"I despair of reaching your conscience; nevertheless I will speak as if
I had hope. You never paid me anything for protecting your flock; it was
on my part a pure labor of love; and yet, because I cannot quite succeed
in guarding it against all the bad dogs that are about, you would take
my life!"
And the creature put on such a look of meek suffering innocence that the
shepherd was touched to the very heart, and felt more guilty and abashed
than ever. He therefore said at once,--
"Brother, I fear that I have done you wrong; and if you will swear to
mind your own affairs, and not prey upon my flock, I will at once set
you free."
"My character ought to be a sufficient guaranty," answered the
quadruped, with much dignity; "but I submit, since I must, to your
unjust suspicions, and promise as you require."
So, lifting up his paw, he swore solemnly, by all the gods that wolves
worship, to keep his pledge. Thereupon the other set him free, with many
apologies and professions of confidence and friendship. Only a few days,
however, had passed before the shepherd, happening to mount a knoll,
saw at a little distance the self-same wolf eagerly devouring the warm
remains of a lamb.
"Villain! villain!" he shouted, in great wrath, "is this the way you
keep your oath? Did not you swear to mind your own business?"
"I am minding it," said the wolf, with a grin; "it is my business to eat
lambs; it should be yours not to believe in wolves' promises."
So saying, he seized upon the last fragment of the Iamb, and ran away as
fast as his legs would carry him.
_Moral_.--Shepherds who make compromises with wolves sell their mutton
at an exceedingly cheap market.
Now just such short-witted shepherds are we, the people of these free
American States, invited by numbers of citizens to become. Just such, do
I say? A thousand times more silly than such. Our national wolf meets us
with jaws that drip blood and eyes that glare hunger for more. Instead
of professing sanctity and innocence, it only howls immitigable hate and
steadfast resolution to devour. "Give me," it howls, "half the pasture
and flock for my own, with, of course, a supervision over the rest, and
a child or two when I am dainty; and I will be content,--until I want
more!"
In speaking of our "national wolf," we are using no mere rhetoric, but
are, in truth, getting at the very heart of the matter. This war, in
its final relations to human history, is an encounter between opposing
tendencies in man,--between the beast-of-prey that is in him and is
always seeking brute domination, on the one hand, and the rational and
moral elements of manhood, which ever urge toward the lawful supremacy,
on the other. This is a conflict as old as the world, and perhaps one
that, in some shape, will continue while the world lasts; and I have
tried in vain to think of a single recorded instance wherein the issue
was more simple, or the collision more direct, than in our own country
to-day.
That principle in nature which makes the tiger tiger passes obviously
into man in virtue of the fact that he is on one side, on the side of
body and temperament, cousin to the tiger, as comparative anatomy shows.
This presence in man of a tiger-principle does not occur by a mistake,
for it is an admirable fuel or fire, an admirable generator of force,
which the higher powers may first master and then use. But at first it
assumes place in man wholly untamed and seemingly tameless, indisposed
for aught but sovereignty. Of course, having place in man, it passes,
and in the same crude state, into society. And thus it happens, that,
when the unconquerable affinities of men bring them together, this
principle arises in its brutal might, and strives to make itself central
and supreme.
But what is highest in man has its own inevitable urgency, as well as
what is lowest. It can never be left out of the account. Gravitation
is powerful and perpetual; but the pine pushes up in opposition to it
nevertheless. The forces of the inorganic realm strive with might to
keep their own; but organic life _will_ exist on the planet in their
despite, and will conquer from the earth what material it needs. And, in
like manner, no sooner do men aggregate than there begin to play back
and forth between them ideal or ascending forces, mediations of reason,
conscience, soul; and the ever growing interpretations of these appear
as courtesies, laws, moralities, worships,--as all the noble communities
which constitute a high social state. In fine, there is that in man
which seeks perpetually, for it seeks necessarily, to give the position
of centrality in society to the ideal principle of justice and to the
great charities of the human soul.
