_White_
It is my purpose in writing this work to show that the American
Government has always construed people of African parentage to be
aliens, not only when the Constitution was tortured by narrow-minded
men to shield the cruel, murderous slave-holder in the possession of
his human property, but even now, when the panoply of citizenship is,
presumably, all-sufficient to insure to the late slave the enjoyment
of full manhood rights as a sovereign citizen.
The conflict of law and the moral sentiment of the country has been
long and bloody, and the end is not yet. Political parties in this
country do not lead, but follow, public opinion. They hang upon the
applause of the rabble, and succeed or fail in their efforts to
administer the affairs of Government in proportion as they interpret
the wishes of the rabble. Not alone do parties defer to the wishes of
the illiterate, the "great unwashed" majority, but individuals as
well, who prefer to ride upon the wave of success as the champions of
great wrongs rather than to go into retirement as the champions of
just principles. The voice of the Charmer is all too powerful to be
successfully resisted.
Republics have always been fruitful of demagogues. Such vermin find
the soil of democratic government the most fertile and congenial for
their operations, because the audiences to which they speak, the
passions to which they appeal, are not always of the most reflective,
humane or enlightened. Demagogues are the parasites of republics; and
that our country is afflicted with an abnormal number of them is to be
expected from the tentative nature of our institutions, the extent of
our territory and the heterogeneity of our vast population.
Under our government all the peoples of the world find shelter and
protection--save the African (who was formerly used as a beast of
burden and now as a football, to be kicked by one faction and kicked
back by the other) and the industrious Chinaman, who was barred out by
the over-obsequiousness of the Congress of the nation, in deference to
the Sand-Lot demagogues of the Pacific coast, headed by Denis Kearney,
because it was desirable to conciliate their votes, even at the
expense of consistency and the unity of the Constitution. That great
document, while constantly affirmed to be the most broad and liberal
compact ever devised for the governance of man, has always been found
to be narrow enough to serve the purposes of the slave oligarch and
the make-shifts of the party in power; and has always afforded ample
shelter and protection to the lazzaroni of Italy, the paupers of
Ireland, and the incendiary spirits of other countries, but yet cannot
shield a black man, a citizen and to the manor born, in any common,
civil or political right which usually attaches to citizenship.
A putative citizen of the United States commits murder in the
jurisdiction of a friendly power, and the Chief Executive of fifty
millions of people deems it incumbent upon him as the head of the
faction to which he belongs to "call the attention of Congress" to the
fact, ostensibly in the interest of justice and fair-play, but
obviously to court the good will of the American sympathizers of the
assassin. While on the contrary, within a few hundred miles of the
National capital, an armed mob of citizens shoot down in cold blood a
dozen of their fellow-citizens, but the Chief of the Nation did not
deem it at all pertinent or necessary to "call the attention of
Congress" to the matter. And why? Because, forsooth, the newspapers,
voicing the wishes of the rabble and the cormorants of trade, cry down
the "Bloody Shirt," proclaiming, with brazen effrontery, that each
State is "_sovereign_," and that its citizens have a _perfect right_
to terrorize and murder one another, if they so desire. The Bible
declares that "Righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach
to any people." God save the Union!
But such argument is indicative, not only of American politics but of
Caucasian human nature as well--that human nature which seldom rises
above self-interest in business or politics. If you have abundance of
money, the merchant is all accommodation, the lawyer all smiles; if
you have votes that count, politicians cannot be too obsequious, too
affable, too anxious to serve you. But if you simply have common
humanity, clothed in the awful majesty of a just cause, you appeal in
vain to the cormorants of trade, the harpies of law, or the demagogues
of power. Unless you are of the salt salty, unless you are clothed in
broadcloth and fine linen, you cannot obtain even a respectful
hearing.
It took the Abolitionists full thirty years to convince the American
people, the ministry of Christ included, that slavery was, pure and
simple, a "Covenant with death and an agreement with hell;" and then,
sad to say, they were convinced against their wills. Their sense of
justice had become so obtuse as to wholly blunt the sense of reason,
the brotherly sympathy of a common race-feeling, and the broad,
liberal and just inculcations of Jesus Christ. The nation was sunk to
the moral turpitude of Constantinople; and not even a John crying in
the wilderness could arouse it to a sense of the exceeding foulness in
the midst of which it grovelled, or of the storm gathering on the
distant horizon.
Although the abolition of slavery had been agitated for more than
thirty years, the nation, which was ruled by politicians of the usual
mental caliber, was startled at the defiant shot upon Fort
Sumter--the shot that echoed the downfall of the foulest institution
which has sapped the vitality of any modern government, and that
aroused the people to a sorrowful realization that the power which
defied them was strong enough and desperate enough to stop at nothing
short of the disintegration of the American Union. So the nation,
still sympathizing with slavery, still playing with a coal of fire,
grappled with the monster, feeling itself powerful to crush it in a
few short months.
