FREEDOM'S SUN STILL RISING.
After President Lincoln had issued his Proclamation of Emancipation, the
friends of Freedom clearly perceived--and none of them more clearly than
himself that until the incorporation of that great Act into the
Constitution of the United States itself, there could be no real
assurance of safety to the liberties of the emancipated; that unless
this were done there would be left, even after the suppression of the
Rebellion, a living spark of dissension which might at any time again be
fanned into the flames of Civil War.
Hence, at all proper times, Mr. Lincoln favored and even
urged Congressional action upon the subject. It was not, however, until
the following year that definite action may be said to have commenced in
Congress toward that end; and, as Congress was slow, he found it
necessary to say in his third Annual Message: "while I remain in my
present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the
Emancipation Proclamation; nor shall I return to Slavery any person who
is Free by the terms of that Proclamation, or by any of the Acts of
Congress."
Meantime, however, occurred the series of glorious
Union victories in the West, ending with the surrender to Grant's
triumphant Forces on the 4th of July, 1863, of Vicksburg--"the Gibraltar
of the West"--with its Garrison, Army, and enormous quantities of arms
and munitions of war; thus closing a brilliant and successful Campaign
with a blow which literally "broke the back" of the Rebellion; while,
almost simultaneously, July 1-3, the Union Forces of the East, under
Meade, gained the great victory of Gettysburg, and, driving the hosts of
Lee from Pennsylvania, put a second and final end to Rebel invasion of
Northern soil; gaining it, on ground dedicated by President Lincoln,
before that year had closed--as a place of sepulture for the
Patriot-soldiers who there had fallen in a brief, touching and immortal
Address, which every American child should learn by heart, and every
American adult ponder deeply, as embodying the very essence of true
Republicanism.
[President Lincoln's Address, when the National Cemetery at
Gettysburg, Pa., was dedicated Nov. 19, 1863, was in these
memorable words:
"Fourscore and seven years ago, our Fathers brought forth upon this
continent a new Nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.
"Now we are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that
Nation, or any Nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long
endure.
"We are met on a great battlefield of that War. We have come here
to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for
those who here gave their lives that that Nation might live.
"It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
"But in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate,
we can not hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead,
who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add
or detract.
"The World will little note, nor long remember, what we say here;
but it can never forget what they did here.
"It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the
unfinished work which they who fought here have, thus far, so nobly
advanced.
"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take increased
devotion to that Cause for which they gave the last full measure of
devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not
have died in vain; that this Nation, under God, shall have a new
birth of Freedom; and that Government of the People, by the People,
and for the People, shall not perish front the Earth."]
That season of victory for the Union arms, coming, as it did, upon a
season of depression and doubtfulness, was doubly grateful to the loyal
heart of the Nation. Daylight seemed to be breaking at last.
Gettysburg had hurled back the Southern invader from our soil; and
Vicksburg, with the immediately resulting surrender of Port Hudson, had
opened the Mississippi river from Cairo to the Gulf, and split the
Confederacy in twain.
But it happened just about this time that, the enrollment of the whole
Militia of the United States (under the Act of March, 1863), having been
completed, and a Draft for 300,000 men ordered to be made and executed,
if by a subsequent time the quotas of the various States should not be
filled by volunteering, certain malcontents and Copperheads, inspired by
agents and other friends of the Southern Conspirators, started and
fomented, in the city of New York, a spirit of unreasoning opposition
both to voluntary enlistment, and conscription under the Draft, that
finally culminated, July 13th, in a terrible Riot, lasting several days,
during which that great metropolis was in the hands, and completely at
the mercy, of a brutal mob of Secession sympathizers, who made day and
night hideous with their drunken bellowings, terrorized everybody even
suspected of love for the Union, plundered and burned dwellings,
including a Colored Orphan Asylum, and added to the crime of arson, that
of murdering the mob-chased, terror-stricken Negroes, by hanging them to
the lamp-posts.
These Riots constituted a part of that "Fire in the Rear" with which the
Rebels and their Northern Democratic sympathizers had so frequently
menaced the Armies of the Union.
Alluding to them, the N. Y. Tribune on July 15th, while its office was
invested and threatened with attack and demolition, bravely said: "They
are, in purpose and in essence, a Diversion in favor of Jefferson Davis
and Lee. Listen to the yells of the mob and the harangues of its
favorite orators, and you will find them surcharged with 'Nigger,'
'Abolition,' 'Black Republican,' denunciation of prominent Republicans,
The Tribune, etc. etc.--all very wide of the Draft and the exemption.