Hence a contest. Two antagonistic principles leap forth from the bosom
of man, so soon as men come together, seeking severally to establish
the law of social relationship. One of these is predaceous, brutal; the
other ideal, humane. One says, "Might makes Right"; the other, "Might
should serve Right." One looks upon mankind at large as a harvest to
be gathered for the behoof of a few, who are confederate only for that
purpose, even as wolves hunt in packs; the other regards humanity as
a growth to be fostered for its own sake and worth, and affirms that
superiority of strength is given for service, not for spoil. One makes
the _ego_ supreme; the other makes rational right supreme. One seeks
private gratification at any expense to higher values, even as the tiger
would, were it possible, draw and drink the blood of the universe as
soon as the blood of a cow; the other establishes an ideal estimate
of values, and places private gratification low on the scale. But the
deepest difference between them, the root of separation, remains to
be stated. It is the opposite climate they have of man in the pure
simplicity of his being. The predaceous principle says,--"Man is in and
of himself valueless; he attains value only by position, by subduing the
will of others to his own; and in subjecting others he destroys nothing
of worth, since those who are weak enough to fall are by that very fact
proved to be worthless." The humane or socializing principle, on the
contrary, says,--"Manhood is value; the essence of all value is found
in the individual soul; and therefore the final use of the world, of
society, of action, of all that man does and of all that surrounds
him, is to develop intelligence, to bring forth the mind and soul into
power,--in fine, to realize in each the spiritual possibilities of man."
True socialization now exists only as this nobler principle is
victorious. It exists only in proportion as force is lent to ideal
relations, relations prescribed by reason, conscience, and reverence for
the being of man,--only in proportion, therefore, as the total force
of the state kneels before each individual soul, and, without foolish
intermeddlings, or confusions of order, proffers protection, service,
succor. Here is a socialization flowing, self-poised, fertilizing; it is
full of gracious invitation to all, yet regulates all; it makes liberty
by making law; it produces and distributes privilege. Here there is not
only _community_, that is, the unity of many in the enjoyment of common
privilege, but there is more, there is positive fructification, there
is a wide, manifold, infinitely precious evocation of intelligence, of
moral power, and of all spiritual worth.
As, on the contrary, the baser principle triumphs, there is no genuine
socialization, but only a brute aggregation of subjection beneath and a
brute dominance of egotism above. Society is mocked and travestied, not
established, in proportion as force is lent to egotism. If anywhere
the power which we call _state_ set its heel on an innocent soul,--if
anywhere it suppress, instead of uniting intelligence,--if anywhere
it deny, though only to one individual, the privilege of becoming
human,--to such an extent it wars against society and civilization, to
such extent sets its face against the divine uses of the world.
Now the contest between these opposing principles is that which is
raging in our country this day. Of course, any broad territorial
representation of this must be of a very mixed quality. Our best
civilizations are badly mottled with stains of barbarism. In no state or
city can egotism, either of the hot-blooded or cold-blooded kind,--and
the latter is far the more virulent,--be far to seek. On the other hand,
no social system, thank God, can quite reverse the better instincts of
humanity; and it may be freely granted that even American slavery shades
off, here and there, into quite tender modifications. Yet not in all the
world could there possibly be found an antagonism so deep and intense as
exists here. The Old World seems to have thrown upon the shores of the
New its utmost extremes, its Oriental barbarisms and its orients and
auroras of hope and belief; so that here coexist what Asia was three
thousand years ago, and what Europe may be one thousand years hence. Let
us consider the actual _status_.
In certain localities of Southern Africa there is a remarkable fly, the
Tsetse fly. In the ordinary course of satisfying its hunger, this insect
punctures the skin of a horse, and the animal dies in consequence. A fly
makes a lunch, and a horse's life pays the price of the meal. This has
ever seemed to me to represent the beast-of-prey principle in Nature
more vigorously than any other fact. But in that system whose fangs
are now red with the blood of our brave there is an expression of this
principle not less enormous. It is the very Tsetse fly of civilization.
