The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 2, February, 1862

OUR WAR AND OUR WANT

Can this great republic of our forefathers exist with slavery in it?

Whether we like or dislike the question, it must be answered. As the war stands, we have gone too far to retreat. It clamors for a brave and manly solution. Let us see if we can, laying aside all prejudices, all dislikes whatever, discover an honest course, simply with a view to preserve the Union and insure its future prosperity. Let us avoid all foregone conclusions, all extraneous issues, adhering strictly to the one great need of the hour—how to conquer the foe, reëstablish the Union, and do this in a manner most consonant with our future national prosperity.

It is manifest enough that in a continent destined at no distant day to contain its hundred millions, the question whether these shall form one great nation or a collection of smaller states is one of fearful importance. He who belongs to a great nation is thereby great of himself. He has the right to be proud, and will work out his life more proudly and vigorously and freely than the dweller in a corner-country. Do those men ever reflect, who talk so glibly of this government as too large, and as one which must inevitably be sundered, to what a degradation they calmly look forward! No; Union,—come what may,—now and ever. Greatness is to every brave man a necessity. Out on the craven and base-hearted who aspire to being less than the co-rulers of a continent. See how vile and mean are those men who in the South have lost all national pride in a small-minded provincial attachment to a State, who love their local county better still, and concentrate their real political interests in the feudal government of a plantation. Shall we be as such,—we, the men who hold the destinies of a hemisphere within our grasp? Never,—God help us,—never!

On the basis of free labor we are pressing onward over the mighty West. Two great questions now require grappling with. The one is, whether slavery shall henceforth be tolerated; the other, whether we shall strengthen this great government of the Union so as to preserve it in future from the criminal intrigues of would-be seceding, ambitious men of no principle. Now is the time to decide.

We must not be blind to a great opportunity which may be lost, of forever quelling a foul nuisance which would, if neglected now, live forever. Do we not see, feel, and understand what sort of white men are developed by slavery, and do we intend to keep up such a race among us? Do we want all this work to do over again every ten or five years or all the time? For a quarter of a century, slavery and nothing else has kept us in a growing fever, and now that it has reached a crisis the question is whether we shall calm down the patient with cool rose-water. In the crisis comes a physician who knows the constitution of his patient, and proposes searching remedies and a thorough cure,—and, lo! the old nurse cries out that he is interfering and acting unwisely, though he is quite as willing to adopt her cooling present solace as she.

If we had walked over the war-course last spring without opposition,—if we had conquered the South, would we have put an end to this trouble? Does any one believe that we would? This is not now a question of the right to hold slaves, or the wrong of so doing. All of that old abolition jargon went out and died with the present aspect of the war. So far as nine-tenths of the North ever cared, or do now care, slaves might have hoed away down in Dixie, until supplanted, as they have been in the North, by the irrepressible advance of manufactures and small farms, or by free labor. 'Keep your slaves and hold your tongues,' was, and would be now, our utterance. But they would not hold their tongues. It was 'rule or ruin' with them. And if, as it seems, a man can not hold slaves without being arrogant and unjust to others, we must take his slaves away.

And why is not this the proper time to urge emancipation? Divested of all deceitful and evasive turns, the question reduces itself to this,—are we to definitely conquer the enemy once and for all, the great enemy Oligarchy, by taking out its very heart? or are we to keep up this strife with slaveholders forever? It is a great and hard thing to do, this crushing the difficulty, but we must either do it or be done for. In a few months 'the tax-gatherer will be around.' If anybody has read the report of the Secretary of the Treasury without a grave sensation, he is very fortunate. How would such reports please us annually for many years? So long as there exists in the Union a body of men disowning allegiance to it, puffed up in pride, loathing and scorning the name of free labor, especially as the ally of capital, just so long will the tax-gatherer be around,—and with a larger bill than ever.

To such an extent is this arrogance carried of urging utter silence at present on the subject of slavery, that one might almost question whether the right of free speech or thought is to be left at all, save to those who have determined on a certain course of conduct. When it is remembered that those who wish to definitely conclude this great national trouble are in the great majority, we stand amazed at the presumption which forbids them to utter a word. One may almost distrust his senses to hear it so brazenly urged that because he happens to think that our fighting and victories may go hand in hand with a measure which is to prevent future war, he is 'opposed to the Administration,' is 'a selfish traitor thinking of nothing but the Nigger,' and altogether a stumbling-block and an untimely meddler. If he protest that he cares no more for the welfare of the Negro than for that of the man in the moon, he is still reviled as an 'abolitionist.' If he insist that emancipation will end the war, his 'conservative' foe becomes pathetic over his indifference as to what is to become of the four millions of 'poor blacks.' And, in short, when he urges the great question whether this country is to tolerate slavery or no, he is met with trivial fribbling side-issues, every one of which should vanish like foam before the determined will and onward march of a great, free people.

