MISS WASHINGTON'S SCHOOL.

In 1857, Annie E. Washington opened a select primary school in her mother's house, on K Street, between Seventeenth and Eighteenth streets, west. The mother, a widow woman, was a laundress, and by her own labor has given her children good advantages, though she had no such advantages herself. This daughter was educated chiefly under Rev. John E. Cook and Miss Miner, with whom she was a favorite scholar. Her older sister was educated at the Baltimore convent. Annie E. Washington is a woman of native refinement, and has an excellent aptitude for teaching, as well as a good education. Her schools have always been conducted with system and superior judgment, giving universal satisfaction, the number of her pupils being limited only by the size of her room. In 1858, she moved to the basement of the Baptist Church, corner of Nineteenth and I streets, to secure larger accommodations, and there she had a school of more than sixty scholars for several years.

A FREE CATHOLIC COLORED SCHOOL.

A free school was established in 1858, and maintained by the St. Vincent de Paul Society, an association of Colored Catholics, in connection with St. Matthew's Church. It was organized under the direction of Father Walter, and kept in the Smothers school-house for two years, and was subsequently for one season maintained on a smaller scale in a house on L Street, between Twelfth and Thirteenth streets, west, till the association failed to give it the requisite pecuniary support after the war broke out. This school has already been mentioned.

OTHER SCHOOLS.

In 1843, Elizabeth Smith commenced a school for small children on the island in Washington, and subsequently taught on Capitol Hill. In 1860, she was the assistant of Rev. Wm. H. Hunter, who had a large school in Zion Wesley Church, Georgetown, of which he was the pastor. She afterward took the school into her own charge for a period, and taught among the contrabands in various places during the war.

About 1850, Isabella Briscoe opened a school on Montgomery Street, near Mount Zion Church, Georgetown. She was well educated, and one of the best Colored teachers in the district before the Rebellion. Her school was always well patronized, and she continued teaching in the district up to 1868.

Charlotte Beams had a large school for a number of years, as early as 1850, in a building next to Galbraith Chapel, I Street, north, between Fourth and Fifth, west. It was exclusively a girls' school in its later years. The teacher was a pupil of Enoch Ambush, who assisted her in establishing her school.

A year or two later, Rev. James Shorter had a large school in the Israel Bethel Church, and Miss Jackson taught another good school on Capitol Hill about the same time. The above-mentioned were all Colored teachers.

Among the excellent schools broken up at the opening of the war, was that of Mrs. Charlotte Gordon, Colored, on Eighth Street, in the northern section of the city. It was in successful operation several years, and the number in attendance sometimes reached one hundred and fifty. Mrs. Gordon was assisted by her daughter.

In 1841, David Brown commenced teaching on D Street, south, between First and Second streets, island, and continued in the business till 1858, at which period he was placed in charge of the large Catholic free school in the Smothers house, as has been stated.[65]

* * * * *

Here is a picture that every Negro in the country may contemplate with satisfaction and pride. In the stronghold of slavery, under the shadow of the legalized institution of slavery, within earshot of the slave-auctioneer's hammer, amid distressing circumstances, poverty, and proscription, three unlettered ex-slaves, upon the threshold of the nineteenth century, sowed the seed of education for the Negro race in the District of Columbia, from which an abundant harvest has been gathered, and will be gathered till the end of time!

What the Negro has done to educate himself, the trials and hateful laws that have hampered him during the long period anterior to 1860, cannot fail to awaken feelings of regret and admiration among the people of both sections and two continents.

FOOTNOTES:

[58] Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict, by Rev. Samuel J. May.

[59] Barnard, p. 337.

[60] Barnard, p. 339.

[61] Barnard, pp. 205, 206.

[62] Barnard, p. 357.

[63] Barnard, pp. 364-366.

[64] Barnard, pp. 377, 378.

[65] Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1871.



CHAPTER XIII.

JOHN BROWN—HERO AND MARTYR.

JOHN BROWN'S APPEARANCE IN KANSAS.—HE DENOUNCES SLAVERY IN A POLITICAL MEETING AT OSAWATOMIE.—MRS. STEARNS'S PERSONAL RECOLLECTION OF JOHN BROWN.—KANSAS INFESTED BY BORDER RUFFIANS.—THE BATTLE OF HARPER'S FERRY.—THE DEFEAT AND CAPTURE OF CAPTAIN JOHN BROWN.—HIS LAST LETTER WRITTEN TO MRS. STEARNS.—HIS TRIAL AND EXECUTION.—HIS INFLUENCE UPON THE SLAVERY QUESTION AT THE NORTH.—HIS PLACE IN HISTORY.

On the 9th of May, 1800, at Torrington, Connecticut, was born a man who lived for two generations, but accomplished the work of two centuries. That man was John Brown, who ranks among the world's greatest heroes. Greater than Peter the Hermit, who believed himself commissioned of God to redeem the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of infidels; greater than Joanna Southcote, who deemed herself big with the promised Shiloh; greater than Ignatius Loyola, who thought the Son of Man appeared to him, bearing His cross upon His shoulders, and bestowed upon him a Latin commission of wonderful significance; greater than Oliver Cromwell, the great Republican Protector; and greater than John Hampden,—he deserves to rank with William of Orange.

John Brown was nearly six feet high, slim, wiry, dark in complexion, sharp in feature, dark hair sprinkled with gray, eyes a dark gray and penetrating, with a countenance that betokened frankness, honesty, and firmness. His brow was prominent, the centre of the forehead flat, the upper part retreating, which, in conjunction with his slightly Roman nose, gave him an interesting appearance. The crown of his head was remarkably high, in the regions of the phrenological organs of firmness, conscientiousness, self-esteem, indicating a stern will, unswerving integrity, and marvellous self-possession. He walked rapidly with a firm and elastic tread. He was somewhat like John Baptist, taciturn in habits, usually wrapped in meditation. He was rather meteoric in his movements, appearing suddenly and unexpectedly at this place, and then disappearing in the same mysterious manner.

When Kansas lay bleeding at the feet of border ruffians; when Congress gave the free-State settlers no protection, but was rather trying to drag the territory into the Union with a slave constitution,—without noise or bluster John Brown dropped down into Osage County. He was not a member of the Republican party; but rather hated its reticency. When it cried Halt! he gave the command Forward, march! He was not in sympathy with any of the parties, political or anti-slavery. All were too conservative to suit him. So, as a political orphan he went into Kansas, organized and led a new party that swore eternal death to slavery. The first time he appeared in a political meeting in Kansas, at Osawatomie, the politicians were trimming their speeches and shaping their resolutions to please each political faction. John Brown took the floor and made a speech that threw the convention into consternation. He denounced slavery as the curse of the ages; affirmed the manhood of the slave; dealt "middle men" terrible blows; and said he could "see no use in talking." "Talk," he continued, "is a national institution; but it does no good for the slave." He thought it an excuse very well adapted for weak men with tender consciences. Most men who were afraid to fight, and too honest to be silent, deceived themselves that they discharged their duties to the slave by denouncing in fiery words the oppressor. His ideas of duty were far different; the slaves, in his eyes, were prisoners of war; their tyrants, as he held, had taken up the sword, and must perish by it. This was his view of the great question of slavery.

The widow of the late Major George L. Stearns gives the following personal recollections of John Brown, in a bright and entertaining style. Mrs. Stearns's noble husband was very intimately related to the "old hero," and what Mrs. Stearns writes is of great value.