That a small minority of Southern men may make money without earning
it,--that a few thousand individuals may monopolize the cotton-market
of the world,--what a suppression and destruction of intelligence it
perpetrates I what consuming of spiritual possibilities! what mental
wreck and waste! Whites, too, suffer equally with blacks. Less
oppressed, they are perhaps even more demoralized. No parallel example
does the earth exhibit of the sacrifice of transcendent values for
pitiful ends.
In attempting to destroy free government and rational socialization in
America, this system is treading no new road, it is only proceeding on
the old. Its central law is that of destroying any value, however
great, for the sake of any gratification, however small. Accustomed to
battening on the hopes of humanity,--accustomed to taking stock in
human degradation, and declaring dividends upon enforced ignorance and
crime,--existing only while every canon of the common law is annulled,
and every precept of morals and civilization set at nought,--could it be
expected to pause just when, or rather just _because_, it had apparently
found the richest possible prey? Could it be expected to withhold its
fang for no other reason than that its fang was allured by a more
opulent artery than ever before? The simple truth is--and he knows
nothing about this controversy who fails to perceive such truth--that
the system whose hands are now armed against us has always borne these
arms in its heart; that the fang which is now bared has hitherto been
only concealed, not wanting; that the tree which is to-day in bloody
blossom is the same tree it ever was, and carried these blossoms in its
sap long ere spreading them upon its boughs.
To this predaceous system what do we oppose? We oppose a socialization
that has features,--I will say no more,--has _features_ of generous
breadth and promise, that are the best fruition of many countries and
centuries. Faults and drawbacks it has enough and to spare; conspicuous
among which may be named the vulgar and disgusting "negrophobia,"--a
mark of under-breeding which one hopes may not disgrace us always. But
let us be carried away by no mania for self-criticism. Two claims for
ourselves may be made. First, a higher grade of laws nowhere exists with
a less amount of coercive application,--exists, that is, by the rational
and constant choice of the whole people. Secondly, it may be questioned
whether anywhere in the world the development of intelligence and moral
force in the whole people is to a greater extent a national aim. But
abandoning all comparison with other peoples, this we may say with no
doubtful voice: We stand for the best ideas of the Old World in the New;
we stand for orderly-freedom and true socialization in America; we stand
for these, and with us these must here stand or fall.
Now, of course, we are not about to become the offscouring of the earth
by yielding these up to destruction. Of course, we shall not convert
ourselves into a nation of Iscariots, and give over civilization to
the bowie-knife, with the mere hope of so making money out of Southern
trade,--which we should not do,--and with the certainty of a gibbet in
history, to mention no greater penalty.
But refusing this perfidy, could we have avoided this war? No; for
it was simply our refusal of such perfidy which, so far as we are
concerned, brought the war on. The South, having ever since the
Mexican War stood with its sword half out of the scabbard, perpetually
threatening to give its edge,--having made it the chief problem of our
politics, by what gift or concession to purchase exemption from that
dreaded blade,--at last reached its ultimate demand. "Will you," it said
to the North, "abdicate the privileges of equal citizenship? Will
you give up this continent, territory, Free States and all, to our
predaceous, blood-eating system? Will you sell into slavery the elective
franchise itself? Will you sell the elective franchise itself into
slavery, and take for pay barely the poltroon's price, that of being
scornfully spared by the sword we stand ready to draw?" The
North excused itself politely. In the softest voice, but with a
soft-voicedness that did not wholly conceal an iron thread of
resolution, it declined to comply with that most modest demand. Then the
sword came out and struck at our life. "Was it matter of choice with us
whether we would fight? Not unless it were also matter of choice whether
we would become the very sweepings and blemish of creation.
"But we might have permitted secession." No, we could not. It was
clearly impracticable. "But why not?" _Because that would have been
to surrender the whole under the guise of giving up half_. Such a
concession could have meant to the people of the rebellious States, and,
in the existing state of national belief, could have meant to our very
selves, nothing other than this:--"We submit; do what you will; we are
shopkeepers and cowards; we must have your trade; and besides, though
expert in the use of yardsticks, we have not the nerve for handling
guns." From that moment we should have lost all authority on this
continent, and all respect on the other.
