nevertheless; and, as such, it is beset with all the hindrances and
prejudices from ignorance and superstition which the advancement of the
race meets always and at every step. Those among the slaves who fully
appreciate the disadvantages of their position, and are earnestly intent
upon the achievement of freedom, are a minority--the vigorous thinkers
and reformers of the slave-population. The great masses are stupid and
conservative, in the midst of the evil which they endure, until aroused
by circumstances or the appeals of their more enterprising leaders. Even
John Brown, knowing as much as he did of the South and of the negro
character, miscalculated the readiness of the slaves of Virginia to fly
to his standard, judging them by his knowledge of the readiness of
Missouri slaves upon the Kansas border, who, through a few years of
local agitation, had come to be on the alert and ready to move.
'In case, therefore, of the proclamation of emancipation in any
slaveholding districts by our military chiefs, it will not be surprising
if, for a time, the results of that step shall seem to be feeble, and
shall be disproportionate to the expectations based upon it.
'The course of events will probably be this: The emancipation of slaves
by the proclamation of Northern generals will be followed by a partial
tendency on the part of the slave-population to flock to their camps in
a way similar to what has already happened in the neighborhood of
Fortress Monroe; and this, again, by mustering them into our service,
arming and drilling them as part of the regular and effective force of
our armies, after the example of General Jackson in the defence of New
Orleans, and other Southern generals on various occasions in the South.
A step like this will be met by a nearly or precisely similar expedient
of desperate necessity by the military chieftains of the South. Either
with or without the offer of emancipation, they will muster the blacks
in great numbers into their army, arming, equipping, and drilling them
as thoroughly as the same offices are performed for the white soldiers.
'Things may seem to stand much upon this footing, and no great advantage
have been gained by the North through emancipation, until, in the event
of some great battle, or successively through a series of local
contests, the blacks in the Southern army will fraternize with those of
the North, and go over in a body to their Northern allies, so soon as
the course of events shall have informed them somewhat of the true state
of the case, and have given them confidence in the earnest intention of
the Northern troops to stand by them in the assertion of their freedom.
A defection of this kind would carry dismay and insure defeat throughout
the whole South, especially if it were vigorously followed up by the
same policy and by adequate military skill on the part of the North; and
the result of a war so inaugurated could hardly fail to be the rapid and
complete disorganization of the whole system of Southern industry and
the total revolution and final submission of the Southern States.
'No man can exactly foresee the consequences of so great a conflict, nor
predict with any certainty the course of events through such an untried
and tremendous pathway; but it is next to impossible to conceive that
the Southern war-spirit could in any way long survive the disasters
inevitably consequent upon the general prevalence of a claim to freedom
by the slaves, upon any legal basis, suddenly diffused throughout the
South. Should the alternative be forced upon the people of that region,
of submission, or servile in addition to civil war, their troubles will
thicken upon them to a degree calculated to calm their over-excited
imaginations, and to subdue their vaulting ambition. Panic will come to
their own doors with a new and all-pervading significance, such as the
North hardly knows how to conceive. The North should abstain to the last
moment from thrusting even enemies into calamity so dire. But, if the
arrogance and madness of the South shall force on us, now or later, this
terrific resort, the world _may_ witness, as the result of this war, the
most tremendous retribution for national and organic sin which any
people has ever yet been called on to endure. The Nemesis of History
may, perhaps, impress the darkest record of her terrible sanctions on
the page which records the termination of the great American Rebellion.
'In the event last supposed, that is to say, if the war shall end in the
entire extinction of American slavery, the state in which the Southern
country, with its diverse populations, will find itself placed; the
future destiny of the cotton-growing region, of the South generally; of
our whole country, and of the continent, under this immense change of
our condition as a nation, are subjects of sufficient importance to
demand, on some future occasion, a distinct consideration. Enough points
have been crowded, in this article, upon the reflections of the reader.