It was not because the people of the nation hated slavery and
oppression that they rushed upon the field of battle; no such
righteousness moved them: it was because the slave-power, which had
for so long dictated legislation and the interpretation of the laws,
would tolerate no adverse criticism or legislation upon the foul
institution it championed, and appealed from the forum of reason to
the forum of treasonable rebellion to enforce the right so long and (I
blush to say it!) _constitutionally_ conceded to it.
I do not believe that, in 1860, a majority (or even a respectable
minority) of the American people desired the manumission of the slave;
it is evident, from the temper of the political discussions of that
time, that the combination of parties out of which, in 1856, the
Republican party was formed, desired to do no more than to confine the
institution of slavery within the territory then occupied. There was
certainly very little comfort for the black man in this position of
the "party of great moral ideas."
The overtures[2] made by President Lincoln to the slave-power during
the first year of the war were all made in the interest of the
perpetuation of the Union, and not in the interest of the slave.
His reply to Mr. Horace Greeley, who urged upon him the importance of
issuing an emancipation proclamation is conclusive that he was more
concerned about the Union than about the slave:
EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
_August 22, 1862_
HON. HORACE GREELEY:--Dear Sir: I have just read yours of
the 19th, addressed to myself through the _New York
Tribune_. If there be in it any statements or assumptions of
facts which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and
here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences
which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not, now and
here, argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an
imperious and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to
an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be
right.
As to the policy I seem to be pursuing, as you say, I have
not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way
under the constitution. The sooner the national authority
can be restored, the nearer the Union will be the Union it
was.
* * * If there be those who would not save the Union,
unless they could at the same time _destroy slavery, I do
not agree with them_. My paramount object in this struggle
_is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to
destroy slavery_. If I could save the Union _without_
freeing _any_ slave _I would do it_, and if I could save it
by freeing _all_ the slaves I would do it; and if I could
save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would
also do that. _What I do about slavery and the colored race,
I do because I believe it helps to save the Union_; and what
I forbear I forbear because I do not believe it would help
to save the Union. I shall do _less_ whenever I shall
believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do
_more_ whenever I shall believe doing more will help the
cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be
errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall
appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purposes according to my view of
_official_ duty; and I intend no modification of my
oft-expressed _personal_ wish that all men, everywhere,
should be free.
Yours,
A. LINCOLN
Everything--humanity, justice, posterity--was placed upon the
sacrificial altar of the Union, and the slave-power was repeatedly and
earnestly invited to lay down its traitorous arms, be forgiven, and
keep its slaves. With Mr. Lincoln, as President, it was the Union,
first, last, and all the time. And he but echoed the prevailing
opinions of his time. I do not question or criticise his _personal_
attitude; but what he himself called his "view of official duty" was
to execute the will of the people, and that was _not_ to abolish
slavery, at that time.
As the politicians only took hold of the great question when they
thought it would advance their selfish interests, they were prepared
to abandon it or immolate it upon the altar of "expediency," when the
great clouds of treason burst upon them in the form of gigantic
rebellion. The politicians of that time, like the politicians of all
times, were incapable of appreciating the magnitude of the questions
involved in the conflict.
But the slave-power had been aroused. It was not to be appeased by
overtures; it wanted no compromise. It would brook no interference
inimical to its "peculiar institution." In the Congress of the nation,
in the high places of power, it had so long been permitted to dictate
the policy to be pursued towards slavery, it had so inoculated the
institutions of the government with the virus of its vicious opinions,
that, to be interfered with, to be dictated to, was out of the
question. It was Ephraim and his idol repeated.
The South forced the issue upon the people of the country. The
Southerners marched off under the banner of "States Rights"--a
doctrine they have always championed. They cared nothing for the Union
_then_; they care less for the Union _now_. The State to them is
sovereign; the nation a magnificent combination of nothingness. The
State has in its keeping all option over life, individual rights, and
property. The spirit of Hayne and Calhoun is still the star that
lights the pathway of the Southern man in his duty to the government.
He recognizes no sovereignty more potential than that of his State.
Long years of agitation and bloody war have failed to decide the
rights of States, or the measure of protection which the National
government owes to the individual members of States. We still grope in
the sinuous by-ways of uncertainty. The State still defies the
National authority; and the individual citizens of the Nation still
appeal in vain for protection from oppressive laws of States or the
violent methods of their citizens. The question, "Which is the
greater, the State or the Sisterhood of States?" is still undecided,
and may have to be adjudicated in some future stage of our history by
another appeal to arms.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and
Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby proclaim
and declare * * * that, on the first day of January, in the year of
our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held
as slaves within any State, or designated part of the State, the
people whereof shall be in rebellion against the United States, shall
be then, and thenceforward, and forever free; * * * That the Executive
will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation,
designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people
thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the United
States.--" President Lincoln's _"Conditional" Emancipation
Proclamation_.