The English papers have blamed us for fighting; but had we failed to
fight, not one of these censuring mouths but would have hissed at us
like an adder with contempt Nay, we ourselves should, as it were, soon
have lost the musical speech and high carriage of men, and fallen to
a proneness and a hissing, degraded in our own eyes even more than in
those of our neighbors. Of course, from this state we should have risen;
but it would have been to see the redness of war on our own fields
and its flames wrapping our own households. We should have risen, but
through a contest to which this war, gigantic though it be, is but a
quarrel of school-boys.
By sheer necessity we began to fight; by the same we must fight It out.
Compromise is, in the nature of the case, impossible. It can mean only
_surrender_. Had there been an inch more of ground for us to yield
without total submission, the war would have been, for the present,
staved off. We turned to bay only when driven back to the vital
principle of our polity and the vital facts of our socialization.
Politically, what was the immediate grievance of the South? Simply that
Northern freemen went to the polls as freemen; simply that they there
expressed, under constitutional forms, their lawful preference. How
can we compromise here, even to the breadth of a hair? How compromise
without stipulating that all Northern electors shall henceforth go to
the polls in charge of an armed police, and there deposit such ballot as
the slave-masters of the Secession States shall direct?
Again, in our social state what is it that gives umbrage to our
antagonists? They have answered the question for us; they have stated it
repeatedly in the plainest English. It is simply the fact that we _are_
free States; that we have, and honor, free labor; that we have schools
for the people; that we teach the duty of each to all and of all to
each; that we respect the human principle, the spiritual possibility,
in man; in fine, that ours is a human socialization, whose fundamental
principles are the venerableness of man's nature and the superiority
of reason and right to any individual will. So far as we are base
bargainers and unbelievers, they can tolerate us, even though they
despise; just where our praise begins, begin their detestation and
animosity.
It is, by the pointed confession of Southern spokesmen, what we are,
rather than what we have done, which makes them Secessionists; and any
man of sense might, indeed must, see this fact, were the confession
withheld. In action we have conformed to Southern wishes, as if
conformity could not be in excess. We have conformed to an extent
that--to mention nothing of more importance--had nearly ruined us in the
estimation of mankind. One chief reason, indeed, why the sympathy of
Europe did not immediately go with us was that a disgust toward us had
been created by the football passivity, as it seemed abroad, with which
we had submitted to be kicked to and fro. The rebellion was deemed to be
on our side, not on theirs. We, born servitors and underlings, it was
thought, had forgotten our proper places,--nay, had presumed to strike
back, when our masters chastised us. Of course, we should soon be
whipped to our knees again. And when we were again submissive and
abject, Europe must so have demeaned itself as still to be on good terms
with the conquerors. As for us, our final opinion of their demeanor, so
they deemed, mattered very little. The ill opinion of the servants can
be borne; but one must needs be on friendly terms with the master of the
house. The conduct of Europe toward us at the outbreak of this war is
to be thus explained, more than in any other way. According to European
understanding, we had before written ourselves down menials; therefore,
on rising to the attitude of men, we were scorned as upstarts.
The world has now discovered that there was less cowardice and more
comity in this yielding than had been supposed. Yet in candor one must
confess that it was barely not carried to a fatal extent. One step more
in that direction, and we had gone over the brink and into the abyss.
Only when the last test arrived, and we must decide once and forever
whether we would be the champions or the apostates of civilization, did
we show to the foe not the dastard back, but the dauntless front. And
the proposal to "compromise" is simply and exactly a proposal to us to
reverse that decision.
Again, we can propose no compromise, such as would stay the war, without
confessing that there was no occasion for beginning it. And if, indeed,
we began it without occasion, without an occasion absolutely imperative,
then does the whole mountain--weight of its guilt lie on our hearts.
