THE revolutionary movements of 1848 did much to encourage love of
liberty in America, where the anti-slavery agitation was now becoming
prominent in politics. The indignation against the Mexican war increased
as it was found that nothing would be done to keep the promise of 1844,
that Great Britain should be excluded from the Pacific. The purpose of
the South, to enlarge the area of slavery but not that of freedom, was
so plain that the northern Democrats proposed the Wilmot Proviso, by
which slavery would have been forbidden in all territory acquired
from Mexico; and they actually carried it through the House of
Representatives, with the help of the Whigs, in 1846. Similar action was
taken by the legislatures of New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Delaware,
and seven other States. The Senate was so unwilling to have slavery
prohibited anywhere as to oppose, merely on this account, a bill for
giving a territorial government to Oregon.
I. Many of the New York delegates to the national Democratic convention
in 1848 came pledged to "uncompromising hostility to the extension of
slavery," and were so badly treated that they withdrew. Cass was
nominated as a friend to the South; the Mexican war was declared "just
and necessary"; and abolitionism was denounced, as it had been in 1840
and 1844. Van Buren was nominated soon after by the anti-slavery
Democrats. A similar movement had already been made by Sumner, Wilson,
and other men who were known as "conscience Whigs," and who had some
support from Clay and Webster. Both these candidates for the presidency
were set aside in favour of a slave-holder, who had been very successful
in conquering Mexico, but never cast a vote. In fact, General Taylor had
taken so little interest in politics, that he was supported in the North
as a friend, and in the South as an enemy, to the Wilmot Proviso. No
opinion on this or any other question could be extorted from the
majority; Wilson declared in the convention that he should do all he
could to defeat its nominee; the conscience Whigs made an alliance with
the Van Buren Democrats; and the new movement was joined by the "Liberty
men," whose vote of sixty thousand had decided the election of 1844.
Thus was formed the Free Soil party, whose fundamental idea, like that
afterwards held by the Republicans, was preservation of the Union by
checking the extension of slavery.
Douglass and other Garrisonists were present at the Free Soil
convention, where he was invited to speak. The new party pledged itself
to "Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labour, and Free Men." The national
Government was to relieve itself of "all responsibility for slavery,"
and begin by prohibiting its extension. There should be "no more slave
States," "no more slave territory," and "no more compromises with
slavery." The convention also demanded that Oregon should be organised
as a territory with free labour only; and this was granted at once by
President Polk and both Houses of Congress. Most of the members of the
convention were Transcendental enough to think that wisdom must be
spontaneous; and their scorn of political machinery left it to be used
for making Van Buren the candidate. Lowell, who was then at his height
of productiveness, complained that,
"He aint half anti-slav'ry 'nough";
but Whittier exclaimed, that September:
"Now joy and thanks forever more!
The dreary night has well-nigh passed:
The slumbers of the North are o'er:
The giant stands erect at last!"
The anti-slavery vote was nearly five times as large as in 1844. Cass
would have been elected if the Free Soilers had supported him in
New York. Their hostility gave that State, as well as Vermont and
Massachusetts, to Taylor, who thus became President. He also carried
Georgia and seven other Southern States; but the West was solidly
Democratic. It was not an anti-slavery victory, but a pro-slavery
defeat.
II. The first question before the new President and Congress was about
California. The discovery of gold, before the country was ceded by
Mexico, had brought in crowds of settlers, but scarcely any slaves.
Unwillingness to have another free State prevented Polk and his Senate
from allowing California to have any better government than a military
one; and this was deprived of all authority by the desertion of
the soldiers to the diggings. The settlers knew the value of a free
government, and made one independently. The constitution which they
completed in October, 1848, was so anti-slavery that it was not
sanctioned for nearly two years by Congress. Meantime there was no legal
authority in California to levy taxes, or organise fire departments,
or arrest criminals. Robberies and conflagrations were numerous; the
mushroom cities were not graded, paved, or lighted; the uncertainty of
titles to land caused fights in which lives were lost; and criminals
became so desperate that several were lynched by a Vigilance Committee.
The duty of admitting California as a free State was urged upon the
new Congress in December, 1849, by Taylor, who promised to make an
unexpectedly good President. This plan had become so popular at the
North that it was recommended by the Democratic State conventions of
Massachusetts and Wisconsin, as well as by the legislature of every
Northern State, except Iowa. The House of Representatives could
easily have been carried; for the Whigs and Free Soilers constituted
a majority, and would have had some help from Northern Democrats. The
Senate would probably not have consented until after another appeal to
the people; but this might have been made with success at the elections
of 1850.
Taylor had carried Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia,
North Carolina, Maryland, and Delaware. The last two States had
permitted some Free Soil votes to be cast; this was also the case in
Virginia; and anti-slavery meetings had been held publicly in St. Louis.
