FOREBODINGS OF THE CRISIS
The ten years from 1850 to 1860 were years of cumulative danger to the
republic and to the principles of liberty and democracy upon which it
was founded. For the Negro these years contained more of perils than of
hopes. The great historical events growing out of the conflict between
the pro-slavery and the anti-slavery parties appeared to have set the
goal of emancipation ever farther out of the range of practical
possibilities. The Fugitive Slave Law seemed for a time to put an end to
all hopes for further rescues from bondage. The Dred Scott Decision made
every Negro, free or slave, an outlaw. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill
threatened to render slavery so thoroughly national that Abolition would
be forever impossible. Finally, the John Brown raid intensified, for a
time, the hatred toward the colored people and their friends in the
North.
But the success of the pro-slavery party was more apparent than real. It
had gained merely a tactical victory. All the deeper currents of the
nation’s life were running counter to it. The raid excited the horror of
the people. Even men active as Abolitionists denounced the acts of John
Brown as both foolhardy and wicked. It seemed for a time that every one
prominent in social and political life in the North was anxious publicly
to disavow all share in what was described as a “reckless and fanatical”
deed. But John Brown’s raid did not bring the people of the North and
South any nearer together. On the contrary, it merely widened the breach
between them. The North might disclaim this act, but the people of the
opposite section were not satisfied with these disclaimers. It seemed to
them that behind John Brown was a great conspiracy, and that the North,
having determined to make a nullity of the Fugitive Slave Law, was
preparing to follow it up with still more daring efforts to free the
slaves at any cost.
Brown was hurried to the gallows, but not before an effort was made to
implicate in his crime men who were prominent as Abolitionists. It has
already been shown what steps were taken to capture Frederick Douglass.
A Congressional committee was appointed for the purpose of thoroughly
investigating the whole matter, but it accomplished nothing. It is
scarcely necessary to say that the death of Brown produced an impression
throughout the country quite as profound as that already created by his
“raid.” The execution changed public sentiment at once. People now began
to feel and to say that the cause, and not the man, had been on trial
when he was found guilty. The sentence of death passed by the Virginia
court transformed Brown in the eyes of a great many Northern people into
a martyr and shed a halo over the cause for which he gave his life.
Emerson compared the gallows of Virginia to the cross in Palestine. All
through the North the people began to sing the song that continued to be
a favorite throughout the Civil War:
“John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
But his soul is marching on.”
The panic-stricken friends of freedom recovered their spirits and
renewed their attacks with increased vigor. To quote from Frederick
Douglass: “John Brown’s defeat was already assuming the form of victory,
and his death was giving new life and power to the principles of justice
and liberty. What he had lost by the sword, he had more than gained by
the truth.”
The people of the South all through this controversy had shown
themselves correct interpreters of public sentiment. They clearly saw
that the execution of John Brown did not put an end to the cause of
Abolition. This reckless act of invasion was merely typical of what was
possible on a scale of vaster proportions. In spite of everything that
had been achieved by law and by decisions of the Supreme Court, the
trend of feeling in the North was steadily against slavery. In spite of
the Fugitive Slave Law and an increasing vigilance on the part of
masters and their agents, the Underground Railroad continued its
business of carrying slave-property to free soil. Charles Sumner’s
speech in the Senate added fresh interest to the cause of emancipation,
and the continued popularity of _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_ was ominous. All
these disquieting circumstances boded some dreadful issue of the
controversy. The drift of events is best exhibited in the effects of the
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, already referred to. When this bill became a law,
as the consummation of the policy of Senator Stephen A. Douglas of
Illinois, the physical boundary between slavery and freedom, which many
had supposed to be fixed as firmly as the Declaration of Independence,
was swept away and all the vast empire of the west and northwest became
disputed ground between the forces of free soil and slavery. This act
gave effect to the new doctrines of state sovereignty. Whatever may have
been its purpose, the result was to unite the forces of the North and
South, pitting the two sections against each other in a struggle for
supremacy in the new territory. In outward appearance this new doctrine
was peaceful and sound, but it held dreadful possibilities. Expressed
plainly, the Kansas-Nebraska Law said that whether these new states
should be free or slave-states must be left to the people. It was for
them to vote slavery “up” or “down.” In other words, if the majority of
the people of these territories voted for slavery, it became, by their
sovereign will, an institution fixed and irrevocable; if not, slavery
was forever to be shut out, just as it was excluded from Massachusetts.