History must not be too audaciously anticipated. The phases of the great
crisis, already developed and developing, are sufficiently grave and
numerous for the present occasion. Let the future withdraw her own veil
from our eyes, while we reverentially await the revelation of coming
events.
'All the forbearance hitherto on the part of the North, may have had in
it an element of wisdom. It is not the object of this paper to criticize
or complain of the past conduct of the war, nor to urge on the
Government to convert a war, begun for the resistance of a violent and
fraudulent dismemberment of the Union, into a war against slavery or a
crusade in behalf of human rights. There is no present purpose on the
part of the writer to conduct the discussion--far less to attempt the
decision--of so grave a question of national policy at this eventful and
critical epoch in the affairs of our national life. No doubt the subject
stands as yet complicated in the minds of statesmen with the
possibilities of the early and frank submission of the South, and the
consequent early reëstablishment substantially of the _status quo ante
bellum_; with the dread of inflicting measureless calamity upon those
who are at heart faithful to our cause in the South; and, most of all,
with the interests and feelings of the population of the few
slaveholding States remaining faithful to the Union. The object of the
present article is simply to lay open the true state of the case; to
reveal to the Northern mind in a clearer light, if possible, the causes
emanating from the South, which have gone and which go still to the
formation of Northern opinion adversely to the spirit of our own
institutions, and begetting, unconsciously in ourselves, a secret
treasonable sympathy at the bottom of our own hearts; a sympathy which
is the parent of that otherwise unaccountable tenderness on our part in
respect to the patent weakness of the enemy's defences. It is not that
we counsel, for the present, a change in the tenor of the war, but that
we wish, as the logic of circumstances shall force this question upon
us, that we may come to the consideration of it, in the future,
disabused of any preconceived prejudices in favor of that which is the
vital source of all the trouble which exists, and fully armed by a
complete understanding of the subject.'
So ended the original paper, the same, with a few changes of the
tense-forms to adapt it to the present time, as the Part One, published
in the last number of THE CONTINENTAL, and Part Two of this
series up to this point. The document was written for publication at
that time, more than two years ago, but no periodical was found then
ready to indulge in such bold speculations on the future. What has now
in great part become history, was deemed too audacious for the public
ear then. Perhaps no better gauge of the progress of events and opinion
could have happened. A magazine article, rejected so recently, as too
radical or wild in its prognostications, now stands in danger of being
thought tame, in the light of the changes already effected. Thrown into
a drawer as refuse matter, it has been like the log of a ship thrown
overboard, and remaining quiescent, while the winds, the waves, and the
current have combined to surge the vessel onward in her course; and,
_hauled in by the line_ at this hour, it may serve to chronicle the rate
of our speed.
Events hurry forward in this age with tremendous velocity. Great as has
been the progress of our arms, numerous as our warlike achievements and
advantages, the real victories we have won are, in the truest method of
judging, the victories of opinion which have occurred and are now
occurring. Our greatest conquest, as a people, is, and is to be, the
conquest over our own prejudices; our highest attainment the readiness
to be just, and to act with the boldness and vigor which justice
requires.
Taking things as they now are, let us again try to penetrate the future,
or at least to sketch different alternatives of what may happen. Let us
then try to catch the spirit of each alternative, and so be prepared to
draw from the event such of good, and to guard against such of evil as
each may involve.
As a first alternative, we may now speedily conquer the South.