Had the Abolitionists, instead of the Slaveholders, revolted, and
undertaken to upset the Government and dissolve the Union, nine-tenths
of these rioters would have eagerly volunteered to put them down. It is
the fear, stimulated by the recent and glorious triumphs of the Union
Arms, that Slavery and the Rebellion must suffer, which is at the bottom
of all this arson, devastation, robbery, and murder."
The Democratic Governor, Seymour, by promising to "have this Draft
suspended and stopped," did something toward quieting the Riots, but it
was not until the Army of the Potomac, now following Lee's retreat, was
weakened by the sending of several regiments to New York that the
Draft-rioting spirit, in that city, and to a less extent in other
cities, was thoroughly cowed.
[In reply to Gov. Seymour's appeal for delay in the execution of
the Draft Law, in order to test its Constitutionality, Mr. Lincoln,
on the 7th of August, said he could not consent to lose the time
that would be involved in obtaining a decision from the U. S.
Supreme Court on that point, and proceeded: "We are contending with
an Enemy who, as I understand, drives every able-bodied man he can
reach into his ranks, very much as a butcher drives bullocks into a
slaughter-pen. No time is wasted, no argument is used.
"This system produces an Army which will soon turn upon our now
victorious soldiers already in the field, if they shall not be
sustained by recruits as they should be.
It produces an Army with a rapidity not to be matched on our side,
if we first waste time to re-experiment with the Volunteer system,
already deemed by Congress, and palpably, in fact, so far exhausted
as to be inadequate; and then more time to obtain a Court decision
as to whether a law is Constitutional which requires a part of
those not now in the Service to go to those who are already in it,
and still more time to determine with absolute certainty that we
get those who are to go, in the precisely legal proportion to those
who are not to go.
"My purpose is to be in my action Just and Constitutional, and yet
Practical, in performing the important duty with which I am
charged, of maintaining the Unity and the Free principles of our
common Country."]
Worried and weakened by this Democratic opposition to the Draft, and the
threatened consequent delays and dangers to the success of the Union
Cause, and depressed moreover by the defeat of the National forces under
Rosecrans at Chickamauga; yet, the favorable determination of the Fall
elections on the side of Union and Freedom, and the immense majorities
upholding those issues, together with Grant's great victory (November,
1863) of Chattanooga--where the three days of fighting in the
Chattanooga Valley and up among the clouds of Lookout Mountain and
Mission Ridge, not only effaced the memory of Rosecrans's previous
disaster, but brought fresh and imperishable laurels to the Union Arms
--stiffened the President's backbone, and that of Union men everywhere.
Not that Mr. Lincoln had shown any signs of weakness or wavering, or any
loss of hope in the ultimate result of this War for the preservation of
the Union--which now also involved Freedom to all beneath its banner.
On the contrary, a letter of his written late in August shows
conclusively enough that he even then began to see clearly the coming
final triumph--not perhaps as "speedy," as he would like, in its coming,
but none the less sure to come in God's "own good time," and furthermore
not appearing "to be so distant as it did" before Gettysburg, and
especially Vicksburg, was won; for, said he: "The signs look better.
The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the Sea".
[This admirable letter, reviewing "the situation" and his policy,
was in these words
EXECUTIVE MANSION,
WASHINGTON, August 26. 1863.
HON. JAMES C. CONKLING
MY DEAR SIR; Your letter inviting me to attend a Mass Meeting of
unconditional Union men to be held at the Capital of Illinois, on
the 3rd day of September, has been received. It would be very
agreeable for me thus to meet my old friends at my own home; but I
cannot just now be absent from here so long a time as a visit there
would require.
The meeting is to be of all those who maintain unconditional
devotion to the Union; and I am sure that my old political friends
will thank me for tendering, as I do, the Nation's gratitude to
those other noble men whom no partisan malice or partisan hope can
make false to the Nation's life.
There are those who are dissatisfied with me. To such I would say:
you desire Peace, and you blame me that we do not have it. But how
can we attain it? There are but three conceivable ways: First, to
suppress the Rebellion by force of Arms. This I am trying to do.
Are you for it? If you are, so far we are agreed. If you are not
for it, a second way is to give up the Union. I am against this.