Then in every man that has fallen on either side we are assassins. The
proposal to bring back the seceded States by submission to their demands
is neither more nor less than a proposal to write "Murderer" on the brow
of every soldier in our armies, and "Twice Murderer" over the grave of
every one of our slain. If such submission be due now, not less was
it due before the war began. To say that it was then due, and then
withheld, is, I repeat, merely to brand with the blackness of
assassination the whole patriotic service of the United States, both
civil and military, for the last two years.
If, now, such be, in very deed, our guilt, let us lose no moment in
confessing the fact,--nor afterwards lose a moment in creeping to the
gallows, that must, in that case, be hungering for us. But if no such
guilt be ours, then why should not our courage be as good as our cause?
If not only by the warrant, but by the imperative bidding of Heaven,
we have taken up arms, then why should we not, as under the banner of
Heaven, bear them to the end?
In this course, no _real_ failure can await us. Obeying the necessity
which is laid upon us, and simply conducting ourselves as men of
humanity, courage, and honor, we shall surely vindicate the principles
of civilization and Orderly society, within our own States, whether we
immediately succeed in impressing them on South Carolina and her evil
sisterhood or not. Let us but vindicate their existence on any part of
this continent, and that alone will insure their final prevalence on the
continent as a whole. Let us now but make them inexpugnable, and they
will make themselves universal. This law of necessary prevalence, in a
socialization whose vital principle is reverence for the nature of man,
was clearly seen by the masters, or rather, one should say, by the
subjects, of the slave system; and this war signifies their immediate
purpose to build up between it and themselves a Chinese excluding
wall, and their ulterior purpose to starve and trample it out of this
hemisphere.
Finally, just that which teaches us charity toward the slaveholders
teaches us also, forbearing all thought of base and demoralizing
compositions, to press the hand steadily upon the hilt it has grasped,
until war's work is done. These servants of a predaceous principle are
nearly, if not quite, its earliest prey. Enemies to us, they are twice
enemies to themselves. They are driven helplessly on, and will be so
until we slay the tyrant that wrings from them their evil services.
During that fatal month's _siesta_ at Yorktown, the country was
horror-stricken to hear that the enemy were forcing negroes at the point
of the bayonet to work those pieces of ordnance from which the whites,
in terror of our sharpshooters, had fled away. But behind the whites
themselves, behind the whole disloyal South, had long been another
bayonet goading heart and brain, and pricking them on to aggression
after aggression, till aggression found its goal, where we trust it will
find its grave, in civil war. Poor wretches! Who does not pity them? Who
that pities them wisely would not all the more firmly grasp that sword
which alone can deliver them?
Nor has the slave-system been any worse than it must be, in pushing us
and them to the present pass. So bad it must be, or cease to be at all.
All things obey their nature. Hydrophobia will bite, small-pox infect,
plague enter upon life and depart upon death, hyenas scent the new-made
graves, and predaceous systems of society open their mouths ever and
ever for prey. What else _can_ they do? Even would the Secessionists
consent to partial compositions, as they will not, they must inevitably
break faith, as ever before. They are slaves to the slave-system. As
wise were it to covenant with the dust not to fly, or with the sea not
to foam, when the hurricane blows, as to bargain with these that they
shall resist that despotic impetus which compels them. They are slaves.
And their master is one whose law is to devour. Only he who might
meditate letting go a Bengal tiger on its parole of honor, or binding
over a pestilence to keep the peace, should so much as dream for a
moment of civil compositions with this system. Its action is inevitable.
And therefore our only wisdom will be to make our way by the straightest
path to this, which is our chief, and in the last analysis our only
enemy, and cut it through and through. This only will be a final
preservation to ourselves; this only the noblest amity to the South;
this, deliverance to the captivity of two continents, Africa and
America: so that here principle and policy are for once so obviously, as
ever they are really, one and the same, that no man of sense should fail
to perceive their unity.
* * * * *