The pro-slavery defeat in 1848 encouraged Southerners who knew the
advantage of free labour to agitate for emancipation. The convention
held for this purpose in Kentucky, in 1849, was attended by delegates
from twenty-four counties; and its declaration that slavery was
"injurious to the prosperity of the Commonwealth," was endorsed
by Southern newspapers. Clay himself proposed a plan of gradual
emancipation; and such a measure was called for, according to the
_Richmond Southerner_ (quoted in Hoist's _Constitutional History_, vol.
iii., p. 433), by "two-thirds of the people of Virginia." Admissions
that "Kentucky must be free," that "Delaware and Maryland are now in a
transition, preparatory to becoming free States," and that "Emancipation
is inevitable in all the farming States, where free labour can be
advantageously used," were published in 1853, at New Orleans, in De
Bow's _Industrial Resources of the Southern and Western States_ (vols.
i., p. 407; ii., p. 310; Hi., p. 60). A book which was written soon
after by a North Carolinian named Helper, and denounced violently in
Congress, shows how much those Southerners who did not hold slaves would
have gained by emancipation; and what was so plainly for the interest of
the majority of the voters would have been established by them, sooner
or later, if it had not been for the breaking out of civil war.
How much danger there was, even in 1849, to slave-holders is shown by
their threats to secede. They wished to increase the hostility between
North and South in order to check the spread southwards of Northern
views. It was in this spirit that Senators and Representatives from the
cotton States demanded a more efficient law for returning fugitives.
Most of the thirty thousand then at the North had come from Maryland,
Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri; and these States were invited to act
with their southern neighbours against abolitionism.
There were very few secessionists at this time, except in South
Carolina, Mississippi, and Texas. President Taylor was so popular at
the South, and so avowedly ready to take command himself against rebels,
that no army could have been raised to resist him. Webster declared,
in February, 1850, that there was no danger of secession; and the same
opinion was held by Benton of Missouri, Seward, and other Senators.
There was not enough alarm at the North to affect the stock-market. All
that the Whigs needed to do for the Union was to sustain it with all the
strength which they could use for that purpose at the South. If they had
also insisted that California should be admitted unconditionally, they
would soon have had support enough from Northern Democrats in Congress.
The demand for a national party of freedom was urgent. The Free Soilers
were too sectional; but the Whigs had so much influence at the South
that they could have checked the extension of slavery without bloodshed;
and this would have ensured the progress of emancipation.
III. All this might have been done if Clay's hatred of the
abolitionists, who had refused to make him President, had not made him
try to cripple them by another compromise. He proposed that California
should be admitted at once and without slavery; that it should be
left to the settlers in Utah and New Mexico to decide whether these
territories should ultimately become free or slave States; that Texas
should receive a large sum of money, as well as a great tract of land
which she had threatened to take from New Mexico by force; and, worst
of all, that a new fugitive-slave bill should be passed. The law then
on the statute books left the question whether the defendant should
be enslaved to be decided by a magistrate elected by the people or
appointed by the governor; and the court was so apt to be restricted
by local legislation or public opinion, that recovery of fugitives was
practically impossible in New England. The new law retained the worst
provision of the old one; namely, that no jury could be asked to decide
whether the defendant had ever been a slave. The principal change was
that the judge was to come into such close relations with the national
administration as to be independent of the people of the State.
In short, fugitive slaves were to be punished, and disloyal Texans
rewarded, in order that California might get her rights.
This plan was approved by Webster, who hoped that the grateful South
would make him President, and then help him restore those protective
duties which had been removed in 1846. Other Northerners called the
compromise one-sided; and so did men from those cotton States which
were to gain scarcely anything. President Taylor would yield nothing
to threats of rebellion. It was not until after his death that Clay's
proposals could be carried through Congress; and it was necessary to
present them one by one. The bill by which California was admitted, in
September, 1850, was sandwiched in between those about Texas and the
fugitives. The latter were put under a law by which their friends were
liable to be fined or imprisoned; but the new Fugitive Slave Act
had only three votes from the northern Whigs in the House of
Representatives; and there were only four Senators who actually
consented to all Clay's propositions.
The compromise seemed at first to have silenced both secessionists and
abolitionists. The latter were assailed by worse mobs in Boston and New
York than had been the case in these cities for many years. The rioters
were sustained by public opinion; enthusiastic Union meetings were
held in the large cities; and Webster's course was praised by leading
ministers of all denominations, even the Unitarian. Abolitionism had
apparently been reduced to such a position that it could lead to nothing
but civil war. Parker complained, in May, 1850, that the clergy were
deserting the cause. Phillips spoke at this time as if there were no
anti-slavery ministers left. I once heard friendly hearers interrupt him
by shouting out names like Parker's and Beecher's. He smiled, and began
counting up name after name on the fingers of his left hand; but he soon
tossed it up, and said with a laugh, "I have not got one hand full yet."
