to be controlled by fraud +and intimidation, it seemed incumbent on the national government to +protect the ballot-box by which its own members were chosen. When rival +bodies claimed each to be the legitimate government of a State, it was +necessary for the Washington authorities to decide which they would +recognize, and it was a natural sequence to back their decision by the +military force. And in all of these cases, the maintenance of law and +order easily became confused with the support of factions allied +politically with the party in power at Washington. As the Southern +Republicans were gradually outvoted or overpowered at home, their +appeals for help from the general government became more urgent, while +the continuance of such interference became more questionable to +thoughtful men. + +Before this state of things, there was a gradual division of opinion +among Republicans at the North, and especially among their leaders. +Against the call to protect the freedmen and bridle the slave-holding +spirit in its new forms, rose the call to return to the old respect for +local rights, and let each Southern State manage its own affairs, as did +each Northern State. To this changed attitude came some of the +staunchest of the old anti-slavery leaders, and many of the younger +generation. During the early years of Grant's administration, the +question did not present itself in acute forms. The Ku-Klux law of 1870, +though it might strain the Constitution a little, received general +acquiescence because the abuse it aimed at was so flagrant. But the +ostracism of the entire official class of the old South was growingly +recognized as a grievance and a wrong. It was the spirit of proscription +that brought on the political crisis of 1872. That proscriptive spirit +broke up the Republican party in Missouri; the liberal element, led by +Carl Schurz and B. Gratz Brown, held a State convention. Their movement +fell in with a strong rising tide of opposition to Grant's +administration within the Republican party. Its grounds were +various,--chiefly, a protest against wide and gross maladministration, a +demand for a reformed and scientific civil-service, opposition to the +high tariff, and the desire for a more generous and reconciling policy +toward the South. The movement was especially prompted by a group of +leading independent journals conducted by very able men,--the New York +_Evening Post_, under William Cullen Bryant; the _Nation_, edited by E. +L. Godkin; the Cincinnati _Commercial_ of Murat Halstead; the +Louisville _Courier-Journal_ of Henry Watterson; the Springfield +_Republican_ of Samuel Bowles. Sympathetic in the main was Horace +Greeley's New York _Tribune_. In more or less close alliance were a few +of the congressional leaders, notably Sumner, who had quarreled bitterly +with Grant over the proposed annexation of San Domingo; Trumbull, who +was never in close touch with his old party after the impeachment trial; +and Carl Schurz, who was now in the Senate. + +A national convention was held at Cincinnati, in May, 1872. The +Democrats had so little hope of separate success that they stood ready +to fall in with the new departure, and this gave greater importance to +its action. For its Presidential candidate, the foremost name had been +that of the elder Charles Francis Adams. Of the most distinguished +family in the country's political annals; one of the founders of the +Free Soil party; a conservative but resolute Republican; minister to +England through the war, and most serviceable there by his firmness and +wisdom; eminent by character, experience, and mental equipment; so +indifferent to office that he almost openly scorned the proffered +honor,--he seemed to the reformers a nearly ideal candidate, however +much his reserved and distant manners might handicap him before a +popular constituency. + +But the spite of a disappointed aspirant, B. Gratz Brown, and the +caprice of the convention, turned its choice by a sudden impulse to +Horace Greeley. It was a choice that from the first moment not only +defeated but almost stultified the liberal movement. It mattered not +much what principles the convention set forth. Tariff reform it had +already set aside, and Greeley was a zealous protectionist. For +scientific civil-service reform he cared nothing, and to mistakes in his +personal choices he was at least as liable as Grant. His revolt against +Grant was due partly to a dispute about State patronage. Only in +generous sentiment toward the South did he fitly represent the original +and best element of the convention. He was dropped at once by the +_Evening Post_, the _Nation_, and a large part of the liberals. The +Democrats, despairing of any other way to success, indorsed his +nomination. But the acceptance of a candidate who for thirty years had +been showering hard words on the Democracy was almost grotesque. The +South was halfhearted in his support. A few of the faithful nominated +Charles O'Conor on an independent Democrat ticket. The question was only +of the size of the majority against Greeley. + +His wisest supporters avowed as the best significance of his candidacy: +"It means that the war is really over." Greeley had proved the sincerity +of his friendliness toward the South at a heavy cost. President Johnson +held Jefferson Davis in long imprisonment, with the aggravation not only +of close confinement and even a temporary manacling, but of a public +accusation of complicity in the murder of Lincoln. It was treatment +wholly unfit for a prisoner of state and a man of Davis's character. Its +effect on the South may be judged by imagining how the North would have +felt had Lincoln fallen into Southern hands and been kept in shackles +and under the charge of assassination. The imprisonment of Davis and the +avowed purpose to try him as a traitor were utterly out of keeping with +the general recognition that secession and its sequel were to be dealt +with as a political wrong and not a personal crime. + +Greeley, who on the very morning after Lee's surrender had called for a +universal amnesty, showed his faith by his works when at the opportunity +in May, 1867, he offered himself, in company with Gerrit Smith, as +bondsmen for Davis, thus obtaining his release, and incurring for +himself a storm of obloquy. The storm was short-lived, but revived in +greater fury when Greeley became a Presidential candidate against Grant, +with the support of the Democracy and the South. The campaign was full +of bitterness and abuse. In _Harper's Weekly_, of which the editorial +page was conducted by the high-spirited and gentle George William +Curtis, Nast assailed the liberals in savage cartoons; in one Sumner was +depicted as scattering flowers on the grave of Preston Brooks, and +another showed Greeley shaking hands with the shade of Wilkes Booth over +the grave of Lincoln. From the other side Grant was attacked with equal +ferocity. + +Greeley went down in overwhelming defeat, and died of exhaustion and a +broken heart before the electoral votes were counted. But something had +been gained. There had been a breaking of old lines. And one of the +South's main grievances had been almost removed. Within a month after +the Cincinnati convention, its call for amnesty was vindicated by a bill +passed in Congress removing the disabilities of almost all the excluded +class. Out of some 160,000, only about 700 were left on the proscribed +list. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +THREE TROUBLED STATES + + +In Grant's second term, the divergence between the Republicans on +Southern questions, though never taking permanent form, often found +marked and effective expression. In the Senate, the controlling group, +who were also the special friends and allies of Grant, were radicals, +and generally of a more materialistic class than the earlier leaders. +Fessenden had died in 1869; Sumner was alienated, and died in 1874; +Wilson had passed into the insignificance of the Vice-Presidency; +Trumbull was in opposition. At the front were Chandler, of Michigan; +Oliver P. Morton, War Governor of Illinois, powerful and partisan; +Roscoe Conkling, of New York, showy and arrogant. In the House the +foremost man was James G. Blaine, Speaker until with the Democratic +majority he became leader of the opposition; brilliant in speech, +fascinating and "magnetic" in personal intercourse, always prominent and +popular, but almost never closely identified with any great principle or +constructive measure. Very prominent on the floor was General Butler, a +foremost radical toward the South; always a storm-center; an advocate of +inflation, an ally of most bad causes, an effective mischief-maker; +followed, feared, and hated with equal ardor. The membership of the +House was notable for able men,--the Hoar brothers, Henry L. Pierce, +Eugene Hale, Dawes, Hawley, Poland, Garfield, Kasson, and others of +almost equal mark. The death of Thaddeus Stevens, in 1868, had left the +House without a master. The Greeley campaign, disastrous though it was, +had started a contagious spirit of independence. During Grant's second +administration, 1873-7, there was shown in the House, on important +questions, a degree of independence rare in American politics. It was +the growing Republican opposition to Federal interference in the South +that hastened its end, and prepared the way for the consummation of that +result under President Hayes. + +We now return to the individual cases of three Southern States. To South +Carolina fell the bitterest experience of misgovernment. Its black +majority was organized and led by a group of white men of the worst +character, who were resisted for a time without success by a better +element in the party. Under four years' administration of Governor R. K. +Scott, a Northerner, and two of F. J. Moses, Jr., a South +Carolinian--who later disappeared from public view in a +penitentiary,--money was lavished in profligate expenditure; hundreds of +thousands spent for legislative furniture and luxuries; franchises were +corruptly sold; bogus enterprises enriched; debt piled up by millions, +and thrown off by millions. (Repudiation, be it said, always came easily +to the South,--before the war and after; during reconstruction and +after; whether the borrowed money had been spent for railroads or +squandered by thieves; and the ghost of an unpaid $300,000,000 still +scares Southern Senators when a general arbitration treaty is +discussed.) South Carolina went from bad to worse for six years. + +When, in 1872, the honest Republicans bolted, under an unimpeachable +candidate, Reuben Tomlinson, a Philadelphia Quaker, and gave him 35,000 +votes, the Democrats stood scornfully aloof--"better a native thief than +an honest Yankee!" But in 1874 came a revolution in the Republican +ranks. Honesty triumphed, under the lead of the elected governor, Daniel +H. Chamberlain, of Massachusetts birth and education,--a remarkable +man; shrewd, long-headed, a past master in political management; with +high aims; by no means indifferent to personal success, but generally +succeeding in combining personal and public service. With a Legislature +in which two-thirds were Republicans, and whites and blacks were about +equal in number, he achieved a surprising reversal of the evil +tendencies that had prevailed. In the Legislature the best of the +Democrats backed him, together with the best of the Republicans, and +overmatched the corruptionists. Stealing was stopped; the abuses of the +pardoning power were ended; the tax laws were amended so as to secure +uniformity and equality of assessment; expenditure was reduced and +regulated. These were the statements of the Charleston _News and +Courier_, the leading paper of the State, in July, 1876, when another +election was coming on. Most of the Democratic papers had praised and +supported Governor Chamberlain. It was now very seriously contemplated, +and advocated by the _News and Courier_, to let him be re-elected +without opposition. But the old-time pride of race and party was too +strong, and the Democrats nominated Wade Hampton. They supported him +with little scruple as to means,--with free use of intimidation and +proscription, with frequent threats and often the reality of violence. +There was a shocking massacre at Hamburg. Governor Chamberlain called on +the President for aid, and a thousand troops were sent into the State. +When the election came, there was claimed a majority for Chamberlain and +for the Republican Presidential ticket. The claim was instantly and +fiercely challenged by Hampton's supporters. And here the story pauses, +until it joins the main current of national affairs. + +Mississippi was under Republican control until 1875. If one attempts to +judge of the character of that control, he plunges into a sea of +contradictions almost enough to submerge the hope of truth. Whether we +turn to standard historians, to the 1000 pages of sworn testimony before +a Congressional committee, or to individual witnesses, the perplexity is +the same. Thus, we consult Woodrow Wilson's _History of the American +People_,--and this book invites a word of comment. Its author has woven +together the immense material of the national history for three +centuries, in the main with admirable judgment and skill. He has +produced a comprehensive, well-proportioned, graphic narrative, which +closely holds the reader's attention, and gives in general the spirit as +well as the substance of the people's story. But upon the main theme of +the crowning century, he misses some of the vital elements. Of the wrong +and mischief of slavery he has hardly a word, waving the subject aside +as if beyond his province. He gives with admirable sympathy and +intelligence the attitude of the well-meaning Southerner before and +after the war; and this feature has special value for those familiar +only with the Northern standpoint. But he has not the least appreciation +of the anti-slavery spirit in its heroic phase. On the wrongs of the +slave he is silent, while upon the sins of the carpet-bagger he is +eloquent. This one-sidedness robs of its significance what should be the +American epic of the nineteenth century. + +Of the misgovernment of Mississippi, Dr. Wilson instances that "before +the work of the carpet-baggers was done, 640,000 acres of land had been +forfeited for taxes, twenty per cent. of the total acreage of the +State." The nearest atlas or gazetteer is enough to check this +statement. The total acreage of the State is 29,640,000,--of which +640,000 is not twenty per cent., but a trifle over two per cent. Dr. +Wilson goes on to say that the State tax levy in 1874 was fourteen times +as great as in 1869. This is apparently taken from the "Taxpayers' +petition" of 1875, but from whatever source, it gives an utterly +exaggerated impression. Before the Congressional committee Judge H. R. +Ware, chairman of the State Republican committee,--a Kentuckian by +birth, and a life-long resident of Mississippi,--gave his testimony; and +it included documents showing that the total State expense during the +last two years of Democratic rule, 1864 and '65, was $1,410,250 and +$1,860,809; for twenty years of Democratic administration, throwing out +the extra expenses of the war period, the average cost was $699,200; +under military government (always the cheapest) in 1869 it was $563,219; +while under the Republicans in 1875 it was $618,259; and the average for +six Republican years had been $992,920. When the Republicans came in, +they had to make payments in warrants worth only sixty-five cents on the +dollar, with proportionate increase of expense; they had to provide for +a free population doubled by the emancipation of the slaves, and for the +last four years they had made an annual reduction. + +Yet the "Taxpayers' petition"--addressed to the Legislature early in +1875, and without effect,--must be taken as evidence of at least a +considerable extravagance and waste. A reading of it gives the +impression of a needless multiplication of offices and excessive +salaries. The public printing seems clearly a scandal, running above +$73,000 a year, as against a cost in the sister State of Georgia of only +$10,000. The general charge seems to be of laxness and needlessly high +salaries rather than any wholesale corruption. Some question as to the +justice of the general charge occurs when a point is encountered as to +the payment of teachers in the public schools. The petitioners claim +that this should be reduced to $25 a month for second-class schools, and +$50 a month for first-class schools. In fact, when the Democrats came +into power, they reduced the rate to $40 a month,--which, for a school +year of four months only, seems like penny-wise economy. The petition +makes perhaps the strongest impression in its statement that the boards +of supervisors, controlling local taxation, are, as a general rule, +"wholly unfit to discharge their duties, and without respectability or +even accountability"; that the public works under their care are +recklessly and carelessly managed, and the county taxes are grievous. It +would seem that in these local bodies, especially in the "black +counties," lay the worst of the taxpayers' grievance. + +Judge Story makes a vigorous retort, testifying after a year of +Democratic administration, 1875-6, as to the question of comparative +expense. He shows that the State tax had indeed been reduced from 9-1/4 +mills to 6-1/2 mills, but this only by cutting off outright the school +tax of two mills. Not to follow further the labyrinth of figures, it is +interesting to note, as to the favorite term "carpet-bagger," that of +the six Republican candidates for Congress in Mississippi, in 1876, only +one was of Northern birth, and he had married and lived in the South +since the war; one had been an old Southern Democrat and a circuit +judge; two had been Confederate officers; and one, John R. Lynch, was a +colored man of high intelligence and excellent character. He, as Speaker +of the House, and B. K. Bruce, United States Senator, were among the +colored men who showed capacity and character worthy of the high +positions they attained. Among the Republican leaders of Northern birth +were some who were honored and trusted in their old homes; such men as +General Eggleston, president of the Constitutional convention; Colonel +Warner, afterward State Treasurer of Connecticut, and Henry W. Warren, +of Massachusetts. The first Republican governor, J. M. Alcorn, was a +Southern man, very able, but apparently not of the highest moral +standards. His successor, Adelbert Ames, was from Massachusetts, +conceded now to have been "honest and brave, but narrow and +puritanical," and with the mysterious trait of "hating the Aryan race of +the South." + +These last words are quoted from the story of an old friend of the +reader's,--Thomas Dabney, the "Southern planter," whose noble character +was sketched in chapter XII. He had fought a brave fight with poverty +and hardship since the war, and as we come again into his company for a +moment, it is with a sense of confidence which even official documents +do not inspire. He had no doubt of the oppressiveness of Republican +rule, and the need of shaking it off by vigorous measures. It is related +that the taxes on his plantation for 1873 were over $900, while the +income was less than $800. Yet one letter tells that he is in "a +laughing humor" because he has just paid his taxes for 1875--only +$375,--a reduction of more than half--and this was still under +Republican rule. + +One other witness may be heard, the writer's life-long friend, Henry W. +Warren, now of Holden, Mass. To those who know him his name is a synonym +for integrity, efficiency and modesty; he is one of the men who never +seek a public honor and never decline a public service. From his own +words some statements are here condensed. "After graduating at Yale in +1865, I was called to a position as public school teacher at Nashville, +Tenn.; and from there, seeing a promising opportunity, I went with two +friends to work a cotton plantation in one of the 'white' counties of +Mississippi. We bought it from its old owner, who had kept his slaves in +his employ as paid laborers, and they continued to work for us. As +slaves they had not been badly treated, except by the overseer during +the master's absence. Many of the whites of the county, owning no +slaves, had been indifferent to the Confederate cause, and many of them +had served in its army only when hunted by the conscription officer, +sometimes with bloodhounds. More than a few of them were Republicans. I +was asked to serve as registrar of voters for the Constitutional +convention, being one of the few who could take the 'iron-clad oath' +(that is, that he had never aided the Confederacy) and this led to my +going to the convention, and afterward to the Legislature. The Speaker +dying, I was chosen to his place for the rest of the term. Our county +going Democratic, I was not re-elected; but I was chosen chief clerk of +the House, and served for four years, after my two years as a member. +All the Democrats united in signing a paper, asking me to be always +present in the House,--this was after I had induced the Speaker to +change a mistaken ruling. So I was in a position to know pretty well +what was going on. From the first there were plenty of Confederate +generals and colonels in the Legislature." (The excluding clauses were +struck out of the Mississippi constitution at the start.) "The manner of +the blacks to the whites was habitually civil, and something of the +slave's deference to the white man remained. I think the legislation was +generally of reasonably good character. I knew positively of but little +corruption. That there was some corruption and more extravagance, I have +no doubt. But I have served since in the Massachusetts Legislature, and +I think the Southern State was but little worse than the Northern. The +negro members, though with some able and honest leaders of their own, +like Bruce and Lynch, followed largely the prominent white men. Of the +Northerners whom I knew, almost all were men of substance and had come +to stay. Six out of ten owned plantations. A 'carpet-bagger' I hardly +ever met, though no doubt there were some,--but the name was given to +all Northerners. As to expense, you must remember that the State had to +be completely rehabilitated. The war had ruined everything; public +buildings were destroyed or dilapidated; and under military rule things +had simply been kept going. Everything had to be reconstructed. The +slaves had become citizens, and that doubled the number to be provided +for. There had been practically no public schools, and they were set up +throughout the State. Taxes had fallen largely on slave property, now +they came on land. So it was inevitable that there should be an increase +of taxation. About county taxes I have no special knowledge, though in +our locality they certainly were not burdensome. In some of the black +counties it may have been worse. The Republicans, both blacks and +whites, were drilled in the 'Loyal League of America,'--it was a purely +political organization, often meeting in the woods at night. In those +years there was immense progress on the part of the negroes,--political +discussion was educational. I think if the Federal government had +provided better school education, and had protected the voters at the +polls, all might have gone well. That there was more or less of +extravagance on the part of the Legislature is not to be denied. So +there is in Massachusetts. That there was anything to justify the means +resorted to in 1875 and 1876 to get complete control of the State +government, might safely be questioned." + +What those means were, there is no serious question. The Democrats +organized a campaign of clubs, processions, enthusiasm, +and--intimidation. The better part would have disclaimed the last +feature, but they did not prevent it. Thomas Dabney was among the +leaders. He relates that the best men were brought out for the +nominations, often against their own desire. He, in his old age, was +made president of the local club, and kept busy with marchings, +meetings, and barbecues. He quotes sympathetically the response of a +friend to his remark that the uprising was wonderful: "Uprising? It is +no uprising. It is an insurrection." He relates that at Clinton the +Republicans got up a riot, that they might have a pretext for asking +President Grant for troops. "They succeeded in getting up their riot, +which was put down by our own people after so sanguinary a fashion as to +strike them with a terror not easily described." There can be no doubt +as to the "sanguinary fashion" and the "terror." Testimony abounds of +the invasion of Republican meetings, enforced demands on the Republican +speakers to "divide the time," with threats and occasional violence. +Sometimes the meetings were prevented, sometimes they were broken up. +There was a great deal of terrorizing and now and then a murder. In some +cases the officers at the polls interposed so many hindrances that many +of the negroes were unable to vote. There was but a handful of Federal +troops in the State, and the President declined to send more at Governor +Ames's request. The reign of terror was effective. Once again we quote +Mr. Warren: "In our part of the country there were constant parades of +the 'red-shirted cavalry,' and the negroes were thoroughly frightened. +Two rough fellows once assailed me with threats and abuse, but drew off +when I stood my ground. When the election came on, to get our ballots +printed I had to go to New Orleans; spies dogged me in going and coming; +and as with a friend I rode toward home, we were beset and besieged in a +planter's house, that they might get possession of the ballots. Finally +we rode away on an unguarded road, pistol in hand, and escaped. But they +afterward captured and destroyed a part of the ballots, and by such +means they carried the local election. By such means and more violent +measures they carried the State." + +The Democratic Legislature now proceeded to impeach Governor Ames, on +frivolous charges, but agreed to drop the proceedings if he would +resign, which he did, and left the State, knowing that his trial would +be a farce. In 1876 the campaign was of the same character as in 1875, +and so Mississippi was "redeemed." + +The case of Louisiana was widely different. In that State the corruption +of the Republican managers was flagrant; it extended to the manipulation +of election returns; and the Federal Government interfered freely, and +with notable results. A knot of knavish adventurers were in +control,--Henry C. Warmoth, William P. Kellogg, F. F. Casey, and United +States Marshal S. B. Packard. Casey was the President's brother-in-law, +and General Grant was almost as incapable of believing a relative of his +to be a bad man as he was incapable of knowingly supporting a bad man. +Casey was made collector of New Orleans, and was allowed to hold the +Republican convention in the custom-house, with United States soldiers +guarding the doors and regulating the admissions. As he and his crew +were wrecking the finances of the State, there was in 1872 a general +combination against them of the better elements,--they preferred the +name "Conservatives" to "Democrats,"--and they claimed to have elected +their candidate, John McEnery, as governor. Warmouth, who had been +governor for a four years' term, had quarreled with his confederates +over the division of plunder, and gone over to the Conservatives. He +controlled the State returning-board, to which the laws intrusted a very +elastic and dangerous power of throwing out returns from districts where +intimidation was proved, and undertook to declare McEnery elected. But +there was a split in the board; then two rival boards, one awarding the +governorship to Kellogg and the other to McEnery. + +The imbroglio was suddenly ended by the intervention of a United States +judge, E. H. Durell, who issued a writ at midnight, directing the United +States marshal, S. B. Packard, to occupy and hold the capitol, and +ordering a detachment of United States troops to support the Kellogg +government. This fixed the character of the State for the next four +years, by perhaps the most lawless act done under the name of law in +this whole troubled period. It was perhaps only the overshadowing +interest of the Presidential campaign that prevented its reversal by +Congress,--that, and the lingering disposition of the North to pin faith +on whatever wore the label "Republican." + +McEnery kept up a shadowy claim to the governorship, with the +countenance of the "respectable" element. But Kellogg and his pals had +the actual administration, and used it to such effect that in two years +the State bonds had fallen from seventy or eighty to twenty-five, and +New Orleans city bonds from eighty or ninety to thirty or forty. In 1874 +the Conservatives made a determined effort to carry the Legislature. +There was an organization called "The White League,"--a legitimate +political society, said one side;--a revival of the Ku-Klux spirit and +methods in a more guarded form, said the other side. Beyond question, +there was in Louisiana, at all stages of reconstruction, some degree of +terrorism, and occasional acts of cruelty and outrage. There was knavery +among the Radicals, and there was violence among the Conservatives. At +the 1874 election the Conservatives were successful at the polls; but +the State returning-board at once began to juggle with the returns so +palpably that the Conservative member protested and resigned. The +remainder of the board, after a month of diligent work, threw out a +number of districts, on the pretext of intimidation, and as to five +seats referred the question to the House itself. That body met, +organized in a hasty and irregular fashion, and awarded the five seats +to the Democratic claimants. But Governor Kellogg had the United States +troops at his disposal, and by his command General De Trobriand with a +file of soldiers entered the House and ejected the five +Democrats,--whereupon the Republicans organized the House anew. + +But now the whole country took alarm. The President sent General +Sheridan in haste to New Orleans, and his first dispatch sustained +Kellogg, and threw the blame on the White League, to which Secretary of +War Belknap telegraphed his full approval. But the affair transcended +ordinary politics in its importance. New York spoke through Cooper +Institute, and Boston by Faneuil Hall. Such citizens as Bryant, Evarts, +and George T. Curtis led the protest. Congress rose above partisanship. +A committee of the House, including such Republicans as George F. Hoar, +William A. Wheeler, Charles Foster, William W. Phelps and William P. +Frye, with Clarkson N. Potter and Samuel S. Marshall for the Democrats, +visited New Orleans, and after full inquiry agreed that the +returning-board had "wrongfully applied an erroneous rule of law"; that +the five Democrats had been defrauded of their seats; and that the +Louisiana House should be advised--the national House having no +compulsory power--to "repair this great injustice." The two Democrats +went further, and declared that Governor Kellogg himself held by no +rightful tenure. But the Republicans backed a compromise offered by +Wheeler, which the Louisianians accepted,--the Democrats took the +Legislature, while the Republicans kept the governorship. The returning +board survived, to put in its deadly work two years later. