Use, labor of each for all, is the health and virtue of all beings. _Ich
dien_, I serve, is a truly royal motto. And it is the mark of nobleness
to volunteer the lowest service, the greatest spirit only attaining to
humility. Nay, God is God because he is the servant of all. Well, now
here comes this conspiracy of slavery,—they call it an institution, I
call it a destitution,—this stealing of men and setting them to work,
stealing their labor, and the thief sitting idle himself; and for two
or three ages it has lasted, and has yielded a certain quantity of
rice, cotton and sugar. And, standing on this doleful experience, these
people have endeavored to reverse the natural sentiments of mankind,
and to pronounce labor disgraceful, and the well-being of a man to
consist in eating the fruit of other men’s labor. Labor: a man coins
himself into his labor; turns his day, his strength, his thought, his
affection into some product which remains as the visible sign of his
power; and to protect that, to secure that to him, to secure his past
self to his future self, is the object of all government. There is no
interest in any country so imperative as that of labor; it covers all,
and constitutions and governments exist for that,—to protect and insure
it to the laborer. All honest men are daily striving to earn their bread
by their industry. And who is this who tosses his empty head at this
blessing in disguise, the constitution of human nature, and calls labor
vile, and insults the faithful workman at his daily toil? I see for such
madness no hellebore,—for such calamity no solution but servile war and
the Africanization of the country that permits it.
At this moment in America the aspects of political society absorb
attention. In every house, from Canada to the Gulf, the children ask the
serious father,—“What is the news of the war to-day, and when will there
be better times?” The boys have no new clothes, no gifts, no journeys;
the girls must go without new bonnets; boys and girls find their
education, this year, less liberal and complete.[161] All the little
hopes that heretofore made the year pleasant are deferred. The state of
the country fills us with anxiety and stern duties. We have attempted to
hold together two states of civilization: a higher state, where labor and
the tenure of land and the right of suffrage are democratical; and a
lower state, in which the old military tenure of prisoners or slaves, and
of power and land in a few hands, makes an oligarchy: we have attempted
to hold these two states of society under one law. But the rude and early
state of society does not work well with the later, nay, works badly,
and has poisoned politics, public morals and social intercourse in the
Republic, now for many years.
The times put this question, Why cannot the best civilization be extended
over the whole country, since the disorder of the less-civilized portion
menaces the existence of the country? Is this secular progress we have
described, this evolution of man to the highest powers, only to give
him sensibility, and not to bring duties with it? Is he not to make his
knowledge practical? to stand and to withstand? Is not civilization
heroic also? Is it not for action? has it not a will? “There are
periods,” said Niebuhr, “when something much better than happiness and
security of life is attainable.” We live in a new and exceptionable age.
America is another word for Opportunity. Our whole history appears like a
last effort of the Divine Providence in behalf of the human race; and a
literal, slavish following of precedents, as by a justice of the peace,
is not for those who at this hour lead the destinies of this people.
The evil you contend with has taken alarming proportions, and you still
content yourself with parrying the blows it aims, but, as if enchanted,
abstain from striking at the cause.[162]
If the American people hesitate, it is not for want of warning or
advices. The telegraph has been swift enough to announce our disasters.
The journals have not suppressed the extent of the calamity. Neither
was there any want of argument or of experience. If the war brought
any surprise to the North, it was not the fault of sentinels on the
watch-tower, who had furnished full details of the designs, the muster
and the means of the enemy. Neither was anything concealed of the theory
or practice of slavery. To what purpose make more big books of these
statistics? There are already mountains of facts, if any one wants them.
But people do not want them. They bring their opinion into the world.
If they have a comatose tendency in the brain, they are pro-slavery
while they live; if of a nervous sanguineous temperament, they are
abolitionists. Then interests were never persuaded. Can you convince the
shoe interest, or the iron interest, or the cotton interest, by reading
passages from Milton or Montesquieu? You wish to satisfy people that
slavery is bad economy. Why, the Edinburgh Review pounded on that string,
and made out its case, forty years ago. A democratic statesman said to
me, long since, that, if he owned the state of Kentucky, he would manumit
all the slaves, and be a gainer by the transaction. Is this new? No,
everybody knows it. As a general economy it is admitted. But there is
no one owner of the state, but a good many small owners. One man owns
land and slaves; another owns slaves only. Here is a woman who has no
other property,—like a lady in Charleston I knew of, who owned fifteen
sweeps and rode in her carriage. It is clearly a vast inconvenience to
each of these to make any change, and they are fretful and talkative, and
all their friends are; and those less interested are inert, and, from
want of thought, averse to innovation. It is like free trade, certainly
the interest of nations, but by no means the interest of certain towns
and districts, which tariff feeds fat; and the eager interest of the
few overpowers the apathetic general conviction of the many. Banknotes
rob the public, but are such a daily convenience that we silence our
scruples and make believe they are gold. So imposts are the cheap and
right taxation; but, by the dislike of people to pay out a direct tax,
governments are forced to render life costly by making them pay twice as
much, hidden in the price of tea and sugar.