Webster's friends boasted that Satan was trodden underfoot; but the
compromise was taken as an admission by the Whigs that their party had
cared too little about slavery. Many of its adherents went over, sooner
or later, to the Democratic party, which had at least the merit of
consistency. About half of the Free Soilers deserted what seemed to be
a lost cause; but few if any went back to help the Whigs. The latter did
not elect even three-fourths as many members of Congress in November,
1850, as they did in 1848; and they fared still worse in 1852.
Democratic aid enabled the Free Soilers in 1851 to send Sumner to
represent them in the Senate, in company with Hale and Chase. Seward had
already been sent there by the anti-slavery Whigs, and had met Webster's
plea for the constitutionality of the new Fugitive Slave Law by
declaring that "There is a higher law than the Constitution."
Sumner maintained in Washington, as he had done in Boston, that the
Constitution as well as the moral law forbade helping kidnappers. He was
never a disunionist; but he insisted that "Unjust laws are not binding";
and he was supported by the mighty influence of Emerson.
The effects of Transcendentalism will be so fully considered in the
next chapter but one, that I need speak here merely of what it did to
encourage resistance to the new law which made philanthropy a crime.
The penalties on charity to fugitives were so severe as to call out much
indignation from the rural clergy at the North. In November, 1850, the
Methodist ministers of New York City agreed to demand the repeal of the
law; and Parker wrote to Fillmore, who had been made President by
Taylor's death, that among eighty Protestant pastors in Boston there
were not five who would refuse hospitality to a slave. The first hunters
of men who came there met such a resistance that they did not try to
capture the fugitives. A negro who was arrested was taken by coloured
friends from the court-house; and a second rescue was prevented only by
filling the building with armed hirelings, surrounding it with heavy
chains under which the judges were obliged to stoop, and finally calling
out the militia to guard the victim through the streets of Boston. A
slaveholder who was supposed to be trying to drag his own son back to
bondage, was shot dead by coloured men in Pennsylvania. Other fugitives
were rescued in Milwaukee and Syracuse. The new law lost much of its
power in twelve months of such conflicts; and it was reduced almost to a
dead letter by Personal Liberty bills, which were enacted in nearly
every Northern State. The compromise was not making the North and South
friends, but enemies.
The hostility was increased by the publication of the most influential
book of the century. _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ had attracted much attention as
a serial; and three thousand copies were sold on the day it appeared
in book form, March 20, 1852. There was a sale that year of two hundred
thousand copies, which were equally welcome in parlour, nursery, and
kitchen. Dramatic versions had a great run; and one actress played
"Little Eva" at more than three hundred consecutive performances. Some
of the most effective scenes were intended to excite sympathy with
fugitive slaves.
The total number of votes for all parties did not increase one-third as
fast between 1848 and 1852 as between 1852 and 1856, when many of "Uncle
Tom's" admirers went to the polls for the first time. The Whigs were
so much ashamed of their party, that they permitted every State, except
Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee to be carried by
the Democrats. The latter had the advantage, not only of unity and
consistency as regards slavery, but of having made their low tariff
so much of a success that there was another reduction in 1857. The two
parties had been made nearly equal in Congress by the election of 1848;
but the proportion was changed four years later, to two to one, and the
beaten party soon went to pieces.
The Free Soil candidates and platform were singularly good in 1852; yet
the vote was but little more than one-half as large as in 1848. There
was no election between 1835 and 1865 when anti-slavery votes seemed so
little likely to do any immediate good. The compromise looked like an
irreparable error; and many reformers thought they could do nothing
better than vote with the Democrats for free trade.
IV. The victors in 1852 might have had many years of supremacy, if they
had kept true to the Jeffersonian principle of State rights. They were
consistent in holding that the position of coloured people in each State
ought to be determined by the local majority. The rights of Northerners
had been invaded by the new law, which forbade hospitality to fugitives
and demanded participation in kidnapping; but this wrong might have been
endured if the South had not denied the right of Kansas to become a free
State. This was guaranteed by the compromise of 1820, which had been
kept by the North. Early in 1854, Senator Douglas of Illinois proposed
that the compact should be repudiated, and that it should be left for
future settlers to decide whether there should be freedom or slavery in
a region ten times as large as Massachusetts, with a fertile soil and a
climate warm enough for negro labour.
