Without attempting to discuss this interesting question in all its
various aspects, we may briefly advert to some of the problems in the
discussion which would seem to be fairly solved in the employment of the
negro as a United States soldier.
Thus much is certainly true of the American negro, and herein he is
doubtless superior to the white man; namely, that he is docile, patient,
buoyant of spirit, full of affection, and endowed with a marvellous
apprehension of things spiritual. His _patience_ is shown by his long
bondage, borne without serious murmuring; awaiting the day of
deliverance, confident that the year of jubilee was to come. This point
is lucidly elaborated in a late article, of great interest, in _The
Edinburgh Review_, said to have been written by a negro escaped from
slavery. The negro's _docility_ appears in his aptitude to catch quickly
the tone of his master's mind, and guide himself by it; in the readiness
with which he yields to superior authority--which may or may not be due
to his spirit-crushing bondage, but which certainly has in it little of
the stupidity we should expect to find if such were the case. The
_buoyancy of his spirit_ overflows in the perpetual music of his laugh
and song amid the hard fortunes of his race. The fulness of his
_capacity of affection_ is attested by his remarkable devotion to master
or mistress, surviving strong amid all vicissitudes, and rising above
the iniquitous injustice that holds him in bonds into that exalted
triumph of the apostle's doctrine: 'Be not overcome of evil, but
overcome evil with good.' As for his _readiness to apprehend spiritual
things_, the experience of every person who has lived at the South
furnishes abundant proof. Who that has stood on the banks of a Southern
river, when a negro was baptized, and heard the loud chorus of joy of
his brethren and sisters when the sign of the Church was put upon him,
and seen the sympathy of eye and hand that welcomed him to the blessed
company, has not felt that for this poor, despised race there are riches
laid up in that kingdom 'where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and
where thieves do not break through nor steal'? Who that has stood in a
Southern forest on some Sunday afternoon, in the early Southern spring,
when the woods are resonant with the songs of birds, and heard a negro
congregation of believers in their meeting-house near by, joining with
all the fervor of their tropical temperament in this glad hymn of
nature, in the immortal verse of Wesley and Whitfield, has not felt that
to the negro the vision of the New Jerusalem is more of a reality than
has yet been granted to his worldly favored white brother and master?
Ah, no one who has witnessed such scenes all the years of his childhood
and youth, can deny that among the disciples of Christ are to be
reckoned especially the negro race; who bear His blessed cross in our
day, amid the jeers of a sceptical world, just as in His own day upon
earth the negro Simon of Cyrene bore to the Mount of Calvary the cross
on which the Saviour died.
What these things prove is just this: the negro's capacity for freedom;
his capacity to know what is the 'perfect law of liberty,' keeping
irresponsible license in check; his absolute freedom from the
bloodthirstiness that seems to horrify so many unthinking persons, who
affect to fear the consequences of putting a musket in a negro's hand.
The incontestable points above enumerated show the groundlessness of
such an alleged fear. It needs only to consider them candidly to be
disabused on that score. No one who has seen and knows the tenderness of
the negro toward the children of his master, and his never-failing
respect toward his mistress, dares say he fears the negro's savageness.
No one who knows the negro's religious sensibility and his unshaken
faith in Christ, dares say he fears. No. Only those fear who know
nothing at all about the negro. They fear whose creed is given them by
men thirsting for the negro's blood, that it may be coined into ungodly
gold.
Thus much will suffice for objections to negro troops, on the ground of
their incapacity. It is seen that the negro is capable to comprehend the
limitations of liberty; that his nature is not essentially savage, or,
if so, has been softened and tempered into a gentle docility under the
benign influences of civilized society; that, above all, his Christian
education has elevated him to a dignity that despises mean revenge. If
further proof is necessary, the regiments of negro slaves recruited in
Louisiana and the Carolinas, acquiring a discipline that has stood them
in good stead at Olustee (day of gloom) and elsewhere on their native
soil, may be cited in evidence of their capacity.
But what about our rights in the matter? For we are considering now the
case of the slaves, not the free negro? The proper and sufficient answer
to that question is, What about the rights of slave-holders? What rights
of theirs are we bound to respect now? They have taken the law into
their own hands, and if they cannot enforce it, is it any part of our
business to aid them? Certainly and undoubtedly not. It is part of the
penalty of treason; part of the price they are paying for their ignoble
thrust at the nation's life; and a very light penalty, and cheap price
it is, that they lose their right to hold slaves. Such rights as they
possessed they held under the Constitution. We have been willing, for
the sake of peace (bearing in mind the apostle's injunction, 'If it be
possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men'), to
protect, under the sacred covenant of the nation, what they called their
rights to property; albeit not willing ourselves to touch the 'accursed
thing.' The history of the country is a witness to our good faith. But
plainly the injunction of the apostle becomes impossible of obedience
when men transform themselves into fiends, and hang up in their railway
cars, as trophies, the ghastly skulls of such of us as have been slain
in defence of the national covenant.[E] By their own acts the
slave-holders have cancelled our obligations as to such permissive
rights under the Constitution. We shall not probably hasten to incur any
more such obligations. They say that slavery is the strength of their
society. Doubtless it is. Then, Samson-like, they have pulled down upon
themselves the pillars of their whole fabric, and they cannot complain
if they and all their rights, immunities, and titles are buried in the
ruins. In other words, they have appealed from the Constitution, or the
law civil, to the sword, or the law military; and they must abide the
result of that appeal. Such is a brief statement of the question of
negro troops, as affecting the slaves of the South and their traitor
masters.