HOW SLAVERY LED TO WAR
ALL of my young readers must know what a wonderful age this is that we
live in, and what marvelous things have been done. Some of you, no
doubt, have read the stories of magic in the "Arabian Nights
Entertainments," and thought them very odd, if not absurd. But if any
one, a hundred years ago, had been told about the railroad, the
telegraph, the photograph, the phonograph, vessels that run beneath the
surface of the water, and ships that sail in the air, I fancy they would
have called all this nonsense and "Arabian Nights" magic. Why, think of
it, a trolley car is as magical, in its way, as Aladdin's wonderful
lamp.
But while you know much about these things, there has been one great
step of progress which, I fancy, you know or think very little about. I
do not mean material but moral progress, for you must bear in mind that
while the world has been growing richer it has also been growing better.
A hundred years ago many millions of men were held as slaves in America
and Europe. Some of these were black and some were white, but they
could be bought and sold like so many cattle, could be whipped by their
masters, and had no more rights than so many brute beasts.
To-day there is not a slave in Europe or America. All these millions of
slaves have been set free. Do you not think I am right in saying that
the world has grown better as well as richer? Why, fifty years ago there
were millions of slaves in our own country, and now there is not one in
all the land. Is not that a great gain to mankind? But it is sad to
think that this slavery gave rise to a terrible war. I shall have to
tell you about this war, after I have told you how slavery brought it
on.
In the early part of this book you read of how white men first came to
this country. I have now to tell you that black men were brought here
almost as soon. In 1619, just twelve years after Captain John Smith and
the English colonists landed at Jamestown, a Dutch ship sailed up the
James River and sold them some negroes to be held as slaves.
You remember about Pocahontas, the Indian girl who saved the life of
Captain John Smith. She was afterwards married to John Rolfe, the man
who first planted tobacco in Virginia. John Rolfe wrote down what was
going on in Virginia, and it was he who told us about these negroes
brought in as slaves. This is what he wrote:
"About the last of August came in, a Dutch marine-of-war, that sold us
20 Negars."
These twenty "Negars," as he called them, grew in numbers until there
were four million negro slaves in our country in 1860, when the war
began. There are twice that many black people in the country to-day, but
I am glad to be able to say that none of them are slaves. Yet how sad it
is to think that it cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, and
misery to multitudes of families, to set them free.
"Where did all these black men come from?" I am sure I hear some young
voice asking that question. Well, they came from Africa, the land of the
negroes. In our time merchant ships are used to carry goods from one
country to another. In old times many of these ships were used in
carrying negroes to be sold as slaves. The wicked captains would steal
the poor black men in Africa, or buy them from the chiefs, who had taken
them prisoners in war. Some of them filled their ships so full of these
miserable victims that hundreds of them died and were thrown overboard.
Then, when they got to the West Indies or to the shores of our country,
they would sell all that were left alive to the planters, to spend the
rest of their lives like oxen chained to the yoke.
It was a very sad and cruel business, but people then thought it right,
and some of the best men took part in it. That is why I say the world
has grown better. We have a higher idea of right and wrong in regard to
such things than our forefathers had.
Slaves were kept in all parts of the country, in the North as well as
the South. There were more of them in the South than in the North, for
they were of more use there as workers in the tobacco and rice and
cotton fields. Most of those in the North were kept as house servants.
Not many of them were needed in the fields.
The North had not much use for slaves, and in time laws were passed,
doing away with slavery in all the Northern states. Very likely the same
thing would have taken place in the South if it had not been for the
discovery of the cotton-gin. I have told you what a change this great
invention made. Before that time it did not pay to raise cotton in our
fields. After that time cotton grew to be a very profitable crop, and
the cultivation of it spread wider and wider until it was planted over a
great part of the South.
This made a remarkable change. Negroes were very useful in the cotton
fields, and no one in the South now thought of doing away with slavery.
After 1808 no ships could bring slaves to this country, but there were a
great many here then, and many others were afterwards born and grew up
as slaves, so that the numbers kept increasing year after year.
There were always some people, both in the North and the South, who did
not like slavery. Among them were Franklin and Washington and Jefferson
and other great men. In time there got to be so many of these people in
the North that they formed what were called Anti-slavery Societies. Some
of them said that slavery should be kept where it was and not taken into
any new states. Others said that every slave in the United States ought
to be set free.
This brought on great excitement all over the country. The people in the
North who believed in slavery were often violent. Now and then there
were riots. Buildings where Anti-slavery meetings were held were burned
down. One of the leaders of the Abolitionists, as the Anti-slavery
people were called, was dragged through the streets of Boston with a
rope tied round his body, and would have been hanged if his friends had
not got him away.
But as time went on the Abolitionists grew stronger in the North. Many
slaves ran away from their masters, and these were hidden by their white
friends until they could get to Canada, where they were safe. All
through the South and North people were excited.
I do not think many of our people expected the cruel war that was
coming. If they had they might have been more careful what they said and
did. But for all that, war was close at hand, and two things helped to
bring it on.
There had been fighting in Kansas, one of the territories that was to be
made into a state, and among the fighters was an old man named John
Brown, who thought that God had called him to do all he could for the
freedom of the slaves.
Some people think that John Brown was not quite right in his brain. What
he did was to gather a body of men and to take possession of Harper's
Ferry, on the Potomac River, where there was a government army. He
thought that the slaves of Virginia would come to his aid in multitudes
and that he could start a slave war that would run all through the
South.
It was a wild project. Not a slave came. But some troops came under
Colonel Robert E. Lee, and Brown and his party were forced to surrender.
Some of them were killed and wounded and the others taken prisoners.
John Brown and six others were tried and hanged. But the half-insane old
man had done his work. That fight at Harper's Ferry helped greatly to
bring on the war.
I said there were two things. The other was the election of Abraham
Lincoln as President.
For a long time, as I have told you, the Abolitionists, or people
opposed to slavery, were few in number. When they grew more numerous
they formed a political party, known as the Anti-slavery Party. In 1856
a new party, called the Republican Party, was formed and took in all the
Abolitionists. It was so strong that in the election of that year eleven
states voted for its candidate, John C. Fremont, the man who had taken
California from Mexico.
In 1860 Abraham Lincoln, a western orator of whom I shall soon tell you
more, was the candidate of the Republican Party, and in the election of
that year this new party was successful and Lincoln was elected
President of the United States.