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.