Insurrection may spring up in the South, against the insurrection there,
and in aid of our arms. New vigor and new fortune may attend our own
military operations; and our future military task may--somewhat contrary
to our expectations, we confess--prove easy, and its conclusion close at
hand. In that event, dangers of another kind, dangers already alluded to
as existing at the commencement of the war, and hardly less to be
apprehended now than then, hardly less, indeed, than the indefinite
continuance of war, threaten the future of our political horizon. We may
see in a few months' time the very men who are leading the armies and
the councils of the Southern confederacy again cracking the whip of
their sharp and arrogant logic about the ears of the men who had
conquered them in the field of battle; claiming to dictate every
political measure; forcing the mould of their thought upon every form of
opinion, and, by astute political combinations, wielding the destiny of
the nation in behalf of slavery and despotism, and against the principle
of freedom. Do not imagine for an instant that any considerations of
modesty or humiliation on the one hand, nor of haughtiness or pride on
the other, would stand in the way of the immediate participation of
those men in our affairs. Let there be no delusions either, with regard
to the ability of the same leading class of men to keep themselves in
the saddle at the South, through all political changes not involving the
absolute destruction of slavery, and the complete and consolidated
establishment of other institutions and habits of life among the people
at large;--the virtual creation, in fact, of a new and different
population, by the blending of our own Northern men and manners with the
feeble indigenous freedom-loving growth. The return of this dominant
class of cotton lords among the common masses of a Southern population
anywhere, on any terms short of the utter extinction of their basis of
wealth and distinction, will be the return of an armed overseer to a
cowering mob of insubordinate slaves. The mere assertion of their
authority will be its instant acceptance, and the most abject submission
by the people. They will only have to demand reëlection to the National
Congress, and to every place of power, to be reinstated in precisely
their old position, their arrogance and self-assertion only augmented by
their having met and survived every disaster short of the destruction of
the source of their superiority.
Already schemes to restore the old State governments are rife, in
respect to Louisiana, Mississippi, and other of the rebel States, now
again brought within our military lines. Let this be done upon the old
footing at an early day, for these States and for the others, which
under the hypothesis now under consideration, will soon be subjugated;
let the Emancipation Proclamation fall into desuetude; let the military
authority of our army officers be withdrawn, and there is nothing in the
character of the Southern slaveholding aristocracy, and no other power
on earth, to prevent their flocking in crowds and at the very first
general election back to Washington, reuniting their forces with the old
body of profligate political hacks at the North, and flaunting with
increased presumption and activity the pretensions of slavery to
dictate the whole policy of the land. In that event, a strong party,
more distinctively proslavery and Southern than ever before, will be
organized; more openly and shamelessly than ever devoted to the
destruction of the last remnant of American liberty. Of course there
will be a new reaction against the new usurpation. The conflict will be
renewed, beginning precisely where the first war began, with the only
exception that the issue will be then more distinctly understood, the
conflict more desperate, and the result more definitive.
It is of the utmost importance that the true nature of the case be
understood: that this war is no accident of the hour, no merely
political or national event even. It is a death struggle between two
antagonist civilizations; if indeed one of them can be called a
civilization, and not rather a conspiracy against the very idea of
civilization. Again, the men involved in that conspiracy are not
_hidalgos_, _ancien régime_, nor any of the proud aristocracies of the
old world, who, when beaten, retire upon their dignity and hide their
time. They are, on the contrary, an enterprising gang of desperadoes,
who for the nonce may find it convenient to play the _rôle_ of high life
and dignified pretension, but who, on the slightest change of
circumstances, are ready for any shift, any seeming degradation or
humiliation, any temporary lowering of their claims, in order to rise
higher on the next wave. There is also enough of the savage and
barbarous element of character remaining in the Southern bogus chivalry
to make them, like the Chinaman or the Japanese, incapable of
appreciating magnanimity. All conciliation or clemency will be construed
into weakness; generosity and forbearance into poltroonery. These are
sad truths; but being truths, the failure to know them in season may
cost us another and a more desperate war, with more doubtful and
dangerous results.
Let us once surrender, through national verdancy, sentimental
commiseration, misunderstanding of the nature and purposes of our enemy,
or any or all of these causes combined with others, the dear-bought
advantages we have won, and disasters untold involve the future of the
land. Terrible beyond description will be, in that event, the condition
of the Union and emancipationist party now incipiently developing itself
at the South;--abandoned and deserted by the withdrawal of the actual
presence and protection of Northern arms. No barbarism on earth, no
savagism extant, is so barbarous or so savage as the ruthless vengeance
with which this hybrid civilization of the South is ready at any time to
visit the crime of abolitionism; and seven times hotter than usual will
the furnace of their wrath be heated against Southern men who under the
ægis of Northern protection shall have exhibited some sympathy with
freedom.