The intensity of public interest in and anxiety for the future status of
these new states was shown in the instant rush into Kansas from New
England of colonists favorable to the cause of free soil, and from the
South of colonists favorable to the cause of slavery. Each side
appreciated how momentous was the issue. The people of Missouri and
other neighboring slave-states knew that it would be difficult, with a
free state adjoining them to hold their bond-servants in security. The
people of New England and other Northern states understood that the
political supremacy of the free-states would be forever lost if the
South were able to make slave-ground out of the western territory.
It was an exciting contest and soon proved a gory one. Men from both
sections were expecting that the struggle would be attended with
bloodshed and they went out armed and prepared for it. Kansas, “bleeding
Kansas,” was a battle-ground. It is not necessary here to recount the
sanguinary incidents between the cohorts of emancipation and slavery in
this neutral territory. Suffice it to say that in the end the cause of
free soil triumphed and the contest was merely preliminary to a vaster
conflict of which it was a premonitory token.
Before and during these stormy events in Kansas, there was in progress
an intellectual conflict which was destined to have a more serious
ending. This was the historic debates between Abraham Lincoln and
Stephen A. Douglas, both of Illinois. More clearly, perhaps than any
other one event, this round of speeches formulated the issue which
divided the American people politically on the question of slavery. It
revealed to the nation a man who gave to them, for the first time, a
frank and clear-cut definition of the issue to which it had been brought
by the struggle. Lincoln said in effect: “The Union cannot long endure,
half-slave and half-free. It must be all one or all the other, and the
public mind can find no resting-place but in the ultimate extinction of
slavery.”
Of course, this was but a reiteration of what had been repeatedly said
by the Abolitionists during the past twenty-five years, but coming now
at a time when there was an unconscious groping of the popular mind
toward a definite issue for public action, these clear words seemed to
be charged with meaning of tremendous importance. The people of the
whole country listened to these Illinois debaters with an interest that
seemed prescient of coming events. As the debate progressed, Mr. Lincoln
seemed to rise visibly and steadily from the western provincial
obscurity he had lived in up to this point, to a prominence in which he
appeared for the time to overshadow every one else who had spoken on the
great question. The immediate prize to be won in the debate was a seat
in the United States Senate; but before its close, this sank into
insignificance, and the presidency of the United States, the
preservation of the Union, and the fate of slavery, had become the
stakes of the contest.
The issues in the coming election already began to shape themselves
along the lines enunciated by Mr. Lincoln and Senator Douglas. In due
time new political alignments were completed as follows:
(1) The pro-slavery and Union Democrats of the North stood for state
sovereignty, or the right of the people of a territory to admit or bar
slavery as they saw fit. Senator Douglas was the unquestioned leader of
this wing of the Democratic party.
(2) The pro-slavery people of the South stood for the bold declaration
that the Constitution of its own force gave the right to carry slaves
into any territory of the United States and to hold them there, with or
without the consent of the people of the territory. John C. Breckinridge
was the leader of the Southern wing of the Democracy.
(3) Abraham Lincoln was chosen to bear the standard of all the people
who were opposed to both varieties of pro-slavery Democrats. His
doctrine was that the Federal Government had the right to exclude
slavery from the territories of the United States, and that this right
and power ought to be exercised to keep slavery within the confines of
the then existing slave-states.
It will be seen that emancipation was not an issue on the surface of
these declarations of principles. The whole question appeared to be:
Shall slavery have the power of expansion? If this power were denied,
could there be any doubt as to what must ultimately follow? If the
people feared the power of slavery to such an extent that they would or
could keep it within a restricted territory, would not this principle,
when successful, be the first step toward its extirpation? The South
more clearly than the North understood that the triumph of Mr. Lincoln
would settle nothing. Beneath these platform utterances was the
unwritten issue: Slavery’s security of expansion, or its “ultimate
extinction.” If the South won in the impending contest, not only would
slavery be secured by the right of its extension into the undivided
territory west of the Mississippi, but political supremacy might pass
permanently from the free-states.
The position of Stephen A. Douglas and his followers was rather
anomalous. As the Senator at one time expressed it, he cared not whether
the question of extending slavery into the territories was “voted up or
voted down”; with him the important thing seemed to be that the people
of the new territory should have the opportunity to vote on the question
and decide for themselves the character of their institutions.
Mr. Lincoln’s followers represented nearly everything left of the spirit
that was glorified in the Declaration of Independence and the Revolution
of 1776. Those who would preserve the soil of the West free; those who
would not only restrict, but abolish slavery altogether; and those who
would endow the Negro with all the proclaimed natural rights of man,
supported Lincoln.