Are you for it? If you are, you should say so plainly. If you are
not for Force, nor yet for Dissolution, there only remains some
imaginable Compromise.
I do not believe that any Compromise embracing the maintenance of
the Union is now possible. All that I learn leads to a directly
opposite belief. The strength of the Rebellion is its Military,
its Army. That Army dominates all the Country, and all the people,
within its range. Any offer of terms made by any man or men within
that range, in opposition to that Army, is simply nothing for the
present: because such man or men have no power whatever to enforce
their side of a Compromise, if one were made with them.
To illustrate: Suppose refugees from the South, and Peace men of
the North, get together in Convention, and frame and proclaim a
Compromise embracing a restoration of the Union. In what way can
that Compromise be used to keep Lee's Army out of Pennsylvania?
Meade's Army can keep Lee's Army out of Pennsylvania, and, I think,
can ultimately drive it out of existence. But no paper Compromise
to which the controllers of Lee's Army are not agreed, can at all
affect that Army. In an effort at such Compromise we would waste
time, which the Enemy would improve to our disadvantage; and that
would be all.
A Compromise, to be effective, must be made either with those who
control the Rebel Army, or with the people, first liberated from
the domination of that Army, by the success of our own Army. Now,
allow me to assure you that no word or intimation from that Rebel
Army, or from any of the men controlling it, in relation to any
Peace Compromise, has ever come to my knowledge or belief. All
charges and insinuations to the contrary are deceptive and
groundless. And I promise you that if any such proposition shall
hereafter come, it shall not be rejected and kept a secret from
you. I freely acknowledge myself to be the servant of the People,
according to the bond of service, the United States Constitution;
and that, as such, I am responsible to them.
But, to be plain. You are dissatisfied with me about the Negro.
Quite likely there is a difference of opinion between you and
myself upon that subject. I certainly wish that all men could be
Free, while you, I suppose, do not. Yet I have neither adopted nor
proposed any measure which is not consistent with even your view,
provided that you are for the Union. I suggested compensated
Emancipation; to which you replied you wished not to be taxed to
buy Negroes. But I had not asked you to be taxed to buy Negroes,
except in such a way as to save you from greater taxation to save
the Union, exclusively by other means.
You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and perhaps would have
it retracted. You say it is Unconstitutional. I think
differently. I think the Constitution invests the
Commander-in-Chief with the Law of War in Time of War. The most
that can be said, if so much, is, that Slaves are property. Is
there, has there ever been, any question that, by the Law of War,
property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed?
And is it not needed whenever it helps us and hurts the Enemy?
Armies, the World over, destroy enemies' property when they cannot
use it; and even destroy their own to keep it from the Enemy.
Civilized belligerents do all in their power to help themselves or
hurt the Enemy, except a few things regarded as barbarous or cruel.
Among the exceptions are the massacre of vanquished foes and
non-combatants, male and female.
But the Proclamation, as law, either is valid or is not valid. If
it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid it cannot
be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life. Some
of you profess to think its retraction would operate favorably for
the Union. Why better after the retraction than before the issue?
There was more than a year and a half of trial to suppress the
Rebellion before the Proclamation was issued, the last one hundred
days of which passed under an explicit notice that it was coming,
unless averted by those in revolt returning to their allegiance.
The War has certainly progressed as favorably for us since the
issue of the Proclamation as before.
I know as fully as one can know the opinions of others that some of
the Commanders of our Armies in the field, who have given us our
most important victories, believe the Emancipation policy and the
use of Colored troops constitute the heaviest blows yet dealt to
the Rebellion, and that at least one of those important successes
could not have been achieved when it was, but for the aid of Black
soldiers.
Among the Commanders who hold these views are some who have never
had an affinity with what is called "Abolitionism," or with
"Republican party politics," but who hold them purely as Military
opinions. I submit their opinions as entitled to some weight
against the objections often urged that Emancipation and arming the
Blacks are unwise as Military measures, and were not adopted as
such, in good faith.