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +RECONSTRUCTION: THE LAST ACT + + +We turn back to the course of national politics. The Republican triumph +of 1872 was followed by an overwhelming reverse at the Congressional +election of 1874. There was a growing impression of maladministration at +Washington. The Credit Mobilier scandal--the easy acceptance by +Congressmen of financial favors from the managers of the Union Pacific +Railway, followed by disingenuous denials--had especially discredited +the party in power. There had been a great financial reverse in 1873, +such as is always charged in the popular mind against the ruling powers. +The South had increased its Democratic vote. So from various causes, in +the new House the Republicans passed from a majority of one hundred to a +minority of forty; with New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and even +Massachusetts, in the Democratic column. + +But the clique of bitter partisans and radicals, with whom President +Grant had become closely associated, if they took warning from the +election, drew the inference that they must make good use of the brief +time left them in the final term of the old Congress. While the +Louisiana imbroglio was still seething, the President sent a message, in +February, 1875, recommending that the State government of Arkansas be +declared illegal. It had held an unquestioned tenure for two years, and +the proposal to oust it was simply in the interest of its two Senators, +Powell Clayton and Stephen W. Dorsey, who belonged to the Grant faction. +At the same time there was brought forward a comprehensive measure, +popularly known as the "Force bill," bringing every form of violence or +intimidation of the blacks within the jurisdiction of the United States +courts; putting elections under supervision and control of the Federal +officials, and giving the President large power for the supervision of +the _habeas corpus_. Another long debated measure aimed at the fuller +enforcement of civil rights--a bill good in itself, said the moderate +Republicans; better if a part of a general pacification; but with its +present accompaniment it is "civil rights prodded in with bayonets." In +the Republican press of the country, and in the party in Congress as +well as the opposition, the battle over these measures was hot. The +administration organ in Washington gave big type and prominent display +to the paragraph: "The passage of the bill"--the Force bill--"is +required to preserve to the Republican party the electoral vote of the +Southern States." The President's personal influence was used to its +limits. Butler's unscrupulous tactics were all employed. But the weight, +if not the numbers, of the House Republicans, rose in opposition. Forty +of them, including Garfield, Dawes, the Hoars, Hawley, Hale, Pierce, +Poland, and Kasson, joined with the Democrats under the able leadership +of Samuel J. Randall. In the House, brains and conscience were beaten by +patronage; the bill went through. But it went no further,--in spite of +Morton and Conkling the Senate served again the useful function of +obstruction. The Arkansas bill was beaten in the House. Only the Civil +Rights bill became a law. Independence among Republicans had saved the +party from its most dangerous leadership. + +It was perhaps this result, following the reverse of 1874, that +disinclined Grant to further interference in the South, and held his +hand when Governor Ames asked aid in Mississippi. The Louisiana business +had so shown the risks of Federal intervention in local affairs, that +even the best friends of the freedmen began to recognize that the +States were most safely left to themselves. But the sectional fires were +not left to die unfanned. When the new Congress met, 1875-6, the +Democrats showed themselves conservative enough. They chose two +excellent Northern men as speakers: Michael C. Kerr, of Indiana, and +upon his death Randall, of Pennsylvania; and they showed themselves +chiefly concerned to probe administrative abuses, which, in truth, +needed heroic surgery. But for these prosaic matters Blaine, now leader +of the opposition, substituted a far more lively tune, when a bill for +universal amnesty at the South was brought before the House. There was +no serious Republican opposition, but Blaine saw his opportunity,--he +moved that sole exception be made of Jefferson Davis, and on that text +he roused Northern passion by the story of Andersonville, goaded to +exasperation the "Confederate brigadiers" among his listeners, and made +himself most conspicuous for the time among the Republican leaders. He +eclipsed the foremost of the Grant clique, Morton and Conkling, who +after a little fruitless third-term talk were both hoping to be legatees +of the Grant influence in the approaching Presidential convention. But +at the eleventh hour a cloud swept over Blaine's prospects, in charges +of discreditable receipt of favors from railroads looking for political +aid. The testimony was conflicting, but Blaine's palpable seizure of his +own letters from a hostile witness was hardly outweighed even by his +spectacular vindication of his acts before the House. A sudden illness +stopped the investigation; and later his transference to the Senate +postponed its renewal until it frustrated his ambition in 1884. The +convention in 1876 met at Cincinnati, with Blaine the favorite, and +Morton and Conkling dividing the Grant strength. The reform element, led +by George William Curtis, supported Benjamin F. Bristow, of Kentucky, +who had made an honorable record as Secretary of the Treasury, by +attacking powerful rings, which through their connection with the +President's friends succeeded in driving Bristow out of office. The +choice of the convention fell on Rutherford B. Hayes, Union general, +governor of Ohio, leader of a State campaign in 1875 which had been a +decisive victory for sound money, and a man highly acceptable to the +reformers. Against him the Democrats nominated Samuel J. Tilden, of New +York, a statesman in his aims and the craftiest of politicians in his +means; tolerant of Tammany Hall while it was a necessary factor +in the party, but leader in the fierce and skilful assault which +drove the Tweed ring from power. As Governor he had attacked +and routed a formidable gang of plunderers connected with the canal +management. On the issues which to thoughtful men were becoming +paramount,--administrative reform and sound finance,--he offered as good +promise as did Governor Hayes. + +The two men, and the elements supporting them, stood for the new +politics instead of the old,--the replacement of the war issues and +their sequels by the matters of clean administration, sound currency, +and interests common alike to the whole nation. But the Republican +leaders found their best campaign material in what the slang of the time +called "waving the bloody shirt,"--reviving the cry of abuse of the +freedmen, suppression of the negro vote, and the need of national +protection for the nation's wards. It was out of keeping with Hayes's +record, and with his later performances,--but he let the campaign take +its way, and the sectional temper that was roused provided the +atmosphere in which the next act of the drama was played. + +Election day came: the returns indicated the election of Tilden; +Democrats went to bed jubilant and Republicans regretful. Then, just +before the night-editor of the New York _Times_ put his paper to press +at 3 A.M., he noticed that the returns from South Carolina, Louisiana, +and Florida were hardly more than conjectural, and, on the chance of +making his tables more complete, he sent a neighborly inquiry to the +Republican headquarters as to whether they had definite returns from +those States. The inquiry came to the ears of a little knot of the party +managers, among them Zachariah Chandler, chairman of the national +committee. He caught at it,--"the Democrats are not sure of those +States,--we have a chance." Instantly--so the story goes--he sent +dispatches to the party managers in the three States, "Claim +everything." So they did--and so did he. Next morning, following the +first announcement of Tilden's election, came the assertion that the +Republicans had carried South Carolina, Louisiana and Florida--which +would give Hayes a majority of one vote in the electoral college. All +hung on the vote in those three States,--no, on the counting of the +votes! The returning-board of Louisiana, which had before been so +useful, was in full working order; Florida was similarly equiped; South +Carolina was in much the same case. The boards had authority to throw +out the entire vote of districts where there was proof that intimidation +had tainted the election. The business of merely counting the votes +might be supplemented by the operation of throwing out enough districts +to leave the prize with the party that did the counting. It soon +appeared that the returning boards could be trusted by their friends. +With all reasonable speed, they threw out enough votes to give all the +doubtful States to Hayes. In each of these States an indignant and +protesting opposition sent in a counter set of returns giving the +electoral vote to Tilden. And any one of the three States would be +enough to insure Tilden's election. + +The controversy extended to the state governments--in South Carolina, +both Wade Hampton and Chamberlain claimed the Governorship, and each +had a Legislature organized to support him. The case was the same in +Louisiana, with Nichols and Packard. President Grant refused recognition +or active support to either party; but United States troops kept the +peace, and their presence prevented the Democratic claimants from +summarily ousting their opponents. + +The whole country was in a storm of excitement. The returning-boards had +done their counting,--but who was to judge the judges? Who was to decide +which of the returns of Presidential electors were the valid ones? They +were to be passed on by the two Houses of Congress in joint session. But +the Senate was Republican, the Representatives were Democratic,--what if +they disagreed as to the returns? The President of the Senate is to +decide, claimed the Republicans,--on very slender grounds, it must be +said. The House of Representatives, said the Democrats,--with more +plausible yet doubtful argument. The deadlock was alarming. Then the +emergency was met with a self-control, a resourcefulness and efficiency, +worthy of the best that is claimed for the American character. By +general agreement of the moderate men of both parties, a special +tribunal was constituted for the occasion. It consisted of five +Senators, five Representatives, and five Justices of the Supreme Court. +The Congressmen were evenly divided between the two parties. The +justices were two and two, with the fifth place assigned to David Davis, +an independent. It was an ideal division. But at the critical moment, +Davis was chosen by the Illinois Legislature to the Senate, so that he +could not act. As a substitute, Justice Joseph Bradley, was put on the +commission. He was a Republican, but in the generous temper which had +risen to meet the emergency, there was a general feeling that party +lines would be forgotten by the tribunal. The commission consisted of +Justices Bradley, Miller, Strong, Field and Clifford; Senators Edmunds, +Morton, Frelinghuysen, Bayard and Sherman; Representatives G. F. Hoar, +Garfield, Payne, Hunton and Abbott. + +The two Houses proceeded to count the electoral votes in the usual form, +and whenever the return was contested the case was referred to the +commission and debated before it. Each side had its ablest lawyers to +plead; for the one party, Evarts, Kasson, McCrary, Stoughton and +Matthews; for the other, O'Conor, Black, Field and Tucker. The +commission then made its decision; and the result was reported to the +two Houses for their acceptance. In the pleading, the Republicans took +their stand on legality and the Democrats on equity. The Democrats +claimed as the question at issue, For whom did the majority of the +people of the State give their votes? The Republicans made it, Whom does +the official authority of the State certify as elected? When the +commission came to vote, on the preliminary questions, it was apparent +that the party line was just as rigid among its members as between the +advocates who pled. And it was clear that the Republicans stood upon the +narrowest possible construction of the case before them. For example, in +the case of Louisiana, it was moved, first, that evidence be admitted +that the returning body was an unconstitutional body and its acts void. +No, said the Republican eight. Moved, next, that evidence be admitted +that the board was illegal because its acting members were all of one +party,--No. Moved, that evidence be admitted that the board threw out +votes dishonestly and fraudulently,--No. In each case, the Republican +eight refused to look a hair's breadth beyond the governor's seal to the +returning board's certificate. In the same way they dealt with Florida +and South Carolina. + +Tilden's friends had contrived an ingenious scheme to put the commission +in a dilemma. They had managed that there should be two returns from +Oregon,--a Republican State where one of the three electors chosen was +claimed to be disqualified,--the return bearing the Governor's seal +naming one Democrat along with two Republican electors. They argued, +Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; if the Governor's seal is +taken as settling everything, we gain the one electoral vote we need; +if, confronted by the Oregon case, the commission decide that they may +go back of the governor's seal,--that opens the three Southern States to +our rightful challenge. But the commission, or its Republican members, +were not to be so easily posed; in the case of Oregon, they accepted the +seal of the Secretary of State, certifying the three Republicans. As the +Springfield _Republican_ bluntly put it, "The electoral commission +decided that there was no way of recovering the stolen goods in the +Louisiana case; it has found a way of restoring the Oregon vote to its +rightful owner." + +That the goods were stolen, at least in Louisiana, there can scarcely at +this day be any doubt. Whether the commission did its duty in declining +to investigate and right the wrong may be debated, but the judgment of +history will probably say that neither equity nor statesmanship, but +partisanship guided the decision. Undoubtedly in Louisiana, and probably +in Florida, the returning board deliberately threw out some thousands of +votes for no other reason than to change the State's vote, and the +Presidency. The commission refused to correct or even investigate the +wrong, on the plea of scrupulous respect for State rights. A great +victory for the principle of local rights, argues Senator Hoar in his +autobiography. Possibly. But it is also open to say, that the general +government having tolerated and supported an iniquitous local oligarchy, +a special and supreme tribunal of the nation allowed that oligarchy to +decide the Presidency by a fraud. + +The popular judgment of the matter at the North was largely affected by +the belief that the frauds of the Republicans were offset by +intimidation on the part of the Democrats. In various parts of the +South, notably in Mississippi and South Carolina, and probably in +Louisiana, there was a wide terrorizing of the negro Republicans. "One +side was about as bad as the other," was a common feeling. A year or two +later, the New York _Tribune_ unearthed and translated a number of +cipher telegrams, which disclosed that while the dispute over the result +was going on, agents high in the confidence of the Democratic leaders +made efforts to buy up a returning board or a presidential elector. So +both parties were badly smirched, and the election and its sequel +furnished one of the most desperate and disreputable passages in +American politics. + +Yet the better sentiment of the country, triumphant in the creation of +the commission, but baffled by its partisan action, shone clear again +when the decision was deliberately and calmly accepted by the beaten +party. Congress had reserved to itself the power to reverse by a +concurrent vote of both Houses the commission's decision upon any State. +But each decision was accepted by a party vote, except that in the case +of Louisiana two Massachusetts Republicans, Julius H. Seelye and Henry +L. Pierce, spoke and voted against their party. But when the final count +gave a majority to Hayes, the formal declaration of the result was +supported by all save about eighty irreconcilables, chiefly Northern +Democrats, who were overborne in a stormy night session. It had become +simply a question between order and anarchy, and the party of order, by +a strange chance, was led for the occasion by Fernando Wood, the +"copperhead" of earlier days. For the body of the Southern Democrats, +Henry Watterson spoke manly words, accepting the inevitable with +resolution and dignity. But among the influences that weighed with the +Southern Congressmen was the assurance from Hayes's friends that as +President he would make an end of military interference in the South. In +the giving of the assurance there was nothing unworthy, for the +withdrawal of the troops was dictated by the whole logic of recent +events, and was in keeping with Hayes's convictions. + +So, quickly following the inauguration of President Hayes came the +withdrawal of the blue-coats from South Carolina and Louisiana and the +Republican State governments tumbled like card houses. Nicholls took the +governorship in New Orleans and Hampton in Columbia. But it was not by +this act alone that the new President inaugurated a new regime. He +called to his Cabinet as postmaster-general, David M. Key, of Tennessee, +who had fought for the Confederacy. Schurz, liberal and reformer of the +first rank, was given the department of the interior. Evarts in the +State department; Devens, of Massachusetts, as attorney-general; Sherman +in the treasury, to complete the work of resumption; McCrary, of Iowa, +and Thompson, of Indiana, for the war and navy; and Blaine, Morton, +Conkling, Chandler,--nowhere. The administration went steadily on its +way, little loved by the old party chiefs; under some shadow from the +character of its title; but doing good work, achieving resumption of +specie payments; ending the administrative scandals which had grown +worse to the end of Grant's term; reforming the civil service. It was a +peaceful and beneficent revolution, and in its quiet years the Southern +turmoils subsided, and for better or for worse South Carolina and +Mississippi worked out their own way as New York and Ohio worked out +theirs. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +REGENERATION + + +"Evil is good in the making," says the optimist philosopher. Even the +more sober view of life reveals + + That men may rise on stepping-stones + Of their dead selves to higher things. + +Out of the calamities and horrors of war came to the nation a larger +life. Communities had been lifted out of pettiness, churches had half +forgotten their sectarianism, to millions of souls a sublimer meaning in +life had been disclosed. Lowell said it in two lines: + + Earth's biggest country's got her soul, + And risen up earth's greatest nation. + +The South had suffered far more than the North, and the South reaped the +larger profit. The fallacy of the old Southern civilization had been the +idea that labor is a curse and is to be shirked on to somebody else. +Overthrow and impoverishment brought labor as a necessity to every one, +and slowly it was revealed as a blessing. + +When General Lee, stately in figure and bearing and splendid in dress, +met in surrender the sturdy Grant, in worn and homely service uniform, +it was emblematic of the yielding of the aristocratic order to the +industrial democracy. There was significance in the victor's kindly +words,--"Let your soldiers keep their horses; they will need them when +they get home for the spring plowing." That was it,--they turned from +chargers to plow-horses, and much to their safety and gain. Their +masters, too, from fighters became toilers, and if it seemed a fall it +proved a rise. + +Before long on the street cars of Charleston and New Orleans were seen +young men of good family as drivers and conductors. Anything for an +honest living! Our fine old friend, Thomas Dabney, had been ruined along +with everybody else. He and his family undauntedly set themselves to do +their own household work. General Sherman was reported to have said, "It +would be a good thing if this sent every Southern woman to the +wash-tub." "Did Sherman say that?" said Dabney; "he shall not send my +daughters to the wash-tub!" and the old hero turned laundry-man for the +family as long as the need lasted. But the educated class soon found +fitter work than as laundry-men or car conductors. The more exacting +places called for occupants. There was a great enlistment in the ranks +of teachers. Lee took the presidency of Washington university and gave +to its duties the same whole-hearted service, the same punctilious care, +that he had given to the command of the army of Northern Virginia. In +peace as in war he was an exemplar to his countrymen,--and his +countrymen now were spread from Maine to California. + +But what was to be the fate of the emancipated negro? Jefferson had +believed that he must be sent back to Africa. "Colonization" had been +the watchword of Southern emancipators, so long as there were any. Even +Lincoln apparently looked to that. But wholesale colonization was +clearly impossible. The freedmen neither could nor would be transported +in a body to Africa. And had it been possible it would have stripped the +land of laborers and left it a waste. + +The South's assumption was that the negro was intrinsically an inferior +and must be kept subordinate to the white man. The North, in its +management of political reconstruction, had practically assumed that the +negro was the equal of the white man and was so to be treated. There was +a third view of the matter,--that the negro was at an inferior stage of +manhood, and the necessary task was to develop him. He is a man, but an +imperfect man,--make him a whole man. To that end some of the finest +forces of the nation were now directed. But the invigorating and +commanding spirit, who conceived the saving idea, put it into practice, +and gave guidance and inspiration to both races,--the man who found the +way out was Samuel Chapman Armstrong. + +He came of Scotch-Irish blood, and of sturdy farming stock, bred in the +fertile fields of Pennsylvania and in the best traditions of +Christianity. His father and mother gave themselves to the missionary +work, in that lofty enthusiasm whose wave swept through the country +early in the nineteenth century. The boy was born in 1839 in the +Hawaiian Islands, and grew up in the joy-giving climate, with a happy +boy-life, swimming the sea and climbing the mountains; trained firmly +and kindly in obedience and service; impressed by the constant presence +in the home of unselfish and consecrated lives. As he grew older, his +bright eyes studied the native character, emotional, genial, unstable; +he saw the wholesale conversions to Christianity, speedy, happy, and +well-nigh barren of fruit. Going to America for his education, he +completed it at Williams College under the presidency of Mark Hopkins. +Garfield said that his conception of a university was a pine bench with +Mark Hopkins at one end and a student at the other. He gave a stimulus +alike intellectual and moral; his special teaching was in philosophy, +broadly reasoned, nobly aimed, closely applied to the daily need. +Armstrong spoke of him in later years as his spiritual father. +Graduating in 1862, he enlisted in the Union army, took his share in +Gettysburg and other fights, became an officer of negro troops, and rose +to a brigadier-generalship. He said that to him, born abroad, the cause +of Union made no strong appeal,--what he was fighting for was the +freedom of the slaves. The war finished, he left the army, entered the +service of the Freedmen's Bureau under General Oliver O. Howard, and was +assigned to the Jamestown peninsula in Virginia. There were huddled +together thousands of the freedmen,--the unconscious cause of the war, +the problem of the future,--simple, half-dazed, a mixture of good and +bad, of physical strength, kindly temper, crude morals and childish +ignorance. For a time the officials of the Bureau, as best they could, +kept order, found work, settled quarrels, and promoted schools. But what +was to be the large outcome? + +Armstrong had been known to his associates as a man of splendid and +many-sided vitality. A college classmate, Dr. John Denison, graphically +describes him, "A sort of cataclysm of health, like other cyclones from +the South seas"; what the Tennessee mountaineers call "plumb +survigrous"; an islander, with the high courage and jollity of the tar; +"a kind of mental as well as physical amphibiousness." Extraordinary in +his training and versatility; able to "manage a boat in a storm, teach a +school, edit a newspaper, assist in carrying on a government, take up a +mechanical industry at will, understand the natives, sympathize with the +missionaries, talk with profound theorists, recite well in Greek or +mathematics, conduct an advanced class in geometry, and make no end of +fun for little children." He had had the training of a missionary +station in a Robinson Crusoe-like variety of functions. A knight-errant +to the core, the atmosphere of Williams under Hopkins gave him his +consecration. His comrades recognized him as an intellectual leader, +essentially religious but often startlingly unconventional, "under +great terrestrial headway," "the most strenuous man I ever saw." He said +of himself: "missionary or pirate." + +Now after the sobering of three years of campaigning his immediate +duties brought him face to face with the tremendous problem of the +negro, and the elements of the solution already lay in his own +character, experience, personality. + +What were the assets of the negro? He had, by inheritance and training, +the capacity and instinct of labor. What an advantage that is appears by +the contrast with the Indian, who is perishing for want of just that. +But the negro knew labor only as the hard necessity of his lot,--it had +to him no