The situation was complicated as well as perilous. Heretofore, when the
only question between the North and the South was slavery or the right
to hold slaves, the people of the North were governed as much by their
racial prejudices as the Southern people. Now, however, when other
questions, incidental to slavery, as, for instance, the future political
supremacy, were involved with the main issue, many men and women, who
had heretofore been indifferent or silent, became actively concerned,
and felt impelled to take a definite stand. There seems never to have
been any possibility of the North and South going to war on account of
Negro slavery. It was at this time clear from the whole history of the
controversy that if the Negro were ever to be free, his freedom must
come as a consequence and not as the cause of a conflict.
Probably no man in public life saw this more clearly than Frederick
Douglass. He was just as much a part of the history in the process of
making, all about him, as he was permitted to be. He had his say and was
heard. He understood the trend of events and he was not swept away by
merely transitory incidents. In all this controversy he sought
constantly, in his speeches, and in his paper, _Douglass’s Monthly_, to
lift into clear view the paramount issue. The following extract from one
of his speeches indicates the clearness with which he saw, and the
definiteness with which he was able to foreshadow the events of the next
succeeding years:
“The only choice left to this nation is abolition or destruction. You
must abolish slavery or abandon the Union. It is plain that there can
never be any union between the North and South, while the South values
slavery more than nationality. A union of interests is essential to a
union of ideas and without this union of ideas, the outer form of union
will be but as a rope of sand.”
During the Illinois debates, Frederick Douglass did all he could to
enforce the arguments and extend the steadily growing influence of Mr.
Lincoln. He made an extensive campaign in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa.
His audiences were large and interested, being eager to hear any man who
could speak with the distinction, clearness, and frankness that
characterized his public utterances. He had grown in esteem and the
mob-spirit that tried to harass him in his earlier campaigns in the West
had given way before his increasing influence and popularity. Once in
Illinois he met Senator Douglas, who treated him with marked courtesy.
In 1854, Frederick Douglass delivered an address in Chicago which ranks
as one of his greatest orations. Frederick May Holland, who has already
been referred to as the author of a valuable biography of the Negro
leader, has given to the public, for the first time, I believe, nearly
all of this interesting speech. The reproduction of at least a part of
it seems essential to this chapter:
“The Constitution knows no man by the color of his skin. The men who
made it were too noble for any such limitation of humanity and human
rights. The term ‘white’ is a modern term in the legislation of this
country. It was never used in the better days of our republic, but has
sprung up within the period of our national degeneracy.
“I am here simply as an American citizen, having a stake in the weal
or woe of the nation in common with other citizens. I am not here as
the agent of any sect or party. Parties are too politic and sects are
too sectarian, to select one of my odious class and of my radical
opinions, at this important time and place, to represent them.
Nevertheless, I do not stand alone here. There are noble-minded men in
Illinois who are neither ashamed of their cause nor their company.
Some of them are here to-night, and I expect to meet them in every
part of the state where I may travel.
“But, I pray, hold no man or party responsible for my words, for I am
no man’s agent, and I am no party’s agent.... It is alleged that I
came here in this state to insult Senator Douglas. Among gentlemen
that is only an insult that is intended to be such, and I disavow all
such intention. I am here precisely as I was in this state one year
ago—with no other change in my relations to you, or the great question
of human freedom, than time and circumstances have brought about. I
shall deal with the same subject with the same spirit now as then,
approving such men and such measures as look to the security of
liberty in the land and with my whole heart condemning such men and
measures as serve to subvert or endanger it. If Hon. S. A. Douglas,
your beloved and highly gifted senator, has designedly or through
mistaken notions of public policy, ranged himself on the side of
oppressors, and the deadliest enemies of liberty, I know of no reason,
either in this world or in any other world, which should prevent me or
any one else, from thinking so or saying so.
“The people in whose cause I came here to-night are not among those
whose right to regulate their own domestic concerns is so feelingly,
and earnestly, and eloquently contended for in certain quarters. They
have no Stephen A. Douglas, no General Cass, to contend at North
Market Hall for their popular sovereignty. They have no national
purse, no offices, no reputation with which to corrupt Congress, or to
tempt men, mighty in eloquence and influence into their service. Oh,
no! They have nothing to commend them, but their unadorned humanity.