There was such prompt and intense indignation throughout the North
at this breach of faith, that Douglas said he could find his way from
Chicago to Boston by the light of the bonfires in which he was burned in
effigy. The difference of opinion between city and country clergy ceased
at once. An Episcopalian bishop headed the remonstrance which was signed
by nearly every minister in New York City. Two other bishops signed
the New England protest in company with the presidents of Yale, Brown,
Williams, and Amherst, with the leaders of every Protestant sect,
and with so many other clergymen that the sum total rose above three
thousand, which was four-fifths of the whole number. Five hundred
ministers in the North-west signed a remonstrance which Douglas was
obliged to present; and so many such memorials came in from all the free
States, as to show that there was very little pro-slavery feeling left
among the clergy, except in the black belt north of the Ohio.
One-half of the Northern Democrats in the House of Representatives
refused to follow Douglas. Leading men from all parties united to form
the new one, which took the name of Republican on July 6, 1854, and
gained control of the next House of Representatives. It was all the
more popular because it began "on the sole basis of the non-extension
of slavery." Victory over the South could be gained only by uniting
the North; but Garrison still kept on saying, "If we would see the
slave-power overthrown, the Union must be dissolved." On July 4, 1854,
two days before the Republican party adopted its name, he burned the
Constitution of the United States amid several thousand spectators. Then
it was that Thoreau publicly denied his allegiance to Massachusetts,
which was already doing its best to save Kansas.
Emigrants from New England were sent into that territory so rapidly that
the Douglas plan seemed likely to hasten the time when it would be a
free State. The South had insisted on the rights of the settlers; but
they were outvoted, in November, 1854, and afterwards, by bands of armed
Missourians, who marched off when they had carried the election. The
Free State men were then supplied with rifles; and an anti-slavery
constitution was adopted by the majority of actual residents.
The minority were supported by the President, as well as by the
"border-ruffians"; two rival governments were set up; and civil war
began early in 1855. Lawrence, the principal town in Kansas, was sacked
by command of the United States Marshal, the most important buildings
burned, and much private property stolen. Five settlers, whose threats
of violence had offended John Brown, were slain in cold blood by him and
his men, in retaliation for the Lawrence outrage, in May, 1856. Anarchy
continued; but the new State was not admitted until 1861.
Prominent among the Northerners who insisted on the right of Kansas to
govern herself, was Sumner. His speech in the Senate in May, 1856,
was so powerful that half a million copies were printed as campaign
literature, and Whittier said, "It has saved the country." The orator
had attacked some of his colleagues with needless severity; and on the
day after the sack of Lawrence, he was assaulted by a Representative
from South Carolina in the Senate Chamber with such ferocity that he
could not return to his seat before 1860. This cruel outrage against
freedom of speech was universally applauded throughout the South.
There was indignation enough at the North in 1856 to have given the
election to the Republicans, if the field had been clear; but Protestant
bigotry enabled the South to choose the President who failed to
oppose rebellion. The Catholics had objected as early as 1840 to the
Protestantism which was taught, in part at their expense, to their
children in the public schools. Some ways in which this was done then
have since been abandoned; but the principal controversy has been
about using a book which is universally acknowledged to be a bulwark of
Protestantism. There would not be so much zeal at present for having
it read daily in the schools, if it has no religious influence; and our
Catholic citizens have a right to prefer that their children should be
taught religion in ways not forbidden by their Church. Pupils have not
had much moral or even religious benefit from school-books against which
their conscience rebelled, however unreasonably.
The Catholic position in 1841, according to Bishop Hughes, afterwards
Archbishop, was this: "We do not ask money from the school fund;--all
our desire is that it should be administered in such a way as to promote
the education of all" and "leave the various denominations each in
the full possession of its religious rights over the minds of its
own children. If the children are to be educated promiscuously, as at
present, let religion in every shape and form be excluded."
The Catholics soon changed their ground, and demanded that their
parochial schools should be supported by public money. This called out
the opposition of a secret society, which insisted on keeping the Bible
in the schools and excluding Catholics from office. The Know Nothings
had the aid of so many Whigs in 1854 as to elect a large number of
candidates, most of whom were friendly to the Republicans. The leaders
wished to remain neutral between North and South; but it is hard to
say whether the pledge of loyalty to the Union did not facilitate the
capture of the organisation by the insatiable South early in 1856.
Beecher had already declared that the Know Nothing lodges were
"catacombs of freedom" in which indignation against slavery was stifled.
The presidential election showed that the outburst of bigotry had
done more harm to friends than enemies of liberty. The Democrats lost
Maryland, but gained Pennsylvania and four other Northern States. This
enabled them to retain the Presidency and the Senate, as well as to
recover the House of Representatives, where they had become weaker than
the Republicans. The party of freedom polled eight times as many votes
as in 1852, and made its first appearance in the electoral colleges. It
carried eleven States. The Whigs had accepted the Know Nothing nominee;
and both these neutral parties soon dissolved.