"The passage of the Fugitive-Slave Bill in 1850, followed by the virtual repeal of the Missouri Compromise, under the name of the Kansas Nebraska Act, in 1854, alarmed all sane people for the safety of republican institutions; and the excitement reached a white heat when, on the 22d of May, 1856, Charles Sumner was murderously assaulted in the Senate chamber by Preston S. Brooks, of South Carolina, for words spoken in debate: the celebrated speech of the 19th and 20th of May, known as 'The Crime Against Kansas.' That same week the town of Lawrence in the territory of Kansas was sacked and burned in the interest of the slave power. The atrocities committed by the 'Border Ruffians' upon the free-State settlers sent a thrill of terror through all law-abiding communities. In Boston the citizens gathered in Faneuil Hall to consider what could be done, and a committee was chosen, with Dr. S. G. Howe as chairman, for the relief of Kansas, called the 'Kansas Relief Committee.' After some $18,000 or $20,000 had been collected, chiefly in Boston, and forwarded to Kansas, the interest flagged, and Mr. Stearns, who had been working with that committee, saw the need of more energetic action; so one day he went to Dr. Howe, and told him he was ready to give all his time, and much of his money, to push forward the work. Dr. Howe seeing that here was the man for the hour, immediately resigned, and Mr. Stearns was chosen unanimously chairman of the 'Massachusetts State Kansas Committee,' which took the place of the one first organized. In the light of subsequent history it is difficult to believe the apathy and blindness which failed to recognize the significance of this attack upon Kansas by the slave-holding power. Only faithful watchmen in their high towers could see that it was the first battle-ground between the two conflicting systems of freedom and slavery, which was finally to culminate in the war of the Rebellion. 'Working day and night without haste or rest,' failing in no effort to rouse and stimulate the community, still Mr. Stearns found that a vitalizing interest was wanting. When Gov. Reeder was driven in disguise from the territory, he wrote to him to come to Boston and address the people. He organized a mass-meeting for him in Tremont Temple, and for a few days the story he related stimulated to a livelier activity the more conservative people, who were inclined to think the reports of the free-State men much exaggerated. Soon, however, things settled back into the old sluggish way; so that for three consecutive committee meetings the chairman was the only person who presented himself at the appointed time and place. Nothing daunted, he turned to the country towns, and at the end of five months he had raised by his personal exertions, and through his agents, the sum of $48,000. Women formed societies all over the State, for making and furnishing clothing, and various supplies, which resulted in an addition of some $20,000 or $30,000 more. In January, 1867, this species of work was stopped, by advices from Kansas that no more contributions were needed, except for defense. At this juncture Mr. Stearns wrote to John Brown, that if he would come to Boston and consult with the friends of freedom he would pay his expenses. They had never met, but 'Osawatomie Brown' had become a cherished household name during the anxious summer of 1856.[66] Arriving in Boston, they were introduced to each other in the street by a Kansas man, who chanced to be with Mr. Stearns on his way to the committee rooms in Nilis's Block, School Street. Captain Brown made a profound impression on all who came within the sphere of his moral magnetism. Emerson called him 'the most ideal of men, for he wanted to put all his ideas into action.' His absolute superiority to all selfish aims and narrowing pride of opinion touched an answering chord in the self-devotion of Mr. Stearns. A little anecdote illustrates the modest estimate of the work he had in hand. After several efforts to bring together certain friends to meet Captain Brown at his home in Medford, he found that Sunday was the only day that would serve their several convenience, and being a little uncertain how it might strike his ideas of religious propriety, he prefaced his invitation with something like an apology. With characteristic promptness came the reply: 'Mr. Stearns, I have a little ewe-lamb that I want to pull out of the ditch, and the Sabbath will be as good a day as any to do it.'

"It was this occasion which furnished to literature one of the most charming bits of autobiography. Our oldest son, Harry, a lad of eleven years, was an observant listener, and drank eagerly every word that was said of the cruel wrongs in Kansas, and of slavery everywhere. When the gentlemen rose to go, he privately asked his father if he might be allowed to give all his spending money to John Brown. Leave being granted, he bounded away, and returning with his small treasure, said: 'Captain Brown, will you buy something with this money for those poor people in Kansas, and some time will you write to me and tell me what sort of a little boy you were?' 'Yes, my son, I will, and God bless you for your kind heart!' The autobiography has been printed many times, but never before with the key which unlocked it.

"It may not be out of place to describe the impression he made upon the writer on this first visit. When I entered the parlor, he was sitting near the hearth, where glowed a bright open fire. He rose to greet me, stepping forward with such an erect, military bearing; such fine courtesy of demeanor and grave earnestness, that he seemed to my instant thought some old Cromwellian hero suddenly dropped down before me; a suggestion which was presently strengthened by his saying [proceeding with the conversation my entrance had interrupted]: 'Gentlemen, I consider the Golden Rule and the Declaration of Independence one and inseparable; and it is better that a whole generation of men, women, and children should be swept away, than that this crime of slavery should exist one day longer.' These words were uttered like rifle balls; in such emphatic tones and manner that our little Carl, not three years old, remembered it in manhood as one of his earliest recollections. The child stood perfectly still, in the middle of the room, gazing with his beautiful eyes on this new sort of man, until his absorption arrested the attention of Captain Brown, who soon coaxed him to his knee, tho' the look of awe and childlike wonder remained. His dress was of some dark brown stuff, quite coarse, but its exactness and neatness produced a singular air of refinement. At dinner, he declined all dainties, saying that he was unaccustomed to luxuries, even to partaking of butter.

"The 'friends of freedom' with whom Mr. Stearns had invited John Brown to consult were profoundly impressed with his sagacity, integrity, and devotion; notably among these were R. W. Emerson, Theodore Parker, H. D. Thoreau, A. Bronson Alcott, F. B. Sanborn, Dr. S. G. Howe, Col. T. W. Higginson, Gov. Andrew, and others. In February (1857) he appeared before a committee of the State Legislature, to urge that Massachusetts should make an appropriation in money in aid of those persons who had settled in Kansas from her own soil. The speech is printed in Redpath's 'Life.' He obtained at this time, from the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee,[67] some two hundred Sharp's rifles, with which to arm one hundred mounted men for the defense of Kansas, who could also be of service to the peculiar property of Missouri. In those dark days of slave-holding supremacy, the friends of freedom felt justified in aiding the flight of its victims to free soil whenever and wherever opportunity offered. The Fugitive-Slave Law was powerless before the law written on the enlightened consciences of those devoted men and women. These rifles had been forwarded previously to the National Committee at Chicago, for the defense of Kansas, but for some unexplained reasons had never proceeded farther than Tabor, in the State of Iowa. Later on, Mr. Stearns, in his individual capacity, authorized Captain Brown to purchase two hundred revolvers from the Massachusetts Arms Company, and paid for them from his private funds, thirteen or fifteen hundred dollars. During the summer of 1857 he united with Mr. Amos A. Lawrence and others in paying off the mortgage held by Mr. Gerritt Smith on his house and farm at North Elba, N. Y., he paying two hundred and sixty dollars. It would be difficult to state the entire amount of money Mr. Stearns put into the hands of John Brown for Anti-Slavery purposes and his own subsistence. He kept no account of what he gave. In April or May, 1857, he gave him a check for no less a sum than seven thousand dollars. Early in 1858, Hon. Henry Wilson wrote to Dr. S. G. Howe that he had learned John Brown was suspected of the intention of using those arms in other ways than for the defense of Kansas; and by order of the committee, Mr. Stearns wrote (under date May 14, 1858) to Brown not to use them for any other purpose, and to hold them subject to his order, as chairman of said committee. When the operations of the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee virtually ceased, in June or July, 1858, it happened that this committee were some four thousand dollars in debt to Mr. Stearns, for advances of money from time to time to keep the organization in existence; and it was voted to make over to the chairman these two hundred Sharp's rifles as part payment of the committee's indebtedness. They were of small account to Mr. Stearns. He knew them to be in good hands, and troubled himself no further about them, either the rifles or the revolvers; although keeping up from time to time a correspondence with his friend upon the all-engrossing subject.

"In February of 1859, John Brown was in Boston, and talked with some of his friends about the feasibility of entrenching himself, with a little band of men, in the mountains of Virginia, familiar to him from having surveyed them as engineer in earlier life. His plan was to open communication with the slaves of neighboring plantations, collect them together, and send them off in squads, as he had done in Missouri, 'without snapping a gun.' Mr. Stearns had so much more faith in John Brown's opposition to Slavery, than in any theories he advanced of the modus operandi, that they produced much less impression on his mind than upon some others gifted with more genius for details. From first to last, he believed in John Brown. His plans, or theories, might be feasible, or they might not. If the glorious old man wanted money to try his plans, he should have it. His plans might fail; probably would, but he could never be a failure. There he stood, unconquerable, in the panoply of divine Justice. Both of these men were of the martyr type. No thought or consideration for themselves, for history, or the estimation of others, ever entered into their calculations. It was the service of Truth and Right which brought them together, and in that service they were ready to die.

"In the words of an eminent writer[68]: 'A common spirit made these two men recognize each other at first sight; and the power of both lay in that inability to weigh difficulties against duty, that instant step of thought to deed, which makes individuals fully possessed by the idea of the age, the turning-points of its destiny; hands in the right place for touching the match to the train it has laid, or for leading the public will to the heart of its moral need. They knew each other as minute-men on the same watch; as men to be found in the breach, before others knew where it was; they were one in pity, one in indignation, one in moral enthusiasm, burning beneath features set to patient self-control; one in simplicity, though of widely different culture; one in religious inspiration, though at the poles of religious thought. The old frontiersman came from his wilderness toils and agonies to find within the merchant's mansion of art and taste by the side of Bunker Hill, a perfect sympathy: the reverence of children, tender interest in his broken household, free access to a rich man's resources, and even a valor kindred with his own.'

