_Emancipation in the District.--Comments of the Press.--The Good
Result.--Recognition of Hayti and Liberia.--The Slave-trader Gordon._
For many years previous to the Rebellion, efforts had been made to
induce Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, without
success. The “negro-pens” which adorned that portion of the national
domain had long made Americans feel ashamed of the capital of their
country; because it was well known that those pens were more or less
connected with the American slave-trade, which, in its cruelty, was as
bad as that of the African slave-trade, if not worse. It was expected,
even by the democracy, that one of the first acts of the Republicans
on coming into office would be the emancipation of the slaves of the
District; and therefore no one was surprised at its being brought
forward in the earliest part of Mr. Lincoln’s administration. The bill
was introduced into the Senate by Hon. Henry Wilson of Massachusetts.
Its discussion caused considerable excitement among slave-holders,
who used every means to prevent its passage. Nevertheless, after going
through the Senate, it passed the House on the 11th of April, 1862, by
a large majority, and soon received the sanction of the President. The
Copperhead press howled over the doings of Congress, and appeared to
see the fate of the institution in this act. The “Louisville Journal”
said,--
“The President, contrary to our most earnest hopes, has approved the
bill for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.
“We need hardly say that the President’s reasons for approving the
bill are not, in our opinion, such as should have governed him at this
extraordinary juncture of the national history. They are not to us
sufficient reasons. On the contrary, we think they weigh as nothing
compared with the grave reasons in the opposite scale.
“The enemies of the country will no doubt attempt so to use the act by
representing it as the first step towards the abolition of slavery
in the States; but this representation, if made, will be a very gross
misrepresentation. The Republicans, as a body, our readers know full
well, always declared that Congress had the constitutional power to
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and that Congress ought to
exercise the power. They, however, have always declared, with the same
unanimity, that Congress does not possess the constitutional power
to interfere with slavery in the States. And they now declare so with
especial distinctness and solemnity.
“We, of course, except from the scope of the remarks we have now made
such abolitionists as Sumner and his scattered followers in Congress.
With the exception of these few _raving zealots, of whom most
Republicans are heartily ashamed,_ the men who voted to abolish slavery
in the District of Columbia avow themselves as resolutely opposed to
interfering with slavery in the States as the men who voted against the
measure are known to be. Their avowals are distinct and emphatic.
“We hope that the majority in Congress are at length through with
such tricks, and will henceforth leave in peace the myrtle of party
eye-sores, while they split the oak of the Rebellion.”
However, the predictions and hopes of the “Journal” were not to
avail any thing for the slavemongers. The Rebellion had sounded the
death-knell of the crime of crimes. Too many brave men had already
fallen by the hands of the upholders of the barbarous system to have it
stop there. The God of liberty had proclaimed that--
“In this, the District where my Temple stands,
I burst indignant every captive’s bands;
Here in my home my glorious work begin;
Then blush no more each day to see this sin.
Thus finding room to freely breathe and stand,
I’ll stretch my sceptre over all the land,
Until, unfettered, leaps the waiting slave,
And echoes back the blessings of the brave.”
The “Press,” Forney’s paper, spoke thus, a few days after slavery had
died in the District:--
“The emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia was one of
the most suggestive events of the age. It was an example and an
illustration. The great idea of the past century, the idea which had
associated and identified itself with our institutions, was at last
tried by a practical test. Good results came from it; none of the evils
dreaded and prophesied have been manifested. It was a simple measure
of legislative policy, and was established amid great opposition and
feeling. Yet it was succeeded by no agitation, no outbreaks of popular
prejudice. The District of Columbia is now a free Territory by the
easy operation of a statute law,--by what enemies of the measure called
forcible emancipation; and yet the District of Columbia is as pleasant
and as prosperous as at any period of its history. There has been no
negro saturnalia, no violent outbreak of social disorder, no attempt
to invade those barriers of social distinction that must forever exist
between the African and Anglo-Saxon [?]. It was said that property would
depreciate; that there would be excesses and violences; that the negro
would become insolent and unbearable; that the city of Washington would
become a desolated metropolis; that negro labor would become valueless;
that hundreds of the emancipated negroes would flock to the Northern
States. We have seen no such results as yet; we know that nothing of the
kind is anticipated. We have yet to hear of the first emancipated negro
coming to Philadelphia. Labor moves on in its accustomed way, with the
usual supply and demand. We do not think a white woman has been insulted
by an emancipated negro; we are confident that no emancipated negro has
sought the hand of any fair damsel of marriageable age and condition.
