Abraham Lincoln, the President-elect, was the legitimate outgrowth of
American institutions; in him was presented choice fruit, the product of
republican government. Born in a log cabin, of poor, uneducated parents,
his only aids untiring industry, determination, and lofty purpose.
Hewing out his steps on the rugged rocks of poverty, climbing the
mountains of difficulty, and attaining the highest honor within the gift
of the nation--"truly a self-made man, the Declaration of Independence,"
says a writer, "being his daily compendium of wisdom, the life of
Washington his daily study, with something of Jefferson, Madison, and
Clay." For the rest, from day to day, he lived the life of the American
people; "walked in its light; reasoned with its reason; thought with its
powers of thought, and felt the beatings of its mighty heart." In 1858
he came prominently forward as the rival of Stephen A. Douglass, and,
with wealth of argument, terseness of logic, and enunciation of just
principles, took front rank among sturdy Republicans, battling against
the extension of human slavery, declaring that "the nation could not
endure half free and half slave."
[Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
The Emancipator.
The Embodiment of Patriotism and Justice. "I hope peace will come to
stay, and then there will be some colored men who can remember that they
helped mankind to this great consummation."]
On the 4th of March, 1861, he took the oath of office and commenced his
Administration. With confidence and doubt alternating, our interest as a
race became intensified. We knew the South had rebelled; we were
familiar with the pagan proverb "Those whom the gods would destroy they
first made mad." We had watched the steady growth of Republicanism, when
a tinge on the political horizon "no bigger than a man's hand," increase
in magnitude and power and place its standard-bearer in the White House.
But former Presidents had professed to hate slavery. President Fillmore
had, yet signed the fugitive slave law; Pierce and Buchanan had both
wielded the administrative arm in favor of slavery. We had seen Daniel
Webster, Massachusetts' ablest jurist, and the most learned
constitutional expounder--the man of whom it was said that "when he
speaks God's own thunder can be seen pent up in his brow and God's own
lightning flash from his eye"--a man sent by the best cultured of New
England to represent the most advanced civilization of the century--we
had seen this brilliant star of anti-slavery Massachusetts "pale his
ineffectual fires" before the steady glare, the intolerance,
blandishment, and corrupting influences of the slave power--and tell the
nation they must compromise with slavery.
When Daniel O'Connell, Ireland's statesman and philanthropist, was
approached in Parliament by West India planters with promises of support
for measures for the relief of Ireland if he would vote in the interest
of slavery in British colonies, he said: "'Tis true, gentlemen, that I
represent a poor constituency--God only knows how poor; but may calamity
and affliction overtake me if ever I, to help Ireland, vote to enslave
the Negro." A noble utterance! Unlike the Northern representatives sent
to Congress, who "bent the pliant, servile knee that thrift might follow
fawning." What wonder our race was keenly alive to the situation? The
hour had arrived--was the man there?
For Abraham Lincoln impartial history will answer "Nor memory lose, nor
time impair" his nobility of character for humanity and patriotism that
will ever ennoble and inspire. Mr. Lincoln was slow to believe that the
rebellion would assume the proportions that it did, but he placed
himself squarely on the issue in his inaugural address: "That he should,
to the extent of his ability, take care that the laws of the nation be
faithfully executed in all the States; that in doing it there would be
no bloodshed unless it was forced upon the national authority." His
patriotism and goodness welling up as he said: "We are not enemies, but
friends, though we may have strained, it must not break our bonds of
affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every
battlefield and hearthstone, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when
again touched by the better angels of our nature."
"But the die was cast;
Ruthless rapine righteous hope defied."
The necessity for calling the nation to arms was imminent on the 15th of
April, 1861; the call for 75,000 men rang like a trumpet blast,
startling the most apathetic. The response from the Northern and
portions of the Southern States was hearty and prompt. The battle at
Bull Run dispelled the President's idea that the war was to be of short
duration. Defeat followed defeat of the national forces; weeping and
wailing went up from many firesides for husbands and sons who had laid
down on Southern battlefields to rest. The great North, looking up for
succor, saw the "national banner drooping from the flagstaff, heavy with
blood," and typical of the stripes of the slave. For 200 years the
incense of his prayers and tears had ascended. Now from every booming
gun there seemed the voice of God, "Let my people go"--
"They see Him in watch fires
Of a hundred circling camps;
They read His righteous sentence
By the dim and flaring lamps."