Anarchy in Kansas had been suppressed by United States dragoons; but
they did not prevent the adoption of a pro-slavery constitution by bogus
elections. Buchanan promptly advised Congress to admit Kansas as a slave
State, and declared she was already as much one as Georgia or South
Carolina. This opinion he based on the Dred Scott decision by the
Supreme Court, that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in any
territory. Douglas insisted on the right of the people of Kansas to
"vote slavery up or down." They were enabled by the joint efforts of
Republicans and Northern Democrats to have a fair chance to say whether
they wished to become a slave State or remain a territory; and the
latter was preferred by four-fifths of the voters.
V. The South called Douglas a traitor; but leading Republicans helped
the Illinois Democrats, in 1858, to elect the Legislature which gave him
another term in the Senate. He might have become the next President if
his opponent in the senatorial contest, Abraham Lincoln, had not led the
Republican party into the road towards emancipation. On June 16, 1858,
he said, in the State convention: "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 took the same
position, four months later, in his speech about the "irrepressible
conflict." Lincoln held that summer and autumn a series of joint debates
with his opponent, before audiences one of which was estimated at twenty
thousand. The speeches were circulated by the Republicans as campaign
documents; and Lincoln's were remarkable, not only for his giving no
needless provocation to the South, but for his proving that slavery
ought not to be introduced into any new territory or State by local
elections. He represented Douglas as really holding that if one man
chooses to enslave another no third man has any business to interfere;
and he repudiated the decision in the Dred Scott case, that coloured
people "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." He had
more votes that fall than Douglas; but the latter's friends were enabled
by the district system to control the Legislature. Douglas was sent back
to the Senate. Lincoln gained the national reputation which made him
President.
The congressional elections were more favourable to the Republicans than
in 1856, for Northern indignation was growing under the stimulus, not
only of the new wrong to Kansas, but of attempts to annex Cuba and
revive the slave trade. Plans for emancipation were still discussed in
the South; and the agitation had reached even Texas. Helper's _Impending
Crisis_ had gained circulation enough in his own State, North Carolina,
to alarm the slaveholders. They knew that they constituted only
three-tenths of the Southern voters, and that the proportion was less
than one-sixth in Maryland. Helper proved that emancipation would be
greatly to the advantage of many men who held slaves, as well as of all
who did not. When this was found out by the majority in any Southern
State, slavery would begin to fall by its own weight. It had been kept
up by popular ignorance; but the prop was crumbling away. This way of
emancipation might have been long; but it would have led to friendly
relations between whites and blacks, as well as between North and South.
What was most needed in 1859 was that all friends of freedom should work
together, and that no needless pretext should be given for secession.
Garrison still insisted on disunion, and predicted that the South would
not "be able to hold a single slave one hour after the deed is done,"
but he also maintained, as most abolitionists did, that nothing would be
more foolish than trying to excite a slave insurrection. Precisely this
greatest of blunders was committed at Harper's Ferry. If the attempt had
been made six months later, or had had even a few weeks of success,
it might have enabled the slaveholders to elect at least one more
President. The bad effect, in dividing the North, was much diminished by
John Brown's heroism at his trial and execution; but great provocation
was given to the South, and especially to Virginia, which soon turned
out to be the most dangerous of the rebel States. Business men were
driven North by the dozen from cities which were preparing for war.
The quarrel between Northern and Southern Democrats kept growing
fiercer; and the party broke up at the convention for 1860 into two
sectional factions with antagonistic platforms and candidates. Douglas
still led the opposition to those Southerners who maintained that the
nation ought to protect slavery in the territories. A third ticket was
adopted by neutrals who had been Whigs or Know Nothings, and who now
professed no principle but a vague patriotism. The Republicans remained
pledged to exclude slavery from the territories; but they condemned John
Brown, and said nothing against the Fugitive Slave Law or in favour of
emancipation in the District of Columbia. Their leaders had favoured
free trade in 1857; but the platform was now made protectionist, in
order to prevent Pennsylvania from being carried again by the Democrats.
Illinois and Indiana were secured by the nomination of Lincoln. He was
supported enthusiastically by the young men throughout the North:
public meetings were large and frequent; torchlight processions were
a prominent feature of the campaign. The wealth and intellect of the
nation, as well as its conscience, were now arrayed against slavery; but
the clergy are said to have been less active than in 1856. Lincoln had
the majority in every Northern State, except New Jersey, California, and
Oregon. He also had 17,028 votes in Missouri, and 8042 in other slave
States which had sent delegates to the Republican convention. Not one
of the Southern electors was for Lincoln; but he would have become
President if all his opponents had combined against him.
VI. The South had nothing to fear from Congress before 1863, but she had
lost control of the North. Kansas would certainly be admitted sooner or
later; and there would never be another slave State, for the Republican
plan for the territories was confirmed by their geographical position.