"The attack upon Harper's Ferry was a 'side issue,' to quote the words of John Brown, Jr., and a departure from his father's original plan. It certainly took all his friends by surprise. In his letter of Nov. 15, 1859 (while in prison), to his old schoolmaster, the Rev. H. L. Vaill, are these words: 'I am not as yet, in the main, at all disappointed. I have been a good deal disappointed as it regards myself in not keeping up to my own plans; but I now feel entirely reconciled to that even: for God's plan was infinitely better, no doubt, or I should have kept my own. Had Samson kept to his determination of not telling Delilah wherein his great strength lay, he would probably have never overturned the house. I did not tell Delilah; but I was induced to act very contrary to my better judgment.'[69]

* * * * *

"It is idle to endeavor to explain, by any methods of the understanding, any rules of worldly wisdom, or prudence, this influx of the Divine Will, which has made John Brown already an ideal character. 'The wind bloweth where it listeth, and we hear the sound thereof; but know not whence it cometh, or whither it goeth.' So is every one that is born of the Spirit. Man works in the midst of laws which execute themselves, more especially, if by virtue of obedience he has lost sight of all selfish aims, and perceives that Truth and Right alone can claim allegiance. Emerson says: 'Divine intelligence carries on its administration by good men; that great men are they who see that the spiritual are greater than any material forces; and that really there never was any thing great accomplished but under religious impulse.'

"The deadly Atheism of Slavery was rolling its car of Juggernaut all over the beautiful Republic, and one pure soul was inspired to confront it by a practical interpretation of the Golden Rule.

"That Virginia would hang John Brown was a foregone conclusion. The Moloch of Slavery would have nothing less. His friends exerted themselves to secure the best counsel which could be induced to undertake the formality of a defense, foremost among whom was Mr. Stearns. A well-organized plan was made to rescue him, conducted by a brave man from Kansas, Col. James Montgomery, but a message came from the prisoner, that he should not feel at liberty to walk out, if the doors were left open; a sense of honor to his jailer (Captain Acvis) forbidding any thing of the kind.

"Not a little anxiety was felt lest certain of his adherents might be summoned as witnesses, whose testimony would lessen the chances of acquittal, and possibly involve their own lives. John A. Andrew (afterward Gov. Andrew) gave it as his opinion, after an exhaustive search of the records, that Virginia would have no right to summon these persons from Massachusetts, but subsequently changed his opinion, and urged Mr. Stearns to take passage to Europe, sending him home one day to pack his valise. The advice was opposed to his instincts, but he considered that his wife should have a voice in the matter, who decided, 'midst many tears and prayers, that if slavery required another victim, he must be ready.

"With Dr. Howe it was quite different. He became possessed with a dread that threatened to overwhelm his reason. He was in delicate health, and constitutionally subject to violent attacks of nervous headache. One day he came to Medford and insisted that Mr. Stearns should accompany him to Canada, urging that if he remained here he should be insane, and that Mr. Stearns of all his friends was the only one who would be at all satisfactory to him. This request, or rather demand, Mr. Stearns promptly declined. How well I remember his agitation, walking up and down the room, and finally entreating Mr. Stearns for 'friendship's sake' to go and take care of him. I can recall no instance of such self-abnegation in my husband's self-denying career. He did not stoop to an explanation, even when Dr. Howe declared in his presence, some months later, "that he never did any thing in his life he so much wished to take back." I had hoped that Dr. Howe would himself have spared me from making this contribution to the truth of history.

"On the 2d of December, Mr. Stearns yearned for the solitude of his own soul, in communion of spirit, with the friend who, on that day, would 'make the gallows glorious like the Cross'; and he left Dr. Howe and took the train for Niagara Falls. There, sitting alone beside the mighty rush of water, he solemnly consecrated his remaining life, his fortune, and all that was most dear, to the cause in whose service John Brown had died.

"How well and faithfully he kept his vow, may partly be seen in his subsequent efforts in recruiting the colored troops at a vital moment in the terrible war of the Rebellion which so swiftly followed the sublime apotheosis of 'Old John Brown.'"[70]

That John Brown intended to free the slaves, and nothing more, the record shows clearly. His move on Harper's Ferry was well planned, and had all the parties interested done their part the work would have been done well. As to the rectitude of his intentions he gives the world this leaf of history:

"And now, gentlemen, let me press this one thing on your minds. You all know how dear life is to you, and how dear your lives are to your friends: and in remembering that, consider that the lives of others are as dear to them as yours are to you. Do not, therefore, take the life of any one if you can possibly avoid it; but if it is necessary to take life in order to save your own, then make sure work of it."—John Brown, before the battle at Harper's Ferry.

"I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection. The design on my part was to free the slaves."—John Brown, after the battle at Harper's Ferry.

Distance lends enchantment to the view. What the world condemns to-day is applauded to-morrow.

We must have a "fair count" on the history of yesterday and last year. The events chronicled yesterday, when the imagination was wrought upon by exciting circumstances, need revision to-day.

The bitter words spoken this morning reproach at eventide the smarting conscience. And the judgments prematurely formed, and the conclusions rapidly reached, maybe rectified and repaired in the light of departed years and enlarged knowledge.

John Brown is rapidly settling down to his proper place in history, and "the madman" has been transformed into a "saint." When Brown struck his first blow for freedom, at the head of his little band of liberators, it was almost the universal judgment of both Americans and foreigners that he was a "fanatic." It seemed the very soul of weakness and arrogance for John Brown to attempt to do so great a work with so small a force. Men reached a decision with the outer and surface facts. But many of the most important and historically trustworthy truths bearing upon the motive, object, and import of that "bold move," have been hidden from the public view, either by prejudice or fear.

Some people have thought John Brown—"The Hero of Harper's Ferry"—a hot-headed, blood-thirsty brigand; they animadverted against the precipitancy of his measures, and the severity of his invectives; said that he was lacking in courage and deficient in judgment; that he retarded rather than accelerated the cause he championed. But this was the verdict of other times, not the judgment of to-day.

John Brown said to a personal friend during his stay in Kansas: "Young men must learn to wait. Patience is the hardest lesson to learn. I have waited for twenty years to accomplish my purpose." These are not the words of a mere visionary idealist, but the mature language of a practical and judicious leader, a leader than whom the world has never seen a greater. By greatness is meant deep convictions of duty, a sense of the Infinite, "a strong hold on truth," a "conscience void of offence toward God and man," to which the appeals of the innocent and helpless are more potential than the voices of angry thunder or destructive artillery. Such a man was John Brown. He was strong in his moral and mental nature, as well as in his physical nature. He was born to lead; and he led, and made himself the pro-martyr of a cause rapidly perfecting. All through his boyhood days he felt himself lifted and quickened by great ideas and sublime purposes. He had flowing in his veins the blood of his great ancestor, Peter Brown, who came over in the "Mayflower"; and the following inscription appears upon a marble monument in the graveyard at Canton Centre, New York: "In memory of Captain John Brown, who died in the Revolutionary army, at New York, September 3, 1776. He was of the fourth generation, in regular descent, from Peter Brown, one of the Pilgrim Fathers, who landed from the 'Mayflower,' at Plymouth, Massachusetts, December 22, 1620." This is the best commentary on his inherent love of absolute liberty, his marvellous courage and transcendent military genius. For years he elaborated and perfected his plans, working upon the public sentiment of his day by the most praiseworthy means. He bent and bowed the most obdurate conservatism of his day, and rallied to his standards the most eminent men, the strongest intellects in the North. His ethics and religion were as broad as the universe, and beneficent in their wide ramification. And it was upon his "religion of humanity," that embraced our entire species, that he proceeded with his herculean task of striking off the chains of the enslaved. Few, very few of his most intimate friends knew his plans—the plan of freeing the slaves. Many knew his great faith, his exalted sentiments, his ideas of liberty, in their crudity; but to a faithful few only did he reveal his stupendous plans in their entirety.

Hon. Frederick Douglass and Colonel Richard J. Hinton, knew more of Brown's real purposes than any other persons, with the exception of J. H. Kagi, Osborn Anderson, Owen Brown, Richard Realf, and George B. Gill.

"Of men born of woman," there is not a greater than John Brown. He was the forerunner of Lincoln, the great apostle of freedom.

One year before he went to Harper's Ferry, a friend met Brown in Kansas [in June, 1858], and learned that during the previous month he had brought almost all of his plans to perfection; and that the day and hour were fixed to strike the blow. One year before, a convention had met, on the 8th of May, 1858, at Chatham, Canada. At this convention a provisional constitution and ordinances were drafted and adopted, with the following officers: Commander-in-Chief, John Brown; Secretary of War, J. H. Kagi; Members of Congress, Alfred M. Ellsworth, Osborn Anderson; Treasurer, Owen Brown; Secretary of the Treasury, Geo. B. Gill; Secretary of State, Richard Realf.