In this national crisis, it is not argument that we want, but that rare
courage which dares commit itself to a principle, believing that Nature
is its ally, and will create the instruments it requires, and more than
make good any petty and injurious profit which it may disturb. There
never was such a combination as this of ours, and the rules to meet it
are not set down in any history. We want men of original perception and
original action, who can open their eyes wider than to a nationality,
namely, to considerations of benefit to the human race, can act in
the interest of civilization. Government must not be a parish clerk,
a justice of the peace. It has, of necessity, in any crisis of the
state, the absolute powers of a dictator. The existing administration
is entitled to the utmost candor. It is to be thanked for its angelic
virtue, compared with any executive experiences with which we have been
familiar. But the times will not allow us to indulge in compliment. I
wish I saw in the people that inspiration which, if government would not
obey the same, would leave the government behind and create on the moment
the means and executors it wanted. Better the war should more dangerously
threaten us,—should threaten fracture in what is still whole, and punish
us with burned capitals and slaughtered regiments, and so exasperate
the people to energy, exasperate our nationality. There are Scriptures
written invisibly on men’s hearts, whose letters do not come out until
they are enraged. They can be read by war-fires, and by eyes in the last
peril.
We cannot but remember that there have been days in American history,
when, if the free states had done their duty, slavery had been blocked
by an immovable barrier, and our recent calamities forever precluded.
The free states yielded, and every compromise was surrender and invited
new demands. Here again is a new occasion which heaven offers to sense
and virtue. It looks as if we held the fate of the fairest possession
of mankind in our hands, to be saved by our firmness or to be lost by
hesitation.
The one power that has legs long enough and strong enough to wade across
the Potomac offers itself at this hour; the one strong enough to bring
all the civility up to the height of that which is best, prays now at
the door of Congress for leave to move. Emancipation is the demand of
civilization. That is a principle; everything else is an intrigue. This
is a progressive policy, puts the whole people in healthy, productive,
amiable position, puts every man in the South in just and natural
relations with every man in the North, laborer with laborer.
I shall not attempt to unfold the details of the project of emancipation.
It has been stated with great ability by several of its leading
advocates. I will only advert to some leading points of the argument,
at the risk of repeating the reasons of others. The war is welcome to
the Southerner; a chivalrous sport to him, like hunting, and suits
his semi-civilized condition. On the climbing scale of progress, he
is just up to war, and has never appeared to such advantage as in the
last twelvemonth. It does not suit us. We are advanced some ages on the
war-state,—to trade, art and general cultivation. His laborer works for
him at home, so that he loses no labor by the war. All our soldiers are
laborers; so that the South, with its inferior numbers, is almost on a
footing in effective war-population with the North. Again, as long as
we fight without any affirmative step taken by the government, any word
intimating forfeiture in the rebel states of their old privileges under
the law, they and we fight on the same side, for slavery. Again, if we
conquer the enemy,—what then? We shall still have to keep him under, and
it will cost as much to hold him down as it did to get him down. Then
comes the summer, and the fever will drive the soldiers home; next winter
we must begin at the beginning, and conquer him over again. What use then
to take a fort, or a privateer, or get possession of an inlet, or to
capture a regiment of rebels?
But one weapon we hold which is sure. Congress can, by edict, as a part
of the military defence which it is the duty of Congress to provide,
abolish slavery, and pay for such slaves as we ought to pay for. Then
the slaves near our armies will come to us; those in the interior will
know in a week what their rights are, and will, where opportunity offers,
prepare to take them. Instantly, the armies that now confront you must
run home to protect their estates, and must stay there, and your enemies
will disappear.
There can be no safety until this step is taken. We fancy that the
endless debate, emphasized by the crime and by the cannons of this war,
has brought the free states to some conviction that it can never go well
with us whilst this mischief of slavery remains in our politics, and that
by concert or by might we must put an end to it. But we have too much
experience of the futility of an easy reliance on the momentary good
dispositions of the public. There does exist, perhaps, a popular will
that the Union shall not be broken,—that our trade, and therefore our
laws, must have the whole breadth of the continent, and from Canada to
the Gulf. But since this is the rooted belief and will of the people, so
much the more are they in danger, when impatient of defeats, or impatient
of taxes, to go with a rush for some peace; and what kind of peace
shall at that moment be easiest attained, they will make concessions
for it,—will give up the slaves, and the whole torment of the past
half-century will come back to be endured anew.