They are human—that’s all—only human. Nature owns them as human; but
men own them as property, and only as property. Every right of human
nature, as such, is denied them; they are dumb in their chains. To
utter one groan or scream for freedom in the presence of the Southern
advocate of popular sovereignty, is to bring down the frightful lash
upon their quivering flesh. I know this suffering people; I am
acquainted with their sorrows; I am one with them in experience; I
have felt the lash of the slave-driver, and stand up here with all the
bitter recollections of its horrors vividly upon me.
“There are special reasons why I should speak and speak freely. The
right of speech is a very precious one. I understand that Mr. Douglas
regards himself as the most abused man in the United States; and that
the greatest outrage ever committed upon him was in the case in which
your indignation raised your voices so high that he could not be
heard. No personal violence, as I understand, was offered him. It
seems to have been a trial of vocal powers between the individual and
the multitude; and as might have been expected, the voice of one man
was not equal in volume to the voices of five thousand. I do not
mention this circumstance to approve it; I do not approve it. I am for
free speech, as well as free men and free soil; but how ineffably
insignificant is this wrong done in a single instance, compared to the
stupendous iniquity perpetrated against more than three millions of
the American people, who are struck dumb by the very men in whose
cause Mr. Senator Douglas was here to plead! While I would not approve
the silencing of Mr. Douglas, may we not hope that this slight
abridgment of his rights, may lead him to respect in some degree the
rights of other men, as good in the eye of Heaven as himself?
“Let us now consider the great question of the age, the only great
national question which seriously agitates the public mind at this
hour. It is called the vexed question, and excites alarm in every
quarter of the country.
“The proposition to repeal the Missouri Compromise, was a stunning
one. It fell upon the nation like a bolt from a cloudless sky. The
thing was too startling for belief. You believed in the South and you
believed in the North; and you knew that the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise was a breach of honor; and therefore, you said that the
thing could not be done. Besides both parties had pledged themselves
directly, positively, and solemnly against reopening in Congress the
agitation on the subject of slavery; and the President himself had
declared his intention to maintain the national quiet. Upon these
assurances you rested and rested fatally. But you should have learned
long ago that men do not gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles.
It is folly to put faith in men who have broken faith with God. When a
man has brought himself to enslave a child of God, to put fetters on
his brother, he has qualified himself to disregard the most sacred of
compacts; beneath the sky there is nothing more sacred than man, and
nothing can be properly respected when manhood is despised and
trampled upon.
“It is said that slavery is the creature of positive law, and that it
can only exist where it is sustained by positive law—that neither in
Kansas nor Nebraska is there any law establishing slavery, and that
therefore, the moment a slave-holder carries his slaves into these
territories, he is free and restored to the rights of human nature.
This is the ground taken by General Cass. He contended for it in the
North Market Hall, with much eloquence and skill. I thought, while I
was hearing him on this point, that slave-holders would not be likely
to thank him for the argument. It is not true that slavery cannot
exist without being established by positive law. The instance cannot
be shown where a law was ever made establishing slavery, where the
relation of master and slave did not previously exist. The law is
always an after-coming consideration. Wicked men first overpower and
subdue their fellow-men to slavery, and then call in the law to
sanction the deed. Even in the slave-states of America, slavery has
never been established by law. It was not established under the
colonial charters of the original states, nor the Constitution of the
United States. It is now and has always been a system of lawless
violence. On this proposition I hold myself ready and willing to meet
any defender of the Nebraska bill. I would not hesitate to meet even
the author of that bill himself.
“He says he wants no broad, black line across this continent. Such a
line is odious, and begets unkind feelings between the citizens of a
common country. Now, fellow citizens, why is the line of thirty-six
degrees, thirty minutes, a broad black line? What is it that entitles
it to be called a black line? It is the fashion to call whatever is
odious in this country, black. You call the devil black, and he may
be; but what is there in the line of thirty-six degrees, thirty
minutes, which makes it blacker than the line which separates Illinois
from Missouri or Michigan from Indiana? I can see nothing in the line
itself which should make it black or odious. It is a line, that’s all.
It is black, black and odious, not because it is a line, but because
of the things it separates. If it keep asunder what God has joined
together, or separate what God intended should be fused, then it may
be called an odious line, a black line; but if, on the other hand, it
marks only a distinction natural and eternal, a distinction fixed in
the nature of things by the eternal God, then I say, withered be the
arm and blasted be the hand that would blot it out.