John Brown made his appearance in Ohio and Canada in the spring of 1859. He wrote letters, made speeches, collected funds for his little army, and made final arrangements with his Northern allies, etc. He purchased a small farm, about six miles from Harper's Ferry, on the Maryland side, and made it his ordnance depot. He had 102 Sharp's rifles, 68 pistols, 55 bayonets, 12 artillery swords, 483 pikes, 150 broken handles of pikes, 16 picks, 40 shovels, besides quite a number of other appurtenances of war. This was in July. He intended to make all of his arrangements during the summer of 1859, and meet his men in the Alleghanies in the fall of the same year.

The apparent rashness of the John Brown movement may be mitigated somewhat by the fact that he failed to carry out his original plan. During the summer of 1859 he instructed his Northern soldiers and sympathizers to be ready for the attack on the night of the 24th of October, 1859. But while at Baltimore, in September, he got the impression that there was conspiracy in his camp, and in order to preclude its consummation, suddenly, without sending the news to his friends at the North, determined to strike the first blow on the night of the 17th of October. The news of his battle and his bold stand against the united forces of Virginia and Maryland swept across the country as the wild storm comes down the mountain side. Friend and foe were alike astonished and alarmed. The enemies of the cause he represented, when they recovered from their surprise, laughed their little laugh of scorn, and eased their feelings by referring to him as the "madman." Friends faltered, and, while they did not question his earnestness, doubted his judgment. "Why," they asked, "should he act with such palpable rashness, and thereby render more difficult and impossible the emancipation of the slaves?" They claimed that the blow he struck, instead of severing, only the more tightly riveted, the chains upon the helpless and hapless Blacks. But in the face of subsequent history we think his surviving friends will change their views. There is no proof that his fears were not well grounded; that a conspiracy was in progress. And who can tell whether a larger force would have been more effective, or the night of the 24th more opportune? May it not be believed that the good old man was right, and that Harper's Ferry was just the place, and the 17th of October just the time to strike for freedom, and make the rock-ribbed mountains of Virginia to tremble at the presence of a "master!"—the king of freedom?

He was made a prisoner on the 19th of October, 1859, and remained until the 7th of November without a change of clothing or medical aid. Forty-two days from the time of his imprisonment he expiated his crime upon the scaffold—a crime against slave-holding, timorous Virginia, for bringing liberty to the oppressed. He was a man, and there was nothing that interested man which was foreign to his nature. He had gone into Virginia to save life, not to destroy it. The sighs and groans of the oppressed had entered into his soul.

He had heard the Macedonian cry to come over and help them. He went, and it cost him his life, but he gave it freely.

Captain Acvis, the jailer, said: "He was the gamest man I ever saw." And Mr. Valandingham, at that time a member of Congress from Ohio, and who examined him in court, said in a speech afterward.

"It is in vain to underrate either the man or the conspiracy. Captain John Brown is as brave and resolute a man as ever headed an insurrection, and, in a good cause, and with a sufficient force, would have been a consummate partisan commander. He has coolness, daring, persistency, stoic faith and patience, and a firmness of will and purpose unconquerable! He is the farthest possible remove from the ordinary ruffian, fanatic, or madman."

No friend, howsoever ardent in his love, could have woven a chaplet more worthy than the one placed upon the brow of the old hero by his most embittered foe. A truer estimate of John Brown cannot be had.

South Carolina, Missouri, and Kentucky sent a rope to hang him, but, the first two lacking strength, Kentucky had the everlasting disgrace of furnishing the rope to strangle the noblest man that ever lived in any age.

The last letter he ever wrote was written to Mrs. Geo. L. Stearns, and she shall give its history:

This letter requires the history which attaches to it, and illustrates the consideration which the brave martyr had for those in any way connected with him. It was written on a half sheet of paper, the exact size of the pages of a book into which he carefully inserted it, and tied up in a handkerchief with other books and papers, which he asked his jailer (Mr. Avis) to be allowed to go with his body to North Elba, and which Mrs. Brown took with her from the Charlestown prison. Her statement to me about it is this: She had been at home some two weeks, had looked over the contents of the handkerchief many times, when one day in turning the leaves of that particular book, she came upon this letter, on which she said she found two or three blistered spots, the only tear drops she had seen among his papers. They are now yellow with time. On the back of the half sheet was written: "Please mail this to her," which she did, and so it reached my hand; seeming as if from the world to which his spirit had fled. It quite overwhelmed my husband. Presently he said: "See, dear, how careful the old man has been, he would not even direct it with your name to go from Virginia to Boston through the post-offices; and altho' it contains no message to me, one of those 'farewells!' is intended for me, and also the 'Love to All who love their neighbors.'"

"CHARLESTOWN, JEFFERSON CO VA. 29th Nov. 1859.

"MRS. GEORGE L. STEARNS "Boston, Mass.

"My Dear Friend:—No letter I have received since my imprisonment here, has given me more satisfaction, or comfort, than yours of the 8th inst. I am quite cheerful: and never more happy. Have only time to write you a word. May God forever reward you and all yours.

"My love to ALL who love their neighbors. I have asked to be spared from having any mock, or hypocritical prayers made over me when I am publicly murdered; and that my only religious attendents be poor little, dirty, ragged, bareheaded and barefooted, Slave Boys; and Girls, led by some old gray-headed slave Mother.

"Farewell. Farewell. "Your Friend, "JOHN BROWN."[71]

The man who hung him, Governor Wise, lived to see the plans of Brown completed and his most cherished hopes fulfilled. He heard the warning shot fired at Sumter, saw Richmond fall, the war end in victory to the party of John Brown; saw the slave-pen converted into the school-house, and the four millions Brown fought and died for, elevated to the honors of citizenship. And at last he has entered the grave, where his memory will perish with his body, while the soul and fame of John Brown go marching down the centuries!

Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, and John Brown have to wait the calmer judgments of future generations. These men believed that God sent them to do a certain work—to reveal a hidden truth; to pour light into the minds of benighted and superstitious men. They completed their work; they did nobly and well, then bowed to rest—

"With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings, The powerful of the earth,"

while generation after generation studies their handwriting on the wall of time and interprets their thoughts. Despised, persecuted, and unappreciated while in the flesh, they are honored after death, and enrolled among earth's good and great, her wise and brave. The shock Brown gave the walls of the slave institution was felt from its centre to its utmost limits. It was the entering wedge; it laid bare the accursed institution, and taught good men everywhere to hate it with a perfect hatred. Slavery received its death wound at the hands of a "lonely old man." When he smote Virginia, the non-resistants, the anti-slavery men, learned a lesson. They saw what was necessary to the accomplishment of their work, and were now ready for the "worst." He rebuked the conservatism of the North, and gave an example of adherence to duty, devotion to truth, and fealty to God and man that make the mere "professor" to tremble with shame. "John Brown's body lies mouldering in the clay," but his immortal name will be pronounced with blessings in all lands and by all people till the end of time.

FOOTNOTES:

[66] This was in the last days of 1856.

[67] The committee also authorized him to draw on their treasurer, Patrick L. Jackson, for $500.

[68] Samuel Johnson, the accomplished Oriental scholar and devoted friend of the slave.

[69] The italics are his.

[70] The above account of Capt. Brown was prepared for us by the widow of the late Major Geo. L. Stearns. It is printed as written, and breathes a beautiful spirit of love and tender remembrance for the two heroes mentioned.

[71] This letter is printed for the first time, with Mrs. Stearns's consent.



PART 7.

THE NEGRO IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION.



CHAPTER XIV.

DEFINITION OF THE WAR ISSUE.

INCREASE OF SLAVE POPULATION IN SLAVE-HOLDING STATES FROM 1850-1860.—PRODUCTS OF SLAVE LABOR.—BASIS OF SOUTHERN REPRESENTATION.—SIX SECEDING STATES ORGANIZE A NEW GOVERNMENT.—CONSTITUTION OF THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT.—SPEECH BY ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.—MR. LINCOLN IN FAVOR OF GRADUAL EMANCIPATION.—HE IS ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.—THE ISSUE OF THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES.

In 1860 there were, in the fifteen slave-holding States, 12,240,000 souls, of whom 8,039,000 were whites, 251,000 free persons of color, and 3,950,000 were slaves. The gain of the entire population of the slave-holding States, from 1850-1860, was 2,627,000, equal to 27.33 per cent. The slave population had increased 749,931, or 23.44 per cent., not including the slaves in the District of Columbia, where they had lost 502 slaves during the decade. The nineteen non-slave-holding States and the seven territories, including the District of Columbia, contained 19,203,008 souls, of whom 18,920,771 were whites, 237,283 free persons of color, and 41,725 civilized Indians. The actual increase of this population was 5,624,101, or 41.24 per cent. During the same period—1850-1860—the total population of free persons of color in the United States increased from 434,449 to 487,970, or at the rate of 12.33 per cent., annual increase of above 1 per cent. In 1850 the Mulattoes were 11.15 per cent., regarding the United States as one aggregate, and in 1860 were 13.25 per cent., of the entire Colored population.