The free States might soon become so numerous and populous as to
prohibit the return of fugitives, abolish slavery in the District
of Columbia, repeal the clause of the Constitution which allowed
representation for slaves, and forbid their transportation from State
to State. It was also probable, in the opinion of Salmon P. Chase,
afterwards Secretary of the Treasury, and of many leading Southerners,
that under Federal patronage there might soon be a majority for
emancipation in Maryland, Kentucky, and other States (see _Life of
Theodore Parker_, by Weiss, vol. ii., pp. 229, 519). The vote of thanks
given to Parker in 1855 by the hearers of his anti-slavery lecture in
Delaware, showed that abolitionism would eventually become predominant
in the Senate, as it was already in the House of Representatives.
This prospect was especially alarming to the comparatively few men who
owned so many slaves that they could not afford emancipation on any
terms. Their wealth and leisure gave them complete control of politics,
business, public opinion, and social life in the cotton States; where
both press and pulpit were in bondage. Their influence was much less
in the farming States than in 1850; but they had since come into such
perfect union among themselves, as to constitute the most powerful
aristocracy then extant. Their number may be judged from the fact that
there were in 1850 about six thousand people in the cotton States who
owned fifty slaves or more each.
It was in the interest of these barons of slavery that South Carolina
seceded soon after the election, and that her example was followed by
Georgia and all the Gulf States before Lincoln was inaugurated. The
Garrisonists wished to have them depart in peace; but there was a
strong and general preference for another compromise. Lincoln and other
Republicans insisted that the territories should be kept sacred to
freedom, and that "The Union must be preserved." The question was
settled by those aggressions on national property which culminated in
the bombardment of Fort Sumter. Lincoln's call to arms was answered by a
great uprising of the united North. Loyalty to the nation burst forth in
so fierce a flame that abolitionists who had been trying for many years
to extinguish it now welcomed it as the destined destroyer of slavery.
War had been declared for the sole purpose of suppressing rebellion; and
nothing more could at first have been attempted without violating the
Constitution. Fugitives were sent back promptly by Federal generals, and
anti-slavery songs forbidden in the camps. This policy seemed necessary
to keep the North united, and prevent secession of doubtful States.
Some of those already in revolt might thus, it was hoped, be induced to
return voluntarily, or be conquered easily. These expectations were
soon disappointed. A few of the slave States were kept in subjection
by military force; but the people of the others united in a desperate
resistance, with the aid of the slaves, who supplied the armies with
food and laboured without complaint in camps and forts. But little
was accomplished by the immense armies raised at the North; for the
discipline was at first lax, and the generals were inefficient. Many
defeats of Union armies by inferior forces showed how difficult it is
for a nation that has enjoyed many years of peace to turn conqueror.
VII. The innate incompatibility of war and liberty was disclosed by the
unfortunate fact that even Lincoln was obliged to consent unwillingly to
war measures of a very questionable sort; for instance, the conscription
and that Legal Tender Act which was really a forced loan, and which has
done much to encourage subsequent violations of the right of property by
both Republicans and Democrats in Congress. More harm than good was done
to the Union cause by arbitrary arrests for talking and writing against
the war. Phillips declared, in December, 1861, that "The right of free
meetings and a free press is suspended in every square mile of the
republic." "At this moment one thousand men are bastilled." Hale and
other Republican Senators remonstrated; and so patriotic an author as
Holmes said that teapots might be dangerous, if the lids were shut. All
political prisoners but spies were released by the President early in
1862; and there were no more arbitrary arrests except under plea of
military necessity.
Failures of Union generals encouraged opposition to the war from men who
still preferred compromise; and their disaffection was increased by
the passage, in March, 1863, of a bill establishing a conscription and
putting all the people under martial law. The commander of the military
district that included Ohio issued orders which forbade "declaring
sympathy for the enemy," and threatened with death "all persons within
our lines who harbour, protect, feed, clothe, or in any way aid the
enemies." These orders were denounced as unconstitutional at a public
meeting before more than ten thousand citizens. Many wore badges cut
from the large copper coins then in use and bearing the sacred image
and superscription of Liberty. This practice brought the nickname
"Copperheads" upon people who longed to have the South invited back
on her own terms. Such a policy was recommended at the meeting by
Vallandigham, who had recently represented Ohio in Congress. He called
upon the people to vote against the "wicked war," and said he would
never obey orders aimed against public discussion.
For this speech he was arrested at night, by soldiers who broke into
his house, tried by court-martial, and sentenced on May 7, 1863, to
imprisonment during the remainder of the war. A writ of _habeas corpus_
was refused by the United States Court, which admitted itself "powerless
to enforce obedience." At the clang of war, laws are silent.