higher significance. "Education," was the watchword of the +generous spirits of another race who were coming to his help. They found +at first great promise in the freedman's eagerness to learn reading and +writing. But it soon appeared that this was an outreaching toward some +vague social advantage, and that the actual acquisition through speller +and copybook carried him and his children but a little way up. It was a +pressing necessity to provide teachers, and of his own race; so, rightly +and naturally, were founded the normal school and the college. He needed +his own educated preachers, physicians, lawyers; for these, too, there +must be training. So, rightly and naturally, were planted +universities,--Atlanta, Fisk, Howard. It was an unquestioned creed that +the white man's training as preacher, lawyer, physician, teacher, must +begin with years of Latin and Greek; so what other way for the negro? +So, as almost inevitable, the early education of the race began as a +copy of the white man's methods. But sadly inadequate, alas, as we begin +to see, is a classical education for the typical white man of our time; +and immense was the gap between the teaching of which that was the core +and crown, and the wants of the black field-hands and their children. + +Labor, education,--and what of religion? The slave had found in +Christianity, often in rude, half-barbaric forms, a consolation, a +refuge, a tenderness and hope, to which we can scarcely do justice. +Perhaps its most eloquent expression to our imagination is those +wonderful old-time melodies, the negro "spirituals," as they have been +made familiar by the singers of the negro colleges. Their words are +mystic, Scriptural, grotesque; the melodies have a pathos, a charm, a +moving power, born out of the heart's depths through centuries of sorrow +dimly lighted by glimmerings of a divine love and hope. The typical +African temperament, the tragedy of bondage, the tenderness and triumph +of religion, find voice in those psalms. + +Religion is not to be despised because it is not altogether or even +largely ethical. The heart depressed by drudgery, hardship, forlornness, +craves not merely moral guidance but exhilaration and ecstacy. Small +wonder if it seeks it in whisky; better surely if it finds it in hymns +and prayers and transports partly of the flesh yet touched by the +spirit. Further, by faithful masters and mistresses there was given to +the slave's religion, in many cases, a clear and strong sense of moral +obligation. Uncle Tom in his saintliness may be an idealization, but the +elements were drawn from life. + +Yet the slave's and so the freedman's religion was very one-sided and +out of all proportion emotional. Its habitual aim was occasional +transport on earth and rapture in heaven. Of the day's task, of homely +fidelities and services, of marriage and parenthood and neighborhood and +citizenship, it made almost no account. + +Face to face with these impoverished and groping souls, what had +Armstrong, in his experience, knowledge, personality, with which to +meet them? "He was filled through and through"--the quotation is from +the admirable biographical sketch by his daughter--"with a deep sense +that by hard work alone can any of us be saved--a sense based on many +obscure foundations of observation and deduction. Away back in the +corners of his mind were recollections of sundry wood-choppings and +milkings carried on under protest by himself and his companions; and +knowledge, too, of how his father and mother had spent their ambitious +youth in work, the mother spinning by the fireside, the father doing +chores at his home in Pennsylvania. It was the boys who faced and +conquered hard physical jobs that became the men of endurance later." He +had seen and shared the devotion of the missionary spirit, and had seen, +too, how largely it failed of fruit by being spent on supernatural +conversion and mystical emotion. He knew the tropical temperament, +common to Hawaiian and negro,--how accessible to transient fervor, how +deficient in persistence and continuity. He had watched his father's +operations, as minister of public instruction under the Hawaiian king; +his experiments in more practical and prosaic education and religion, +half frowned on by the ecclesiastics of America, but rich in suggestion. +He knew that the Hilo manual labor school, where the boys paid their +expenses by labor, slightly trained, was a marked success. His intensely +active nature had caught from Hopkins the philosophic outlook, and the +human materials were before him in rich abundance. Above all, while +unspeculative in religion, and content to employ its traditional +forms,--"they're imperfect enough," he said, "but they're the best we've +got"--the instincts of his great and disciplined nature sent him +straight to the central realities of character, which are the true +foundations of society. + +His ideal crystallized by that swift and sudden process in which the +long subconscious growth of the mind sometimes comes to fruitage. He +said in later years that before he entered the Bureau's service, while +sailing on a troop-ship to Texas, he saw as in a dream his school much +as it afterward became. Twice afterward the vision came to him. +Stationed at Hampton in 1866, while he was bringing order out of the +chaos around him, his mind was reaching forward surely and swiftly to +his larger project. + +This was the germ thought: Character is to get its direction and energy +in the day's work. Just as man's physical needs drive him to toil, his +spiritual necessities find their best field and cultivation in the same +toil. The freedmen's first need is to earn a living; then to acquire +such a margin as will allow some little ease and comfort and refinement; +and along with these goes the need of good habits, high aims, +disciplined character. Teach the industrial lesson and the moral lesson +together. Train them to work intelligently and cheerfully; teach them at +the same time whatever of book knowledge best fits their need; and +constantly inspire them with the spirit of service to their kind. +Provide in this way for some hundreds of young men and women, who shall +go out as teachers to educate and train their people along these lines. + +That was the ideal,--the germ of Hampton, of Tuskegee, of the new +education of the negro; the suggestion and stimulant of the new +education as it is coming to be for the white. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +ARMSTRONG + + +Armstrong was a man of action, and of words only as far as they helped +action. He reached the starting of his school in 1868, within two years +after he was assigned to duty at Hampton. For external help he had first +the countenance and support of the Freedmen's Bureau. He was in its +service and pay until 1872. He had the warm and practical friendship of +General Howard, who, after inviting him to take charge of the new +university in Washington bearing his own name, skilfully gained for his +Hampton enterprise a moderate appropriation from Congress. If the +Freedmen's Bureau had accomplished nothing else,--and it did accomplish +much, especially in education--it would have been justified merely by +giving Armstrong his opportunity. Next he turned to private benevolence. +Of the various organizations, church and secular, that were devising and +doing for the freedmen, perhaps the most efficient was the American +Missionary Association. From its officers Armstrong won response, +sympathy, contributions. He had to face the difficulties of a pioneer. +There were precedents against him. Experiments somewhat similar had been +tried and failed. At Mount Holyoke seminary for women, created by the +genius and devotion of Mary Lyon, and at Oberlin college, where the best +New England tradition had been transplanted--there had been long and +earnest trial of giving the students work by which to partially pay +their expenses. But it had been given up,--the women students were taxed +beyond their strength; the farmers complained that the boys were +thinking of their books, and the teachers said their pupils came with +half strength to their lessons. But Armstrong knew the material he was +dealing with, and how different from the nervous, high-strung pupils of +Oberlin and Mount Holyoke was the vigorous, sensuous material he was to +mold. + +He began in April, 1868, with small things,--a matron, a teacher, +fifteen pupils and buildings worth $15,000. In a month there were thirty +pupils. Things moved straight on,--they were moved by the assiduity, the +enthusiasm, the inspiration, of Armstrong, and the answering temper +which he woke in pupils, teachers, contributors, observers. Presently a +special effort, an appeal to friends, solicitude, students zealously +making bricks and laying them, help from General Howard--and so, in +1870, a noble building, Academic Hall, and presently again, Virginia +Hall,--and the school kept growing. + +Its moral success was promptly won. The subject answered to the +experiment,--those dark-skinned boys and girls came eager to learn. No +one had believed in them, and they had not believed in themselves, but +they speedily learned self-respect and gained the respect of others. +They did what was asked of them, earned most of their support, showed +good workmanship and scholarship, were blameless in morals, caught the +spirit of the place, and went out to carry light into the dark places. +No holiday task was set them. There was a working day of twelve hours, +between the class-room, the work-shop, the drill-ground and the field, +with rare and brief snatches of recreation. They met the demand with a +resource inherited from their ancestors' long years of patient labor. +The hard toil was a moral safeguard. The African race is sensuous, and +co-education might seem perilous. The danger was completely averted by +the influence of labor, strenuous and constant, but diversified and +interesting. The essentials of character,--industry, chastity, truth and +honesty, serviceable good-will,--were the aim and result of the Hampton +training; and all ran back to the homely root that man should be trained +to earn intelligently and faithfully his daily bread. + +The story of Hampton is a theme not for a chapter but for a volume. How +its founder won favor and friendship by his tact and large-mindedness; +how he established good relations with the Virginians; how the Institute +became the parent of other schools; how Booker Washington was there +fitted for the founding of Tuskegee and the leadership of his race; how +the work was extended to the Indians; how Armstrong's spirit and example +gathered and inspired a company of teachers perhaps unsurpassed,--mostly +women, whose refining influence on the pupils he specially valued; how +he dreamed of what he never reached, some day to give industrial +education at Hampton to the whites; how a worthy successor took his +place, efficient and self-effacing; how deeply the Hampton idea has +permeated the education of the Southern negro, and is coming to +influence white education North and South,--all this can here be +recalled but by a word. + +But on the personality of its leader we must for a moment linger, to +note one or two of its traits. His splendid vitality overflowed at times +in frolic and extravagance. He never lost the spirit of the boy. He +would come into a group of his serious-minded teachers and say, "Oh! +what's the good of saving souls if you can't have any fun?" and start a +frolic or organize an all-day picnic. In his home he introduced "puss in +the corner" and "the Presbyterian wardance" among the very elect. He +delighted his children with romances. "Like Dr. Hopkins, he believed +that the class-room should be a jolly place, and used to say that no +recitation was complete without at least one good laugh. 'Laughter +makes sport of work,' he said." His teaching sometimes came in a droll +story. "Once there was a woodchuck.... Now, woodchucks can't climb +trees. Well, this woodchuck was chased by a dog and came to a tree. He +knew that if he could get up this tree the dog could not catch him. Now, +woodchucks can't climb trees, but he had to, so he did." + +His devotion to his work was so whole-souled that it was joyous and +seemed unconscious of cost. In the touching pages he wrote when death +impended, he said, "I never gave up or sacrificed anything in my life." +Yet he constantly made what most men count heavy sacrifices. His work +involved frequent and laborious trips to the North to arouse interest +and raise money. He did it in as gallant a fashion as he had led a +charge, or as he made appeal to the students hanging reverently on his +words. A glimpse of him on one of these begging tours is given by +Professor Francis G. Peabody: + +"I suppose that every lover of General Armstrong recalls some special +incident which seems most entirely typical of the man's life and heart. +For my part, I think oftenest of one of those scenes in his many begging +journeys to the North. It was at a little suburban church far down a +side street on a winter night in the midst of a driving storm of sleet. +There was, as nearly as possible, no congregation present; a score or so +of humble people, showing no sign of any means to contribute, were +scattered through the empty spaces, and a dozen restless boys kicked +their heels in the front pew. Then in the midst of this emptiness and +hopelessness up rose the worn, gaunt soldier, as bravely and gladly as +if a multitude were hanging upon his words, and his deep-sunk eyes +looked out beyond the bleakness of the scene into the world of his +ideals, and the cold little place was aglow with the fire that was in +him, and it was like the scene on the Mount, that was not any less +wonderful and glistening because only three undiscerning followers were +permitted to see the glory." + +Those frequent and long journeys went far to break up the happy home +life in which he delighted, with the wife whose congenial and intimate +companionship was his for nine years and the little girls to whom he was +the most delightful of fathers. Then for twelve years, until his second +marriage, he was almost a homeless man. He wore out his wonderful +constitution; he suffered from dyspepsia and sleeplessness; a paralytic +stroke crippled him; but for a year and a half he struggled on, +cheerful, self-forgetful,--then the end. + +His countrymen scarcely yet realize all that he was. He was the +successful leader in that real emancipation of the American negro to +which the legal emancipation was but a prelude. Beyond that, it would +hardly be too much to say that he did more than any other man in either +hemisphere to rationalize and Christianize our still half-medieval +system of education. The working ideals of Hampton are to-day higher +than those of Yale and Harvard. It may be questioned whether any +professed preacher has done so much to develop the best modern type of +religion; centered in daily work, reaching out into all human service, +and consciously inspired by the divine life. It would not be extravagant +to say that in the little group--perhaps half a dozen in all--whom +America has contributed to the world's first rank of great men, not one +stands higher in heroic manhood and far-reaching service than Samuel +Armstrong. + +But any comparison seems almost unworthy of his lofty spirit. There is +no rivalry among the saints. Would that Armstrong could here be +portrayed as he appeared in life. The outer man spoke well the inner. To +look upon, he was a thoroughbred; of soldierly bearing, alert, vivid, +noble; with the twinkle of mirth, the flash of resistless purpose,--a +man to love, to revere, to follow. As a sort of mental portrait-sketch, +we may glean a few of his sayings. It was as true of him as of Luther +that his words were half-battles. They were flashed out like sparks +struck from action. As to his special work, these: + +"The North thinks that the great thing is to free the negro from his +former owner; the real thing is to save him from himself." + +On the dissolution of the American Anti-slavery Society, (because +nothing remained for it to do): "It failed to see that everything +remained. Their work was just beginning when slavery was abolished." + +"I cannot understand the prevailing views of the war among pious and +intelligent Americans. It is simply barbaric--to whip the South and go +home rejoicing, to build monuments of victory, leaving one-third of +their countrymen in the depths of distress." + +"The reconstruction measures were a bridge of wood over a river of +fire." + +(In 1878): "Hereafter it will be seen that negro suffrage was a boon to +the race, not so much for a defense, but as a tremendous fact that +compelled its education. There is nothing to do but attempt its +education in every possible way. In their pinching poverty the Southern +States have seized the question of negro education with a vigor that is +the outcome of danger." + +(In 1887): "The political experience of the negro has been a great +education to him. In spite of his many blunders and unintentional crimes +against civilization, he is to-day more of a man than he could have been +had he not been a voter." + +"The war was the saving of the South. Defeat and ruin brought more +material prosperity to the South than to the North, and the future has +untold advantages in store. Education is part of it, but capital and +enterprise, which make men work, are the greater part. The negro and +poor white, and, more than all, the old aristocrat, are being saved by +hard work, which, next to the grace of God, saves our souls." + +"We hew from the raw material, men who have come out of deep darkness +and wrong, without inheritance but of savage nature, the best product we +can, and care as much to infuse it with a spiritual life and divine +energy as with knowledge of the saw, plane, and hoe." + +And, of his broader outlook on life, these: "I am convinced of the +necessity of organizing pleasure as well as religion in order to sustain +Christian morality." + +"The chief comfort in life is babies." + +"Politics and philanthropy are a grind; only when one is at the post of +duty and knows it, there is a sensation of being lifted and lifting (_et +teneo et teneor_) which sometimes comes gradually over one. Detail is +grinding, the whole inspiring. God's kings and priests must drudge in +seedy clothes before they can wear the purple." + +"From the deep human heart to the infinite heart there is a line along +which will pass the real cry and the sympathetic answer--a double flash +from the moral magnetism that fills the universe. Its conditions are not +found in theological belief, but in the spirit of a little child. We can +no more understand our human brother than our Father in heaven without +bringing faith--the evidence of things unseen, the substance of things +hoped for--to our aid." + +"All progress of strong hearts is by action and reaction. Human life is +too weak to be an incessant eagle flight toward the Sun of +Righteousness. Wings will be sometimes folded because they are wings.... +The earthly struggle must be enduring--that is all. There must be no +surrenders; we can't expect much of victory here." + +"The longer I live, the less I think and fear about what the world calls +success; the more I tremble for true success, for the purity and +sanctity of the soul, which is as a temple." + +"Doing what can't be done is the glory of living." + +"What are Christians put into the world for but to do the impossible in +the strength of God?" + +In the contemplation of such a spirit we rest for a little from the +turmoils of politics, the mixture of motives, the half-successes. Here +is what glorified the whole business,--the development of souls like +this; and in such is the promise of the future. Fitly to Armstrong +belongs what Matthew Arnold has written of his father, a kindred soul:-- + + Servants of God!--or sons + Shall I not call you? because + Not as servants ye knew + Your Father's innermost mind, + His, who unwillingly sees + One of his little ones lost-- + Yours is the praise, if mankind + Hath not as yet in its march + Fainted, and fallen, and died! + + See! In the rocks of the world + Marches the host of mankind + A feeble, wavering line. + Where are they tending?--A God + Marshal'd them, gave them their goal-- + Ah, but the way is so long! + + Years they have been in the wild! + Sore thirst plagues them, the rocks, + Rising all round, overawe; + Factions divide them, their host + Threatens to break, to dissolve-- + Ah, keep, keep them combined! + Else, of the myriads who fill + That army, not one shall arrive; + Sole they shall stray; on the rocks + Batter forever in vain, + Die one by one in the waste. + + Then, in such hour of need + Of your fainting, dispirited race, + Ye, like angels, appear, + Radiant with ardor divine. + Beacons of hope, ye appear! + Languor is not in your heart, + Weakness is not in your word, + Weariness not on your brow. + Ye alight in our van! at your voice, + Panic, despair, flee away. + Ye move through the ranks, recall + The stragglers, refresh the outworn, + Praise, re-inspire the brave. + Order, courage, return; + Eyes rekindling, and prayers, + Follow your steps as ye go. + Ye fill up the gaps in our files, + Strengthen the wavering line, + Stablish, continue our march, + On, to the bound of the waste, + On, to the City of God! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +EVOLUTION + + +The story of slavery merges in the stories of the white man and the +black man, to which there is no end. As the main period to the present +study we have taken the beginning of President Hayes's administration in +1877, when the withdrawal of Federal troops from the South marked the +return of the States of the Union to their normal relations, and also +marked the disappearance of the negro problem as the central feature in +national politics. From that time to the present we shall take but a +bird's-eye view of the fortunes and the mutual relation of the two +races. + +The people of the Southern States realized gradually but at last fully +that the conduct of their affairs was left in their own hands. From this +time there was no important Federal legislation directed specially at +the South. The restrictive laws left over from the reconstruction period +were in some cases set aside by the Supreme Court and in general passed +into abeyance. There was rare and brief discussion of a renewal of +Federal supervision of elections. But the Northern people, partly from +rational conviction and partly from absorption in new issues, were +wholly indisposed to any further interference. Without such interference +there was no slightest chance of any restoration of political +preponderance of the negroes over the whites. The specter of "negro +domination" haunted the Southern imagination long after it had become an +impossibility. Then it was used as a bogy by small politicians. But the +only serious attempt at national legislation for the South has been of a +wholly different character. It was the plan of Senator Blair of New +Hampshire, long urged upon Congress, and sometimes with good hope of +success, for national assistance to local education, on the basis of +existing illiteracy, for a term of ten years, to a total amount of +$100,000,000. That is the only kind of special legislation for the South +that has had any chance of enactment for almost thirty years. + +Through the twelve years of political reconstruction, 1865-77, the +Southern people were gradually adapting themselves to the new industrial +and social conditions. Then the body of the whites, finding themselves +fully restored to political mastery, grasped the entire situation with +new clearness and vigor. They thrust the freedmen not only out of +legislative majorities and the State offices, but out of all and any +effective exercise of the suffrage. The means were various, consisting +largely of indirect and technical hindrances, "tissue-paper ballots" and +the like. The intelligent class massed against the ignorant found no +serious difficulty in having their own way at all points. A considerable +number of negroes still voted, and had their votes counted, but their +party was always somehow put in the minority; almost all offices passed +out of their hands; their representatives speedily disappeared from +Congress, and before long from the Legislatures. Negro suffrage was +almost nullified, and that, too, before the legislation of the last +decade. + +But, in asserting their complete political superiority, the whites also +recognized a large responsibility for the race they controlled. A degree +of civil rights was secured to them, short of a perfect equality with +the whites, but far beyond the status intended by the "black codes" of +1865-6. The fundamental rights, of liberty to dispose of their labor and +earnings in their own way, and protection of person and property by the +law and the courts, were substantially secured. And, very notably, the +common school education of blacks as well as whites was undertaken with +fidelity, energy and new success. This great and vital advance, +inaugurated by the Southern Republican governments, was accepted and +carried on, loyally and at heavy cost, by the succeeding Democratic +governments. The figures show a great advance from 1875 to 1880 in the +number of schools and scholars of both races throughout the South. +Political inferiority for the negroes, but civil rights, industrial +freedom, and rudimentary education,--that was the theory and largely the +practice of their white neighbors. + +One clause they added with emphatic affirmation: "I will buy with you, +sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I +will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you." Social +superiority, indicated by separation in all the familiar and courteous +intercourse of daily life, was asserted by the whites with a rigor +beyond that of the days of slavery. When humiliated and stung by the +political ascendency of their former bondmen, they wrapped themselves in +their social superiority with a new haughtiness. The pride of race, of +color, of the owner above the serf, stripped of its old power and +insignia, but no whit weakened in root and core, set an adamantine wall +along the line of social familiarity. Let the black man have his own +place--in school and church, in street and market and hotel; but the +same place, never! Separate schools, churches, cars. And as in a +hospitable country the social meal is the special occasion and symbol of +good fellowship and equal comradeship, right there let the line be +fixed,--no black man or woman shall sit at table with whites. + +The usage came down by tradition, and became only a little more rigid +under the new conditions. At the North the general practice had always +been much the same; but there it was occasionally and growingly +superseded, when people of the two races found a common level of +education and manners. The Southern whites for a while took their own +practice as a matter of course. But then, especially as by degrees some +black men and women acquired mental cultivation and social polish,--then +came question and challenge from the world without and from conscience +within; why this rigid separation? An answer must be found or made,--and +presently the answer appeared: If white and black men and women eat and +drink together, play and work together,--then they will intermarry, and +the white race will become mixed and degenerate. So that became the +conviction, the creed, the shibboleth, of the Southern whites,--race +purity, to be safeguarded by complete prohibition of all social +intimacy, especially as symbolized by the common meal. And the +prohibition was enforced among the whites by the penalty of sure and +stern ostracism. + +Under these conditions, then, the two sections of the Southern people +have been working their way, for almost thirty years. How first have the +negroes fared? Of the prophecies for their future, made when they were +in bondage and in view of possible emancipation, one was that they would +die out,--but in less than half a century they have doubled. Another was +that if freed they would refuse to work,--but the industrial product of +the South has never fallen off, but has steadily and vastly increased, +with the negro still as the chief laborer. Another prediction was that +they would lapse into barbarism. The Southern negroes as a mass have a +fringe of barbarism--a heavy fringe. So has every community, white, +black or yellow, the world over. Have the Southern blacks, as a body, +moved toward barbarism or toward civilization since they were set free? + +The comparative tests between civilization and barbarism are, broadly +speaking, productive industry, intelligence and morality. If we gauge +industry by results, we find that the class which forty years ago +entered into freedom with empty hands now owns more than $300,000,000 of +property by the tax-gatherers' lists. Another estimate--cited by Prof. +Albert