The nation had come slowly but firmly up to the duty and necessity of
emancipation. Mr. Lincoln, who was now in accord with Garrison,
Phillips, Douglass, and their adherents, had counseled them to continue
urging the people to this demand, now pressing as a military necessity.
The 1st of January, 1863, being the maturity of the proclamation, lifted
4,000,000 of human beings from chattels to freemen, a grateful, praying
people. Throughout the North and wherever possible in the South the
colored people, on the night of December 31, assembled in their churches
for thanksgiving. On their knees in silence--a silence intense with
suppressed emotion--they awaited the stroke of the clock. It came, the
thrice-welcomed harbinger of freedom, and as it tolled on, and on, the
knell of slavery, pent-up joy could no longer be restrained. "Praise
God, from whom all blessings flow," from a million voices, floated
upward on midnight air. While some shouted "Hallelujah," others, with
folded arms, stood mute and fixed as statuary, while "Tears of joy like
summer raindrops pierced by sunbeams" fell.
When Robespierre and Danton disenthralled France, we learn that the
guillotine bathed in blood was the emblem of their transition state,
from serfs to freemen. With the Negro were the antithesis of anger,
revenge, or despair, that of joy, gratitude, and hope, has been memory's
most choice trio.
This master stroke of policy and justice came with telling effect upon
the consciousness of the people. It was now in deed and in truth a war
for the Union coeval with freedom; every patriot heart beat a responsive
echo, and was stirred by a new inspiration to deeds of heroism. Now
success followed success; Port Hudson, Vicksburg, Chattanooga,
Gettysburg, and the Mississippi bowed in submission to the national
power. The record of history affirms subsequent events that during the
ensuing twelve months war measures more gigantic than had been witnessed
in modern times were inaugurated; how the will of the people to subdue
the rebellion crystallized as iron; that General Grant, planting himself
before Richmond, said he would "fight it out on that line if it took all
summer," and General Sherman's memorable march fifty thousand strong
from Atlanta to the sea. General Grant's campaign ended in the surrender
of General Lee, and Peace, with its golden pinions, alighted on our
national staff.
Abraham Lincoln was again elected President, the people seeming
impressed with the wisdom of his quaint phrase that "it was best not to
swap horses while crossing a stream." Through all the vicissitudes of
his first term he justified the unbounded confidence of the nation,
supporting with no laggard hand, cheering and inspiring the citizen
soldier with noble example and kindly word. The reconstruction acts,
legislation for the enrollment of the colored soldier, and every other
measure of enfranchisement received his hearty approval, remarking at
one time, with much feeling, that "I hope peace will come to stay, and
there will be some black men that can remember that they helped mankind
to this great consummation."
Did the colored troops redeem the promise made by their friends when
their enlistment was determined? History records exhibitions of bravery
and endurance which gave their survivors and descendants a claim as
imperishable as eternal justice. Go back to the swamps of the Carolinas,
the Savannahs of Florida, the jungles of Arkansas; or on the dark bosom
of the Mississippi. Look where you may, the record of their rugged
pathway still blossoms with deeds of noble daring, self-abnegation and a
holy devotion to the central ideas of the war--the freedom of the slave,
a necessity for the salvation of free government.
[Illustration: BISHOP W. B. DERRICK.
Born July, 1843, Antique, Bristol, West Indies--Educated at Graceville,
W. I.--Ordained Deacon in 1868, and now one of the Foremost Bishops of
the A. M. E. Church--Noted for Wisdom of Counsel and Great Ability.]
The reading of commanders' reports bring no blush of shame. At the
terrific assault on Fort Hudson, General Banks reported they answered
"every expectation; no troops could have been more daring." General
Butler tells of his transformation from a war Democrat to a radical.