Indignation meetings in great cities voted that "The Union cannot be
restored without freedom of speech." Loyal newspapers regretted that
Vallandigham was under "a penalty which will make him a martyr." A
petition for his release was sent to Lincoln, who had not ordered
the arrest and admitted that it was not justified by the speech. He
concluded that the culprit's behaviour towards the army had been so
dangerous that he had better be sent South, beyond the lines. This was
done at once; but the agitator was allowed to return through Canada in
the last summer of the war. Even Lincoln found it difficult to respect
individual liberty under the pressure of military necessity. A strong
government was needed; and that fact has opened the way for Congress to
interfere with private business, for instance in changing the tariff,
during the latter part of the century much more frequently and
extensively than had been done before. Another significant fact is that
the old controversy about internal improvements has died away since our
government was centralised by war; and much money is wasted under that
pretext by Congress.
VIII. The impossibility of putting down the rebellion without
interfering with slavery gradually became plain, even to men who had
formerly hated abolitionism. The only question was how to turn what
was the strength of the Confederacy into its weakness. In March, 1862,
Congress forbade the army to return fugitives; and many thousand fled
into the Union camps, where they did good service, not only as teamsters
and labourers, but even as soldiers. The number under arms amounted
finally to more than a hundred thousand; and they did some of the best
fighting that took place during the war. The colour prejudice at the
North yielded slowly; but the leading Republicans saw not only the need
of more soldiers, but the justice of setting free the wives and children
of men who were risking death for the nation. An Emancipation League was
formed during the first gloomy winter of the war; and Frederick Douglass
said on the Fourth of July amid great applause: "You must abolish
slavery, or abandon the Union"; "for slavery is the life of the
rebellion."
Lincoln was already thinking of setting free the slaves in all the
States which should continue in rebellion after the close of the year;
and his draft of a proclamation, announcing this purpose, was read
to the Cabinet on July 22, 1862. The army in Virginia had been so
unfortunate that summer as to cause a postponement; but the victory
of Antietam was followed by the publication, on September 22d, of
the formal notice that emancipation might be proclaimed on the 1st of
January. How welcome the new policy was to loyal citizens may be judged
from the approbation expressed by the clergy of all denominations, even
the New School Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and Roman Catholic. When
New Year's Day dawned there was much doubt whether the promise would
be fulfilled. Abolitionists and coloured people met in Boston and other
cities, and waited hour after hour, hoping patiently. It was evening
before the proclamation began to pass over the wires. It promised
freedom to all slaves in Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida,
Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, besides most of those
in Louisiana and Virginia. Tennessee and some other States were not
mentioned, because held to have been brought back into the Union. There
was to be freedom thenceforth wherever the Stars and Stripes waved. No
wonder that the news caused great audiences to shout or weep with joy,
and many to spend the night in praise and prayer. The North was now
inspired by motives amply sufficient to justify even a war of conquest;
and her men and money were given freely, until superiority in resources
enabled General Grant to close the war in April, 1865. The revolted
States came back, one by one, and left slavery behind. Even where it had
not been formally abolished, it was practically extinct. Douglass was
right in saying "It was not the destruction, but the salvation of the
Union, that saved the slave."
An amendment to the Constitution, which swept away the last vestiges
of slavery, and made it for ever impossible in the United States, was
adopted on December 18, 1865. It had been proposed two years before;
but the assent of several States then actually in revolt would have been
necessary to secure the majority of three-fourths necessary for adoption
of an amendment. It was by no means certain that even the nominally
loyal States would all vote unanimously for emancipation. In order to
increase the majority for the Thirteenth Amendment, the admission
of Nevada and Colorado as States was voted by Congress, despite some
opposition by the Democrats, in March, 1864. Nevada had a population of
less than 43,000 in 1870. There were not 46,000 people there in 1890,
and there had been a decline since 1880. It is not likely that her
inhabitants will ever be numerous enough to justify her having as much
power in the Senate as New York or Pennsylvania. Senators who represent
millions of constituents have actually been prevented from passing
necessary laws by Senators who did not represent even twenty-five
thousand people each. Nevada is still the worst instance of such
injustice; but it is by no means the only one; and these wrongs can
never be righted, for the Constitution provides that. "No State, without
its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate."
The Thirteenth Amendment did not, I think, come into force a day earlier
than it would have done if Nevada had never been admitted, for the
_bona-fide_ States came forward with unexpected willingness. Colorado
was not fully admitted before 1876. Lincoln's favouring the bills
for admitting these States was a serious error, though the motive was
patriotic. His beauty and grandeur of character make the brightest
feature of those dark, sad years. No name stands higher among martyrs
for freedom.
IX. There is no grander event in all history than the emancipation of
four million slaves. This was all the more picturesque because done by
a conquering army; but it was all the more hateful to the former owners.