Now let every friend of the Union boldly assume that so far as the settlement of this question is concerned he does not care one straw for the Negro. Leave the Negro out altogether. Let him sink or swim, so far as this difficulty goes. Men have tried for thirty years to appeal to humanity, without success, for the Negro, and now let us try some other expedient. Let us regard him not as a man and a brother, but as 'a miserable nigger,' if you please, and a nuisance. But whatever he be, if the effect of owning such creatures is to make the owner an intolerable fellow, seditious and insolent, it becomes pretty clear that such ownership should be put an end to. If Mr. Smith can not have a horse without riding over his neighbor, it is quite time that Smith were unhorsed, no matter how honestly he may have acquired the animal. And if the Smiths, father and sons, threaten to keep their horse in spite of law,—nay, and breed up a race of horses from him, whereon to roughride everybody who goes afoot,—then it becomes still more imperative that the Smith family cease cavaliering it altogether.

There is yet another point which the stanch Union-lover must keep in view. In pushing on the war with heart and soul, we inevitably render slaveholding at any rate a most precarious institution, and one likely to be broken up altogether. Seeing this, many unreflectingly ask, 'Why then meddle with it?' But it must be considered in some way, and provided for as the war advances, or we shall find ourselves in such an imbroglio as history never saw the like of. He who cuts down a tree must take forethought how it may fall, or he will perchance find himself crushed. He who in a tremendous conflagration would blow up a block of houses with powder, must, even amid the riot and roar, so manage the explosion that lives be not wantonly lost. We must clear the chips away as our work advances. The matter in hand is the war—if you choose, nothing but the war. But pushing on singly and simply at the war implies some wisdom and a certain regard to the future and to consequences. The mere abolitionist of the old school, who regards the Constitution as a league with death and a covenant with hell, may, if he pleases, see in the war only an opportunity to wreak vengeance on the South and free the black. But the 'emancipationist' sees this in a very different light. He sees that we are not fighting for the Negro, or out of hatred to anybody. He knows that we are fighting to restore the Union, and that this is the first great thought, to be carried out at all hazards. But he feels that this carrying out involves some action at the same time on the great trouble which first caused the war, and which, if neglected, will prolong the war forever. He feels that the future of the greatest republic in existence depends on settling this question now and forever, and that if it be left to the chances of war to settle itself, there is imminent danger that even a victory may not prevent a disrupture of the Union. For, disguise it as we may, there is a vast and uncontrollable body at the North who hate slavery, and pity the black, and these men will not be silent or inactive. Did the election of Abraham Lincoln involve nothing of this? We know that it did. Will this 'extreme left,' this radical party, keep quiet and do nothing? Why they are the most fiercely active men on our continent. Let him who would prevent this battle degenerating into a furious strife between radical abolition and its opponents weigh this matter well. There are fearful elements at work, which may be neutralized, if we who fight for the Union will be wise betimes, and remove the bone of contention.

Above all, let every man bear in mind that, even as the war stands, something must be done to regulate and settle the Negro question. After what has been already effected in the border States and South Carolina, it would be impossible to leave the Negro and his owner in such an undefined relation as now exists. And yet this very fact—one of the strongest which can be alleged to prove the necessity of legislation and order—is cited to prove that the matter will settle itself. Take, for instance, the following from the correspondence of a daily cotemporary:—

THE ARMY SPOILING THE SLAVES.—Whatever may be the policy of the government in regard to the status of the slaves, one thing is certain, that wherever our army goes, it will most effectually spoil all the slaves and render them worthless to their masters. This will be the necessary result, and we think it perfectly useless to disturb the administration and distract the minds of the people with the everlasting discussion of this topic. Soon our army will be in Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana, and the soldiers will carry with their successful arms an element of liberty that will infuse itself into every slave in those States. The only hope for the South, if, indeed, it has not passed away, is to throw down their arms and submit unconditionally to the government.