Neither do I doubt, if such a composition should take place, that the
Southerners will come back quietly and politely, leaving their haughty
dictation. It will be an era of good feelings. There will be a lull after
so loud a storm; and, no doubt, there will be discreet men from that
section who will earnestly strive to inaugurate more moderate and fair
administration of the government, and the North will for a time have its
full share and more, in place and counsel. But this will not last;—not
for want of sincere good will in sensible Southerners, but because
Slavery will again speak through them its harsh necessity. It cannot live
but by injustice, and it will be unjust and violent to the end of the
world.[163]
The power of Emancipation is this, that it alters the atomic social
constitution of the Southern people. Now, their interest is in keeping
out white labor; then, when they must pay wages, their interest will be
to let it in, to get the best labor, and, if they fear their blacks, to
invite Irish, German and American laborers. Thus, whilst Slavery makes
and keeps disunion, Emancipation removes the whole objection to union.
Emancipation at one stroke elevates the poor-white of the South, and
identifies his interest with that of the Northern laborer.
Now, in the name of all that is simple and generous, why should not this
great right be done? Why should not America be capable of a second stroke
for the well-being of the human race, as eighty or ninety years ago
she was for the first,—of an affirmative step in the interests of human
civility, urged on her, too, not by any romance of sentiment, but by
her own extreme perils? It is very certain that the statesman who shall
break through the cobwebs of doubt, fear and petty cavil that lie in the
way, will be greeted by the unanimous thanks of mankind. Men reconcile
themselves very fast to a bold and good measure when once it is taken,
though they condemned it in advance. A week before the two captive
commissioners were surrendered to England, every one thought it could
not be done: it would divide the North. It was done, and in two days all
agreed it was the right action.[164] And this action, which costs so
little (the parties injured by it being such a handful that they can very
easily be indemnified), rids the world, at one stroke, of this degrading
nuisance, the cause of war and ruin to nations. This measure at once
puts all parties right. This is borrowing, as I said, the omnipotence
of a principle. What is so foolish as the terror lest the blacks should
be made furious by freedom and wages? It is denying these that is the
outrage, and makes the danger from the blacks. But justice satisfies
everybody,—white man, red man, yellow man and black man. All like wages,
and the appetite grows by feeding.
But this measure, to be effectual, must come speedily. The weapon is
slipping out of our hands. “Time,” say the Indian Scriptures, “drinketh
up the essence of every great and noble action which ought to be
performed, and which is delayed in the execution.”[165]
I hope it is not a fatal objection to this policy that it is simple
and beneficent thoroughly, which is the tribute of a moral action. An
unprecedented material prosperity has not tended to make us Stoics or
Christians. But the laws by which the universe is organized reappear
at every point, and will rule it. The end of all political struggle is
to establish morality as the basis of all legislation. It is not free
institutions, it is not a republic, it is not a democracy, that is the
end,—no, but only the means. Morality is the object of government.[166]
We want a state of things in which crime shall not pay. This is the
consolation on which we rest in the darkness of the future and the
afflictions of to-day, that the government of the world is moral, and
does forever destroy what is not. It is the maxim of natural philosophers
that the natural forces wear out in time all obstacles, and take place:
and it is the maxim of history that victory always falls at last where
it ought to fall; or, there is perpetual march and progress to ideas. But
in either case, no link of the chain can drop out. Nature works through
her appointed elements; and ideas must work through the brains and the
arms of good and brave men, or they are no better than dreams.
* * * * *
Since the above pages were written, President Lincoln has proposed to
Congress that the government shall coöperate with any state that shall
enact a gradual abolishment of slavery. In the recent series of national
successes, this message is the best. It marks the happiest day in the
political year. The American Executive ranges itself for the first time
on the side of freedom. If Congress has been backward, the President has
advanced. This state-paper is the more interesting that it appears to be
the President’s individual act, done under a strong sense of duty. He
speaks his own thought in his own style. All thanks and honor to the Head
of the State! The message has been received throughout the country with
praise, and, we doubt not, with more pleasure than has been spoken. If
Congress accords with the President, it is not yet too late to begin the
emancipation; but we think it will always be too late to make it gradual.
All experience agrees that it should be immediate.[167] More and better
than the President has spoken shall, perhaps, the effect of this message
be,—but, we are sure, not more or better than he hoped in his heart,
when, thoughtful of all the complexities of his position, he penned these
cautious words.