They refused to educate or enfranchise the freedmen, and tried to reduce
them to serfdom by heavy taxes and cruel punishments for petty crimes.
The States which had seceded were kept under military dictators after
the war was over; and their people were forced to accept the Fourteenth
Amendment, which gave protection to coloured people as citizens of the
United States.
In 1867 there were twenty-one Northern States; but only Maine, New
Hampshire, and Vermont gave the ballot freely to illiterate negroes
without property. Massachusetts had an educational test for all voters;
there were other restrictions elsewhere; and no coloured men could vote
in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or the North-west. In fact, very few had
ever voted anywhere when Congress gave the suffrage to all the freed men
for their own protection, with no discrimination against illiteracy.
The result of this measure in the District of Columbia was that
unscrupulous politicians gained strong support from needy and ignorant
voters of all colours. Public money was spent recklessly; taxation
became oppressive; and the public debt grew to alarming size. On June
17, 1874, when Grant was President and each branch of Congress was more
than two-thirds Republican, the House of Representatives voted, ten to
one, in favour of taking away the suffrage, not only from the blacks
who had received it seven years before, but even from the whites who had
exercised it since the beginning of the century. All local government
was entrusted to three commissioners appointed by the President and
confirmed by the Senate. There was no opposition; for the arrangement
seemed only temporary. It proved permanent. Even taxation without
representation has been thought better than negro suffrage; and the
citizens of the national capital remain in 1899 without any voice in
their own municipal government.
The problem has been still more difficult in those eleven States which
had to accept negro suffrage, in or after 1867, as a condition of
restoration to the Union. The extension of franchise made in all the
States by the Fifteenth Amendment, in 1870, seemed such a blessing to
the Republicans that Frederick Douglass was much censured for holding
that it might possibly have been attained without special supernatural
assistance. It soon became plain, however, that Congress ought to have
given the spelling-book earlier than the ballot. The suffrage proved no
protection to the freedman; for his white neighbours found that he could
be more easily intimidated than educated. Congress tried to prevent
murder of coloured voters by having the polls guarded by Federal troops
and the elections supervised by United States marshals. The _Habeas
Corpus_ Act was suspended by President Grant in districts where the
blacks outnumbered the whites. It was hard to see what liberty had
gained.
The negro's worst enemies were his own candidates. They had enormous
majorities in South Carolina; and there, as Blaine admits, they "brought
shame upon the Republican party," "and thus wrought for the cause of
free government and equal suffrage in the South incalculable harm."
Between 1868 and 1872 they added ten millions by wanton extravagance to
the State debt. Large sums were stolen; taxes rose to six per cent.; and
land was assessed far above its value, with the avowed purpose of taking
it away from the whites. Such management was agreed at a public meeting
of coloured voters under Federal protection, in Charleston, in 1874,
to have "ruined our people and disgraced our State." Negro suffrage was
declared by the New York Evening Post to have resulted in "organising
the ignorance and poverty of the State against its property and
intelligence."
This took place all over the South, and also in Philadelphia, New
York, and other northern cities. Here the illiterate vote was largely
European; and the corruption of politics was facilitated by the
absorption of property-holders in business. There was great need that
intelligent citizens of all races, parties, and sections should work
together to reform political methods sufficiently to secure honest
government. Some progress has already been made, but by no means so much
as might have been gained if the plundered taxpayers at the South had
made common cause with those at the North in establishing constitutional
bulwarks against all swindlers whose strength was in the illiterate and
venal vote.
Unfortunately, prejudice against negroes encouraged intimidation; and
fraud was used freely by both parties. When elections were doubted,
Republican candidates were seated by Federal officials and United States
soldiers. These latter were not resisted; but the Southern Democrats
made bloody attacks on the negro militia. One such fight at New Orleans,
on September 14, 1874, cost nearly thirty lives. What was called a
Republican administration collapsed that day throughout Louisiana; but
it was soon set up again by the army which had brought it into power.
At last the negroes found out that, whoever might conquer in this
civil war, they would certainly lose. They grew tired of having hostile
parties fighting over them, and dropped out of politics. The Republicans
held full possession of the presidency, both branches of Congress, the
Federal courts, the army, the offices in the nation's service, and most
of the State governments; but they could not prevent the South from
becoming solidly Democratic. The new governments proved more economical,
and the lives of the coloured people more secure. The last important
result of negro suffrage in South Carolina and Louisiana was an alarming
dispute as to who was elected President in 1876. The ballot has not been
so great a blessing to the freedmen as it might have been if it had
been preceded by national schools, and given voluntarily by State after
State.
These considerations justify deep regret that emancipation was not
gained peaceably and gradually. Facts have been given to show that it
might have been if there had been more philanthropy among the clergy,
more principle among the Whigs, and more wisdom among the abolitionists.