You say that you will not fight to Free Negroes. Some of them seem
willing to fight for you; but no matter. Fight you, then,
exclusively to save the Union. I issued the Proclamation on
purpose to aid you in saving the Union. Whenever you shall have
conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall urge you to
continue fighting, it will be an apt time then for you to declare
you will not fight to Free Negroes. I thought that in your
struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the Negroes should cease
helping the Enemy, to that extent it weakened the Enemy in his
resistance to you. Do you think differently? I thought whatever
Negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for
White soldiers to do in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise
to you? But Negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why
should they do anything for us if we will do nothing for them? If
they stake their lives for us they must be prompted by the
strongest motives, even the promise of Freedom. And the promise,
being made, must be kept.
The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to
the Sea. Thanks to the great Northwest for it; nor yet wholly to
them. Three hundred miles up, they met New England, Empire,
Keystone, and Jersey, hewing their way right and left. The Sunny
South, too, in more colors than one, also lent a helping hand. On
the spot, their part of the history was jotted down in Black and
White. The job was a great National one, and let none be slighted
who bore an honorable part in it. And while those who have cleared
the Great River may well be proud, even that is not all. It is
hard to say that anything has been more bravely and well done than
at Antietam, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and on many fields of less
note. Nor must Uncle Sam's web-feet be forgotten. At all the
watery margins they have been present, not only on the deep Sea,
the broad Bay, and the rapid River, but also up the narrow, muddy
Bayou, and wherever the ground was a little damp they had been, and
made their tracks. Thanks to all. For the Great Republic--for the
principle it lives by, and keeps alive--for Man's vast future
--thanks to all.
Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come
soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in
all future time. It will then have been proved that among Freemen
there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet,
and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case and
pay the cost. And there will be some Black men who can remember
that, with silent tongue, and clinched teeth, and steady eye, and
well poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great
consummation, while I fear there will be some White ones unable to
forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they have
striven to hinder it.
Still, let us not be over sanguine of a speedy, final triumph. Let
us be quite sober. Let us diligently apply the means, never
doubting that a just God, in his own good time, will give us the
rightful result.
Yours very truly,
A. LINCOLN.]
But Chattanooga, and the grand majorities in all the Fall
State-elections, save that of New Jersey,--and especially the manner
in which loyal Ohio sat down upon the chief Copperhead-Democrat and
Treason-breeder of the North, Vallandigham--came most auspiciously to
strengthen the President's hands.
[The head of the Knights of the Golden Circle, and the Democratic
candidate for Governor of Ohio]
And now he saw, more clearly still, the approach of that time when the
solemn promise and declaration of Emancipation might be recorded upon
the sacred roll of the Constitution, and thus be made safe for all time.
In his Annual Message of December, 1863, therefore, President Lincoln,
after adverting to the fact that "a year ago the War had already lasted
nearly twenty months," without much ground for hopefulness, proceeded to
say:
"The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, issued in September, was
running its assigned period to the beginning of the New Year. A month
later the final Proclamation came, including the announcement that
Colored men of suitable condition would be received into the War
service. The policy of Emancipation, and of employing Black soldiers,
gave to the future a new aspect, about which hope, and fear, and doubt,
contended in uncertain conflict.
"According to our political system, as a matter of Civil Administration,
the General Government had no lawful power to effect Emancipation in any
State, and for a long time it had been hoped that the Rebellion could be
suppressed without resorting to it as a Military measure. It was all
the while deemed possible that the necessity for it might come, and that
if it should, the crisis of the contest would then be presented. It
came, and, as was anticipated, it was followed by dark and doubtful
days.
"Eleven months having now passed, we are permitted to take another view
* * * Of those who were Slaves at the beginning of the Rebellion, full
one hundred thousand are now in the United States Military service,
about one half of which number actually bear arms in the ranks; thus
giving the double advantage of taking so much labor from the Insurgent
cause, and supplying the places which otherwise must be filled with so
many White men. So far as tested, it is difficult to say they are not
as good soldiers as any.
"No servile insurrection, or tendency to violence or cruelty, has marked
the measures of Emancipation and arming the Blacks. These measures have
been much discussed in Foreign Countries, and contemporary with such
discussion the tone of public sentiment there is much improved. At
home, the same measures have been fully discussed, supported,
criticised, and denounced, and the annual elections following are highly
encouraging to those whose official duty it is to bear the Country
through this great trial. Thus we have the new reckoning. The crisis
which threatened to divide the friends of the Union is past."