Bushnell Hart--puts their entire property holdings at +$500,000,000. Though most of them are tenants or hired laborers, yet +there are more than 173,000 who own their farms. The total number of +farms worked by them in the South--owned, leased, or rented on +shares--is figured at 700,000. The census of 1900 shows that in almost +every profession, trade and handicraft the black race has numerous +representatives--their range of occupation and industrial opportunity +being far wider in the South than in the North. Taking the whole +country, the percentage of adults in gainful pursuits is a trifle higher +among blacks than among whites. Allow for the more frequent employment +in toil of the black woman; allow, too, for the more intermittent +character of black labor,--yet the relative showing is not unfavorable +to the enfranchised race. And this comparison touches, too, the more +difficult problem of morality,--for industry is itself a chief safeguard +of morality. + +As to intelligence, the statistics show that, roughly speaking, about +half the blacks over ten years old can read and write. That is not much +below the status of the people of England half a century ago. In the +higher fields of intelligence, the American negroes,--there are +9,000,000 of them,--supply to-day a large part of their own teachers, +ministers, lawyers and doctors, and in all these professions the +standard is steadily rising. + +In regard to morality, generalization is difficult. There is undoubtedly +a much larger criminal element among the blacks than among the whites. +There are proportionately more crimes against property, crimes of +sensuality, crimes of violence. Materials are wanting for exact +comparison, either with the whites, or among the blacks at different +periods. Yet there are few or no sections at the South, even in the +worst parts of the Black Belt, as to which the public gets the +impression of any general lawlessness. And in any comparison of the +present with the time of slavery, we must remember what Carlyle says in +speaking of the cruelties of the French Revolution as compared with +those of the tyranny which preceded it,--when the high-born suffer the +world hears of it, but the woes of the inarticulate are unheard. Wrongs +at the South which shock us to-day,--or wrongs as great--were +commonplace, were unnoted and unchronicled, under slavery. It is +offenses against women that rouse the hottest resentment. But for +centuries the black woman's chastity had absolutely no protection under +the law, and her woes were pitiful beyond telling. For the Southern +negro, true family life was impossible until within fifty years. With so +brief experience in the best school of character, there is no ground for +doubting that he has won a vast moral advance, and the promise of +greater. + +Of the negroes, as of every race or community, we may consider the +lowest stratum, the great mass, and the leaders. Regarding not morality +only, but general conditions, there is a considerable element of the +Southern blacks whose condition is most pitiable. Such especially are +many of the peasants of the Black Belt; barely able to support +themselves, often plundered with more or less of legality by landlord +and storekeeper, shut up to heavy, dull, almost hopeless lives. +Inheritance weighs on them as well as environment; when these +plantations were recruited from Virginia, it was only the worst of the +slaves whom their masters would sell, and the bad elements propagated +their like. The case of these people to-day presents one of the open +sores, the unanswered questions,--we might say the impossible tasks, +did we not remember Armstrong's attitude toward things "impossible." +Yet, even as to these,--are they not better off than when enslaved? A +part of their trouble is the burden of responsibility--for themselves, +their wives and children. In slavery they had no responsibility beyond +the day's task; the whip and the full stomach were the two extremes of +their possibilities. Now at least they are men--with manhood's burdens, +but with its possibilities, too. + +Of the great middle class, something has already been said, as to +industry, property and education. But statistics are cold and dead, +could we but see the living human realities which they vainly try to +express. The growth of a slave, or a slave's child, into a free man or +woman,--the birth and development of true family life,--could we see +this in its millions of instances, or even distinctly in one typical +instance, with all its phases of struggle, mistake, disappointment, +success, the growth of character, the blossoming of manhood and +womanhood,--it would be a more moving spectacle than any that +Shakespeare has given. Here, again, it is mostly the inarticulate class, +and their story is not told to the world. We especially fail to learn +it, because of the wall of caste by which the white man shuts himself +out from the finest sights and the most brotherly opportunities. More +than farming or carpentry, more than school or church, and taking in the +best fruits of all these, is family life, in its fullest and best. That +is where the negro is coming to highest manhood. + +A necessary test of a race is its power to furnish its own leaders. The +negro race in America is developing a leadership of its own,--small as +yet, but choice and growing. It was part of Armstrong's central idea to +create and supply such a leadership. Hampton has gone steadily on in the +work, and the sisters and the children of Hampton are multiplying their +fruits. It was by an ideal fitness of things that Armstrong attracted, +inspired and started as his worthy successor one of the negro race. At +Tuskegee the black man is doing for himself what at Hampton the white +man is doing for him. Booker Washington is the pupil and successor of +Armstrong, but he has his own distinct individuality, his own word and +work. His constant precept and practice has been that the black man +should make himself so serviceable and valuable to the community that +every door will open as fast as he is fit to enter it. It is the gospel +of wisdom and of peace. Toward all the opportunities denied to the race, +its attitude is one of patience but of untiring persistence. Its +constant word is, Make yourself fit for any function, any place, and +sooner or later it will be yours. Against political exclusion Mr. +Washington on due occasion speaks his calm word, but he does not beat +against the closed gate; he knows that when the black man shows his full +capacity for citizenship it cannot long be denied him. The social +exclusion he accepts with quiet self-respect; let time see to that, let +us only do our full work, learn our full lesson. His teaching goes far +beyond the schoolroom; he gathers in conference the heads of families, +the fathers and mothers; he sets them to study and practice the +curriculum of the family and the neighborhood. In his intense +practicality he lacks something of the spiritual inspiration which +Armstrong had and gave. But his teaching is in no wise narrow or +selfish, for always it is animated by the spirit of brotherhood and +service. His personal story, _Up from Slavery_, is one of the most +moving of human documents; in itself it is an answer to all pessimism. +It is a typical story; even as these sheets are written there comes to +hand another like unto it, the story of another boy, William Holtzclaw, +who groped his way up from a negro cabin, caught the sacred fire at +Tuskegee, did battle with misfortune and adversity, and now in his turn +is carrying on the good work. And for every such story that gets told +there are a hundred that are acted. + +The wider leadership of the negroes by their own men is exemplified,--it +is not measured or exhausted,--by a pregnant little volume of essays +entitled _The Negro Problem_. Seven of its phases are discussed by +Booker Washington, Professor DuBois, Charles W. Chestnutt, Wilfred H. +Smith, H. T. Kealing, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and T. Thomas Fortune. As a +collection, these essays are noteworthy for their cogency and clearness, +for their earnest and self-respectful plea for full justice and +opportunity, and their calmness and candor. The race that can speak for +itself in such tones has an assured future,--if democracy, evolution, +Christianity, are the ruling powers. + +This story is concerned mainly with the slave and the freedman, but it +must also touch on his former master, now his neighbor and +fellow-citizen. The new South is far too ample a theme for a paragraph +or a chapter. But it must be said in a word that its main trait is the +substitution, for a territorial and slave-owning aristocracy, of an +industrial democracy. It is the coming of the new man,--laborious, +enterprising, pushing his way. His development began when the whole +community was set to work its way up from the impoverishment left by the +war. It was accelerated when new resources were found, when coal and +iron mines were started, when cotton manufacturing began where the +cotton is grown. New types of character and society are developing, yet +blending with the remnant of the old. + +Politics, in all its forms, plays a smaller part in to-day's society +than in that of fifty years ago. Not only has the South never regained +its old ascendency at Washington, but it has not stood, and does not +stand, for any distinct set of ideas or principles in the national life. +It has clung closely together, under the influence of old sentiments +and lingering apprehensions. In its fear of a recurrence of "negro +domination," it has lost touch with the living questions of to-day and +to-morrow. "The Solid South" has meant a secure contingent of electoral +votes for the Democratic Presidential candidate,--whether he stood for a +gold or a silver currency, for revenue reform or its opposite, for +radicalism or conservatism,--and a solid array of members in Senate and +House equally without pilotage on living issues. Until the South breaks +away from its fetish of past fears and prejudices, it cannot rise to its +proper opportunities of statesmanship. + +Yet better than the old-time absorption in Federal politics and the +prizes of the Capitol is the more diversified life of the South to-day. +It is being swept into the current of industrialism--with its energies, +its prizes, its perils. In other directions, too, the new life of the +South flows free and strong. It is creating a literature,--a branch of +American literature,--incomparably beyond any product of its earlier +days. After what may be called a literature of statesmanship,--the work +of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall,--the old South was almost +wholly barren of original scholarship and creative genius. Now it bears +a harvest so rich that one cannot here begin to classify or to name. The +war-time is bearing an aftermath, of less importance in its romances, +but admirable and delightful in its biographies and reminiscences. Of +these the most notable feature, full as they are of vivid human interest +and striking personal characteristics,--is the freedom from rancor, the +generosity toward old foes which seems even unconscious of any necessity +to forgive. And in these personal sketches there are disclosed certain +broad yet distinct types of manhood and womanhood, the special Southern +contributions to the composite American. In general literature, too, +the South is doing its full share. In its histories, the note of +provincialism still lingers,--inevitably, and not blamably. The Southern +essayist or historian naturally gravitates to the past of his own +section,--and naturally he seeks to vindicate his comrades or his +ancestors, and to interpret the past from their standpoint. But, +compared with the provincialism of the South of 1860, he is a +cosmopolitan. + +The new South is doing perhaps its best work in education. Its leaders +are both raising and widening their standards,--they are reaching out +toward modern and progressive ways, while they are trying to amplify +their systems so as to include the whole youthful population. Their +intelligence and enthusiasm are seen alike in the ancient universities +like that of Virginia, in the younger colleges such as Roanoke and +Berea, and in the leaders of the public schools. Intelligence, +enthusiasm, devotion,--all are needed, and all will be tasked to the +utmost. For the education of the people's children, everywhere the most +pressing of common concerns, and the most perplexing in the transition +from old to new ideas and methods--bears with especial weight and +importunity upon the South. Its thinly-spread population, its still +limited resources of finance, the presence of the two races with their +separate and common needs,--all set a gigantic task to the South, and +one that calls for sympathy and aid from the nation at large. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +EBB AND FLOW + + +Thus, in broadest outline, have the two races at the South been faring +on their way. And now in recent years, under their separate development +and with their close intermingling, have come new complications and +difficulties. The tendency has been in some ways to a wider separation. +The old relations between the household servants and their employers, +often most kindly, and long continuing to link the two races at +numberless points, have passed away with the old generation. Once the +inmates of mansion and cabin knew well each other's ways. Now they are +almost unacquainted. The aristocracy and its dependents had their mutual +relations of protection and loyalty, and gracious and helpful they often +were. Now comes democracy,--vigorous, jostling, self-assertive,--its +true social ideal of brotherly comradeship being yet far from +realization. The negro is in a doubly hard position; under democratic +competition the weaker is thrust to the wall, yet he has not even the +equality which democracy asserts, but is held in the lower place by +caste. And so there is a new or a newly apparent aggression upon the +weaker race. + +Its most obvious form is the legal limitation of suffrage. The irregular +and indirect suppression of the negro vote which had prevailed since the +close of the Reconstruction period, was not thorough and sure enough to +satisfy the white politicians. And the lawless habit which it fostered, +and whose effects could by no means be confined to one race, alarmed the +better classes. So from two directions there was a pressure toward some +restriction of the negro vote which should be both legal and effective. +The movement became active about the year 1895, and accomplished its end +in the States of Virginia, the Carolinas, Alabama, Mississippi, and +Louisiana, by constitutional amendments. The qualifications thus +prescribed are so various and so variously combined that a full +statement here is forbidden by limits of space, but their general +characteristics are these: The requirement (in Virginia, South Carolina, +Alabama, Louisiana) of $300 worth of property; the payment of a poll tax +(in Virginia, North and South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana); the +ability to read and write (in North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana); the +ability, if not to read, to understand and explain any section of the +Constitution (in Virginia, Mississippi); regular employment in some +lawful occupation, good character, and an understanding of the citizen's +duties and obligations (Alabama).[2] + +These restrictions apply in theory alike to both races. But exemption +from them is allowed, and the suffrage is given, to certain classes: To +all who served in the Civil War (Virginia, Alabama); to all who were +entitled to vote on January 1, 1867, also to the sons (or descendants) +of these two classes (Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana). + +In these States, if these requirements are impartially enforced, the +effect is to impose on the negroes a moderate property or intelligence +qualification, or the two combined; and to give practically universal +suffrage to the whites. This last feature, while essentially unfair, is +a practical grievance to the negroes so long and only so long as the two +races stand as directly opposed forces in politics. Otherwise it is +questionable whether the class who are called on to earn the suffrage by +intelligence or productive industry are not really as well off as the +class to whom it is given regardless of merit. + +But in its practical operation the system is so elastic--and +unquestionably was so designed--that it can be easily applied for the +exclusion of a great part of those who nominally are admitted to the +suffrage. The "character" and "understanding" tests leave virtually full +power with the registration officers. There can be no reasonable doubt +that in these six States the suffrage is virtually denied to negroes to +an extent utterly beyond any fair construction of the law. Mr. Charles +W. Chestnutt, in his paper on _Disfranchisement_, cites the case of +Alabama, where the census of 1900 gave the negro males of voting age as +181,471, while in 1903 less than 3000 were registered as voters. And +even in States like Georgia, where suffrage is by law universal, ways of +practical nullification are often applied,--as for example by exclusion +from the nominating primaries, in which the results are principally +determined. + +Without the need of legal forms, there is a practically universal +exclusion of all negroes from public offices, filled by local election +or appointment, throughout most of the South. Their appointment to +Federal offices in that region, though very rare, is always made the +occasion of vehement protest. + +The theory generally avowed among Southern whites, that the two races +must be carefully kept separate, is apt to mean in practice that the +black man must everywhere take the lower place. At various points that +disposition encounters the natural and cultivated sentiments of +justice, benevolence, and the common good, and now one and now the +other prevails. Thus, there have been efforts to restrict the common +school education of the blacks. It has been proposed, and by prominent +politicians, to spend for this purpose only the amount raised by +taxation of the blacks themselves. There has appeared a disposition to +confine their education to the rudimentary branches and to a narrow type +of industrialism. Strong opposition has developed to the opening either +by public or private aid of what is known as "liberal education" in the +college or university sense. A flagrant instance of injustice is the +enactment in Kentucky of a law prohibiting all co-education of the +races--a law especially designed to cripple the admirable work of Berea +College. + +But the most serious obstacle to the black man, the country over, is the +threatened narrowing of his industrial opportunities. Here has been his +vantage-ground at the South, because his productive power was so +great--by numbers and by his inherited and traditional skill,--that +there was no choice but to employ him. At the North, where he is in so +small a minority as to be unimportant, he has been crowded into an ever +narrowing circle of employments. Precisely the same sentiment, though +not so ingeniously formulated, which makes the white gentleman refuse to +receive the black gentleman in his drawing-room, inclines the white +carpenter or mason to refuse to work alongside of his negro +fellow-laborer. Yet against this we have the accomplished fact, in the +South, of black and white laborers actually working together, +harmoniously and successfully, in most industries. We see the divided +and wavering attitude of the trade-unions; some branches taking whites +and blacks into the same society; others allying white societies and +black societies on an equal footing; others refusing all affiliation; +the earlier declarations of the national leaders for the broadest human +fellowship challenged and often giving way before the imperious +assertions of the caste spirit. + +A race closely intermixed with another superior to it in numbers, +wealth, and intelligence,--a self-conscious and self-assertive +race,--suffers at many points. There are abuses tolerated by law; +infractions and evasions of law; semi-slavery under the name of peonage; +impositions by the landlord and the creditor. There are unpunished +outrages,--let one typical case suffice: a negro farmer and produce +dealer, respected and esteemed by all, in place of a rude shanty puts up +a good building for his wares; the word goes round among the roughs, +"that nigger is getting too biggity," and his store is burned,--nobody +surprised and nobody punished. Then there is the chapter of lynchings: +First, the gross crime of some human brute, then a sudden passionate +vengeance by the community; the custom spreads; it runs into hideous +torture and public exultation in it; it extends to other crimes; it +knows no geographical boundaries but spreads like an evil infection over +the country--but most of its victims are of the despised race. + +Against the worst outrages the best men of all sections are arrayed in +condemnation and resistance. But of its own essential and final social +superiority the white South brooks no question. It expects its social +code to be observed by the nation's representatives. It forgets that the +nation's representatives are cognizant of the general code of the +civilized world,--that breeding, manners, and intelligence, constitute +the gentleman. So when President Roosevelt entertains as his guest the +foremost man of the negro race,--easily one of the foremost half-dozen +men in the country,--the white South indulges in a mood which to the +rest of the world can only appear as prolonged hysteria. + +Before this whole wide range of the unjust treatment of the black race +in America, the observer is sometimes moved to profound discouragement. +"Was it all for nothing?" he asks, "have all the struggle and sacrifice, +the army of heroes and martyrs, brought us to nothing better than this?" +But such discouragement overlooks the background of history, and the +vital undergrowth of to-day. We see the present evils, but we forget the +worse evils that preceded. Turn back sixty years,--read, not _Uncle +Tom's Cabin_ if you distrust fiction, but Fanny Kemble's _Life on a +Georgia Plantation_, or Frederick Law Olmsted's volumes of travels. +Glean from the shelves of history a few such grim facts, and let +imagination reconstruct the nether world of the cotton and sugar +plantations, the slave market, and the calaboose; the degradation of +women; the hopeless lot to which "'peared like there warn't no +to-morrow",--and see how far our world has moved into the light since +those days. A race is not developed in an hour or a decade or a +generation. + +In the present are facts of solid reassurance, in that the best spirit +of the South is facing the besetting ills, is combating them, and being +thus aroused must eventually master and expel the evil spirit. The South +has a burden to carry which the North does not easily realize. There the +negro is not a remote problem of philanthropy; he is not represented by +a few stray individuals; it is a great mass, everywhere present, in its +surface manifestations often futile, childish, exasperating; shading off +into sodden degradation; as a whole, a century or several centuries +behind its white neighbors. To get on with it peaceably, to rightly +apportion with it the opportunities and the burdens of the community, to +keep the common movement directed upward,--this demands measureless +patience, forbearance, wisdom, and persistence. Against the more +flagrant abuses, the leaders of Southern society are making strong +head. Governor Vardaman of Mississippi, though a reactionary as to negro +education, has struck terror to the hearts of the lynchers. The attitude +of the official class in certain peonage cases is thus described by Carl +Schurz: "These crimes were disclosed by Southern officers of the law, +the indictments were found by Southern grand juries, verdicts of guilty +were pronounced by Southern petty juries, and sentence was passed by a +Southern judge in language the dignity and moral feeling of which could +hardly have been more elevated." As to disfranchisement on grounds of +race, representative Southerners are anxious to demonstrate that the +only real disqualification is for ignorance and unfitness; and we must +look to them to give practical effect to their professions, which can be +done if the existing statutes are applied in a spirit of justice. It is +especially as to education that the better sentiment and purpose of the +South is apparent. The heavy cost of maintaining public schools for the +blacks has been steadily met. It is estimated by the United States +Commission of Education that for this purpose since the beginning +$132,000,000 has been spent. The reactionaries in education, like +Governor Vardaman, seem to be overborne by the progressives like +Governor Aycock of North Carolina. There is a notable growth of the +higher order of industrial schools, mainly as yet by private support, +but with a general outreaching of educational leaders toward more +practical and efficient training for the common body at the common +expense. In the general discussion of race matters, in periodicals and +books, the old passionate advocacy is in a degree giving place to +broader and saner views. Such writers are coming to the front as John S. +Wise, with his frank criticism of the political Bourbons and his forward +look; and Edgar Gardner Murphy, whose book _The Present South_ is full +of the modern spirit. There are others, especially among educators, not +less pronounced and serviceable in the forward movement. It is in these +quarters, and not among politicians or party newspapers, that we must +look for the brightening day. + +But it is to be recognized that a right solution of the South's +difficulties will not be reached without a sharp and prolonged +antagonism between the good and the evil tendencies. Mr. Schurz states +the case none too strongly: "Here is the crucial point: There will be a +movement either in the direction of reducing the negroes to a permanent +condition of serfdom--the condition of the mere plantation hand, +'alongside of the mule,' practically without any rights of +citizenship--or a movement in the direction of recognizing him as a +citizen in the true sense of the term. One or the other will prevail." +And he adds, "No doubt the most essential work will have to be done in +and by the South itself. And it can be." + +When President Hayes withdrew the Federal troops from the South, it +marked the formal restoration of that local self-government which is a +vital principle of the American Union. Of slower, deeper growth, has +been the spirit of mutual good-will and confidence, with the free +concession to each member of its individual life. Numberless delicate +cords have been reuniting the severed sections. Railways, commerce, +literature, the tides of business and pleasure travel, the pressure of +common problems, the glory of common achievements, the comradeship of +the blue and the gray on Cuban battlefields, the expositions of +industry, the throb of human feeling as the telegraph tells its daily +story of heroism or tragedy--all have done their part. It is by their +nobler interests that the sections are most closely united. Beyond the +squabbles of politicians is the power of such conferences as those of +the Southern Education Commission where meet the best brains and +consciences, the gifts of the liberal, the plans of the wise, and the +energy of the stout-hearted. + +The education of a slave into a man, the harmonizing of two races, the +common achievement of a great national life,--it is a long work, but it +moves on. + + "Say not, The struggle naught availeth, + The labor and the wounds are vain, + The enemy faints not nor faileth, + And as things have been they remain. + + "For while the tired waves vainly breaking, + Seem here no painful inch to gain, + Far back, through creeks and inlets making, + Comes silent, flooding in, the main. + + "And not through eastern windows only, + When daylight comes, comes in the light, + In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, + But westward, look, the land is bright!" + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 2: In Maryland, an amendment prescribing a series of elaborate +and vexing inquiries, investing the registration officers with judicial +powers, and avowedly aiming at the elimination of the negro vote, was +passed by the Legislature, at the instigation of Senator Gorman and +against the opposition of a Democratic governor, and decisively rejected +by the popular vote in November, 1905.] + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +LOOKING FORWARD + + +It is difficult to write history, but it is impossible to write +prophecy. We can no more tell what lies before us than the Fathers of +the Republic could foresee