That a powerful Northern party will immediately arise in behalf of the
simple readmission of the Southern States, upon precisely the old basis,
when the war shall end by the suppression of the rebellion, is certain.
The existence of such a party will rest, in part, upon a real sympathy
with the South and the rebellion; partly upon interested political
motives of a more ordinary and short-sighted character; and, in still
greater part than either of these, upon the easy credence and
insufficient information of the great mass of the Northern people;
somewhat, indeed, upon a magnanimity highly creditable to their
character as men, but unwise and dangerous in the extreme, in any
exercise of it which should surrender a vital advantage.
It does not require even that the complete reconquest of the South
should be awaited in order that the question of the return of subdued
States into the Union upon the old terms should be sprung upon the
nation, and perhaps decided, by a precedent, before the attention of
the country can be thoroughly directed to the momentous nature of the
step proposed. The _New York Herald_ has been hitherto a steady and
consistent advocate of this policy, and a powerful agitator in its
behalf. The following extract from its columns indicates the imminence
of the issue, as well as the simple and seemingly reasonable political
machinery by which the whole thing is to be effected:
'It appears from the correspondence to which we have referred that
certain citizens of New Orleans, some of whose names are given
elsewhere, have resolved to restore Louisiana to the Union, and
that they intend to do this in the manner pointed out by Secretary
Seward in his famous reply to the intervention despatch of M.
Drouyn de Lhuys. That is to say, they intend to set the State
Government in motion, elect members of the Legislature, and send
loyal representatives to Congress. These gentlemen assert--and the
_Tribune_ does not deny--that Mr. Seward and Mr. Bates indorse this
idea, and that Mr. Etheridge, as Clerk of the House of
Representatives, has consented to receive the loyal members from
Louisiana, upon their own credentials, until the House is
organized. They also say--and the _Tribune_ does not deny--that Mr.
Etheridge has a perfect right to do this upon the precedent
established by the Broad Seal controversy, some twenty years ago.
Under these circumstances, the Union men propose to hold an
election for five members of Congress--one from each district and
one on the general ticket--and also for members of the State Senate
and Assembly. 'They are anxious,' says the _Tribune_ correspondent,
'that Louisiana shall take the lead in this matter, and there is no
doubt but Mississippi and the other States will, in due time,
follow.' So far, the patriotic reader will search in vain for any
objection to a plan which promises so much good for the Union, and
will be at a loss to know upon what grounds the _Tribune_ can
oppose it with any show of loyalty.'
It is no part of the object of this writing to discuss the legality or
the constitutionality of any course of proceeding in the premises. What
can be done and what cannot be done under the law, as it stands, is a
question for lawyers and judges. How far, if at all, the exigency has
annulled or modified the law; how far the axiom, _inter arma silent
leges_ ('in war the laws are silent'), shall be stretched to cover the
case, is a question for statesmen and military commanders. The writer of
these strictures speaks from none of those points of view, but as a
social philosopher, viewing the drifts of inevitable consequence from
one or the other grand policy in respect to the national
destiny--irrespective of the minor measures by which it may be executed.
A course utterly suicidal, viewed from this higher platform of
observation, may proceed with the most unimpeachable subserviency to all
the forms of the law; or, contrariwise, a policy replete with the
highest prosperity and happiness of the coming ages, may chance to have
its foundations laid in some startling deviation from all considerations
of precedent and routine.
In other words, what can be done or cannot be done under the law, or
without violence to the law, is not now the question under
consideration. What _must_ be done, whether under the law or above the
law,[12] to secure certain great ends of human progression, and to avoid
positions of utter disaster to the life of the American people of the
future, _is so_.