After alluding to his Proclamation of Amnesty, issued simultaneously
with this Message, to all repentant Rebels who would take an oath
therein prescribed, and contending that such an oath should be (as he
had drawn it) to uphold not alone the Constitution and the Union, but
the Laws and Proclamations touching Slavery as well, President Lincoln
continued:
"In my judgment they have aided and will further aid, the Cause for
which they were intended. To now abandon them, would be not only to
relinquish a lever of power, but would also be a cruel and an astounding
breach of faith." And, toward the close of the Message, he added:
"The movements by State action, for Emancipation, in several of the
States not included in the Emancipation Proclamation, are matters of
profound gratulation. And while I do not repeat in detail what I have
heretofore so earnestly urged upon the subject, my general views remain
unchanged; and I trust that Congress will omit no fair opportunity of
AIDING THESE IMPORTANT STEPS TO A GREAT CONSUMMATION."
Mr. Lincoln's patient but persistent solicitude, his earnest and
unintermitted efforts--exercised publicly through his Messages and
speeches, and privately upon Members of Congress who called upon, or
whose presence was requested by him at the White House--in behalf of
incorporating Emancipation in the Constitution, were now to give
promise, at least, of bearing good fruit.
Measures looking to this end were submitted in both Houses of Congress
soon after its meeting, and were referred to the respective Judiciary
Committees of the same, and on the 10th of February, 1864, Mr. Trumbull
reported to the Senate, from the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which he
was Chairman, a substitute Joint Resolution providing for the submission
to the States of an Amendment to the United States Constitution in the
following words:
"ART. XIII., SEC. I. Neither Slavery nor Involuntary Servitude, except
as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to
their jurisdiction.
"SEC. II. Congress shall have power to enforce this Article by
appropriate legislation."
This proposed Amendment came up for consideration in the Senate, on the
28th of March, and a notable debate ensued.
On the same day, in the House of Representatives, Thaddeus Stevens--with
the object perhaps of ascertaining the strength, in that Body, of the
friends of out-and-out Emancipation--offered a Resolution proposing to
the States the following Amendments to the United States Constitution:
"ART. I. Slavery and Involuntary Servitude, except for the punishment
of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, is forever
prohibited in the United States and all its Territories.
"ART. II. So much of Article four, Section two, as refers to the
delivery up of Persons held to Service or Labor, escaping into another
State, is annulled."
The test was made upon a motion to table the Resolution, which motion
was defeated by 38 yeas to 69 nays, and showed the necessity for
converting three members from the Opposition. Subsequently, at the
instance of Mr. Stevens himself, the second Article of the Resolution
was struck out by 72 yeas to 26 nays.
The proceedings in both Houses of Congress upon these propositions to
engraft upon the National Constitution a provision guaranteeing Freedom
to all men upon our soil, were now interrupted by the death of one who
would almost have been willing to die twice over, if, by doing so, he
could have hastened their adoption.
Owen Lovejoy, the life-long apostle of Abolitionism, the fervid
gospeller of Emancipation, was dead; and it seemed almost the irony of
Fate that, at such a time, when Emancipation most needed all its friends
to make it secure, its doughtiest champion should fall.
But perhaps the eloquent tributes paid to his memory, in the Halls of
Congress, helped the Cause no less. They at least brought back to the
public mind the old and abhorrent tyrannies of the Southern Slave power;
how it had sought not not only to destroy freedom of Action, but freedom
of Speech, and hesitated not to destroy human Life with these; reminded
the Loyal People of the Union of much that was hateful, from which they
had escaped; and strengthened the purpose of Patriots to fix in the
chief corner-stone of the Constitution, imperishable muniments of human
Liberty.
Lovejoy's brother had been murdered at Alton, Illinois, while
vindicating freedom of Speech and of the Press; and the blood of that
martyr truly became "the seed of the Church." Arnold--recalling a
speech of Owen Lovejoy's at Chicago, and a passage in it, descriptive of
the martyrdom,--said to the House, on this sad occasion: "I remember
that, after describing the scene of that death, in words--which stirred
every heart, he said he went a pilgrim to his brother's grave, and,
kneeling upon the sod beneath which sleeps that brother, he swore, by
the everlasting God, eternal hostility to African Slavery." And,
continued Arnold, "Well and nobly has he kept that oath."
Washburne, too, reminded the House of the memorable episode in that very
Hall when, (April 5, 1860), the adherents of Slavery crowding around
Lovejoy with fierce imprecations and threats, seeking then and there to
prevent Free Speech, "he displayed that undaunted courage and matchless
bearing which extorted the admiration of even his most deadly foes."