the future a century ago. They little guessed +that slavery, which seemed hastening to its end, would take new vigor +from an increase of its profits,--that, stimulated by the material gain, +a propaganda of religious and political defense would spring up,--that a +passionate denunciation and a passionate defense would gradually inflame +the whole country,--that meanwhile the absorption of the mass of +citizens in private pursuits would blind them to the evil and peril, and +prevent that disinterested, comprehensive statesmanship which ought to +have assumed as a common burden the emancipation of the slaves,--that +the situation would be exasperated by hostility of the sections and +complicated by clashing theories of the national Union,--that only by +the bitter and costly way of war would a settlement be reached,--and +that emancipation, being wrought by force and not by persuasion, would +leave the master class "convinced against its will," and a deep gulf +between the races, whose spanning is still an uncertain matter,--all +this was hidden from the eyes of the wisest, a century ago. So is hidden +from our eyes the outworking of the century to come. + +But the essential principles of the situation, the true ideals, the +perils,--these were seen of old. Jefferson wrote, "I tremble for my +country when I reflect that God is a God of justice." And Washington +said, "I can already foresee that nothing but the rooting out of +slavery can perpetuate the existence of our Union, by consolidating it +in a common bond of principle." Just so clearly can we read the basal +principles on which depends our national safety. We look forward to-day, +not to predict what will be, but to see what ought to be, and what we +purpose shall be. + +We, the people of the United States, are to face and deal with this +matter. We are all in it together. Secession has failed, colonization is +impossible. Southerner and Northerner, white man and black man, we must +work out our common salvation. It is up to us,--it is up to us all! + +The saving principle is as simple as the multiplication table or the +Golden Rule. Each man must do his best, each must be allowed to do his +best, and each must be helped to do his best. Opportunity for every one, +according to his capacity and his merit,--that is democracy. Help for +the weaker, as the strong is able to give it,--that is Christianity. +Start from this center, and the way opens out through each special +difficulty. The situation is less a puzzle for the intellect than a +challenge to the will and heart. + +First of all, it is up to the black man himself. His freedom, won at +such cost, means only opportunity, and it is for him to improve the +opportunity. As he shows himself laborious, honest, chaste, loyal to his +family and to the community, so only can he win to his full manhood. The +decisive settlement of the whole matter is being worked out in cotton +fields and cabins, for the most part with an unconsciousness of the +ultimate issues that is at once pathetic and sublime,--by the upward +pressure of human need and aspiration, by family affection, by hunger +for higher things. + +On the leaders of the negroes rests a great responsibility. Their ordeal +is severe, their possibilities are heroic. The hardship of a rigid race +severance acts cruelly on those whose intelligence and refinement fit +them for a companionship with the best of the whites, which they needs +must crave, which would be for the good of both races, but which is +withheld or yielded in scanty measure. Self-abnegation, patience, power +alike to wait and to do,--these are the price they are called to pay. +But the prize set before them is worth it all,--the deliverance of their +people, and the harmonizing of the long alienated races. They need to +beware of jealousies and rivalries of leadership such as have made +shipwreck of many a good cause. There is room and need for various +contributions. They have a common bond in that ideal which is the most +precious possession of the American negro. It is the old simple idea of +goodness, set in close relation to this age of productive activity. It +requires that a man be not only good but good for something, and sets +faithful and efficient service as the gateway to all advance. + +But for the right adjustment of the working relations of the two races, +the heavier responsibility rests with the whites, because theirs is the +greater power. They can prescribe what the blacks can hardly do other +than accept. + +What we are now facing is not slavery,--an institution that may be +abolished by statute--but its offspring, Caste--a spirit pervasive, +subtle, sophistical, tyrannic. It can be overcome only by a spirit more +pervasive, persistent and powerful--the spirit of brotherhood. + +Puzzling as the situation is at some points, its essential elements are +far simpler and easier to deal with than slavery presented. There is no +longer a vast property interest at stake,--on the contrary, material +interest points the same way with moral considerations. There are +complexities of the social structure, but nothing half so formidable as +the aristocratic system based on slavery. The gravest difficulty now is +a race prejudice, deep-rooted and stubborn, yet at bottom so irrational +that civilization and Christianity and human progress should be +steadily wearing it away. Let us take heart of grace. If our wills are +true, it should be no great puzzle for our heads to find the way +in this business. Let us test the practical application of our +principle--namely, that each man should do his best, each should be +allowed to do his best, and helped to do his best--let us see how this +should work in industry, education, politics, and social relations. + +First in importance is the industrial situation. Broadly, the negro in +this country shows himself able and willing to work. The sharp spur of +necessity urges him, and his inherited habit carries him on. But he +needs a training in youth that shall fit him to work more effectively. +For that matter, his white brother needs it, too. But here is the +inequality of their situations,--whatever the white worker is qualified +to do he is allowed to do, but how is it with the black worker? Let the +Northern reader of these pages see at his door the palpable instance of +a limitation more cruel than can be found at the South. Let him note, as +the children stream out from the public school, the dark-skinned boy, +playing good-naturedly with his white mates, at marbles or ball or +wrestling,--just as he has been studying on the same bench with +them,--he is as clean, as well-dressed, as well-behaved, as they. Now, +five years hence, to what occupation can that colored boy turn? He can +be a bootblack, a servant, a barber, perhaps a teamster. He may be a +locomotive fireman, but when he is fit to be an engineer, he is turned +back. Carpentry, masonry, painting, plumbing, the hundred mechanical +trades,--these, for the most part, are shut to him; so are clerkships; +so are nineteen-twentieths of the ways by which the white boys he plays +and studies with to-day can win competence and comfort and serve the +community. It is a wrong to whose acuteness we are blunted by +familiarity. It can be changed only as sentiment is changed; and for +that there must be white laboring men who will bravely go ahead and +break the cruel rule by welcoming the black laborer to their side. + +In the South the negro as yet enjoys industrial freedom, in the choice +of an occupation--or a near approach to it--because his labor is so +necessary that he cannot be shut out. But the walls are beginning to +narrow. White immigration is coming in. The industrial training of the +old plantation is no longer given, and industrial schools are yet very +imperfectly developed. Some trades are being lost to the negroes; they +have fewer carpenters, masons, and the like; they find no employment in +cotton mills, and are engaged only in the least skilful parts of iron +manufacture. The trade unions, gradually spreading through the South, +begin to draw back from their early professions of the equality and +brotherhood of all toilers. An instance comes to hand as these pages are +being written--one instance out of a plenty. "The convention at Detroit, +Mich., of the amalgamated association of steel and iron workers has +postponed for a year consideration of a proposition to organize the +colored iron, steel and tin workers of the South. The white employes of +the Southern mills led the opposition. They objected to seeing the +negroes placed on an equality, and it was further argued that once a +colored man obtained a standing in the association, there was nothing to +prevent his coming North. President Shaffer urged that all men who are +competent workers should be members of the association." Now for next +year it is up to President Shaffer, and those of like mind! On this +question, of comradeship between black and white laborers, there is a +call to the leaders of labor organizations to lead right. These chiefs +of labor hold a place of the highest possibilities and obligations. In +their hands largely lies the advance or retrogression of the industrial +community--and that means our entire community. It is one of the most +hopeful signs of the times that stress of necessity is bringing to +labor's front rank men of a higher type, men often of large brain, high +purpose, and strong will. Brains, purpose, will,--all are needed by +these unofficial statesmen. They must look many ways at once, but this +way they ought not to fail to look,--to the industrial harmonizing and +equality of the two races. + +Exclude the colored men from the unions, and what can be expected but +that they serve as a vast reserve for the employers when strikes arise +between the capitalists and the employes? We read now and then of the +introduction of negroes as "strike-breakers," and the bitterness it +causes. But will not this be repeated on the largest scale if the +millions of negroes are to be systematically excluded from the unions? +There may be difficulties in including them,--difficulties partly +running back into other injustices, such as the practice of different +wage-rates for whites and blacks. But it would seem to be the larger +wisdom, in point of strategy, to enroll the two great wings of the host +of labor into a united army. And apart from strategy, that character of +the labor movement which most deeply appeals to the conscience and +judgment of mankind,--the uplift of the great multitude to better and +happier things,--that should rise above the barrier of race-prejudice as +above all other conventional and foolish divisions. Will the labor +leaders see and seize their opportunity at once to strengthen and to +ennoble their cause? + +The education of the negroes presents a hundred special questions, but +its basal principles are not difficult to discern. Here, fortunately, we +have in the main an admirable loyalty and good-will on the part of the +white South. It is proved by deeds more than by words. The sum spent by +the Southern States in the last thirty years for the schooling of the +blacks--it is reckoned at $132,000,000, most of it, of course, from +white taxpayers--is the best evidence of its disposition. The occasional +complaints and protests seem no more significant than the occasional +grumbling at the North against its best-rooted institutions,--everywhere +and always the children of light must keep up some warfare with the +Philistines. The main difficulties at the South are two; limited means +for so great a task,--three or four months of schooling burdens +Mississippi more than ten months burdens Massachusetts; and the grave +puzzle as to what kind of elementary education best fits the negro +child. + +This puzzle applies almost equally to the white child; throughout the +country and the world a reconstruction of education is struggling +forward, through great uncertainties but under strong pressure of +necessity. It is felt that the old-time book-education, and even its +modern revision--all as yet come vastly short of rightly fitting the +child for manhood or womanhood. We have advanced, but we have still far +to go. To rightly educate "the hand, head and heart," (the watchword of +Tuskegee)--to develop strong, symmetrical character and intelligence, +the sound mind in the sound body,--to train the bread-winner and the +citizen, as well as to open the gates of intellectual freedom and +spiritual power,--this is what we have not quite learned. Socrates and +More and Rousseau and Pestalozzi and Froebel and Armstrong have done +much, but they have left abundant room for their successors. The +millionaire's child, as well as the field-hand's, must wait awhile yet. +So it is small wonder if the Southern public school is still a challenge +to the best wits. + +The combined industrial and educational need of the South is excellently +summed up by a sympathetic observer, Ernest Hamlin Abbott: + +"The chief industrial problem of the South is, therefore, that of +transforming an indolent peasantry accustomed to dependence into an +active, independent people. This involves an educational problem. +Industrial education is something very different from training a few +hundred girls to cook and sew for others; it is something, even, very +different from supplying a few hundreds of young men with a trade. +Industrial training is this larger undertaking, namely, to train +hundreds of thousands of young people in habits of industry, in +alertness of mind, and in strength of will that shall enable them to +turn to the nearest opportunity for gaining the self-respect that comes +with being of use to the community." + +One thing is clear. More than the system is the teacher. Now and always +the first requisite must be instructors of devotion, intelligence, +sympathy, inspiration. To train such, and train them in multitudes, +there must be institutions, ample in intellectual resource and high in +their standards. There can be no fit common schools for the blacks +unless there are worthy normal schools and colleges. Atlanta and its +class are necessary as well as Tuskegee and its class,--and Atlanta +reinforces Tuskegee with a large proportion of its teachers. On broader +grounds, too, the need of the higher education for the black man is +imperative. It can hardly be better stated than in the words of +Professor DuBois, in his book of irresistible appeal, _The Souls of +Black Folk_: + +"That the present social separation and acute race-sensitiveness must +eventually yield to the influence of culture, as the South grows +civilized, is clear. But such transformation calls for singular wisdom +and patience. If, while the healing of this vast sore is progressing, +the races are to live for many years side by side, united in economic +effort, obeying a common government, sensitive to mutual thought and +feeling, yet subtly and silently separate in many matters of deeper +human intimacy,--if this unusual and dangerous development is to +progress amid peace and order, mutual respect and growing intelligence, +it will call for social surgery, at once the delicatest and nicest in +modern history. It will demand broad-minded, upright men, both white and +black, and in its final accomplishment American civilization will +triumph. So far as white men are concerned, this fact is to-day being +recognized in the South, and a happy renaissance of university education +seems imminent. But the very voices that cry hail to this good work are, +strange to relate, largely silent or antagonistic to the higher +education of the negro." + +It must be remembered that in the growth of a tree the upper boughs must +have space and air and sunlight, as much as the roots must have earth +and water,--and so with a race. There is need of scholars and idealists, +as well as toilers; and for these there should be their natural +atmosphere. Again let us hear the moving words of Professor DuBois: "I +sit with Shakespeare, and he does not wince. Across the color line I +move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming +women glide in gilded halls. From out the caves of evening that swing +between the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon +Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all +graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell +above the veil. Is this the life you grudge us, O knightly America? Is +this the life you long to change into the dull red hideousness of +Georgia? Are you so afraid lest, peering from this high Pisgah, between +Philistine and Amalekite, we sight the Promised Land?" + +Yet it is not for himself or the cultured few that he makes the +strongest plea: + +"Human education is not simply a matter of schools, it is much more a +matter of family and group life, the training of one's home, of one's +daily companions, of one's social class. Now the black boy of the South +moves in a black world--a world with its own leaders, its own thoughts, +its own ideals. His teachers here are the group leaders of the negro +people--the physicians, clergymen, the trained fathers and mothers, the +influential and forceful men about him of all kinds--here it is, if +anywhere, that the culture of the surrounding world trickles through, +and is handed on by the graduates of the higher schools. Can such +culture training of group leaders be neglected? Can we afford to ignore +it? Do you think that if the leaders of thought among negroes are not +trained and educated themselves, they will have no leaders? On the +contrary, a hundred half-trained demagogues will still hold the places +they so largely occupy now, and hundreds of vociferous busy-bodies will +multiply. We have no choice; either we must help furnish this race from +within its own ranks with thoughtful men, of trained leadership, or +suffer the consequences of a headless misguided rabble." + +Turning now to the political status of the negro, it may be said that +the most pressing need will be substantially met if the South will carry +out in good faith the provisions of her statute-books. By some of those +statute-books, suffrage is still equal and universal. In others, the +negro in required to own $300 worth of property, or to be able to read +and write, or to understand the Constitution when read to him. That the +white man is practically exempt from these tests, by the "soldier" or +"grandfather" clause, whatever be its theoretic injustice or unwisdom, +would be no great practical grievance to the negro if only he were +fairly allowed to cast his own vote when he can meet the statutory +tests. At present, throughout the greater part of the South, the +practical attitude of the election officials, and the social sentiment +enforced in subtle, effectual ways, debars the negro vote almost as +thoroughly as if it were disallowed by law. That this should be so may +be satisfactory enough for those to whom the matter ends with "This is a +white man's country," or "Damn the niggers anyhow." But will the +intelligent, large-minded Southerners,--the men of light and +leading--always allow the theory of their own statute-books to be +nullified? Will they forever maintain a suffrage-test of race rather +than of property and intelligence? + +It is said, no doubt truly enough, that a large part of the negroes are +indifferent to the suffrage, and do not care to vote. But is this a +desirable state of things? Taking the class to whom the law awards the +suffrage,--the men of some modest property qualification and +intelligence,--is it well for the community that they should be +indifferent to questions of taxation, of law-making, of courts and +schools and roads and bridges? Is it not in every sense desirable that +they should be encouraged to take an intelligent and active interest in +such matters? John Graham Brooks tells of his recent observations in +Gloucester county, Virginia, where whites and blacks have been +co-operating for good local government, and the curse of liquor-selling +has been restrained by the votes of a black majority. Surely we should +all like to see that precedent widely followed. That is a very crude +idea of politics which sees in it only a scramble for public offices. +That is an obsolete idea which construes Southern politics as a struggle +for power between whites and blacks. Politics, in a large sense, is the +common housekeeping of the community. It is the administration of the +broadest and highest common interests. The importance to the Southern +negro of the political function was greatly overrated when he emerged +from chattelhood. But is there any wiser course now than to educate and +train and encourage him to a living membership in the body politic? + +In this connection we naturally recur to the relation of the national +government to the negro problem. In general, the let-alone policy of the +last twenty-eight years is likely to continue, and there is every reason +why it should. The termination of Federal interference in 1877 was not +due to criminal indifference or lassitude on the part of the North, or +to political accident. It was essentially the gravitation of the nation +to its normal position, after the shock of war and the adjustment of the +vital changes involved in the abolition of slavery. Those changes +recognized in the national Constitution, and the new order set on its +feet, it was natural, inevitable, and right, that the States should +resume the control of their local affairs. The division of governmental +functions between State and nation was one of the most fortunate +circumstances of our birth-period; it was the ripening of our historical +antecedents, felicitously grasped and molded by a group of great men. It +rests on the fitness of each local community to handle its own affairs, +while only the most general and fundamental interests are intrusted to +the central authority. When the Southern States were left to themselves, +they did some unwise and unjust things,--and there had been something of +unwisdom and injustice in the time of Federal supervision--but on the +whole it was the re-establishment of the normal order. The policy which +naturally followed on the part of the general government was the +avoidance of special legislation, especially of the restrictive kind. + +But within its own sphere, the national government should follow those +principles which are in the best sense American. Thus the executive, in +its appointments to office, ought to recognize an equality of race, like +that which the Constitution affirm as to civil rights and the suffrage. +It is of vital moment that the American nation,--whatever local +communities may do,--should not bar competent men from office because of +race. Here as elsewhere,--the tools to him who can use them, the career +open to the fit talent. This should hold good wherever the national +executive acts, South as well as North. The principle should +be applied with reasonable regard to the sentiments of the local +community,--reasonable but not servile regard. In a city by character +and tradition a stronghold of the white race, it seems unwise to give a +principal office to a black man. But in a community where the black +element is strong in numbers and in character, and where the dark race +offers fit incumbents for office, there should be a fair number of such +appointments. If it is said "This is offensive to the Southern people," +the answer is, Who are the Southern people? Not the white people only, +but the black people also. + +As to legislation, a measure was recently proposed and somewhat +discussed, which has perhaps passed like other bubbles, but the proposal +of which caused natural agitation and apprehension at the South. This +was a scheme for applying the Fourteenth Amendment to the reduction of +Congressional representation in the South in proportion to the negroes +excluded from suffrage by the new State Constitutions. Some such +reduction may be permissible under the amendments,--for the later +Fifteenth Amendment only forbids the States to limit suffrage by "color, +race, or previous condition of servitude." Limitation by a property or +educational test is not forbidden; but under the Fourteenth Amendment it +might be made the ground for reducing a State's representation in +Congress. But when it has been said that the proposed measure of +reduction is permissible under the Constitution, there is nothing more +in its favor. From the standpoint of its proposers, it would be only +half-effective, for it could reach only those debarred by actual want +of property or education; the larger exclusion by the unfair +administration of election officers is an individual matter, beyond the +cognizance of statute-books. But the weighty objection is that it would +recognize, accept and confirm that very exclusion of the negro vote +against which it professes to be aimed. It would only enforce a penalty, +from which the gain would accrue solely to the Republican majority in +Congress and the electoral college. The Republican party, it is safe to +say, has too much virtue and intelligence in its rank and file to accept +such a gain at such a cost. For the cost would be a bitter intensifying +of race and sectional hostility. The Southern negro, his +disfranchisement accepted and ratified by the North, would be freshly +odious to his white neighbors on whom he had unconsciously brought this +humiliation. The fast closing breach between the North and South would +have a sharp and heavy wedge of division driven in. The peaceful forward +movement of the nation--for forward it is, spite of some lurches and +staggers--would be set back by a return to the old methods of sectional +conflict. But indeed the proposal hardly merits so much space as has +here been given it. It is a scheme of politicians and not of the people, +unhopeful even as a political scheme, unsupported by the sober thought +of the North, utterly unlikely to be realized or seriously attempted. + +There is another kind of legislative action which may well be seriously +considered. Would it not be wise, just, and statesmanlike, for the +nation to give financial aid to the tremendous work of public education +with which the South is struggling? The Blair bill for this purpose,--in +a word, an appropriation of $100,000,000, running through ten years, on +the basis of illiteracy,--came very near success in Congress. It was +defeated by an ardent championship in the North of local independence +and self-reliance. It is questionable whether that championship was not +misdirected. Here are States burdening themselves beyond their Northern +neighbors, to give schooling for only a third of a year, and necessarily +sometimes of inferior quality. The deficiency, compared with the +standards of wealthier States, results in a widespread ignorance +detrimental not only to the community but to the nation. The interests +at stake are common to us all. The backlying cause of the +trouble,--slavery and its accompaniments--was in a sense our common +responsibility; we all ought to have united to get rid of it peaceably, +and the North ought to have paid its share. For the dereliction the +South has paid a terrible price. The North, too, suffered wofully, yet +in far less measure. Would it not be the part of patriotism and +statesmanship--of wisdom and good-will--that all should now take some +share in lifting the load which weighs heaviest on the South, but hurts +us all? + +We are spending a hundred millions a year for a navy. Would not some of +that money be put to better use in training our own citizens, who will +otherwise go untaught? Someone has said: "The cost of one battleship +would endow the higher education of the Southern negro for half a +century to come." + +It is not the negro only, it is his white neighbor also, for whom we are +to provide. So to plan the provision that the money be honestly and +wisely spent; to do it with just consideration of local feeling, yet on +firm lines of American democracy--this would take study and sagacity. +But could study and sagacity be better applied than to make this idea +practical? The project seems prompted by wise self-interest and by +justice. The South is carrying more than its share of national expense, +and without complaint. Our tariff system presses far heavier on the +agricultural South than on the manufacturing North. Of our payment of +pensions,--running up to $130,000,000 a year,--the South bears its +proportion, though it is paid to men for fighting against her, and the +South makes no remonstrance. Is it not simple justice, is it not a +matter of national conscience and honor, that the whole nation should +help her in educating the future citizens of the republic? + +From this national aspect, we return to the more personal phases of our +theme. Shall we touch on that subject whose very name seems to prohibit +discussion?