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."