"His"--continued the same speaker--"was the eloquence of Mirabeau, which
in the Tiers Etat and in the National Assembly made to totter the throne
of France; it was the eloquence of Danton, who made all France to
tremble from his tempestuous utterances in the National Convention.
Like those apostles of the French Revolution, his eloquence could stir
from the lowest depths all the passions of Man; but unlike them, he was
as good and as pure as he was eloquent and brave, a noble minded
Christian man, a lover of the whole human Race, and of universal Liberty
regulated by Law."
Grinnell, in his turn, told also with real pathos, of his having
recently seen Lovejoy in the chamber of sickness. "When," said
Grinnell, "I expressed fears for his recovery, I saw the tears course
down his manly cheek, as he said 'Ah! God's will be done, but I have
been laboring, voting, and praying for twenty years that I might see the
great day of Freedom which is so near and which I hope God will let me
live to rejoice in. I want a vote on my Bill for the destruction of
Slavery, root and branch.'"
[Sumner, afterward speaking of Lovejoy and this Measure, said: "On
the 14th of December, 1863, he introduced a Bill, whose title
discloses its character: 'A Bill to give effect to the Declaration
of Independence, and also to certain Provisions of the Constitution
of the United States.' It proceeds to recite that All Men were
Created Equal, and were Endowed by the Creator with the Inalienable
Right to Life, Liberty and the Fruits of honest Toil; that the
Government of the United States was Instituted to Secure those
Rights; that the Constitution declares that No Person shall be
Deprived of Liberty without due Process of Law, and also provides
--article five, clause two--that this Constitution, and the Laws of
the United States made in pursuance thereof, shall be the Supreme
Law of the Land, and the Judges in each State shall be bound
thereby, anything in the Constitution and Laws of any State to the
contrary notwithstanding; that it is now demonstrated by the
Rebellion that Slavery is absolutely incompatible with the Union,
Peace, and General Welfare for which Congress is to Provide; and it
therefore Enacts that All Persons heretofore held in Slavery in any
of the States or Territories of the United States are declared
Freedmen, and are Forever Released from Slavery or Involuntary
Servitude except as Punishment for Crime on due conviction. On the
same day he introduced another Bill to Protect Freedmen and to
Punish any one for Enslaving them. These were among his last
Public acts,"--Cong. Globe, 1st S., 38th C., Pt. 2, p. 1334]
And staunch old Thaddeus Stevens said: "The change to him, is great
gain. The only regret we can feel is that he did not live to see the
salvation of his Country; to see Peace and Union restored, and universal
Emancipation given to his native land. But such are the ways of
Providence. Moses was not permitted to enter the Promised Land with
those he had led out of Bondage; he beheld it from afar off, and slept
with his fathers." "The deceased," he impressively added, "needs no
perishable monuments of brass or marble to perpetuate his name. So long
as the English language shall be spoken or deciphered, so long as
Liberty shall have a worshipper, his name will be known!"
What influence the death of Owen Lovejoy may have had on the subsequent
proceedings touching Emancipation interrupted as we have seen by his
demise--cannot be known; but among all the eloquent tributes to his
memory called forth by the mournful incident, perhaps none, could he
have heard it, would have better pleased him than those two opening
sentences of Charles Summer's oration in the Senate--where he said of
Owen Lovejoy: "Could his wishes prevail, he would prefer much that
Senators should continue in their seats and help to enact into Law some
one of the several Measures now pending to secure the obliteration of
Slavery. Such an Act would be more acceptable to him than any personal
tribute,--" unless it might be these other words, which followed from
the same lips: "How his enfranchised Soul would be elevated even in
those Abodes to which he has been removed, to know that his voice was
still heard on Earth encouraging, exhorting, insisting that there should
be no hesitation anywhere in striking at Slavery; that this unpardonable
wrong, from which alone the Rebellion draws its wicked life, must be
blasted by Presidential proclamation, blasted by Act of Congress,
blasted by Constitutional prohibition, blasted in every possible way, by
every available agency, and at every occurring opportunity, so that no
trace of the outrage may continue in the institutions of the Land, and
especially that its accursed foot-prints may no longer defile the
National Statute-book. Sir, it will be in vain that you pass
Resolutions in tribute to him, if you neglect that Cause for which he
lived, and do not hearken to his voice!"