TOTAL COLORED POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES. - - Numbers. Proportions. - - - - Colored. 1850. 1860. 1850. 1860. - - - - Blacks 3,233,057 3,853,478 88.85 86.75 Mulattoes 405,751 588,352 11.15 13.25 - - - - Total Colored 3,638,808 4,441,830 100.00 100.00 - - - -

So, in ten years, from 1850-1860, the increase of blacks above the current deaths was 620,421, or more than one half of a million, while the corresponding increase of Mulattoes was 182,601. Estimating the deaths to have been 22.4 per cent. during the same period, or one in 40 annually, the total births of Blacks in ten years was about 1,345,000, and the total births of Mulattoes about 273,000. Thus it appears, in the prevailing order, that of every 100 births of Colored, about 17 were Mulattoes, and 83 Blacks, indicating a ratio of nearly 1 to 5.

There were:

Deaf and dumb slaves 531 Blind 1,387 Insane 327 Idiotic 1,182 ——- Total 3,427

There were 400,000 slaves in the towns and cities of the South, and 2,804,313 in the country. The products of slave labor in 1850 were as follows:

SLAVE LABOR PRODUCTS IN 1850.

Cotton $98,603,720 Tobacco 13,982,686 Cane sugar 12,378,850 Hemp 5,000,000 Rice 4,000,000 Molasses 2,540,179 —————— $136,505,435

There were 347,525 slave-holders against 5,873,893 non-slave-holders in the slave States. The representation in Congress was as follows:

Northern representatives based on white population 142 Northern representatives based on Colored population 2 Southern representatives based on white population 68 Southern representatives based on free Colored population 2 Southern representatives based on slave population 20 Ratio of representation for 1853 93,420

The South owned 16,652 churches, valued at $22,142,085; the North owned 21,357 churches, valued at $65,167,586. The South printed annually 92,165,919 copies of papers and periodicals; the North printed annually 334,146,081 copies of papers and periodicals. The South owned, other than private, 722 libraries, containing 742,794 volumes; the North owned, other than private, 14,902 libraries, containing 3,882,217 volumes.

In sentiment, motive, and civilization the two "Sections" were as far apart as the poles. New England, Puritan, Roundhead civilization could not fellowship the Cavaliers of the South. There were not only two sections and two political parties in the United States;—there were two antagonistic governmental ideas. John C. Calhoun and Alexander H. Stephens, of the South, represented the idea of the separate and individual sovereignty of each of the States; while William H. Seward and Abraham Lincoln, of the North, represented the idea of the centralization of governmental authority, so far as it was necessary to secure uniformity of the laws, and the supremacy of the Federal Constitution. On the 25th of October, 1858, in a speech delivered in Rochester, N. Y., William H. Seward said:

"Our country is a theatre which exhibits, in full operation, two radically different political systems: the one resting on the basis of servile or slave labor; the other on the basis of voluntary labor of freemen.

* * * * *

"The two systems are at once perceived to be incongruous. They never have permanently existed together in one country, and they never can.

... "These antagonistic systems are continually coming in closer contact, and collision ensues.

"Shall I tell you what this collision means? It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must, and will, sooner or later, become entirely a slave-holding nation, or entirely a free labor nation. Either the cotton and rice fields of South Carolina, and the sugar plantations of Louisiana, will ultimately be tilled by free-labor, and Charleston and New Orleans become marts for legitimate merchandise alone, or else the rye fields and wheat fields of Massachusetts and New York must again be surrendered by their farmers to the slave culture and to the production of slaves, and Boston and New York become once more markets for trade in the bodies and souls of men."

Upon the eve of the great Rebellion, Mr. Seward said in the United States Senate:

"A free Republican government like this, notwithstanding all its constitutional checks, cannot long resist and counteract the progress of society.

"Free labor has at last apprehended its rights and its destiny, and is organizing itself to assume the government of the Republic. It will henceforth meet you boldly and resolutely here (Washington); it will meet you everywhere, in the territories and out of them, where-ever you may go to extend slavery. It has driven you back in California and in Kansas; it will invade you soon in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Missouri, and Texas. It will meet you in Arizona, in Central America, and even in Cuba.

* * * * *

"You may, indeed, get a start under or near the tropics, and seem safe for a time, but it will be only a short time. Even there you will found States only for free labor, or to maintain and occupy. The interest of the whole race demands the ultimate emancipation of all men. Whether that consummation shall be allowed to take effect, with needful and wise precautions against sudden change and disaster, or be hurried on by violence, is all that remains for you to decide. The white man needs this continent to labor upon. His head is clear, his arm is strong, and his necessities are fixed.

* * * * *

"It is for yourselves, and not for us, to decide how long and through what further mortifications and disasters the contest shall be protracted before Freedom shall enjoy her already assured triumph.

"You may refuse to yield it now, and for a short period, but your refusal will only animate the friends of freedom with the courage and the resolution, and produce the union among them, which alone is necessary on their part to attain the position itself, simultaneously with the impending overthrow of the existing Federal Administration and the constitution of a new and more independent Congress."

Mr. Lincoln said during a discussion of the impending crisis:

"I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect that it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.

"I have always hated slavery as much as any Abolitionist. I have always been an old-line Whig. I have always hated it, and I always believed it in a course of ultimate extinction. If I were in Congress, and a vote should come up on a question whether slavery should be prohibited in a new territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision I would vote that it should."

Notwithstanding the confident tone of Mr. Lincoln's statement that he did "not expect the house to fall," it did fall, and great was the fall thereof!

On Saturday, 9th of February, 1861, six seceding States met at Montgomery, Alabama, and organized an independent government. The ordinances of secession were passed by the States as follows:

STATE. DATE. YEAS. NAYS. South Carolina Dec. 20, 1860 169 —— Mississippi Jan. 9, 1861 84 15 Alabama Jan. 11, 1861 61 39 Florida Jan. 11, 1861 62 7 Georgia Jan. 19, 1861 228 89 Louisiana Jan. 25, 1861 113 17

The following delegates presented their credentials and were admitted and represented their respective States:

ALABAMA.—R. W. Walker, R. H. Smith, J. L. M. Curry, W. P. Chilton, S. F. Hale Colon, J. McRae, John Gill Shorter, David P. Lewis, Thomas Fearn.

FLORIDA.—James B. Owens, J. Patten Anderson, Jackson Morton (not present).

GEORGIA.—Robert Toombs, Howell Cobb, F. S. Bartow, M. J. Crawford, E. A. Nisbet, B. H. Hill, A. R. Wright, Thomas R. Cobb, A. H. Kenan, A. H. Stephens.

LOUISIANA.—John Perkins, Jr., A. Declonet, Charles M. Conrad, D. F. Kenner, G. E. Sparrow, Henry Marshall.

MISSISSIPPI.—W. P. Harris, Walter Brooke, N. S. Wilson, A. M. Clayton, W. S. Barry, J. T. Harrison.

SOUTH CAROLINA.—R. B. Rhett, R. W. Barnwell, L. M. Keitt, James Chestnut, Jr., C. G. Memminger, W. Porcher Miles, Thomas J. Withers, W. W. Boyce.

A president and vice-president were chosen by unanimous vote. President—Honorable Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi. Vice-President—Honorable Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia. The following gentlemen composed the Cabinet:

Secretary of State, Robert Toombs; Secretary of Treasury, C. G. Memminger; Secretary of Interior (Vacancy); Secretary of War, L. P. Walker; Secretary of Navy, John Perkins, Jr.; Postmaster-General, H. T. Ebett; Attorney-General, J. P. Benjamin.

The Constitution of the Confederate Government did not differ so very radically from the Federal Constitution. The following were the chief points:

"1. The importation of African negroes from any foreign country other than the slave-holding States of the Confederate States is hereby forbidden, and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.

"2. Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of this Confederacy.

"The Congress shall have power:

"1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, for revenue necessary to pay the debts and carry on the government of the Confederacy, and all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the Confederacy.

"A slave in one State escaping to another shall be delivered, upon the claim of the party to whom said slave may belong, by the Executive authority of the State in which such slave may be found; and in any case of abduction or forcible rescue, full compensation, including the value of slave, and all costs and expense, shall be made to the party by the State in which such abduction or rescue shall take place.

"2. The government hereby instituted shall take immediate step's for the settlement of all matters between the States forming it and their late confederates of the United States in relation to the public property and public debt at the time of their withdrawal from them; these States hereby declaring it to be their wish and earnest desire to adjust everything pertaining to the common property, common liabilities, and common obligations of that Union, upon principles of right, justice, equity, and good faith."