Whether the theory of Mr. Sumner, that the revolted States are, by the
operation of the revolt, or should be by the action of the Government,
remanded to the territorial condition, holds good; whether the theory of
Mr. Owen, that the machinery of the State Governments at the South
remains unaffected by the insurrection, but that the inhabitants, being
traitors, are incapable of administering it, until they are purged of
their treason by the action of the United States Government, is held to
be the better opinion; or, whether, in fine, the easy and simple theory
of the _Herald_ is the law of the subject--none of these points is _the_
point of the present investigation. We seek to fix attention on the
consequences of the act of an early readmission of the revolted States,
and, what would be the same thing, of the old and governing set of
slaveholding politicians, from those States, into the administration of
our national affairs, no matter what should be the method of its
accomplishment. In that event, the war will not be ended, but smothered
merely, and left smouldering. It will burst out again, and all that has
been done hitherto will have to be done over again, or fail to be
accomplished, and the consequences of failure endured.
Let no ordinary and superficial method of reasoning obfuscate the public
mind on this subject. It is becoming popular to say and to think that
slavery at the South is already a dead or a dying institution, by the
operation of the war. This opinion has in it, undoubtedly, the value of
a prophecy, provided the war be continued to its legitimate termination;
provided all the measures against slavery hitherto adopted are firmly
maintained; provided the incipient anti-slavery sentiment now being
developed in the South, be wisely fostered and protected by the strong
arm long enough, or until new institutions and new methods of thinking
and acting have time to consolidate. But, whoever supposes that slavery
is as yet even essentially weakened, provided, for any reason, our
forces and the influence of Northern sentiment were suddenly withdrawn
from the South, and the ocean waves of the old despotism were for a
moment even permitted to surge back over those portions of the territory
which have been partially redeemed, has no adequate idea of the
tremendous vitality of that institution.
A mistake on this subject, of the safe early return of the revolted
States, will be one of those political blunders worse than a crime; and
yet it is precisely this mistake which the American people are at this
hour most likely to commit. A latent love of Southern institutions _per
se_; the hope of personal political advantage, among politicians, by an
alliance with Southern leaders, on the part of others who care nothing
for the South as such; a lingering tenderness, a forgiving magnanimity
and generosity, among the people at large, which would in this case be
wholly misplaced; and finally an easy faith in the extent and
irrevocable nature of the successes already accomplished--all concur to
lead on to the commission of this error.
Talk as we will of the purposes of this war, the hand of destiny is upon
us. We must accept the _rôle_ of emancipators and champions of human
freedom, or the only alternative will happen, the loss of our own
liberties and the forfeiture of our national office as the leader of
Progress combined with Order, on the planet. We have to deal with an
implacable, a subtle, and a versatile enemy, wholly committed to the
opposite cause; unscrupulous, inappreciative of magnanimity or
concession of any kind; restrained by no considerations whatsoever short
of the accomplishment of his absolute and tyrannical will. We have this
enemy nearly prostrate under our feet, and we stand hesitating whether
to avail ourselves of our advantage or to stultify ourselves at the
tribunal of the world and of history, by allowing him to rise, to
repossess himself of his arms, and to recommence the conflict upon terms
of equal advantage.
A glance at the remaining alternative outcomings of the war must be
reserved for another article.
THE ENGLISH PRESS.
[The article with this title is written by Mr. NICHOLAS
ROWE, of London. Mr. ROWE is a lineal descendant of
the celebrated NICHOLAS ROWE, the author of the tragedy of
_Jane Shore_ and other well-known poems. The author, like his
famous ancestor, is a man of talents and a friend of freedom. His
account of the old English Press is one of the most perfect ever
given. He intends to bring the subject down to the present period,
and will become a regular contributor to our Magazine.--ED.
CONTINENTAL.]