--what is called "social equality," or as others would prefer +"social intimacy." Either phrase seems to evoke a phantom before which +consideration and composure flee. But we may, as Epictetus suggests, +say, "Appearances, wait for me a little; let me see who you are and what +you are about, and put you to the test." Social equality--in what sense +does it exist among white men? People find their associates according to +fitness and congeniality. Clean people prefer the society of clean +people, and the dirty must go by themselves or change their habits. Men +and women of refinement and good manners welcome the company of the +refined and well-mannered. They do so no less if these pleasing traits +are found in a Japanese, a Chinese, or, a Hindu. This is the custom of +the civilized world. At the North, as already in Christendom at large, +the same usage is coming to extend to the African. A gentleman, a lady, +by breeding and education and behavior, is admitted to the society of +other ladies and gentlemen, whether in the business office, the +committee-room, or the home. When the Grand Army of the Republic in +Massachusetts this year chose their district commander, the almost +unanimous choice fell on a soldier, a lawyer, and a gentleman, of +African blood. When last fall the students of the Amherst agricultural +college elected the captain of their football team, they took as their +leader a young man of the dark race. A few years since a class in +Harvard awarded their highest honor, the class oratorship, to Mr. Bruce +of Mississippi, of negro blood. When a Springfield lawyer, meeting in +Philadelphia an old classmate in the law school, accepted his invitation +to dinner at his boarding-house, and there found himself among a score +of ladies and gentlemen, all dark-skinned, elegant in dress and manners, +agreeable in conversation, and meeting their guest with entire ease and +composure,--he did not feel that the meeting had injured either him or +them, or shaken the foundations of the social order. Such is the +growing, if not the general, practice in the Northern States; such is +the well-established custom of Christendom. If the white people of the +Southern States, for reasons peculiar to their section, follow a +different rule, they have still no occasion for wonder and dismay at the +practice in other sections, or for indignation when the highest official +in the American capital follows the general usage of the civilized +world. + +The reasons given by the Southern whites for their own course in the +matter call no less for respectful consideration. They say: "We are +encompassed and intermingled with a people of negro and mixed blood. If +we associate with them familiarly, the natural result will be +intermarriage. There is no drawing the line short of that. Meet at the +dining-table and in the drawing-room,--visit, study, play, associate +familiarly and intimately,--and the young people of the two races, in +many instances, will pass through acquaintance and friendship to love +and marriage. Then springs a mixed and degenerate race; then the white +race, with its proud tradition, its high ideals, its grand power, shades +off into an inferior, mongrel breed. Our inheritance, our civilization, +our honor, bid us shut out and forbid that degeneracy at the very +threshold." + +Let it be assumed that for the present the white South resolutely +maintains its attitude of social separation. But let its defenders +consider some of the consequences it involves, and make account with +them as best they may. Does not this social code strongly confirm, and +indeed carry as a necessary implication, that industrial separation +which must work injuriously not only to the negro but to the community? +If the white gentleman will not associate with a black gentleman in a +committee on school or public affairs, if he will not admit him to his +pew or his drawing-room, is it not to be expected that the white +carpenter or mill-hand will refuse to work side by side with the black? +What that means where the black man is in a small minority, we see here +at the North,--it shuts him out. Where he is in stronger force, as at +the South, the refusal of industrial fellowship means growing +bitterness, and the complication and aggravation of labor difficulties. +It all goes along together,--the social separation and the industrial. + +Further, this means that each race is to be ignorant and aloof from the +other, on its best side. The best side of every civilized people is seen +in its homes. The white and the black homes of the South are strangers +to each other. Edgar Gardner Murphy in his admirable book, _The Present +South_, while he does not for a moment question the necessity of the +social barrier, laments that ignorance of each other's best which it +involves. He dwells hopefully on that development of the family life +which marks the negro's best advance,--but what, he asks, can the white +people really see or know of it? Surely it is a very grave matter to +keep two intermingled peoples thus mutually ignorant of each other's +best. + +If it be asked, "What course can reasonably be considered as a possible +alternative to the jealous safeguarding of our race integrity?" the +answer might suggest itself: "Simply deal with every man according to +his fitness, his merits, and his needs, regardless of the color of his +skin. Decide to-day's questions on the broad principles of justice and +humanity. Leave the ultimate relation of the races to those sovereign +powers working through Nature and mankind, which we dimly understand, +but with which we best co-operate by doing the right deed here and now." + +Some things we say--and think, too,--when we are in debate with our +opponents, and some other things we think when we quietly commune with +ourselves. Any social ordinance or usage finds its final test when we +bring it into the companionship of our highest ideal. We may here borrow +an apologue: + +"The other night I fell asleep when soothed by vivid memories of a visit +to Charleston soon after the war. The place was then new to me, and the +warmth of old friends from whom I had long been parted and the cordial +hospitality of those now first met seemed to blend with the delicious +atmosphere which soothed and charmed my senses. The memory prompted a +dream, in which I sat again at that hospitable board, where my host had +summoned a company to meet a special guest. The stranger delighted us +all, partly by his suggestive comments, but still more by some subtle +sympathy which moved us all to free and even intimate speech. Gradually +the company enlarged; presently entered a man, and my host whispered to +me, 'That fellow tried to ruin me, but I can't shut him out now'--and +place was made. Then came in one with marked Jewish features, and the +company drew their chairs together and made room for him. More intimate +and sympathetic grew the talk,--strangely we all felt ourselves in a +region of thought and feeling above our wont, and brought close together +in it. It dawned on me 'this Presence among us is the same that once +walked in Jerusalem and Galilee.' At that moment there appeared at the +door a newcomer of dark hue. A frost fell on the company; they seemed to +stiffen and close their ranks; the host's face turned in trouble and +uncertainty from the newcomer to the guest of honor. The Guest arose +and spoke to the stranger,--'Take my place!' he said." + +Each of us dreams his own dream, and thinks his own thought. Differ as +we may, let us unite wherever we can in purpose and action. The perfect +social ideal will be slow in realization, but it is to-day's +straightforward step along some plain path that is bringing us nearer to +it. The black workman who every day does his best work; the white +workman who welcomes him to his side; the trade-union that opens its +doors alike to both colors; the teacher spending heart and brain for her +pupils; the statesman planning justice and opportunity for all; the +sheriff setting his life between his prisoner and the mob; the +dark-skinned guest cheerfully accepting a lower place than his due at +life's feast; the white-skinned host saying, Friend, come up higher,--it +is these who are solving the race problem. + +Slowly but surely we are coming together. We confront our difficulties +as a people, however we may differ among ourselves, with a oneness of +spirit which is a help and pledge of final victory. We are one by our +most sacred memories, by our dearest possessions, and by our most solemn +tasks. Our discords are on the lower plane; when the rich, full voices +speak, in whatever latitude and longitude, they chord with one another. +When Uncle Remus tells Miss Sally's little boy about Brer Rabbit and +Brer Fox, the children from the Gulf to the Lakes gather about his +knees. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are claimed as comrades by all the boys +between the Penobscot and the Rio Grande. Lanier's verse rests on the +shelf with Longfellow's. The seer of Concord gives inspiration in Europe +and India and Japan. Frances Willard stands for the womanhood of the +continent. When Fitzhugh Lee died, it was not Virginia only but America +that mourned a son. When Mary Livermore passed away, we all did honor to +her heroic spirit. When Dunbar sings his songs, or DuBois speaks in the +tones of scholar and poet, we all listen. The great emancipators of the +successive generations,--Woolman, Lundy, Channing, Mrs. Stowe, Lincoln, +Armstrong, Booker Washington--do we not all claim a share in them? Just +as all Englishmen feel themselves heirs alike of the Puritan Hampden and +the Royalist Falkland, so we Americans all pay our love and reverence to +the heroes of our war,--Grant and Lee, Jackson and Sheridan, Johnston +and Thomas, and all their peers. + +And we are one by the common tasks that confront us. This problem of the +races,--it is a challenge to do our best. "Impossible? What are we put +into the world for, but to do the impossible in the strength of God?" +The rich man and the poor man, the employer and the laborer, must find +some common ground of justice and harmony. The nation must be steered +away from commercial greed and military glory, toward international +arbitration, toward peace, toward universal brotherhood. Knowledge and +faith are to join hands, and the human spirit is to reach nobler +heights. These are the tasks which we Americans are to meet and +master--together. + +The hope of Lincoln is finding its late fulfillment: "The mystic chords +of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot +grave"--Northern and Southern graves alike--"to every living heart and +hearth-stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the +Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels +of our nature." The pathetic melody of the negro spirituals, the brave +and rollicking strains of "Dixie," and the triumphant harmony of "The +Star Spangled Banner," blend and interweave in the Symphony of +America. + + + + +INDEX + + + Abbott, Ernest Hamlin, on industrial problem of South, 397. + + Abolition, see Emancipation. + + Abolitionists (Cf. Anti-slavery men), in England, 38; + opinions of North and South on, 54; + inclusiveness of term, 54 ff; + characterized, 56 ff; + conservatives ally themselves with Republicans, 130; + extremists not opposed to secession, 212; + favor disunion, 217. + + Adams, Charles Francis, joins "Free Soil" party, 81; + nominated for Vice-President, 82; + proposes compromise on slavery, 229; + candidate for Presidential nomination, 328. + + Adams, John Quincy, characteristics, 28; + relations with Clay, 29; + in Congress, 72; + believes abol. of slavery as war measure legal, 253. + + Adams, Nehemiah (Dr.), 141. + + Adams, Samuel, 8. + + Alabama, admitted as slave State, 23; + forbids importation of slaves, later repeals, 36; + secedes, 225; + emancipation in, 260; + gives qualified assent to thirteenth amendment, 262; + provisional govt. formed, 275; + reconstructed, 310; + negro voters in majority in, 311; + Federal interference in election (1872), 323; + Democrats regain control in, 324; + legal limitation of suffrage in, 383, 384. + + Alabama Claims, the, settled, 325. + + Alcorn, J. M., first Republican governor of Mississippi, 336. + + Alcott, Amos Bronson, characterizes John Brown, 160; + futile views of on war, 242. + + Allen, Charles, refuses to support Whig party, 81. + + Amendments, constitutional, Thirteenth, 262; + ratified, 268, 276; + declared adopted, 276; + Fourteenth formulated and discussed, 297 ff; + prob. reason for mistake of exclusion art. in, 301; + disqualifications under removed by Congress, 302; + restoration offered to South upon adoption of, 303; + rejected by South, 304, 310; + Grant against exclusion clauses in, 310; + scheme to apply to reduction of Southern representation, 403 ff; + Fifteenth proposed, 314; + adopted, 315, 403. + + American Missionary Asso'n, labors of for freedmen, 362. + + American Party. (See KNOW-NOTHING PARTY), 115, 151; + death of, 153. + + "American system," 31. + + Ames, Adelbert, governor of Mississippi, 336; + calls for Federal troops; impeached; driven from state, 340. + + Ames, Charles G., characterizes Stroud's Slave Laws, 110. + + Amherst agricultural college, chooses negro foot ball captain, 406. + + Anderson, Major, at Ft. Moultrie, 223; + Buchanan refuses aid to; withdraws to Ft. Sumter; supported, 224; + surrenders, 235. + + Andersonville, terrors of, 245. + + Andrew, John A. (Gov.), denounces slavery, 154; + on John Brown, 165; + strongly opposes secession, 230; + course as war governor, 279; + suggests principles of reconstruction, 280; + endeavors to interest Northern capital in South, 319. + + "Anti-Nebraska" party, 115. + + Anti-secessionists, in North and South, 212. + + Anti-slavery men (Cf. ABOLITIONIST), + distinguished from abolitionists, 55; + disheartened by "Free Soil" nomination, 82; + outbreaks against in South, 169, 186. + + Anti-slavery movement grows, 35 ff, 37, 51, 52, 71, 91; + women and literary men in, 56; + public leaders keep aloof from, 57; + petitions, 71; + documents excluded + from Southern mails, 72, 73; + made political issue, 74; + strong growth of in North, 113 ff; + assumed by Republican party, 127; + tabooed at South, 129. + + Anti-slavery society, American, founded, 44; + purposes of, 45; + dissolution of, 367. + + Arkansas, admitted as slave state, 23; + postpones action on secession, 227; + secedes, 235; + emancipation in, 260; + provisional govt. estab. in, 269, 275; + reconstructed, 310; + relative number of negro voters in, 311; + becomes Democratic, 323; + Grant recommends state govt. be declared illegal, 344; + bill defeated, 345. + + Armstrong, Samuel Chapman (Gen.), birth and early life of, 356; + in Union Army; + begins labors for freedmen in Virginia; characterization of, 357; + special fitness for work, 359; + religious views, 360; + forms ideals of negro education, 360 ff; + founds Hampton Institute, 362 ff; + personality, 364 ff; + labors of for school, 365 ff; + death of; summary of life work; personal appearance, 366; + sayings of, 367; + Booker Washington, pupil and successor to, 378. + + Arnold, Matthew, poem on his father, 369. + + Atchison, Senator, of Missouri, 117. + + Atlanta University, 358, 398. + + _Atlantic Monthly_, begun, 144 + + Aycock, Governor, of N. C., 388. + + + Bacon, Leonard, 36. + + Baltimore, Maryland, Mass. troops attacked at, 237. + + Banks, Nathaniel P., joins "Free Soil" party, 81; + speaker of House, 115; + in Republican party, 127; + refuses nomination of "Know-nothing" seceders, + supports Fremont, 129; + governor of Mass., 193; + in House, 284. + + Baptists, champion cause of freedom, 22. + + "Barnburners," the, 82. + + Barnwell, Senator, advocates secession, 89. + + Bates, Edward, candidate for Presidential nomination (1860), 191; + attitude of on emancipation proclamation, 257. + + Beauregard, Gen., leads attack on Fort Sumter, 235. + + Beecher, Edward, 36. + + Beecher, Henry Ward, characterization of, 141 ff; + active in political discussion, 142; + criticises Lincoln in _Independent_, 254; + labors in behalf of Union, 277; + outlines plan of reconstruction, 277 ff; + views on suffrage, 308. + + Bell, John, nominated for President, 189; + popular vote for (1860), 194; 214. + + Bennett, James Gordon, 141. + + Berea College, beginnings of, 73; + discriminated against by Kentucky educational law, 385. + + Bernard, John, meets Washington, 1 ff. + + "Biglow Papers," Lowell attacks slavery and war in, 77; 144; 254. + + Birney, James G., 36; + incidents in life of, 58 ff; + political ideas of, 59; + nominated for President, 74; + views of on slavery question, 74; + again nominated, 75. + + Black, Jeremiah S., Attorney-General, 222; + Secretary of State, 244; + defends Johnson, 312. + + "Black Codes" of 1865-6, 281 ff, 372. + + Blaine, James G., in House, 284; + proposes amend. to Stevens's reconstruction bill, 306; + on debate of bill, 307; + on negro suffrage, 310; + leader in House, characterized, 331; + speaks against Davis, reputation discredited, Presidential + candidate, 346. + + Blair, Francis P. (Gen.), nominated for Vice-Presidency; defeated, 314. + + Blair, Senator, of N. H., bill of for aid to local education on basis + of existing illiteracy, 372, 404. + + "Border Ruffians," the, 116, 118. + + Border States, severity of war greatest in, 242; + Lincoln's scheme for compensated emancipation in, 252; + slave owners in alienated by emancipation proclamation, 261. + + _Boston Courier_, denounces Republican party in 1860 campaign, 194. + + Bourne, George (Rev.), denounces slavery, 37. + + Boutwell, George S., governor of Mass., 92; + in House, 284; + House prosecutor of Johnson, 311. + + Bowles, Samuel, 124; + "Life and Times of," 124 note; + gives opinion of Johnson imbroglio, 296. + + Bradley, Joseph (Justice), on Hayes-Tilden commission, 349. + + Breckinridge, John C., nominated for President, 188; + scheme for electing, 189; + popular vote for (1860), 194; + declines to repudiate secession, 194. + + Bristow, Benjamin H., Presidential candidate, Sec'y of + Treasury, 346, 347. + + Brooks, John Graham, observations of on Virginia politics, 401. + + Brooks, Preston S., assaults Sumner, 122; + re-elected and honored, effect on North, 123. + + Brown, B. Gratz, leads independent movement in Mo., 327; + aspirant for Presidential nomination, 328. + + Brown, John, sketch of, 119 ff; + leads massacre in Kansas, 120; + schemes for extinction of slavery, 159 ff; + in Springfield, Mass., 159, 162; + aided by leading anti-slavery men, 160; + pen pictures of by Alcott and Emerson, 160; + characterization of, 161 ff; + makes raid on Harper's Ferry, 162; + captured, 163; + hanged, 164; + honored as martyr, 164 ff; + eulogized by Emerson, 165, 167; + characterization of his acts and schemes, 166 ff. + + Bruce, B. K., U. S. Senator, 336. + + Bruce, R. C., of Miss., awarded class oratorship at Harvard, 407. + + Bryant, William Cullen, editor of N. Y. _Evening Post_, 327. + + Buchanan, James, 72; + Democratic Presidential candidate, characterized, 128; + with Mason and Soule issues Ostend manifesto, 128; + administration of (1857-61), 147; + sends Gov. Walker to Kansas, 150; + supports Lecompton constitution, 151; + announces position on secession, 222; + refuses aid to Ft. Moultrie, 224; + cabinet, 224. + + Burgess, J. W. (Prof), shows effects of John Brown's raid, 170; + comments on laws governing negroes after war, 291. + + Burns, Anthony, fugitive slave, 91. + + Butler, Senator, from S. C., Sumner attacks in Congressional speech, 122. + + Butler, Benjamin F., joins seceding Democratic convention (1860), 188; + candidate for governor of Mass., 192; + declares fugitive slaves "contraband of war," 248; + House prosecutor of Johnson, 311; + in Congress, characterized, 331; + labors for "force bill" (1875), 345. + + Butler, Fanny Kemble. See KEMBLE, FANNY. + + + Calhoun, John C., Vice-President, relations with Jackson, 30; + defends right of nullification, 32; + prophesies concerning relations between North and South, 34; + becomes leader of South, 34, 44; + characterization of, 47 ff; + social theories of, 50; + in Senate, opposes anti-slavery petitions, claims State control of + mails, 72; + in Tyler's cabinet, leader in Texas annexation, 75; + returns to Senate, 76; + politically isolated, 79; + opposes war with Eng., 80; + claims of for nationionalization of slavery, 80; + last speech of, 86; + his opinion of struggle bet. North and South, 87. + + California, taken from Mexico, 79; + admission as free State advocated, 88, 90; + swift settlement of; applies for admission with slavery excluded, + South opposes, 84; + rejects Fifteenth amendment, 315. + + Cameron, Simon, candidate for Presidential nomination; supports + Lincoln, 190. + + Carolinas, the (see also NORTH, SOUTH), + slavery foundation of aristocracy in, 6; + number of slaves in in 1790, 9. + + Carpenter, Frank, Lincoln's conversation with, 256. + + "Carpet-baggers," the, 318, 336, 338. + + Casey, F. F., in government of Louisiana, 341. + + Cass, Lewis, nominated for President, 81; + resigns from cabinet, 224. + + Chamberlain, Daniel H., governor of So. Carolina, 332, 348. + + Chandler, Zachariah, 270; + sketch of, 283; + as radical leader, 285; + party leader, 331; + chairman Republican national committee; disputes Tilden's + election, 348. + + Channing, William Ellery, plan of emancipation, 39; + sketch of, attitude toward anti-slavery movement, 59 ff; + treatise on Slavery, 62. + + Chase, Salmon P., in "Free Soil" convention, 82; + in Senate, 83; + against extension of slavery, 90; + in Lincoln's cabinet, 249; + attitude of on emancipation proclamation, 257; + becomes chief justice, 274; + candidate for Presidential nomination, Lincoln's opinion of, services + of in supreme court, 313. + + Chestnutt, Charles W., 379; + shows discrimination against negro suffrage, 384. + + Child, Lydia Maria, 56; + opinion of Channing, 63. + + Church, the, early, accepts slavery, works toward abolition, 4; + casuistical defense of slavery by, 5; + in America, justifies slavery, 50; + split over slavery, 53; + united in South in defense of slavery in North divided, 141; + labors of in North in behalf of Union, 277. + + Civil rights bill (1866) passed, 296; + vetoed by Johnson, becomes law, 297; + of 1875, 345. + + Civil war, the, causes of, 211 ff; 237 ff; + views on in North and South, 237; + moral results of, 240, 244, 247; + emancipation measures discussed and adopted during, 248 ff; + disappointment over protraction of, 254; + negroes in, 261, 263; + courage of both North and South in, 262; + suffering in, 265; + ended, 270. + + "Civil War and the Constitution, The," 170. + + Clay, Cassius M., opposes slavery, 73; + in founding of Berea College, 73; 170. + + Clay, Henry, votes for slavery in Arkansas, 23; + favors Missouri compromise, aspires to Presidency, dislikes but + supports slavery, 26; + relations of with J. Q. Adams, 29; + advocates protective tariff, 31; + proposed tariff compromise, 33; + Whigs nominate for President, 75; + defeated, 76; + opposed to annexation of Mexico, 79; + disappointed of Presidential nomination, 81; + in Senate (1849-50), frames compromise measures of 1850, 85; + opposes extension of slavery, denies right of secession, last + speech of, 86; + denounces threats of secession, 89. + + Clayton, Powell, in Grant faction, 344. + + Cobb, Howell, 138. + + Coles, Edward (Gov.), 35. + + Colfax, Schuyler, in House, 284; + Vice-President, 314. + + Colonization, Jefferson's schemes for, 18; + Pennsylvania society, 22; + society attacked by New Eng. anti-slavery society, 44. + + Compromise of 1820, see MISSOURI + of 1850, 85; + adopted, 90; + causes dissatisfaction in North and South, 91. + + Confederacy, the Southern (see also SOUTH, the, etc.). + Secessionists propose to form, 215; + convention to organize, 225; + organized, constitution of, 226; + election of officers of, 226, 227; + disregards peace overtures from Republicans, 229; + courage displayed in, 262; + Lee the chief hero of, 263. + + Conkling, Roscoe, in House, 284; + party leader, 331; + favors "force bill," 345; + Presidential candidate, 346. + + Connecticut, passes emancipation law, 21. + + "Conscience Whigs," 82. + + Constitution (See CONVENTION OF 1787), + proposed convention to revise, 229. + Amendments to, see AMENDMENTS. + + "Constitutional Union" party, 153, 189. + + Convention of 1787, personnel, work, and difficulties of, 10 ff; + results of, 14 ff. + + Corwin, Thomas, opposes Mexican war, 77. + + Cotton gin, invention of stimulates cotton growing, 23. + + Credit Mobilier, 344. + + Crittenden, John J., Senator, 151, 214. + + Crittenden, compromise, proposed, refused by Republicans, 228. + + Cuba, emancipation in, 108; + annexation of demanded in Ostend manifesto, 128. + + Curtis, Benj. R., defends President Johnson, 312. + + Curtis, George William, editor _Harper's Weekly_, 330; + leads reform element in Republican convention of 1876, 346. + + Curtis, Justice, dissents from Dred Scott decision, 148. + + Cushing, Caleb, joins seceding Democratic convention, 188; + supports Breckinridge Democracy; bitter words of on Mass. + election, 193. + + + Dabney, Thomas, sketch of, 100 ff; + experiences of after war, 337, 339, 355. + + Davis, David, on Hayes-Tilden commission; in Senate, 349. + + Davis, Henry Winter, favors radical reconstruction, 270. + + Davis, Jefferson, in Senate, 86, 89; + sketch of life and principles of, 132 ff; + active in politics, in Mexican war, in Senate, Sec'y of War, + leader in secession, 134; + hostility toward, 135; + final estimate of, 136; + presents ultimatum of South in Senate (1859), 184; + residence of at North, 193; + defends secession, 215; + opposes immediate secession (1860), 221; + with others withdraws from Congress to organize Confederacy, 225; + elected President of Confederacy, 226; + North's hatred of, 301; + imprisoned by Pres. Johnson, 329; + attacked by Blaine, 346. + + Davis, Rebecca Harding (Mrs.), describes terrors of Civil war in border + states, 242. + + Dawes, Henry L., in House, 284, 331. + + Dayton, William L., Vice-Presidential candidate (1856), 129. + + Declaration of Independence, clause in regarding wrongs of slave + trade suppressed, 9. + + DeForest, J. W., 209. + + Delaware, votes against extension of slave trade, 13; + rejects Thirteenth amendment, 262, 276; + rejects Fifteenth amendment, 315. + + Democratic party (see DEMOCRATS), + power of South in, 185; + extreme South breaks up, 187; + Alex. H. Stephens explains move, 189; + geographical lines of in campaign of 1860, 192. + + Democratic sentiment, growth of, 21, 29. + + Democrats, opposed to strong central gov't, 21; + favor annexing Texas, 75; + nominate Cass for President, 81; + combine with Free Soilers, 92; + nominate Pierce for President, desert Free Soilers, 93; + vote for Kansas-Nebraska bill, 114; + in Republican party, 127; + platform (1856), campaign, Buchanan candidate of, 128; + uphold Ostend manifesto, 129; + divided over Lecompton constitution, 151; + convention of 1860, 185 ff; + delegates from S. C. and Gulf States leave, 187; + adjourns, 188; + regular convention at re-meeting nominates Douglas and Johnson, + seceders nominate Breckinridge and Lane, 188; + inharmonious in North, 253; + gain in 1862, 261; + nominate McClellan for Presidency, defeated, 265; + in Congress of 1865-6, 284; + hold convention of 1868, repudiate reconstruction acts, favor + repudiation, nominate Seymour, 313; + regain control in many Southern States, 323; + join Independent Republicans, 328; + indorse Greeley's nomination, Independent Democrats nominate + O'Conor, 329; + organize resistance to Republicans in South and begin + intimidation, 339 ff; + in Congress of 1875-6, 346; + nominate Tilden for President, 347; + claim election, 348 ff. + + Denison, John, Dr., characterizes Gen. Samuel Armstrong, 357. + + Devens, Charles, Attorney-General under Hayes, 353. + + Dickinson, Edward, helps organize Republican party, 114. + + Dickinson, John, opinion of slave trade, 12. + + "Disfranchisement," paper on, by Charles W. Chestnutt, 384. + + District of Columbia, slavery abolished in, 251. + + Dix, John A. (Gen.), in Buchanan's cabinet, 224. + + Dorsey, Stephen W., in Grant faction, 344. + + Douglas, Stephen A., sketch of, 112; + introduces "Kansas-Nebraska" bill to aid his Pres. candidature, 112 ff; + doctrine of "popular sovereignty," 150; + supports Republicans on Lecompton bill, 151; + returns to Democrats and becomes Senator, 153; + famous debates of with Lincoln, 180; + elected U. S. Senator, 181; + struggle of, with extreme South on Democratic platform (1860), 185; + great power of in convention; principles of; followers defy Southern + Democracy, 186; + nominated for President, 188; + denounces secession; pop. vote for, 194; + assails Lincoln's position, proposes plans to conciliate South, 233; + supports Lincoln, 235. + + Douglass, Frederick, 96. + + "Dred," anti-slavery novel, 123 ff. + + Dred Scott decision, 147 ff. + + DuBois, Prof., 5, 379; + on need of higher education for negroes, 398, 399. + + Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 379. + + Duncan, James, 38. + + Durell, E. H. (Judge), in Louisiana election struggle, 341. + + + Education, of negroes, 37; + urged by Beecher, 279; + nat'l, of negroes