At first blush it would appear that the new government had not been erected upon the slave question; that it had gone as far as the Federal Government to suppress the foreign slave-trade; and that nobler and sublimer ideas and motives had inspired and animated the Southern people in their movement for a new government. But the men who wrote the Confederate platform knew what they were about. They knew that to avoid the charge that would certainly be made against them, of having seceded in order to make slavery a national institution, they must be careful not to exhibit such intentions in their Constitution. But that the South seceded on account of the slavery question, there can be no historical doubt whatever. Jefferson Davis, President, so-called, of the Confederate Government, said in his Message, April 29, 1861:

"When the several States delegated certain powers to the United States Congress, a large portion of the laboring population consisted of African slaves, imported into the colonies by the mother-country. In twelve out of the thirteen States, negro slavery existed; and the right of property in slaves was protected by law. This property was recognized in the Constitution; and provision was made against its loss by the escape of the slave.

"The increase in the number of slaves by further importation from Africa was also secured by a clause forbidding Congress to prohibit the slave-trade anterior to a certain date; and in no clause can there be found any delegation of power to the Congress, authorizing it in any manner to legislate to the prejudice, detriment, or discouragement of the owners of that species of property, or excluding it from the protection of the Government.

"The climate and soil of the Northern States soon proved unpropitious to the continuance of slave labor; whilst the converse was the case at the South. Under the unrestricted free intercourse between the two sections, the Northern States consulted their own interest, by selling their slaves to the South, and prohibiting slavery within their limits. The South were willing purchasers of a property suitable to their wants, and paid the price of the acquisition without harboring a suspicion that their quiet possession was to be disturbed by those who were inhibited not only by want of constitutional authority, but by good faith as vendors, from disquieting a title emanating from themselves.

"As soon, however, as the Northern States that prohibited African slavery within their limits had reached a number sufficient to give their representation a controlling voice in the Congress, a persistent and organized system of hostile measures against the rights of the owners of slaves in the Southern States was inaugurated, and gradually extended. A continuous series of measures was devised and prosecuted for the purpose of rendering insecure the tenure of property in slaves.

* * * * *

"With interests of such overwhelming magnitude imperilled, the people of the Southern States were driven by the conduct of the North to the adoption of some course of action to avoid the danger with which they were openly menaced. With this view, the Legislatures of the several States invited the people to select delegates to conventions to be held for the purpose of determining for themselves what measures were best adapted to meet so alarming a crisis in their history."[72]

Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President, as he was called, said, in a speech delivered at Savannah, Georgia, 21st of March, 1861:

"The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution,—African slavery as it exists amongst us, the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. JEFFERSON, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the 'rock upon which the old Union would split.' He was right. What was conjecture with him is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that great rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution, were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent, and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the Constitution, was the prevailing idea at the time. The Constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last; and hence no argument can be justly used against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation; and the idea of a government built upon it,—when the 'storm came and the wind blew, it fell.'

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas. Its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day."[73]

Now, then, what was the real issue between the Confederate States and the United States? Why, it was extension of slavery by the former, and the restriction of slavery by the latter. To put the issue as it was understood by Northern men—in poetic language, it was "The Union as it is." While the South, at length, through its leaders, acknowledged that slavery was their issue, the North, standing upon the last analysis of the Free-Soil idea of resistance to the further inoculation of free territory with the virus of slavery, refused to recognize slavery as an issue. But what did the battle cry of the loyal North, "The Union as it is," mean? A Union half free and half slave; a dual government, if not in fact, certainly in the brains and hearts of the people; two civilizations at eternal and inevitable war with each other; a Union with the canker-worm of slavery in it, impairing its strength every year and threatening its life; a Union in which two hostile ideas of political economy were at work, and where unpaid slave labor was inimical to the interests of the free workingmen. And it should not be forgotten that the Republican party acknowledged the right of Southerns to hunt slaves in the free States, and to return such slaves, under the fugitive-slave law, to their masters. Mr. Lincoln was not an Abolitionist, as many people think. His position on the question was clearly stated in the answers he gave to a number of questions put to him by Judge Douglass in the latter part of the summer of 1858. Mr. Lincoln said:

"Having said this much, I will take up the judge's interrogatories as I find them printed in the Chicago 'Times,' and answer them seriatim. In order that there may be no mistake about it, I have copied the interrogatories in writing, and also my answers to them. The first one of these interrogatories is in these words:

"Question 1. 'I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day stands, as he did in 1854, in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive-Slave Law?'

"Answer. I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive-Slave Law.

"Q. 2. 'I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to-day, as he did in 1854, against the admission of any more slave States into the Union, even if the people want them?'

"A. I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the admission of any more slave States into the Union.

"Q. 3. 'I want to know whether he stands pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union with such a constitution as the people of that State may see fit to make.'

"Q. 4. 'I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia?'

"A. I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.

"Q. 5. 'I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to the prohibition of the slave-trade between the different States?'

"A. I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the slave-trade between the different States.

"Q. 6. 'I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit slavery in all the territories of the United States, north as well as south of the Missouri Compromise line?'

"A. I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a belief in the right and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United States territories. [Great applause.]

"Q. 7. 'I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to the acquisition of any new territory unless slavery is first prohibited therein?'

"A. I am not generally opposed to honest acquisition of territory; and, in any given case, I would or would not oppose such acquisition, accordingly as I might think such acquisition would or would not agitate the slavery question among ourselves.

"Now, my friends, it will be perceived upon an examination of these questions and answers, that so far I have only answered that I was not pledged to this, that, or the other. The judge has not framed his interrogatories to ask me any thing more than this, and I have answered in strict accordance with the interrogatories, and have answered truly that I am not pledged at all upon any of the points to which I have answered. But I am not disposed to hang upon the exact form of his interrogatories. I am rather disposed to take up at least some of these questions, and state what I really think upon them.

"As to the first one, in regard to the Fugitive-Slave Law, I have never hesitated to say, and I do not now hesitate to say, that I think, under the Constitution of the United States, the people of the Southern States are entitled to a congressional slave law. Having said that, I have had nothing to say in regard to the existing Fugitive-Slave Law, further than that I think it should have been framed so as to be free from some of the objections that pertain to it, without lessening its efficiency. And inasmuch as we are not now in an agitation in regard to an alteration or modification of that law, I would not be the man to introduce it as a new subject of agitation upon the general question of slavery.

"In regard to the other question, of whether I am pledged to the admission of any more slave States into the Union, I state to you very frankly that I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be put in a position of having to pass upon that question. I should be exceedingly glad to know that there would never be another slave State admitted into the Union; but I must add, that if slavery shall be kept out of the territories during the territorial existence of any one given territory, and then the people shall, having a fair chance and a clear field, when they come to adopt the constitution, do such an extraordinary thing as to adopt a slave constitution, uninfluenced by the actual presence of the institution among them, I see no alternative, if we own the country, but to admit them into the Union. [Applause.]

"The third interrogatory is answered by the answer to the second, it being, as I conceive, the same as the second.

"The fourth one is in regard to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. In relation to that I have my mind very distinctly made up. I should be exceedingly glad to see slavery abolished in the District of Columbia. I believe that Congress possesses the constitutional power to abolish it. Yet, as a member of Congress, I should not, with my present views, be in favor of endeavoring to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, unless it would be upon these conditions: First, that the abolition should be gradual; second, that it should be on a vote of the majority of qualified voters in the district; and, third, that compensation should be made to unwilling owners. With these three conditions I confess I would be exceedingly glad to see Congress abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; and, in the language of Henry Clay, 'sweep from our capital that foul blot upon our nation.'

"In regard to the fifth interrogatory, I must say here that, as to the question of the abolition of the slave-trade between the different States, I can truly answer, as I have, that I am pledged to nothing about it. It is a subject to which I have not given that mature consideration that would make me feel authorized to state a position so as to hold myself entirely bound by it. In other words, that question has never been prominently enough before me to induce me to investigate whether we really have the constitutional power to do it. I could investigate it, if I had sufficient time, to bring myself to a conclusion upon that subject; but I have not done so, and I say so frankly to you here, and to Judge Douglass. I must say, however, that if I should be of opinion that Congress does possess the constitutional power to abolish slave-trading among the different States, I should still not be in favor of the exercise of that power unless upon some conservative principle as I conceive it, akin to what I have said in relation to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.

"My answer as to whether I desire that slavery should be prohibited in all territories of the United States, is full and explicit within itself, and cannot be made clearer by any comments of mine. So, I suppose, in regard to the question whether I am opposed to the acquisition of any more territory unless slavery is first prohibited therein, my answer is such that I could add nothing by way of illustration, or making myself better understood, than the answer which I have placed in writing.