“Society is the same in Maryland and Kentucky. In accomplishing
emancipation in the District of Columbia, we have shown the timid
that their fears were but of the imagination, the mere prejudices of
education. Slavery has been the cancer of the Southern social system.
We employ an old metaphor, perhaps, but it is a forcible and appropriate
illustration. It rooted itself into the body of Southern society,
attacking the glands, terminating in an ill-conditioned and deep
disease, and causing the republic excruciating pain. It became schirrous
and indurated. It brought disaster and grief upon them, and the sorest
of evils upon us. It brought us blood and civil war, ruined commerce and
desolated fields, blockaded ports, and rivers that swarm with gunboats
instead of merchant vessels. It was tolerated as a necessary evil, until
its extent and virulence made it incumbent upon us to terminate it as
such, or to be terminated by it. The champions of this institution, not
content with submitting to the toleration and protection of our great
Northern free community, have made it the pretext for aggression and
insult, and by their own acts are accomplishing its downfall. The
emancipation of slavery in the District of Columbia was the necessary
and natural result of the Southern Rebellion. It is but the beginning of
the results the Rebellion must surely bring. The wedge has only entered
the log, and heavy blows are falling upon it day by day.”
Great was the rejoicing in Washington and throughout the Free States;
for every one saw “the end from the beginning.” Our own Whittier strung
his harp anew, and sung,--
“I knew that truth would crush the lie,--
Somehow, sometime the end would be;
Yet scarcely dared I hope to see
The triumph with my mortal eye.
But now I see it. In the sun
A free flag floats from yonder dome,
And at the nation’s hearth and home
The justice long delayed is done.”
With the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, commenced a
new era at our country’s capital. The representatives of the Governments
of Hayti and Liberia had both long knocked in vain to be admitted
with the representatives of other nations. The slave power had always
succeeded in keeping them out. But a change had now come over the dreams
of the people, and Congress was but acting up to this new light in
passing the following bill:--
“_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled_, That the President of the
United States be, and he hereby is, authorized, by and with the consent
of the Senate, to appoint diplomatic representatives of the United
States to the republics of Hayti and Liberia, respectively. Each of the
said representatives so appointed shall be accredited as commissioner
and consul general, and shall receive, out of any money in the treasury
not otherwise appropriated, the compensation of commissioners provided
for by the Act of Congress approved August 18, 1856: _Provided_ that the
compensation of the representative at Liberia shall not exceed $4,000.”
The above bill was before the Senate some time, and elicited much
discussion, and an able speech was made by Hon. Charles Sumner in favor
of the recognition of the independence of Hayti and Liberia. To use his
own expressive words, “Slavery in the national capital is now abolished:
it remains that this other triumph shall be achieved. Nothing but the
sway of a slave-holding despotism on the floor of Congress, hitherto,
has prevented the adoption of this righteous measure; and now that that
despotism has been exorcised, no time should be lost by Congress to see
it carried into immediate execution. All other civilized nations have
ceased to make complexion a badge of superiority or inferiority in the
matter of nationality; and we should make haste, therefore, to repair
the injury we have done, as a republic, in refusing to recognize
Liberian and Haytian independence.”
Even after all that had passed, the African slave-trade was still being
carried on between the Southern States and Africa. Ships were fitted out
in Northern ports for the purpose of carrying on this infernal traffic.
And, although it was prohibited by an act of Congress, none had ever
been convicted for dealing in slaves. The new order of things was to
give these traffickers a trial, and test the power by which they had
so long dealt in the bodies and souls of men whom they had stolen from
their native land. One Nathaniel Gordon was already in prison in New
York, and his trial was fast approaching: it came, and he was convicted
of piracy in the United States District Court in the city of New York;
the piracy consisting in having fitted out a slaver, and shipped nine
hundred Africans at Congo River, with a view to selling them as slaves.
The same man had been tried for the same offence before; but the jury
failed to agree, and he accordingly escaped punishment for the time.
Every effort was made which the ingenuity of able lawyers could invent,
or the power of money could enforce, to save this miscreant from the
gallows; but all in vain: for President Lincoln utterly refused to
interfere in any way whatever, and Gordon was executed on the 7th of
February.
This blow appeared to give more offence to the commercial Copperheads
than even the emancipation of the slaves in the District of Columbia;
for it struck an effectual blow at a very lucrative branch of commerce,
in which the New Yorkers were largely interested. Thus it will be seen
that the nation was steadily moving on to the goal of freedom.