Riding out at early morn to view the battlefield, where a few hours
before shot and shell flew thick and fast, skillfully guiding his horse,
that hoofs should not profane the sacred dead, he there saw in sad
confusion where lay the white and black soldier, who had gone down
together. The appeal, though mute, was irresistible. Stopping his horse
and raising his hand in the cold, grey light to heaven, said: "May my
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth and my right hand forget its
cunning if I ever cease to insist upon equal justice to the colored
man." It was at the unequal fight at Milliken's Bend; it was at Forts
Wagner and Pillow, at Petersburg and Richmond, the colored troops asked
to be assigned the posts of danger, and there before the iron hail of
the enemy's musketry "they fell forward as fits a man." In our memory
and affections they deserve a fitting place "as those long loved, and
but for a season gone."
Slavery, shorn of its power, nurtured revenge. On the 14th day of April,
1865, while sitting with his family at a public exhibition, Abraham
Lincoln was assassinated, and the nation was in tears. Never was
lamentation so widespread, nor grief so deep; the cabin of the lowly,
the lordly mansion of wealth, the byways and highways, gave evidence of
a people's sorrow. "Men moved about with clinched teeth and bowed-down
heads; women bathed in tears and found relief, while little children
asked their mothers why all the people looked so mournful," and we, as
we came up out of Egypt, lifted up our voices and wept. Our friend was
no more, but intrenched in the hearts of his countrymen as one who did
much "to keep the jewel of liberty in the family of nations."
Since that eventful period the Negro has had a checkered career, passing
through the reconstruction period, with its many lights and shadows,
despite the assaults of prejudice and prescription by exclusion from
most of the remunerative callings and avocations, partiality in
sentencing him to the horrors of the chain-gang, lynching, and burning
at the stake. Despite all these he has made progress--a progress often
unfairly judged by the dominant race. Douglass has pithily said: "Judge
us not from the heights on which you stand, but from the depths from
whence we sprung." So, with a faith and hope undaunted, we scan our
country horizon for the silver lining propitious of a happier day.
Regarding that crime of crimes, lynching by hanging and burning human
beings, a barbarity unknown in the civilized world save in our country,
it is cheering to observe an awakening of the moral sense evidenced by
noble and manly utterance of leading journals, notably those of
Arkansas; the Governor of Georgia, and other Southern Governors and
statesmen, have spoken in derogation of this giant crime.
When others of like standing and State influence shall so pronounce,
this hideous blot upon the national escutcheon will disappear. It is
manly and necessary to protest when wronged. But a subject class or race
does but little for their amelioration when content with its
denouncement. Injustice can be more effectually arraigned by others than
the victim; his mere proclamation, however distinct and unanswerable,
will be slow of fruition. A measure of relief comes from the humane
sympathies of the philanthropist, but the inherent attraction of forces
(less sympathetic, perhaps, though indispensable) for his real uplifting
and protection will be in the ratio of his morality, learning, and
wealth. For vice is ever destructive; ignorance ever a victim, and
poverty ever defenceless. Morality should be ever in the foreground of
all effort, for mere learning or even wealth will not make a class of
brave, honest men and useful citizens; there must be ever an intensity
of purpose based upon convictions of truth, and "the inevitable oneness
of physical and moral strength." St. Pierre de Couberton, an eminent
French writer on education and training, has pertinently said: "Remember
that from the cradle to the grave struggle is the essence of life, as it
is the unavoidable aim, the real life bringer of all the sons of men.
Existence is a fight, and has to be fought out; self-defence is a noble
art, and must be practiced. Never seek a quarrel, but never shun one,
and if it seeks you, be sure and fight to the last, as long as strength
is given you to stand, guard your honesty of purpose, your good faith;
beware of all false seeming, of all pretence, cultivate arduous tasks,
aspire to what is difficult, and do persistently what is uncomfortable
and unpleasant; love effort passionately, for without effort there can
be no manliness; therefore acquire the habit of self-restraint, the
habit of painful effort, physical pain, is a useful one." With such
purpose the Negro should have neither servility, bitterness, nor regret,
but "instinct with the life of the present rise with the impulse of the
age."