"Now, in all this the judge has me, and he has me on the record. I suppose he had flattered himself that I was really entertaining one set of opinions for one place, and another set for another place—that I was afraid to say at one place what I uttered at another. What I am saying here I suppose I say to a vast audience as strongly tending to abolitionism as any audience in the State of Illinois, and I believe I am saying that which, if it would be offensive to any persons and render them enemies to myself, would be offensive to persons in this audience."[74]

Here, then, is the position of Mr. Lincoln set forth with deliberation and care. He was opposed to any coercive measures in settling the slavery question; he was for gradual emancipation; and for admitting States into the Union with a slave constitution. Within twenty-four months, without a change of views, he was nominated for and elected to the Presidency of the United States.

With no disposition to interfere with the institution of slavery, Mr. Lincoln found himself chief magistrate of a great nation in the midst of a great rebellion. And in his inaugural address on the 4th of March, 1861, he referred to the question of slavery again in a manner too clear to admit of misconception, affirming his previous views:

"There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:

"'No person held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.'

"It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law.

"All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution—to this provision as well as any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause 'shall be delivered up,' their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not, with nearly equal unanimity, frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?

"There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by National or by State authority; but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done; and should any one, in any case, be content that this oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?"

So the issues were joined in war. The South aggressively, offensively sought the extension and perpetuation of slavery. The North passively, defensively stood ready to protect her free territory, but not to interfere with slavery. And there was no day during the first two years of the war when the North would not have cheerfully granted the slave institution an indefinite lease of legal existence upon the condition that the war should cease.

FOOTNOTES:

[72] National Intelligencer, Tuesday, May 7, 1861.

[73] National Intelligencer, Tuesday, April, 2, 1861.

[74] Barrett, pp. 177-180.



CHAPTER XV.

"A WHITE MAN'S WAR."

THE FIRST CALL FOR TROOPS.—RENDITION OF FUGITIVE SLAVES BY THE ARMY.—COL. TYLER'S ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF VIRGINIA.—GENERAL ISAAC R. SHERWOOD'S ACCOUNT OF AN ATTEMPT TO SECURE A FUGITIVE SLAVE IN HIS CHARGE.—COL. STEEDMAN REFUSES TO HAVE HIS CAMP SEARCHED FOR FUGITIVE SLAVES, BY ORDER FROM GEN. FRY.—LETTER FROM GEN. BUELL IN DEFENCE OF THE REBELS IN THE SOUTH.—ORDERS ISSUED BY GENERALS HOOKER, WILLIAMS, AND OTHERS, IN REGARD TO HARBORING FUGITIVE SLAVES IN UNION CAMPS.—OBSERVATION CONCERNING SLAVERY FROM THE "ARMY OF THE POTOMAC."—GEN. BUTLER'S LETTER TO GEN. WINFIELD SCOTT.—IT IS ANSWERED BY THE SECRETARY OF WAR.—HORACE GREELEY'S LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT.—PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S REPLY.—GEN. JOHN C. FREMONT, COMMANDER OF THE UNION ARMY IN MISSOURI, ISSUES A PROCLAMATION EMANCIPATING SLAVES IN HIS DISTRICT.—IT IS DISAPPROVED BY THE PRESIDENT.—EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION BY GEN. HUNTER.—IT IS RESCINDED BY THE PRESIDENT.—SLAVERY AND UNION JOINED IN A DESPERATE STRUGGLE.

When the war clouds broke over the country and hostilities began, the North counted the Negro on the outside of the issue. The Federal Government planted itself upon the policy of the "defence of the free States,"—pursued a defensive rather than an offensive policy. And, whenever the Negro was mentioned, the leaders of the political parties and the Union army declared that it was "a white mans war."

The first call for three months' troops indicated that the authorities at Washington felt confident that the "trouble" would not last long. The call was issued on the 15th of April, 1861, and provided for the raising of 75,000 troops. It was charged by the President that certain States had been guilty of forming "combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings," and then he proceeded to state:

"The details for this object will be immediately communicated to the State authorities through the War Department. I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union, and the perpetuity of popular government, and to redress wrongs already long enough endured. I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth, will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union; and in every event the utmost care will be observed, consistently with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, any destruction of, or interference with, property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens of any part of the country; and I hereby command the persons composing the combinations aforesaid, to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within twenty days from this date."[75]

There was scarcely a city in the North, from New York to San Francisco, whose Colored residents did not speedily offer their services to the States to aid in suppressing the Rebellion. But everywhere as promptly were their services declined. The Colored people of the Northern States were patriotic and enthusiastic; but their interest was declared insolence. And being often rebuked for their loyalty, they subsided into silence to bide a change of public sentiment.

The almost unanimous voice of the press and pulpit was against a recognition of the Negro as the cause of the war. Like a man in the last stages of consumption who insists that he has only a bad cold, so the entire North urged that slavery was not the cause of the war: it was a little local misunderstanding. But the death of the gallant Col. Elmer E. Elsworth palsied the tongues of mere talkers; and in the tragic silence that followed, great, brave, and true men began to think.

Not a pulpit in all the land had spoken a word for the slave. The clergy stood dumb before the dreadful issue. But one man was found, like David of old, who, gathering his smooth pebble of fact from the brook of God's eternal truth, boldly met the boastful and erroneous public sentiment of the hour. That man was the Rev. Justin D. Fulton, a Baptist minister of Albany, New York. He was chosen to preach the funeral sermon of Col. Elsworth, and performed that duty on Sunday, May 26, 1861. Speaking of slavery, the reverend gentleman said:

"Shall this magazine of danger be permitted to remain? We must answer this question. If we say no, it is no! Slavery is a curse to the North. It impoverishes the South, and demoralizes both. It is the parent of treason, the seedling of tyranny, and the fountain-source of all the ills that have infected our life as a people, being the central cause of all our conflicts of the past and the war of to-day. What reason have we for permitting it to remain? God does not want it, for His truth gives freedom. The South does not need it, for it is the chain fastened to her limb that fetters her progress. Morality, patriotism, and humanity alike protest against it.

"The South fights for slavery, for the despotism which it represents, for the ignoring the rights of labor, and for reducing to slavery or to serfdom all whose hands are hardened by toil.

"Why not make the issue at once, which shall inspire every man that shoulders his musket with a noble purpose? Our soldiers need to be reminded that this government was consecrated to freedom by those who first built here the altars of worship, and planted on the shore of the Western Continent the tree of liberty, whose fruit to-day fills the garners of national hope.... I would not forget that I am a messenger of the Prince of Peace. My motives for throwing out these suggestions are three-fold: 1. Because I believe God wants us to be actuated by motives not one whit less philanthropic than the giving of freedom to four million of people. 2. I confess to a sympathy for and faith in the slave, and cherish the belief that if freed, the war would become comparatively bloodless, and that as a people we should enter on the discharge of higher duties and a more enlarged prosperity. 3. The war would hasten to a close, and the end secured would then form a brilliant dawn to a career of prosperity unsurpassed in the annals of mankind."[76]

Brave, prophetic words! But a thousand vituperative editors sprang at Mr. Fulton's utterances, and as snapping curs, growled at and shook every sentence. He stood his ground. He took no step backward. When notice was kindly sent him that a committee would wait on him to treat him to a coat of tar and feathers, against the entreaties of anxious friends, he sent word that he would give them a warm reception. When the best citizens of Albany said the draft could not be enforced without bloody resistance, the Rev. Mr. Fulton exclaimed: "If the floodgates of blood are to be opened, we will not shoot down the poor and ignorant, but the swaggering and insolent men whose hearts are not in this war!"

The "Atlas and Argus," in an editorial on Ill-Timed Pulpit Abolitionism, denounced Rev. Mr. Fulton in bitterest terms; while the "Evening Standard" and "Journal" both declared that the views of the preacher were as a fire-brand thrown into the magazine of public sentiment.

Everywhere throughout the North the Negro was counted as on the outside. Everywhere it was merely "a war for the Union," which was half free and half slave.

When the Union army got into the field at the South it was confronted by a difficult question. What should be done with the Negroes who sought the Union lines for protection from their masters? The sentiment of the press, Congress, and the people of the North generally, was against interference with the slave, either by the civil or military authorities. And during the first years of the war the army became a band of slave-catchers. Slave-holders and sheriffs from the Southern States were permitted to hunt fugitive slaves under the Union flag and within the lines of Federal camps. On the 22d of June, 1861, the following paragraph appeared in the "Baltimore American":

"Two free negroes, belonging to Frederick, Md., who concealed themselves in the cars which conveyed the Rhode Island regiment to Washington from this city, were returned that morning by command of Colonel Burnside, who supposed them to be slaves. The negroes were accompanied by a sergeant of the regiment, who lodged them in jail."

On the 4th of July, 1861, Col. Tyler, of the 7th Ohio regiment, delivered an address to the people of Virginia; a portion of which is sufficient to show the feeling that prevailed among army officers on the slavery question:

"To you, fellow-citizens of West Virginia—many of whom I have so long and favorably known,—I come to aid and protect. [The grammar is defective.]