neglected, 325, 326; + higher, for negroes, 358, 377 ff, 398 ff; + Blair bill for local aid to, on basis of existing illiteracy, 372, 404; + of negroes undertaken by Southern whites, 373; + standard of in South being raised, 381; + efforts to restrict for negroes, unjust Kentucky law, 385; + estimate of amt. paid out for negro education to date, 388; + improved industrial for negroes, 388; + of negro presents great difficulty, 396-7; + amount spent by South for edu. of negro in past 30 years, 397; + problems of in South, 397 ff; + need of higher for negroes, 398-9; + gov't aid to in South advocated, 404. + + Eggleston, General, Republican leader in Miss., 336. + + Eliot, Thomas D., helps organize Republican party, 114. + + Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln presents to cabinet, decides to + delay promulgation of, 257; + reintroduces, 258; + discussed and approved by cabinet, issued (1862), 259; + goes into effect, immediate results of, 260 ff. + + Emerson, Ralph Waldo, in anti-slavery movement, 56; + in literature, 94; + influence of, 143; + pen picture of John Brown by, 160; 243. + + "End of an Era, The," 169. + + English bill, the, 151. + + Evarts, William M., in Republican convention (1860), 191, 192; + defends President Johnson, 312; + Secy. of State under Hayes, 353. + + Everett, Edward, nominated for Presidency, 189. + + + Federalist Party, principles of, 20. + + Fee, John G., and Berea College, 73, 170. + + Fessenden, William P., in Senate, 114; + in Republican party, 127; + heads reconstruction committee, 281; + in U. S. Senate, 283; + sketch of, 284, 285; + opposes President Johnson's plan of reconstruction, 286; + votes to acquit Pres. Johnson, 312; + death of, 331. + + Fillmore, Millard, becomes President, character of, 90; + candidate for Presidential nomination, 92; + nominated (1856) by "Know-nothings," 129. + + Fish, Hamilton, in Senate, 114; + in settlement of Alabama claims, 325. + + Fisk University, 358. + + Florida, secedes, 225; + emancipation in, 260; + provisional gov't of, 275; + reconstructed, 310; + rel. number of negro voters in, 311; + Presidential vote of contested (1876), 348 ff. + + "Flower de Hundred," 100. + + Floyd, John B., Secy. of War, resigns, 224. + + Foot, Solomon, in Senate, 114. + + Force bill, of 1833, 33; + ---- proposed, of 1875, defeated in Senate, 345. + + Fort Moultrie, commanded by Anderson, 223; + Buchanan refuses to aid, 224; + abandoned by Anderson, 224; + occupied by So. Carolinians, 224. + + Fort Sumter, Anderson removes to, 224; + debate over, 233; + Lincoln sends aid to, 234; + Confederates attack and take, 235. + + Fortune, T. Thomas, 379. + + Fowler, Senator, votes to acquit Pres. Johnson, 312. + + Franklin, Benjamin, 8; + labors against slavery, skill of as a leader, 19. + + Freedmen's Bureau, 287, 289; + Pres. Johnson vetoes bill to increase powers of, 294; + bill amended, passed, 297; + labors of, 357, 362. + + "Free Soil" party, previously "Liberty" party, gains from Whigs + and Democrats, 81. + + "Free Soilers," convention of (1848), nominates Van Buren, 82; + form alliance with Democrats, 92; + nominate John P. Hale for President, lose Democratic allies, 93; + vote against Kansas-Nebraska bill in House, 114; + unite with Whigs in Mich. in formation of Republican party, 115; + in Republican party, 127. + + Free State men, in Kansas struggle, 117 ff; + refuse to vote in Kansas, 150; + give up separate organization, and win, 152; + triumph of, 153. + + Fremont, John C. (Gen.), nominated for President, 126; + sketch of, 126 ff; + declares martial law, and emancipation of slaves in Missouri, 248; + emancipation measure of set aside by Lincoln, results of incident, 249. + + Fugitive slave law, demanded by South, 85; + resisted in North, dissatisfaction over, 91. + + _Galveston Bulletin_, view of reconstruction in, 267. + + Garfield, James A., in House, 284, 331. + + Garrison, Wm. Lloyd, becomes interested in emancipation, 39; + early experiences, founds _Liberator_, principles, 40; + founds New England Anti-Slavery Society, 44; + fight of against slavery, 51 ff; + aims and methods of, 52, 53; + followers of divided, 54; + personality of, 54; + mobbed, 55; + scorns Republican party, 127; + propagandism of inflames North and South, 207; + declares all war unchristian, 210; + favors disunion, 217, 228. + + Geary, John W., governor of Kansas, 117, 121. + + _Genius of Universal Emancipation_, founded, 38, 39. + + Georgia, demands representation in Congress based on slave numbers, 11; + refuses to join Union if slave trade forbidden, 12; + forbids entry of free negroes into State, forbids circulation of + insurrectionary pamphlets, 41; + citizens of characterized, 137; + becomes pivotal point of Southern politics, 138; + considers secession (1860), 221, 225; + secedes, 226; + emancipation in, 260; + provisional govt. formed, 275; + signs of promise in during reconstruction period, 301; + rights of negro conserved in, 302; + readmitted, relative number of negro voters in, 311; + Democrats regain control in, 323; + discrimination against negro suffrage in, 384. + + Giddings, Joshua, in "Free Soil" convention, 82. + + Godkin, E. L., 327. + + Gold, at premium of 250, 264. + + Gorman bill to limit suffrage, defeated (1905), 383, note. + + Grand Army of the Republic, chooses negro commander in Mass., 406. + + Grant, Ulysses S. (Gen.), votes for Buchanan, 130; + refuses to exchange prisoners, 246; + report of on conditions in South after war, 286; + on proper policy toward South, 302; + against exclusion clauses of 14th amendment, 310; + nominated for President, elected, 314; + problems of administration, displays lack of statesmanship, 324 ff; + defeats inflation policy, 325; + personal honesty of, 326; + strong opposition to develops, 327; + prominent men and events of second term, 331 ff; + growth of independence of, 332; + recommends State govt. of Arkansas be declared illegal, 344; + favors "Force bill," 345; + disinclination of to further interference in South, 345; + attitude of in disputed States in 1876, 349; + remarks of to Lee on surrender, 354. + + Greeley, Horace, votes for Taylor, 82; + helps prolong Whig organization in N. Y., 115; + sketch of, 140; + opposes Seward in Republican convention. (1860), 191; + criticises Lincoln, Lincoln's reply to, 255; + supports Independ. Repub. movement, nominated for President, 328; + nomination of indorsed by Democrats, weakness of as candidate, + generous sentiment of toward South, 329; + bitter opposition to, defeat and death of, 330. + + Grimes, Senator, votes to acquit President Johnson, 312. + + + Hale, Edward Everett, in New Eng. Emigrant Aid Society, 116. + + Hale, Eugene, in House, 331. + + Hale, John P., nominated for President, 93. + + Hamlin, Hannibal, nominated for Vice-President, 192. + + Hampton, Wade, nominated for governor of So. Carolina; violence + of campaign, 333; + claims governorship, 348; + governor, 353. + + Hampton Institute, founded, 362; + work at begun, success and growth of, 363 ff; + work of, 377. + + Harper's Ferry, raid on, by John Brown, 162 ff. + + _Harper's Weekly_, opposes Greeley, 330. + + Harrison, Mrs. Burton, personal reminiscences of Virginia before + the war, 100. + + Harrison, William H., campaign of, 74. + + Hart, Albert Bushnell, gives estimate of wealth of negroes, 375. + + Harvard College, awards class oratorship to negro (Bruce of Miss.), 407. + + Hawley, Joseph R. (Gen.), in House, 331. + + Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 242. + + Hayes, Rutherford B., in House, 284; + nominated for President, 347; + election of claimed, 348 ff; + declared elected, 352; + ends military interference in South, inaugurates new regime, 353. + + Hayne, Robert, debate of with Webster, 33. + + Hedrick, Prof., driven from North Carolina for anti-slavery + sentiments, 129. + + Helper, Hinton R., publishes _The Impending Crisis_, 109, 154; + driven from N. C., 157. + + Henderson, Senator, votes to acquit Pres. Johnson, 312. + + Henry, Patrick, 8; views of on slavery, 19. + + Herndon, William H., Lincoln's partner and friend, 179, 180. + + Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, supports John Brown, 160. + + Hilo (Hawaii) Manual School, 360. + + Hoar, George F., characterizes Sumner, 282; + describes polit. methods of Henry Wilson, 283; + in House, 331; + on Louisiana investigation committee, 343. + + Hoar, Samuel, driven from So. Carolina, 73; + joins "Free Soil" party, 81. + + Holt, Joseph, Secy. of War, 224. + + Holtzclaw, William, story of, 378. + + Hopkins, John H. (Bishop), 141. + + Hopkins, Mark, as president of Williams College, 356. + + Hopkins, Samuel (Dr.), denounces slave trade, 9. + + Howard, O. O. (Gen.), chief of Freedmen's Bureau, 289. + + Howard University, 358. + + Howe, S. G. (Dr.), supports John Brown, 160, 168. + + Hunter, David (Gen.), attempts partial emancipation as war measure, 253. + + + ILLINOIS, admitted as free State, 23; + attempt to introduce slavery in, 34; + anti-slavery rioting in, 74; + Abolitionists in, ally themselves with Republicans; Lincoln the + central figure at first State convention, 179. + + _Impending Crisis, The_, 109; + resume of, 154 ff; + effects of, 157. + + _Independent, The_, criticises Lincoln, 254. + + Indiana, admitted as free State, 23. + + Indians, unfitness of for slavery, 5. + + + Jackson, Andrew, characteristics, administration, 29; + denounces nullification, 33; + opposes circulation of anti-slavery literature through U. S. mails, 72. + + Jackson, Stonewall, 135. + + Jefferson, Thomas, 8; + denounces slave trade in first draft of Decl. of Independ.; + plans of for gradual emancipation, 9, 17-18, + and for exclusion of slavery from unorganized territory, 9; + polit. ideals, views on slavery, 17; + unskillful as President, 21; + fears of for Union; sympathies with slave States, jealous of + State rights, 25, 250; + on dangers of slavery, 391. + + Jenkins, Charles J. (Gov.), pleads for negro rights in inaugural, 301. + + Jerry, fugitive slave, rescued, 91. + + Johnson, Andrew, in Senate, 214; + early life and character of, becomes President, 273; + retains Lincoln's cabinet, Seward's influence on, 274; + issues proclamation of amnesty; appoints provisional governors + in South, 275; + favors qualified negro suffrage, 276; + message (1865), 281; + policy of reconstruction of opposed in Congress, 285 ff; + supported by Democrats, 286; + vetoes Freedmen's Bureau bill, 294, 296; + loses support of party; undignified speech of strengthens + opposition to, 295; + vetoes Civil Rights bill, 297; + strong opposition to reconstruction policy of, 303; + undignified conduct of during tour of North, 304; + impeachment and trial of, 311 ff; + acquitted; in Senate; place of in history, 312. + + Johnson, Herschel V., nominated for Vice-President, 188; + opposes immediate secession, 225. + + Johnson, Oliver, 44. + + Johnson, Reverdy, in U. S. Senate, 284. + + Jones, C. C. (Rev.), on condition of slaves, 49. + + + Kansas, struggle for, 116 ff; + stringent slavery laws in, 117; + forms issue of Repub. party's first campaign, 127; + Walker appointed governor of; struggle in, 150 ff; + admitted to Union, 152. + + Kansas-Nebraska bill, 112; + effects of on election (1854), 115; + results of, 116. + + Kealing, H. T., 379. + + Keitt, Lawrence, with Brooks in assault on Sumner, 122. + + Kellogg, William P., in government of Louisiana, 341. + + Kemble, Fanny, describes slavery in "A Residence on a Georgia + Plantation," 103 ff. + + Kendall, Amos, 72. + + Kentucky, attempt to establish as free State, 22; + refuses to consider secession, but promises to aid South if + invaded, 227; + remains in Union, 235; + Lincoln tries to bind faster to Union, 252; + rejects 13th amendment, 262, 276; + rejects 15th amendment, 315; + law in to prohibit co-education of races, 385. + + Kerr, Michael C., speaker of House, 346. + + Key, David M., Postmaster-General under Hayes, 353. + + "Kitchen Cabinet" of Gen. Grant, 325. + + Knapp, Isaac, partner of Garrison, 40. + + "Know-nothings," 115; + nominate ex-President Fillmore (1856); platform; seceders from + nominate Banks, 129. + + Ku Klux Klan, 322, 326, 327. + + + Lane, Joseph, nominated for Vice-President, 188. + + Lane Seminary, trouble at, over anti-slavery movement, 37. + + Lanier, Sidney, 410. + + Lawrence, Kansas, founded, 116; + attack on, 119. + + Leavitt, Joshua, 44. + + Lecompton constitution framed, scouted by free State men, 150; + urged by Buchanan administration, 151; + defeated, 152. + + LeConte, Joseph, reminiscences of slavery, 49. + + Lee, Fitzhugh, 410. + + Lee, Robert E. (Gen.), 95, 135; + captures John Brown, 163; + opposes secession, 227; + chief hero of Confederacy, 263; + surrenders, 270, 354; + becomes president of Washington Univ., 355. + + _Liberator_, The, founded, 40. + + Liberia, colony estab., 22. + + Liberty, Washington's conception of, 3. + + Liberty party, 75 ff; + becomes "Free Soil" party, 81. + + Lincoln, Abraham, views on Dred Scott decision, 149; + nominated for Senator, defeated, 153; + on endurance of Union, 153; + early life and characteristics of, 172 ff; + political career begins, 177; + attitude of on slavery, 178, 181; + central figure in Ills. Republican convention, 179; + debates with Douglas, 180; + Cooper Inst. address of; proves right of Congress to control slavery in + the Territories; shows stand Republicans must take, 182; + schemes of friends for in Repub. convention (1860), 190; + states principles, 191; + nominated for President, 192; + elected, 194; + answers secessionist arguments, 215; + personal interest of in slavery, 217; + immediate results of election of, 221; + pronounces inaugural, 231; + forms cabinet, difficulties, 233; + sends aid to Ft. Sumter, 234; + issues call for militia, 235; + attitude of toward emancipation, 249, 252, 253, 255; + tact and shrewdness of, 249, 256, 257; + in close touch with people, 249; + his conception of his mission, 249; + difficulties of administration, 249, 251; + his detestation of slavery, 250; + scheme of for compensated emancipation, 252; + announces his power as Commander-in-chief to emancipate slaves + as war measure, 253; + criticism of, 253 ff; + replies to Greeley's criticisms, 255; + lays emancipation proclamation before cabinet, 256; + adopts Seward's advice, to delay promulgation of, 257; + reintroduces to cabinet after McClellan's victory, 258; + issues prelim. proclamation; embodies views on emancipation in + message to Congress, 259; + administration of repudiated in election of 1862, 261; + re-elected, 262, 265; + delivers second inaugural, 266; + offers amnesty to Confederates, 268; + invites return of seceded States; leaves reconstruction bill (1864) + unsigned, 269; + plans of opposed in Congress, 270; + makes public statement of views on reconstruction, 271; + assassination of, 271; + summary of political achievements of, 272. + + Literature, growth of Southern, 380 ff. + + Longfellow, Henry W., work of, 145. + + Longstreet, Gen., advises acceptance of inevitable, acts with + Republicans, denounced and ostracized, 318. + + Louisiana, admitted as free State, 23; + secedes, 226; + emancipation in, 260; + new Constitution and State govt. in, 271; + provisional govt. established in, 269, 275; + applies for admission of U. S. Senators (1864-5), 270; + reconstructed, 310; + negro votes in majority in, 311; + Presidential vote of contested (1876), 348 ff; + State vote of contested, 349; + "carpet-bag" rule in, 341 ff; + "Conservatives" organize opposition in, struggle over governorship + in, 341; + cruelty and corruption in, 342; + Federal intervention in, 343; + legal limitation of suffrage in, 83. + + Louisiana purchase, 2, 24. + + Lovejoy, Elijah P., 74. + + Lowell, attacks slavery and war in "Biglow Papers," 77; + labors of for freedom; edits _Atlantic_, 144; + upbraids Lincoln in "Biglow Papers," 254; + war poems of, 265. + + Lundy, Benjamin, sketch of, 38 ff. + + Lynch, John R., speaker of the House, 336. + + Lyon, Mary, founds Mt. Holyoke Seminary, 362. + + + McClellan, George B. (Gen.), leader of Conservatives, warns Lincoln + not to move against slavery, 255; + success of against Lee, 258; + Democrats nominate for President. + + McCrary, George W., Secy. of War under Hayes, 353. + + McEnery, John, claims governorship of Louisiana, 341, 342. + + McLean, Justice, dissents from Dred Scott decision, 148. + + Madison, James, against strengthening slave power, 11; + as President, 21. + + Mails, U. S., circulation of anti-slavery documents through, 72. + + Marcy, William L., Secretary of State, 128. + + Maryland, forbids importation of slaves, 9; + stops importation, 20; + elects anti-slavery members to House of Delegates, 36; + irregular secession convention in, 227; + remains in Union, 235; + Lincoln tries to bind faster to Union, 252; + rejects amendment against negro suffrage (1905), 383 note; + rejects 15th amendment, 385. + + Mason, George, opposes strengthening of slave power, 11, 12. + + Mason, James M., 89; + with Buchanan and Soule issues Ostend manifesto, 128. + + Massachusetts, slaves freed in, 9; + negroes granted suffrage in, number of negroes in, 1780; in + slave trade, 9; + aids extreme South to prolong slave trade, 13; + indifferent to slave trade, 20; + "Know-nothings" carry election of 1854 in, 115; + leads North in opposing secession, 229; + Republicans in fail to indorse Pres. Johnson, 276. + + May, Samuel J. (Rev.), 44; + conversation with Dr. Channing on anti-slavery, 61 ff. + + Mexico, war with, 76 ff; + ends, 79; + proposal to annex, Calif. taken from, 79. + + Middle States, in slave trade, 9; + slavery abolished in, 20. + + Mississippi, admitted as slave State, 23; + considers secession (1860), 221; + secedes, 225; + emancipation in, 260; + gives qualified assent to 13th amendment, 262; + provisional gov't formed in, 275; + delays her return to Union, 310; + negro voters outnumber white in, 311; + under martial law, 316; + "carpet-bag" rule in, 333 ff; + statistics on misgovernment in, 334 ff; + misgovt. and corruption in exaggerated, 338; + Democrats organize opposition and practice intimidation in, 339 ff; + legal limitation of suffrage in, 383. + + Missouri, bill to organize as State, 23; + geographical relation of to free States, 24; + debate on admission, 24 ff; + Compromise, 25 ff; + admitted as slave State, 27; + mobs form in struggle for Kansas, 116; + votes not to secede, 227; + remains in Union, 235; + Lincoln tries to bind faster to Union; Republican party breaks + up in, 327. + + Morgan, Edwin P. (ex-Gov.), supports Pres. Johnson, 204. + + Morton, Oliver P., party leader, 331; + favors "Force bill" in Senate, 345; + Presidential candidate, 346. + + Moses, F. J., Jr., governor of So. Carolina, 332. + + Mott, Lucretia, 56. + + Mount Holyoke Seminary, founded, plan for students to earn expenses + fails at, 362. + + Murphy, Edgar G., "The Present South," 388; + on negro problem, 408. + + + Nashville convention, to promote interests of South, 90, 138. + + _Nation_, The, supports Independent Republicans, 327; + refuses to support Greeley, 329. + + Nat Turner insurrection, 41. + + Nebraska, 112. + + Negroes (see also SLAVES, SLAVERY, EDUCATION), + superiority of over Indians as slaves, 5; + advantages and disadvantages of slavery to, 5; + granted suffrage in Mass. and other States, 9; + number of in Mass. in 1780, 9; + number of in other States, see SLAVES; + condition of in North before the war, 37; + (for condition of in South, see SLAVERY, SLAVES); + proposed college for, 37; + violence against in North, 74; + status of in America defined by Dred Scott decision, 147, 148; + citizenship rights of declared in New York, 149; + U. S. army and navy opened to enlistment of, 260; + enlist in Union armies, martial qualities of, 261; + good qualities of displayed in war, 263; + Pres. Johnson favors qualified suffrage for, 276; + Henry Ward Beecher's views on suffrage for, 278; + education of urged by Beecher, 279; + South's estimate of after war, 280, 287; + behavior of after emancipation, 287; + repressive laws against, following war, 287, 288; + their misconception of freedom, 289; + laws governing labor of after war, 290 ff; + law against association of whites with, 290; + abuse of by Southern whites, 292; + their necessities force them to labor, 293; + leaders in Georgia plead for rights of, 301; + suffrage for in South the central feature of Reconstruction bill, 308; + suffrage for favored by North, 308, 309; + broad conception of, 309; + number of voters among in Southern States compared to white + voters, 311; + many Northern States refuse suffrage to, 314; + unfitness of in South for suffrage, choose delegates to const. + conventions, 317; + sudden political power of doubtful benefit to, 318; + as a body lack independence; affiliate with Republican party; become + estranged from old masters, 319; + in high political offices, 321, 333, 336; + not guilty of physical violence, 323; + national education of neglected, 325, 326; + manner of toward whites, 338; + organized resistance to voting of in South, 340; + intimidated at polls, 352; + problem of disposition of, 355; + views on in North and South, 356; + condition and needs of after war, 357, 358; + beginnings of higher education for, 358; + religion of, 359; + Gen. Armstrong's labors in behalf of, see ARMSTRONG, SAMUEL; + problem of disappears as central feature in national politics, 371; + polit. preponderance of in South ended, 371; + suffrage of practically nullified in South, but large degree of civil + rights secured to, 372; + Southern whites undertake education of with energy and success, 373; + refused social equality at South, and often at North, 373 ff; + improved social conditions, and increased numbers of, 374 ff; + present wealth, skill, intelligence, and moral status of, 375 ff; + development of leadership among, 376 ff., 379; + legal limitation of suffrage of in South, 382 ff; + practical disfranchisement of, 384, 388; + threatened narrowing of industrial opportunities the greatest + danger to, 385; + unfortunate social position of, 386; + hopes of future betterment, 387; + estimated amt. paid out for education of to date; better industrial + education for, 388; + necessity for all to face the problem of; great responsibility on + leaders of, 392 ff; + present phase of problem, necessity of abolishing caste spirit, 393; + industrial position of, 394 ff; + attitude of trade unions toward, 385, 395; + dangers consequent upon exclusion from unions, 396; + need of higher education for, 398; + present polit. status of, 400; + attitude of toward suffrage, 401; + should have fair share of public offices, 403; + government aid in education advocated, 404; + growing recognition of in North, 406 ff; + results of social ostracism on, suggested means to avoid, 408. + + _Negro Problem_, The, by Booker Washington and others, 379; + New England (See also NORTH, MASSACHUSETTS,) + Washington's opinion of, 2; + slave labor unprofitable in; industries in, 6; + negroes granted suffrage in, 9; + aids extreme South in extension of slave trade, 13. + + New England Anti-slavery Society, founded, 44. + + New England Emigrant Aid Society, formed, 116. + + New Hampshire, number of slaves in in 1790, 9; + slavery abolished in, 21. + + New Haven, labors in for negroes, 36. + + New Jersey, votes against extension of slave trade, 13; + passes emancipation law, 22; + counted as free State, 23; + declares for emancipation, 35; + rejects 15th amendment, 315. + + New Mexico, South demands permission of slavery in, 84. + + New Orleans, riot in, 303. + + New York _Evening Post_, supports Independent Republicans, 327; + refuses support to Greeley, 329. + + New York _Herald_, 141, 164, 193. + + New York _Times_, 141, 347. + + New York _Tribune_, influence of, 140, 141; + against forcible repression of secession movement, 228; + criticises Lincoln, 255; + supports Independent Republicans, 328; + unearths Hayes-Tilden telegrams, 352. + + New York State, number of slaves in in 1790, 9; + passes emancipation law, 22; + counted as free State, 23; + delegation of to "Free Soil" convention (1848), 82; + declares right of citizenship for negroes, 149. + + Nicholls, Francis T., claims governorship of Louisiana, 349; + becomes governor, 353. + + North, the (see also NEW ENGLAND), + slavery unprofitable in, 5; + aids extreme South in extending slave trade, 13; + slavery abolished in, 20; + surpasses South in population and wealth; increased representation + in House, 24; + its economic advantages over South, 69 ff; + violence against negroes in, 74; + disputes with South over new territory, 80; + dissatisfaction in over Compromise measures of 1850; passes "Personal + Liberty Laws," 91; + outstrips South in industrial, literary, and religious growth, + advantages of South over, 94; + growth of anti-slavery feeling in, 113 ff; + best intelligence of in early Republican party, 127; + resents polit. aggression of South more than slavery, 128; + leaders of (1850-60), 132; + leaders of, 140 ff; + attitude of clergy in toward slavery, 141; + economic conditions in compared with those of South, 156; + John Brown's raid intensifies conviction against slavery in, 167; + growing distrust of South in, 169; + position of on secession, etc., 200 ff; + underlying divergences from South in sentiment and character + of, 205 ff; + religious life in, 206; + inflamed against South; + sources of misunderstanding, 207; + varied occupations in, 208; + secession movement causes consternation in, 209; + strongly inclined to peace; disbelieves in Southern courage, 210; + grounds for resistance of secession in; impatient of Southern + political dominance, 212; + reasons for failure of disunion movement in, 218 ff; + disinclination in to use force against secession movement, 228; + Mass. becomes leader in, 229; + united in resistance to secession, 235; + views on Civil war in, 237; + bitter feeling against South in, 241; + moral effect of war on, 244; + Unionism the absorbing issue in, 248; + party divisions in, 253; + growing sentiment in against slavery, 254; + courage of in war, 262; + advantages of over South, 264; + joy in over prospect of success, 268; + opposes Johnson's reconstruction plans, 288; + current opinion in on cause of secession, 300; + hatred of Jefferson Davis in, 301; + general temper in hostile to Pres. Johnson, 312; + feeling of relief in after Grant's election, 315; + resumption of business in, 316; + immigration from into South, 319; + growing tendency in to accord social equality to negroes, 373 ff, 406. + + North Carolina, emancipation favored in, 36; + right of free speech vindicated in, 129; + votes against secession convention, 229; + secedes, 235; + emancipation in, 260; + provisional govt. formed in, 275; + reconstructed, 310; + relative number of negro voters in, 311; + Democrats regain, 323; + legal limitation of suffrage in, 383. + + Northwestern Territory, slavery prohibited in, 10. + + Nullification, So. Carolina claims right of, 32; + denounced by Jackson, 33; + opposed in "Force bill" of 1833, 33; + question dropped, 34, 214. + + + Oberlin College, becomes anti-slavery stronghold, 37; + plan for students to earn expenses fails at, 362. + + O'Conor, Charles, nominated for President, 329. + + Ohio, admitted as free State, 23; + declares for emancipation, 35. + + Olmsted, Frederic Law, on condition of slaves in South before + the war, 49; + volumes of travels in the slave States, 107 ff. + + Ordinance of 1784, fails to limit slave territory, 10. + + Ordinance of 1787, limits slave territory, 10. + + Oregon, boundary dispute, 80; + rejects 15th amendment, 315; + double returns from in Hayes-Tilden election, 351. + + Ostend manifesto, 128. + + + Packard, S. B., in govt. of Louisiana, 341; + claims governorship, 349. + + Paine, Thomas, 8. + + Parker, Theodore, influence of in church and state, 143; + supports John Brown, 160, 168. + + Peace Congress, proposed, to find means to preserve the Union, 228. + + Pendleton, George H., candidate for Presidential nomination, 313. + + Pennsylvania, number of slaves in in 1790, 9; + votes against extension of slave trade, 13; + passes emancipation law, 21; + counted as free State, 23; + declares for emancipation, 35; + Republicans fail to indorse Pres. Johnson, 276. + + Peonage cases, prosecution of, 388. + + Personal Liberty Laws, passed in North, 91. + + Petigru, James L., 223. + + Petitions to Congress, anti-slavery, 71 ff. + + Pettus, Gov., of Mississippi, 221. + + Philadelphia, convention in behalf of Pres. Johnson at, 303. + + Phillips, Wendell, becomes ally of Garrison, 54; + scorns Republican party, 127; + declares all war un-Christian, 210; + favors disunion, 217, 228; + abuses Lincoln, 254. + + Pierce, Franklin, nominated for, and elected President, 93; + recognizes usurpers in Kansas struggle, 117. + + Pierce, Henry L., in House, 331; + vote of in Hayes-Tilden contest, 352. + + Pinckneys, Charles and Thomas, demand freedom of slave trade, 12 ff. + + Pittsburg, counter convention at, 303. + + Platte country, the, 112. + + Polk, James K., nominated for President, 75; + elected; + declares war with Mexico, 76. + + Poor