“Nothing could be further from the truth, then, to say that popular
sovereignty is accorded to the people who may settle the territories
of Kansas and Nebraska. The three great cardinal powers of government
are the executive, legislative and judicial. Are these powers sacred
to the people of Kansas and Nebraska? You know they are not. That bill
places the people of that territory, as completely under the powers of
the Federal government as Canada is under British rule. By this
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, the Federal government has the substance of all
governing power, while the people have the shadow. The judicial power
of the territories is not from the people of the territories, who are
so bathed in the sunlight of popular sovereignty by stump eloquence,
but from the Federal government. The executive power of the
territories derives its existence, not from the overflowing fountain
of popular sovereignty, but from the Federal government. The
secretaries of the territories are not appointed by the sovereign
people of the territories, but are appointed independent of popular
sovereignty.
“But is there nothing in this bill that justifies the supposition that
it contains the principle of popular sovereignty? No, not one word.
Even the territorial councils, elected, not by the people of the
territory, but only by certain descriptions of people, are subject to
a double veto power, vested, first in the governor, whom they did not
elect, and second in the President of the United States. The only
shadow of popular sovereignty is the power given to the people of the
territories by this bill to have, hold, buy, and sell human beings.
The sovereign right to make slaves of their fellow-men, if they
choose, is the only sovereignty that the bill secures.
“But it may be said that Congress has the right to allow the people of
the territories to hold slaves. The answer is, that Congress is made
up of men, and possesses only the rights of men; and unless it can be
shown that some men have a right to hold their fellow-men as property,
Congress has no such right. There is not a man within the sound of my
voice, who has not as good a right to enslave a brother man, as
Congress has. This will not be denied, even by slave-holders.
“Error may be new, or it may be old, since it is founded in a
misapprehension of what truth is. It has its beginnings; and its
endings. But not so truth. Truth is eternal. Like the great God, from
whose throne it emanates, it is from everlasting to everlasting, and
can never pass away. Such a truth is man’s right to freedom. He was
born with it. It was his before he comprehended it. The title deed to
it was written by the Almighty on His heart; and the record of it is
in the bosom of the Eternal; and never can Stephen A. Douglas efface
it, unless he can tear from the great heart of God this truth; and
this mighty government of ours will never be at peace with God, unless
it shall practically and universally embrace this great truth as the
fountain of all its institutions, and the rule of its entire
administration....
“Now, gentlemen—I have done. I have no fear for the ultimate triumph
of free principles in this country. The signs of the times are
propitious. Victories have been won by slavery; but they have never
been won against the onward march of anti-slavery principles. The
progress of these principles has been constant, steady, strong and
certain. Every victory won by slavery has had the effect to fling our
principles more widely and favorably among the people. The annexation
of Texas, the Florida war, the war with Mexico, the Compromise
Measures, and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, have all signally
vindicated the wisdom of the great God, who has promised to override
the wickedness of men for His own glory—to confound the wisdom of the
crafty and bring to naught the counsels of the ungodly.”
The nomination, in 1860, of Mr. Lincoln by the Republican party, of
Stephen A. Douglas by the Northern Democracy, and of John C.
Breckinridge by the Southern Democracy, brought on that memorable
campaign which preceded the final collision between the North and the
South.
“Into the fight,” says Frederick Douglass, “I threw myself, with a firm
faith and more ardent hope than ever before, and what I could do by pen
and voice was done with a will. The most memorable feature of the
canvass, was that it was prosecuted under the shadow of a threat.”
The followers of Breckinridge had boldly announced that if they were
defeated, they would not submit to the rule of Abraham Lincoln, but
would proceed to take the slave-states out of the Union. This threat of
secession was not a new one, but, coming, as it did, after the failure
to make Kansas a slave-state, it created something like a panic in the
North. It served for the moment to divert public opinion from political
issues to the very grave possibility of national disruption.
In spite of this openly declared purpose on the part of the Southern
Democracy, the Republican party, made up in part of Whigs, the old
“Liberty” and “Free Soil” parties, and a large number of the
Abolitionists, elected Abraham Lincoln as President of the United
States.
It was a signal victory, but it brought with it little comfort, more
anxiety, and many grave responsibilities. The people of the North were
desirous of peace, and so were the people of the South; but to agree on
terms was difficult. While the North, in the presence of a great triumph
was worried and anxious, the South openly and resolutely began to
prepare for secession and war. When, in the early part of the
presidential canvass, the South notified the nation what it would do in
case of defeat, the threat was generally accepted as mere bluster. No
sooner was the result of the election known than there began to
accumulate evidence which indicated that this threat was backed by a
very positive determination to carry it out. The states south of the
Ohio prepared to leave the Union in orderly procession, as if secession
were a familiar and undisputed custom. The administration, under
President Buchanan, saw the process of national dismemberment go on and
merely declared that it could find no power in the Constitution to
coerce a state. In the presence of this unchallenged dissolution of the
Union, the North fairly quaked with fear. An opinion which favored
almost any kind of compromise that would save the country from the
horrors of civil war gained wide influence. While the South was
confident of its strength to maintain itself in its present course, it
did finally and with apparent reluctance, indicate a few of the
conditions on which it would agree to remain in the Union. Among these
were the following:
Each Northern state, through its legislature or in convention assembled,
should repeal all laws which tended to impair the constitutional rights
of the South.