"I have no selfish ambition to gratify, no personal motives to actuate. I am here to protect you in person and property—to aid you in the execution of the law, in the maintenance of peace and order, in the defence of the Constitution and the Union, and in the extermination of our common foe. As our enemies have belied our mission, and represented us as a band of Abolitionists, I desire to assure you that the relation of master and servant as recognized in your State shall be respected. Your authority over that species of property shall not in the least be interfered with. To this end I assure you that those under my command have peremptory orders to take up and hold any negroes found running about the camp without passes from their masters."

When a few copies had been struck off, a lieutenant in Captain G. W. Shurtleff's company handed him one. He waited upon the colonel, and told him that it was not true that the troops had been ordered to arrest fugitive slaves. The colonel threatened to place Captain Shurtleff in arrest, when he exclaimed: "I'll never be a slave-catcher, so help me God!" There were few men in the army at this time who sympathized with such a noble declaration, and, therefore, Captain Shurtleff found himself in a very small minority.

The following account of an attempt to secure a fugitive slave from General Isaac R. Sherwood has its historical value. General Sherwood was as noble a man as he was a brave and intelligent soldier. He obeyed the still small voice in his soul and won a victory for humanity:

"In the February and March of 1863, I was a major in command of 111th O. V. I regiment. I had a servant, as indicated by army regulations, in charge of my private horse. He was from Frankfort, Ky., the property of a Baptist clergyman. When the troops passed through Frankfort, in the fall of 1862, he left his master, and followed the army. He came to me at Bowling Green, and I hired him to take care of my horse. He was a lad about fifteen years old, named Alfred Jackson.

"At this time, Brig.-Gen. Boyle, or Boyd (I think Boyle), was in command of the District of Kentucky, and had issued his general order, that fugitive slaves should be delivered up. Brig.-Gen. H. M. Judah was in command of Post of Bowling Green, also of our brigade, there stationed.

"The owner of Alfred Jackson found out his whereabouts, and sent a U. S. marshal to Bowling Green to get him. Said marshal came to my headquarters under a pretence to see my very fine saddle-horse, but really to identify Alfred Jackson. The horse was brought out by Alfred Jackson. The marshal went to Brig.-Gen. Judah's headquarters and got a written order addressed to me, describing the lad and ordering me to deliver the boy. This order was delivered to me by Col. Sterling, of Gen. Judah's staff, in person. I refused to obey it. I sent word to Gen. Judah that he could have my sword, but while I commanded that regiment no fugitive slave should ever be delivered to his master. The officer made my compliments to Gen. Judah as aforesaid, and I was placed under arrest for disobedience to orders, and my sword taken from me.

"In a few days the command was ordered to move to Glasgow, Ky., and Gen. Judah, not desiring to trust the regiment in command of a captain, I was temporarily restored to command, pending the meeting of a court-martial to try my case. When the command moved I took Alfred Jackson along. After we reached Glasgow, Ky., Gen. Judah sent for me, and said if I would then deliver up Alfred Jackson he would restore me to command. The United States marshal was present. This I again refused to do.

"The same day, I sent an ambulance out of the lines, with Alfred Jackson tucked under the seat, in charge of a man going North, and I gave him money to get to Hillsdale, Michigan, where he went, and where he resided and grew up to be a good man and a citizen. I called the attention of Hon. James M. Ashley (then Member of Congress) to the matter, and under instructions from Secretary Stanton, Gen. Boyle's order was revoked, and I never delivered a fugitive, nor was I ever tried."

In Mississippi, in 1862, Col. James B. Steedman (afterward major-general) refused to honor an order of Gen. Fry, delivered by the man who wanted the slave in Steedman's camp. Col. Steedman read the order and told the bearer that he was a rebel; that he could not search his camp; and that he would give him just ten minutes to get out of the camp, or he would riddle him with bullets. When Gen. Fry asked for an explanation of his refusal to allow his camp to be searched, Col. Steedman said he would never consent to have his camp searched by a rebel; that he would use every bayonet in his regiment to protect the Negro slave who had come to him for protection; and that he was sustained by the Articles of War, which had been amended about that time.

Again, in the late summer of 1863, at Tuscumbia, Tennessee, Gen. Fry rode into Col. Steedman's camp to secure the return of the slaves of an old lady whom he had known before the war. Col. Steedman said he did not know that any slaves were in his camp; and that if they were there they should not be taken except they were willing to go. Gen. Fry was a Christian gentleman of a high Southern type, and combined with his loyalty to the Union an abiding faith in "the sacredness of slave property." Whether he ever recovered from the malady, history saith not.

The great majority of regular army officers were in sympathy with the idea of protecting slave property. Gen. T. W. Sherman, occupying the defences of Port Royal, in October, 1861, issued the following proclamation to the people of South Carolina:

"In obedience to the orders of the President of these United States of America, I have landed on your shores with a small force of National troops. The dictates of a duty which, under the Constitution, I owe to a great sovereign State, and to a proud and hospitable people, among whom I have passed some of the pleasantest days of my life, prompt me to proclaim that we have come among you with no feelings of personal animosity; no desire to harm your citizens, destroy your property, or interfere with any of your lawful rights, or your social and local institutions, beyond what the causes herein briefly alluded to may render unavoidable."[77]

This proclamation sounds as if the general were a firm believer in State sovereignty; and that he was possessed with a feeling that he had landed in some strange land, among a people of different civilization and peculiar institutions.

On the 13th of November, 1861, Major-Gen. John A. Dix, upon taking possession of the counties of Accomac and Northampton, Va., issued the following proclamation:

"The military forces of the United States are about to enter your counties as a part of the Union. They will go among you as friends, and with the earnest hope that they may not, by your own acts, be compelled to become your enemies. They will invade no right of person or property. On the contrary, your laws, your institutions, your usages, will be scrupulously respected. There need be no fear that the quietude of any fireside will be disturbed, unless the disturbance is caused by yourselves.

"Special directions have been given not to interfere with the condition of any person held to domestic servitude; and, in order that there may be no ground for mistake or pretext for misrepresentation, commanders of regiments or corps have been instructed not to permit such persons to come within their lines."[78]

Gen. Halleck, while in command of the Union forces in Missouri, issued his "Order No. 3." as follows:

"It has been represented that important information, respecting the number and condition of our forces, is conveyed to the enemy by means of fugitive slaves who are admitted within our lines. In order to remedy this evil, it is directed that no such person be hereafter permitted to enter the lines of any camp, or of any forces on the march, and that any now within such lines be immediately excluded therefrom."

On the 23d of February, 1862, in "Order No. 13," he referred to the slave question as follows:

"It does not belong to the military to decide upon the relation of master and slave. Such questions must be settled by the civil courts. No fugitive slaves will, therefore, be admitted within our lines or camps, except when specially ordered by the general commanding."

On the 18th of February, 1862, Major-Gen. A. E. Burnside issued a proclamation in which he said to the people:

"The Government asks only that its authority may be recognized; and we repeat, in no manner or way does it desire to interfere with your laws, constitutionally established, your institutions of any kind whatever, your property of any sort, or your usages in any respect."

The following letter from Gen. Buell shows how deeply attached he was to the "constitutional guaranties" accorded to the rebels of the South:

"HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO, } "NASHVILLE, March 6, 1862. }

"Dear Sir: I have the honor to receive your communication of the 1st instant, on the subject of fugitive slaves in the camps of the army.

"It has come to my knowledge that slaves sometimes make their way improperly into our lines; and in some instances they may be enticed there; but I think the number has been magnified by report. Several applications have been made to me by persons whose servants have been found in our camps; and in every instance that I know of the master has recovered his servant and taken him away.

"I need hardly remind you that there will always be found some lawless and mischievous person in every army; but I assure you that the mass of this army is law-abiding, and that it is neither its disposition nor its policy to violate law or the rights of individuals in any particular. With great respect, your obedient servant,

"D. C. BUELL, "Brig.-Gen. Commanding Department.

"Hon. J. R. UNDERWOOD, Chairman Military Committee, "Frankfort, Ky."

So "in every instance" the master had recovered his slave when found in Gen. Buell's camp!

On the 26th of March, 1862, Gen. Joseph Hooker, commanding the "Upper Potomac," issued the following order:

"To Brigade and Regimental Commanders of this Division:

"Messrs. Nally, Gray, Dunnington, Dent, Adams, Speake, Price, Posey, and Cobey, citizens of Maryland, have negroes supposed to be with some of the regiments of this division. The brigadier-general commanding directs that they be permitted to visit all the camps of his command, in search of their property; and if found, that they be allowed to take possession of the same, without any interference whatever. Should any obstacle be thrown in their way by any officer or soldier in the division, he will be at once reported by the regimental commander to these headquarters."