whites, evil effects of slavery on, 110. + + "Present South, The," by E. G. Murphy, 388, 408. + + Pottawatomie massacre, 120; + results of, 121. + + Presbyterian church, condemns slavery, 35. + + Prisons, military, terrors of, 245 ff. + + Protection. See TARIFF, PROTECTIVE. + + + Quakers, relation of to slavery, 7. + + + Randall, Samuel J., in House, 284; + speaker, 346. + + Randolph, John, his opinion of slavery, 47. + + Randolph, Thos. Jefferson, his scheme of emancipation, 43. + + Rankin, John, 38. + + Rantoul, Robert, joins "Free Soil" party, 81. + + Raymond, Henry J., 141; + in House, 284; + supports Pres. Johnson's plan of reconstruction, 285, 303. + + Reconstruction, 267 ff; + Lincoln's plans for and views on, 268 ff; + congressional bill (1864), rejected by Lincoln, 269; + Lincoln's plans for opposed by Congress, 270; + first Congressional plan of, 274 ff; + President Johnson's plan of, 275; + Henry Ward Beecher's plan of, 277 ff; + John A. Andrew's plan of, 280; + both latter plans too advanced for the time, 280; + action taken on by Congress (1865-6), 281 ff; + Pres. Johnson's plan of opposed in Congress, 285; + second Congressional plan of, 294 ff; + difficulties of question increased by lack of statesmen to handle, 302; + two policies of before the country, South indorses Pres. Johnson's + plan of, 303; + final plan of, 306 ff; bill passed, 306; + results of bill, 307, 310; + verdict of country on work of, 312 ff; + the working out of, 316 ff; + the last act, 344 ff. + + "Reconstruction and the Constitution," by Prof. J. W. Burgess, 290. + + Reeder, Governor, of Kansas, 117. + + Republican party (see also REPUBLICANS), + beginnings of, 114 ff; + components of, 115; + first Presidential convention of, 124 ff; + principles, leaders, constituency, successes, and failures of in first + (1856) campaign of, 127; + opposition to in first campaign, 128; + weakness of in South, 129; + composition of opposition to, and causes of defeat of in first + campaign, 130; + stand of on negro question (1860), 186; + origin of protectionist character of, 190; + geographical lines of in 1860 campaign, 192; + denounced in 1860 campaign, 193 ff; + restriction of slavery the supreme principle of, 212; + Sumner's belief in, 319; + freedmen instinctively turn to, 319; + leaders of in Grant's second term, 331. + + Republicans, hold first (1856) Presidential convention, 124 ff; + nominate John C. Fremont for President, 126; + Wm. L. Dayton for Vice-President, 129; + platform, 126; + denounce Ostend manifesto, 129; + dissent from Dred Scott decision, 148, 149; + gain in numbers, name Lincoln for U. S. Senator, 153; + first Illinois convention of, 179; + campaign, 180 ff; + not in John Brown's raid, 183; + hold convention (1860), 189 ff; + platform, 190; + struggle bet. Seward and Lincoln men in, 190, 191; + nominate Lincoln and Hamlin, 192; + elect candidates (1860), 194; + results of success of, 221; + oppose secession, 223, 224, 225; + oppose schemes for extension of slavery, 228; + vainly concede many points to South, 229; + divide over war questions, 253; + reaction against in elections of 1862, 261; + success of in 1864, 262, 265; + indorse President Johnson, 276; + assert right of Congress to direct reconstruction, leaders oppose + Pres. Johnson's plan of, 286; + opinion of turns against Johnson, 294; + increased strength of in Congress (1866-7), 306; + in Senate vote to acquit Pres. Johnson, 312; + adopt moderate platform, nominate and elect Grant (1868), 314; + in temporary control of South, 323, 327; + change attitude tword South, independent movement among, 327; + Independents hold convention (1872), 328; + in gov't of South, 332 ff; + lose heavily in Congressional elections of 1874, suspected of + maladministration, 344; + many oppose Force bill of 1875, 345; + hold convention (1876), 346; + nominate Hayes, campaign, 347; + claim election of Hayes, 348 ff. + + "Residence on a Georgia Plantation, A.", 103. + + Rhett, Senator, proposes secession, 89. + + Rhode Island, in slave trade, 9; + passes emancipation law, 21. + + Rhodes, "History of the U. S.," quoted, 301, 302. + + Robinson, Chas. S., gov. of Kansas, 117 ff; + his house burned, 119. + + Roosevelt, President, South criticises for entertainment of Booker + Washington, 386. + + Ross, Senator, votes to acquit Pres. Johnson, 312. + + + Sanborn, Franklin B., supports John Brown, 160. + + San Domingo, proposed annexation of, 328. + + "Scalawags," the, 318. + + Schurz, Carl, on conditions in South after war, 286 ff, 292; + favors negro suffrage, 309; + in Republican convention (1868), 314; + leads Independent Republicans in Missouri, 327; + in U. S. Senate, 328; + Sec'y of Interior under Hayes, 353; + on peonage cases in South, 388; + on future of negro question, 389. + + Scott, R. K., governor of S. Carolina, 332. + + Scott, Winfield (Gen.), nominated for President, 92; + against armed repression of secession, 228. + + Secession, Clay denies right of, 86; + Webster declares impossible with peace, 87; + threats of in Congress denounced by Taylor and Clay, 89; + open threats of in South, 193; + not taken seriously at North, 194; + denounced by Douglas, 194; + Southern position on defined, 197 ff; + Northern position on defined, 200 ff; + slavery question the real basis of 211; + grounds for resistance of at North, 212; + extreme abolitionists not opposed to, 212; + arguments for and against, 212 ff, 226; + reasons for success of movement in South and failure of in + North, 218 ff; + sources of movement in South, 219; + action of Southern States on following Lincoln's election, 221 ff; + discussed in Congress (1860), 223; + advised by Southern leaders in Congress, 225; + triumph of movement, 226; + movement halts, 227; + various Southern States take action on; + general sentiment in South against armed + repression of, 227; + disinclination in North to use force against, 228; + West strongly against movement, 228; + Mass. takes strong stand against, 229 ff; + plea of Lincoln against, 232; + current Northern opinion of causes of, 300. + + Secessionists (see SECESSION), + propose disunion, and formation of Southern Confederacy, 215. + + Seelye, Julius H., vote of in Hayes-Tilden contest, 352. + + Senate, State representation in determined, 11; + South strives to keep up numbers in, 24; + stronghold of South, 81. + + Sewall, Samuel, protests against slavery, 7. + + Seward, William H., votes for Taylor, 82; + influence and strength of, 82; + his plan of emancipation, 83; + speaks in Senate against extension of slavery, 89 ff; + helps prolong Whig organization in New York, 115; + in Republican party, 127; + opinion of on Dred Scott decision, 149; + opinion of on future labor conditions in Union, 154; + logical candidate for Presidency (1860), 190; + in Lincoln's cabinet, 233, 249; + Lincoln adopts advice of to delay issuance of emancipation + proclamation, 257; + in Johnson's cabinet, his influence on the President, 274; + supports Pres. Johnson, 303. + + Seymour, Horatio, nominated for President, characterized, 313; + defeated, States carried by, 314. + + Shadrach, fugitive slave, rescued, 91. + + Shaffer, President, urges admission of capable negroes to trade + unions, 395. + + Shannon, Wilson, gov. of Kansas, 117. + + Shaw, Robert Gould, 264. + + Shellabarger, Samuel, in House, 284, 286. + + Sheridan, Gen'l, sent to investigate Louisiana election scandals, 343. + + Sherman, John, in U. S. Senate, 283, 285; + endeavors to stem tide against Pres. Johnson, 296; + defeats Stevens's reconstruction bill, 306; + superiority of over Blaine, 307; + Sec'y of Treasury under Hayes, 353. + + Sherman, William T. (Gen.), his opinion of war, 244, 245. + + Slaveholders, numbers of, characteristics, 95. + + _Slave Laws_, compiled and published by Stroud, 110. + + Slavery. (See also SLAVES, SLAVE TRADE.) + Washington's opinion of, 3; + origin, growth, regulation and defense of, 3 ff; + legally recognized in Judea, Greece, and Rome, by Jesus and the + early church, 4; + supplants free peasantry in Italy, 4; + influence of Christianity on, 4; + absolute, abolished throughout Christendom, supplanted by serfdom, 4; + recrudescence of in 17th and 18th centuries, 4; + economic conditions determine location of in America, 5; + unprofitable in North, 5, 6; + need of in South, 5; + casuistical defense of by church, 5; + advantages and disadvantages of to negro, 5; + responsibility for denied by North and South, 6; + commercial demand for overrides humanity, 6; + unprofitable in New England, 6; + social conscience unawakened to enormity of, 7; + Sewall and Woolman protest against, 7; + relation of Quakers to, 7; + awakening to wrongs of, 8; + abolished in Mass., 9; + Jefferson strives to limit territory of, 9; + limited, 10; + impossible for convention of 1787 to prohibit, 14; + compromised, 14 ff; + views of Washington and other leaders on, 15; + Patrick Henry's views on, Franklin labors against, 19; + early anti-slavery sentiment, 20; + abol. in Northern and Middle States, 20; + question temporarily eclipsed, 21; + estab. in Kentucky, abol. in Spanish America, 22; + question again to the front (1819), 23; + defended in Congress, all ideas of abolishing dropped in South, growth + of sentiment against in North, 24; + Jefferson supports, 25; + Clay supports, 26; growth of question from 1832, 28; + South fully accepts and defends, 46 ff; + views of Jos. LeConte, Frederic Law Olmsted, and C. C. Jones on, 49; + theory of adopted by slave-holders, 50; + abolished in West Indies, 51; + Garrison's fight against, 51 ff; + defense of strengthened in South, 54; + underlying principles of; + tide of public opinion sets against, 70; + question grows in prominence, 71 ff; + freedom of speech on denied in South, 73; + Calhoun's claim for nationalization of, 80; + excluded from new territory acquired by purchase, 80; + opposition of Seward and Chase to, 83; + as it was, depicted by Mrs. Burton Harrison, 100; + depicted in biography of Thomas Dabney, 100 ff; + described by Fanny Kemble, 103 ff; + pictured by Frederic Law Olmsted, 107 ff; + Harriet Beecher Stowe's opinion of embodied in "Uncle Tom's + Cabin," 109; + general view of in South, 133; + attitude of clergy toward, 141; + hostility toward in South, 170; + the great cause of difference between North and South, 207, 211; + restriction of the supreme principle of Republican party, 212; + measures upon during Civil war, 249, 250; + Lincoln's attitude toward, 250; + abolished in Dist. of Columbia, 251; + finally and forever abolished in U. S., 276. + + Slaves (See also NEGROES, SLAVERY, SOUTH, SLAVE TRADE), + Africa source of, 5; + indolence and unthrift of, 5; + Virginia taxes, 6; + foundation of aristocracy in Virginia and Carolinas, 6; + unprofitable as laborers in New Eng., 6; + Virginia and Maryland forbid importation of, 9; + Jefferson proposes plan for gradual emancipation of, 9; + Virginia passes law regulating manumission of, 9; + numbers of in various States in 1790, 9; + counted in determining representation in Congress, 11, 12; + Jefferson's schemes for emancipation and disposition of, 17 ff; + value of increased by invention of cotton gin, 23; + fugitive, overtures made to England for treaty on, 28; + instruction of denied in Virginia, 44; + physical and moral condition of, 48. + + Slave States, 23. + + Slave trade, begun by Europe, brutality of, 5; + maintained by Eng. trading companies, colonists attempt to check, 5; + New Eng. in, 6; + Virginia remonstrates against, 8; + clause in Declaration of Independence denouncing, suppressed; + Mass., R. I., and Middle States in; + denounced by Dr. Hopkins, 9; + Congress refused power to forbid until 1808; North aids extreme South + in fight to prolong; + champions of defend only as necessary evil, 13; + stopped in Virginia and Maryland, 20; + made piracy by Congress (1800), 22; + revival of between Africa and Cuba, 158; + checked, 159. + + Slave-trading companies, English, 5; + oppose tax on slaves, 6. + + Smith, Caleb B., supports Lincoln, 191. + + Smith, Gerritt, characterized by Andrew D. White, 55 ff; + supports John Brown, 160, 168. + + Smith, Wilfred H., 379. + + Soule, Pierre, in Congress, 89; + with Buchanan and Mason issues Ostend manifesto, 128. + + "Souls of Black Folk, The," an appeal for higher education of negro, 398. + + South. (See also VIRGINIA, etc., SLAVERY, etc.) + Economic conditions in favor slavery, 5; + demands Congress be refused right to forbid slave trade, 12; + all ideas of abolishing slave trade dropped in, 24; + aggrieved by protective tariff, 32; + leadership of passes to So. Carolina, 44, 229; + fully accepts slavery as estab. institution, 46 ff; + strengthens defense of slavery, 54; + economic disadvantages of, 69 ff; + disputes new territory with North, attempts to nationalize slavery, 80; + opposes admission of Calif. as free State, demands allowance of + slavery in Utah and New Mexico, 84; + demands fugitive slave law, 85; + leaders of in Congress (1850), threatens disunion, 89; + denounces "Personal Liberty Laws," 91; + North outstrips in industrial growth; + advantages of over North, 94; + master class in analyzed by Fanny Kemble, 105 ff; + surprised by Kansas-Nebraska bill, 113; + anti-slavery sentiment completely ostracized in, 129; + suppression of free speech in, 130; + leaders of (1850-60), 132; + magnifies State rights; + general view of slavery in, 133; + apprehensive of growing hostility in North, 134; + clergy in united in defense of slavery, 141; + economic conditions in compared with North in _Impending Crisis_, 156; + hostility in toward North increased by Brown's raid, 167, 169-70; + misconceived by abolitionists, 168; + renewed outbreaks in against anti-slavery men, 169; + antagonism toward slave power in, 170; + solidarity against North created by Brown's raid, 170; + presents ultimatum in Senate (1859), 184; + demands protection of slave-holding right in all territories, 185; + power of in democracy and state, 185; + growing hostility in, expulsion of anti-slavery men, 186; + extreme, breaks up Democratic party, conjectural reasons for move, 187; + Alex. H. Stephens explains move, 189; + open threats of secession in, 193; + position of on secession, etc., defined, 197 ff; + underlying divergences North in sentiment and character, 205 ff; + ideal of society in, 205; + religious life and literature in, 206; + inflamed against North, sources of misunderstanding, 207; + plantation life in at best, 208; + concentration of interest in on national politics, 208; + concentrates on secession movement, 209; + duelling and street affrays common in, 209; + men of in Texas, in Mexican war, and as "filibusters," 209-10; + believes all war-spirit extinct in North, 210; + causes of united action in, 211; + North impatient of political dominance of, 212; + patriotic sentiment still powerful in, 214; + disunion sentiment strongest in Gulf and Cotton States, 214; + reasons for success of secession movement in, 218 ff; + leaders of resign from Buchanan's cabinet, 224; + leaders of in Congress favor secession, last formal presentation of + ultimatum of in Senate, 225; + general sentiment in against armed repression of secession, 227; + So. Carolina leader of, 229; + views on Civil war in, 237; + bitterness against North in, 241; + moral effect of war on, 244; + courage of in war, 262; + advantages of North over, 264; + social conditions in after war, 275; + State legislatures and conventions resumed in, 275, 276; + 13th amendment ratified in 276; + Senators from refused admission to Congress, 218; + reports of Gen. Grant and Carl Schurz on conditions in after + war, 286 ff; + views of on negro labor, 287; + laws governing negro labor in after war, association of whites and + negroes forbidden in, 290; + Congressional represent. of conditioned on negro suffrage by 14th + amendment, 298; + proposed to refuse suffrage to leaders of, 299; + mistake of such course, 301; + excepting Tennessee, rejects 14th amendment, 304; + reconstruction of, see Reconstruction; government of under + reconstruction bill begins, 307, 310; + number of negro voters in various States of, 311; + trials and struggles of under new conditions, under martial law, + restored to self-government, 316; + unfitness of negroes in for suffrage, whites refuse to vote, + constitutional conventions held and negro delegates chosen, 317; + typical attitude of whites in; + under "carpet bag" rule, 318, 332; + Northern immigration into, 319; + Northern teachers insulted or disdained in; Northerners in politics in; + legislation in during reconstruction, 320; + extravagance, waste and corruption in under Republican governments; + exaggeration of, 321; + negro rule in, 319, 321; + resumption of white leadership in, 322 ff; + continued interference of Congress in, 326; + growth of Republican opposition to Federal interference in; + repudiation in, 332; + Democrats organize resistance to Republican rule in and practice + intimidation, 339 ff; + Federal troops withdrawn from, 353; + regeneration of, 354; + whites in driven to labor, 355; + end of Federal interference in, 371, 402; + negro suffrage practically nullified in, civil rights secured to + negroes, 372, 382, 388; + refuses social equality to negro, 373, 407-8; + fear of race mixture in, 374, 407; + development of industrial democracy in, 379; + present condition of politics in, 379 ff; + why "solid," 380; + life in diversifying, growth of literature in, 380; + growth of standard of education in, 381; + widening gulf between the races in, 382; + legal and practical limitation of suffrage in, 382 ff, 388; + efforts in to restrict negro education, 385; + negro still has industrial freedom in, 385, 395; + pronounced attitude of on social inferiority of negro, 386; + hopes for better conditions, growth of good-will and confidence + in, 389; + amount spent by for negro education, 397; + educational and industrial problems of, 397 ff; + suffrage laws in, 400; + politics in, no longer a struggle between whites and blacks, 401; + scheme to reduce representation of under 14th amendment, 403; + government aid to education in advocated, 404; + disproportionate share of national expense borne by, 405; + problem of social equal. of races in, 406 ff. + + South Carolina (see also CAROLINAS, THE), + demands representation based on slave numbers, 11; + refuses to join Union if slave trade forbidden, 12; + revolts over tariff, claims right of nullification, 32; + passes law against negro seamen, 73; + considers secession, 221; + passes ordinance of secession, 223; + occupies Ft. Moultrie and Castle Pinckney, 224; + leads South, 229; + emancipation in, 260; + provisional government formed in, 275; + reconstructed, 310; + negro voters in majority in, 311; + under "carpet-bag," rule, 332 ff; + Presidential and State vote of contested (1876), 348 ff; + legal limitation of suffrage in, 383. + + Southern Democracy, asserts universal right of slave-holding, 186. + + "Southern Planter, A," 100. + + "Southern Statesmen of the Old + Regime," 137. + + Speed, Joshua F., 178; resigns + from cabinet, 303. + + Springfield _Republican_, 124 and note, 127; + its opinion of John Brown, 162; + state's issue between Democrats and Republicans in 1864, 265; + favors educational test for suffrage, 308, 310; + prophesies slave-holding class will regain power, 322; + supports Independent Republicans, 328; + on Hayes-Tilden contest, 351. + + Stanton, Edwin M., Attorney-General, 224; + in Lincoln's cabinet, 249; + attitude of on emancipation proclamation, 257; + in Johnson's cabinet, 274; + supports Johnson in reconstruction plans, 276; + becomes bitterly opposed to Johnson, 303; + removed by Johnson, 311. + + "Star of the West," sent with supplies to Anderson, driven from + Charleston harbor, 224. + + State rights, theory of, 133. + + States, relative power of in Congress determined, 11. + + Stearns, George L., supports John Brown, 160. + + Stephens, Alexander H., sketch of his life and views, 137 ff; + political activity of, 138; + in Congress, and Vice-President of Confederacy, 139, 227; + explains defection of Southern Democrats, 189; + supports Douglas in 1860 campaign, 193; + opposes secession, 211, 215; + labors against secession, 219, 221, 225; + Vice-President of Southern Confederacy, 227; + pleads for negro rights, 302. + + Stevens, Thaddeus, Republican leader in Penn., 276; + leader of House, 281; + sketch of, 282; + opposes Pres. Johnson's reconstruction plan, 285; + his drastic reconstruction bill defeated, 306; + House prosecutor of Johnson, 311; + death of, 331. + + Story, Judge, on taxes in Miss., 336. + + Stowe, Harriet Beecher, publishes "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 97; + her views of slavery as pictured therein, 109; + publishes "Dred," 123. + + Suffrage, manhood, adopted, 21; + equal, without test passed in North, 308; + negro, representation of South conditioned on, 298; + proposal to refuse to leaders of South, 299 + see also AMENDMENTS, CONSTITUTIONAL; + Springfield _Republican_ favors educational test for, 308, 310; + unfitness of negroes in South for after war, 317; + of negroes practically nullified in South, 372; + legal limitation of in South, 382 ff; 388. + + Sumner, Charles, opinion of abolitionists, 54; + joins "Free Soil" party, 81; + in Senate, 92; + denounces slavery in Congress, assaulted by Brooks, 122; + in Republican party, 127; + opposes admission of Senators from Confederate States, 270; + Lincoln refuses to quarrel with, 270; + Republican leader in Mass., 276; + sketch of, 282; + in Senate, 284; + opposes Pres. Johnson's reconstruction plan, 286; + belief of in Republican party, 309; + quarrels with Grant, 328; + death of, 331. + + Sumner, Colonel, in Kansas, 118. + + + Taney, Chief Justice, in Dred Scott case, 147. + + Tappan, Arthur, 40, 44. + + Tappan, Lewis, 44. + + Tariff, of abominations, 32; + protective, 31 ff; + compromise on, 33 ff; + supported in Georgia, 21; + adopted by Republican party, 190; + burden of to South, 405. + + Taylor, Zachary (Gen.), 76; + nominated by Whigs, 81; + elected, 82; + denounces threats of disunion as treason, 89; + favors admission of Calif. as free State, 90; + death of, 90; + in North, 208. + + Tennessee, added as slave State, 23; + votes against holding secession convention, 227; + secedes, 235; + provisional govt. estab. in, 267, 275; + rights of negro conserved in, 302; + readmitted under 14th amendment, 303. + + Tenure of office law, passed; Pres. Johnson accused of violating, 311. + + Territories, power of Congress over, 149. + + Texas, annexation of, 74 ff; + slavery re-estab. in, 75; + becomes a state, 76; + emancipation in, 260; + silent on 13th amendment, 262; + provisional govt. of, 275; + reconstructed, 310; + relative number of negro voters in, 311; + under martial law, 316; + becomes Democratic, 323. + + Thayer, Eli, originates New Eng. Emigrant Aid Society, 116. + + Thomas, Lorenzo (Gen.), Sec'y of War, 311. + + Thompson, George, aids Garrison, 51. + + Thompson, Richard W., Sec'y of Navy under Hayes, 353. + + Tilden, Samuel J., leader of Democrats, 313; + nominated for President; + characterized; apparently elected, 347; + election contested, 348 ff. + + Tomlinson, Reuben, Repub. candidate for governor of S. Carolina, 332. + + Toombs, Robert, sketch of, 136 ff; + political activity of, 138; + gives moral support to Preston Brooks, 138; + in Confederate cabinet and army, 139, 227; + supports Breckinridge in 1860 campaign, 193; + advocates secession in Georgia legislature, 211; + supports secession movement, 221; + states South's ultimatum in Congress, 225; + in Confederate cabinet, 227. + + Trade unions, attitude of toward negroes, 385, 395; + danger of excluding negroes from, 396. + + Trumbull, Lyman, elected Senator, 177; + favors admission of Senators from Louisiana, 270; + in Senate, 283, 284, 285; + favors Freedmen's Bureau bill, 294; + votes to acquit Pres. Johnson, 312; + in opposition to administration, 331. + + Tuskegee Institute, 378; function of, 398. + + Truth, Sojourner, 96. + + "Twenty Years of Congress," Blaine's, quoted, 307, 310. + + Tyler, John, becomes President, 71. + + + "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 97 ff; + reception, 98; + "Key to," 99; + criticism of, 99. + + Underground railroad, the, 85. + + Unionism, spirit of strong in white laboring class of South, 214; + strength of at North, 218, 248. + + Unitarians, 143. + + "Up from Slavery," Booker Washington's personal story told in, 378. + + Utah, South demands permission of slavery in, 84. + + + Van Buren, Martin, 30; + becomes President, 71; + receives "Free Soil" nomination, 82. + + Van Winkle, Senator, votes to acquit Pres. Johnson, 312. + + Vardaman, Gov., of Mississippi, 388. + + Virginia, tries to discourage slave trade by tax; + slave labor foundation of aristocracy in, 6; + remonstrates against continuance of slave trade, 8; + forbids importation of slaves, passes law regarding manumission of + slaves, number of slaves in 1790, 9; + against strengthening the slave power, 11; + protests against restraint of Congress to forbid slave trade, 12; + consents (1778) to abolish slave trade, 18; + stops importing slaves, 20; + convention for revis. of constitution, 41; + general emancipation debated, 42 ff; + plans for fail, 43; + passes severe laws against incitement to rebel, instruction of slaves, + etc., loses leadership of South, 44; + Mrs. Burton Harrison's personal reminiscences of before the war, 100; + calls convention to consider secession, 222; + calls peace congress, 228; + secedes, 235; + emancipation in, 260; + loyal State govt. in recognized, 275; + delays her final restoration to Union, 310; + relative number of negro voters in, 311; + under martial law, 316: Democrats regain, 323; + legal limitation of suffrage in, 383; + co-operation of whites and negroes for good govt. in, 401. + + Wade, Benjamin, in Senate, 114; + in Republican party, 127; + favors radical reconstruction, 270; + in U. S. Senate, 283, 285. + + Walker, Boston negro, issues Appeal, 41. + + Walker, Robert J., 117; + appointed governor of Kansas, 150; + defeats fraud in ballot, and is deserted by Buchanan, 152. + + War, terrors of. See CIVIL WAR, 237 ff. + + "War Between the States," by Alex. H. Stephens, 189. + + "War Democrats," 194, 253. + + Warmouth, Henry C., in govt. of Louisiana, 341. + + Warner, Col., in govt. of Miss., 336. + + Warren, Henry W., in govt. of Miss., 336, 337; + on conditions and experiences in Miss. during reconstruction, 337 ff. + + Washburn, Israel, Jr., helps organize Republican party, 114. + + Washington, city of, threatened by Confederates, 237. + + Washington, George, 2; + opinion of New Englanders, 2; + conception of liberty and of slavery, 3; + favors Revolution, 8; + against strengthening slave power, 11; + views of on slavery, 15; + private life and character of, 15 ff; + his treatment of his slaves, frees them, 16; + on necessity of abolishing slavery, 391. + + Washington, Booker T., pupil of and successor to Gen. Armstrong; + his aims and methods; + personal story of, 378; + entertained by Pres. Roosevelt, 386. + + Watterson, Henry, in Hayes-Tilden contest, 352. + + Webster, Daniel, defends protective tariff, 32; + debate with Hayne, 33; + his public life characterized, 64 ff; + 7th of March speech on slavery questions, 87; + defects of speech, 88; + political and moral characteristics of, 88; + in Fillmore's cabinet, 90; + allied with upper classes, 92; + as Pres. candidate defeated in Whig convention (1852), 92; + death of, 93. + + Weed, Thurlow, votes for Taylor, 82; + helps prolong Whig organization in N. Y., 115; + supports Pres. Johnson, 303. + + Weld, Theodore D., 37. + + Whig party (see also WHIGS), + beginnings of, 31; + on verge of dissolution, 93; + end of, 153. + + Whigs, nominate Clay, 75; + gain majority in House, 79; + nominate Taylor, 81; + nominate Gen. Winfield Scott; + defeated by combined Democrats and "Free Soilers," 92; + vote against Kansas-Nebraska bill, 114; + unite with "Free Soilers" to form Republican party; + organization prolonged in N. Y., 115; + in Republican party, 127. + + Whitman, Walt, volunteer nurse, pen picture of war, 247. + + Whitney, Eli, 23. + + Whittier, John G., joins anti-slavery movement, 44, 56; + criticises Webster in poem "Ichabod," 88; + poem on settlement of West, 116; + in first Republican campaign, 130; + his labors for freedom, 144. + + Wilmot proviso, 80. + + Wilson, Henry, joins "Free Soil" party, 81; + elected Senator, 115; sketch of, 283; + opposes Pres. Johnson's plan of reconstruction, 286; + against exclusion clauses in 14th amendment, 302. + + Wilson, Woodrow, "History of the American People," criticised, 334. + + Wise, Henry A., opinion of John Brown, 164. + + Wise, John S., shows effects of John Brown's raid in South, 169; + criticises Bourbonism in Southern politics, 388. + + Women's rights, 56; + cause advanced, 94. + + Wood, Fernando, 352. + + Woolman, John, protests against slavery, 7. + + Woolsey, Theodore D., 36. + + Wright, Elizur, 44. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Negro and the Nation, by George S. 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