It should pass laws for the easy and prompt execution of the Fugitive
Slave Law.
Laws should be passed imposing penalties on all malefactors, who should
hereafter encourage the escape of fugitive slaves.
Laws should be passed declaring and protecting the rights of
slave-holders to travel and sojourn in Northern states, accompanied by
their slaves.
Every state should instruct its representatives and senators in Congress
to repeal the law prohibiting the sale of slaves in the District of
Columbia, and pass laws sufficient for the full protection of slave
property in the territories of the Union.
These conditions, offered by the South, could not be heartily approved
by the people who had just won such a decided victory on an issue
involving these very conditions. Yet there was a decided wave of popular
feeling in favor of peace upon any terms. Men of positive convictions
and eminent in all walks of life—William H. Seward, H. B. Anthony, and
Joshua R. Giddings—were now ready to purchase it at almost any price.
The enthusiasm for emancipation and free soil that had so stirred the
North during the presidential campaign, began to wane, and so serious a
reaction set in that, for a time, it seemed likely to make barren the
Republican victory. Not only so, but the mob-spirit of the ’30’s was
reawakened, and Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick
Douglass, and their supporters were assaulted on the streets of Boston.
The people of the North refused to tolerate further agitation against
slavery, and were desirous, in every possible way, to appease the anger
of the other section. Committees were appointed to confer with
representatives of the South for the purpose of obtaining a better
understanding of their grievances.
Thus, while the North seemed anxious to recede from almost every
position it had won in the recent election, the South was too confident
of its strength and of the justice of its cause to give much
encouragement to the messengers of peace from the other side. The
situation just described is an interesting illustration of the
characteristic difference between the people of the North and the South
on every question in which the Negro was involved. The North was very
reluctant to make slavery an issue; the South was always willing to be
challenged on that issue. In the North, the Negro was a problem; in the
South, he was property. It is always easier to deal with property than
to deal with a problem. For example: In the Kansas and Nebraska
controversy, the South wanted territory for slave-property, and the
North wanted it as an outlet for New England emigrants. If the only
question involved had been to save the black man from further
enslavement, the South would very possibly have won. In other words,
interest in the Negro as a human being, deserving a chance to live and
grow, was not the only and perhaps not the immediate motive behind the
men who fought for free soil. Slavery was fundamental and therefore,
from the point of view of party politics, a dangerous issue. There were
men in the North and also in the South who for conscience’ sake would
like to have seen the Negro emancipated, but the nation was not yet
ready for it. It involved consequences so vast and so far-reaching that
the mass of the people hesitated and were afraid. In the state of the
country at that time, the political parties of the North were anxious to
make it appear to the South that they had little or no concern about the
Negro, either as a freeman or a slave. Their great anxiety was to save
the Union. Mr. Lincoln was politically wise enough to state that his
administration was in no way committed to emancipation or to anything
else that looked to a change in the condition of the Negro people. He
would save the Union with or without slavery. He would very likely have
found himself lacking in national confidence or support, had he failed
to make this declaration.
When the South decided to go out of the Union, it furnished the
President with the one thing needed and that was a platform on which he
could unite the people of the North. When his policy was distinctly the
preservation of the government, Free Soil Democrats, Abolitionists, and
all believers in an undivided country, came at his call. All sentiment
in favor of emancipation served only to swell the passionate appeal to
the national feeling to save the Union. The Negro’s only hope was that,
in this threatened conflict to preserve intact the federation of the
states, his emancipation might become an inevitable necessity.
Frederick Douglass expressed this hope in the following language: “I
confess to a feeling allied to satisfaction at the prospect of a
conflict between the North and South. Standing outside of the pale of
American humanity, denied citizenship, unable to call this land of my
birth my country, and adjudged by the Supreme Court to have no rights
which a white man was bound to respect, and longing for the end of
bondage for my people, I was ready for any political upheaval that would
bring about an end to the existing condition of things.”