That is to say, we are to free the slave, only we must not say so! Rather than take a bold, manly stand, avow what we are actually doing, and adopt a measure which would at once conciliate and harmonize the whole North, we are to suffer a tremendous disorder to spring up and make mischief without end! Can we never get over this silly dread of worn-out political abuse and grapple fairly with the truth? Are we really so much afraid of being falsely called abolitionists and negro-lovers that we can not act and think like men! Here we are frightened at names, dilly-dallying and quarreling over idle words, when a tremendous crisis calls for acts. But this can not last forever. Something must be done right speedily for the myriad of blacks whom we shall soon have on our hands. Barracooning contrabands by thousands may do for the present, but how as to the morrow? Let it be repeated again and again, that they who argue against touching the Negro question at present are putting off from day to day an evil which becomes terrible as it is delayed. It can not be let alone. Already those in power at Washington are terrified at its extent, but fear to act, owing to 'abolition,' while all the time the foul old political ties and intrigues are gathering closely about. Let us cut the knot betimes, act bravely and manfully, and settle the difficulty ere it settles us. Something must be done, and that right early.

But what is to become of the freed blacks? Again and again does this preposterous bugbear rise up to prove, by the terror which it excites, the vast ignorance of the subject which prevails in this country, and the small amount of deliberate reasoning generally bestowed on matters of the most vital importance. Reader, if you would answer it, go to facts. You have probably all your life accepted as true the statement that the black when free promptly becomes an idle, worthless vagabond. You have believed that a majority of the free blacks in the North are good for nothing. Now I tell you calmly and deliberately, and challenging inquiry, that this is not true. Admitting that about one-fifth of them are so, you have but a weak argument. As for the forlorn, unacclimated exiles in Canada, where there is no demand for the labor which they are peculiarly fit to render, they are not a case in point. The black servants, cooks, barbers, white-washers, carpet-beaters and grooms of Baltimore and Philadelphia, which form the four-fifths majority of free blacks in those cities, are not idle vagabonds. Above all, reader, I beg of you to read the dispassionate and calmly written Cotton Kingdom of Frederick Law Olmstead, recently published by Mason Brothers, of New York. You will there find the fact set forth by closest observation that the negroes in part are indeed lazy vagabonds, but that the majority, when allowed to work for themselves, and when free, do work, and that right steadily. In the Virginia tobacco factories slaves can earn on an average as much money for themselves, in the 'over hours' allowed them, as the manufacturer pays their owner for their services during the day. There are cases in which slaves, hired for one hundred dollars a year, have made for themselves three hundred.1

But the vagabond surplus,—the minority? Is it possible that with Union or disunion before us we can hesitate as to taking on this incumbrance? In a hard-working land vagabonds must die off,—'tis a hard case, but the emergency for the white men of this and a coming age is much harder. After all, there are only some fifteen hundred or two thousand lazy free negroes in New York city,—the climate, we are told, is too severe for them,—and this among well-nigh a million of inhabitants. We think it would be possible to find one single alderman in that city who has wasted as much capital, and injured the commonwealth quite as much, in one year, as all the negroes there put together, during the same time. It would be absurd to imagine that the emancipation of every negro in America to-morrow would add one million idlers and vagabonds to our population. But what if it did? Would their destiny or injury to us be of such tremendous importance that we need for it peril our welfare as a nation? The standing armies of Germany absorb about one-fifth of the entire capital of the land. Better one million of negative negroes than a million of positive soldiers!

There was never yet in history a time when such a glorious future offered itself to a nation as that which is now within our grasp. In its greatness and splendor it is beyond all description. The great problem of Republicanism—the question of human progress—has reached its last trial. If we keep this mighty nation one and inseparable, we shall have answered it forever; if not, why then those who revile man as vile and irreclaimably degraded may raise their pæans of triumph; the black spectres of antique tyrants may clap their hands gleefully in the land of accursed shadows, and hell hold high carnival, for, verily, it would seem as if they had triumphed, and that hope were a lie.

But who are they who dare accuse us of wishing to weaken the administration and impede its course? Bring the question to light! If there be one thing more than another which those who demand emancipation desire, it is that the central government should be strengthened—aye, strengthened as it has never been before; so that, in future, there can be no return of secession. We have never been a republic—only an aggregate of smaller republics. If we had been one, the first movement toward disunion would have hurled the traitors urging it to the dust. Aye, strengthen the government; and let its first manifestation of strength and will be the settling of the negro question. Give the administration as full power as you please—the more the better; it is only conferring strength on the people. There is no danger that the men of the North will ever lose a shadow of individual rights. They are too powerful.

And now let the freemen of America speak, and the work will be done. A great day is at hand; hasten it. The hour which sees this Union re-united will witness the most glorious triumph of humanity,—the greatest step towards realizing the social aim of Christianity, and of Him who died for all,—the recognition of the rights of every one. Onward!

BROWN'S LECTURE TOUR