Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

That Government was not much ahead of the people in 1861, and through
most of the present year, respecting the position of slavery, is very
evident to all who know what it did, and what it refused to do, with
regard to that institution. With a hardiness that would have been
strongly offensive, if it had not been singularly ridiculous, Mr. Seward
told the astonished world of Europe that the fate of slavery did not
depend upon the event of our contest,--which was as much as to say that
we should not injure it, happen what might; and no one then supposed
that the Confederates would willingly strike a blow at it, either to
conciliate foreign nations or to obtain black soldiers. The words of the
Secretary of State did us harm in England, with the religious portion of
whose people it is something like an article of faith that slavery is
an addition to the list of deadly sins. They injured us, too, with the
members of the various schools of liberal politicians over all Europe;
and they furnished to our enemies abroad the argument that there really
was no difference between the North and the South on the slavery
question, and that therefore the sympathies of all generous minds
should be with the Southrons, who were the weaker party. Our cause was
irreparably damaged in Europe through the indiscretion of the Honorable
Secretary, who cannot be accused of any love for slavery, but who was
then, as he appears to be up to the present hour, ignorant of the nature
and the extent of the contest of which his country is the scene. Other
members of the Administration had sounder ideas, but their weight in it
was not equal to that of the Secretary of State.

It is but fair to the President to say, that his conduct was such that
it was obvious that he did not favor slavery because he had any respect
for it. He pulled so hard upon the chains that bound him, that his
desire to throw them off was clear to the world; but they were too
strong, and too well fastened, to be got rid of easily. He feared that
all the Unionists of the Border States would be lost, if he should adopt
the views of the Emancipationists; and the fear was natural, though in
point of fact his course had no good effect in those States, beyond that
of conciliating a portion of the Kentuckians. North Carolina, under the
old system the most moderate of the Slave States, was as far gone in
Secession as South Carolina, and furnished far more men to the Southern
armies than her neighbor. The Virginians and Missourians who went with
us would have pursued the same course, had the President's opinions
on slavery been as radical and pronounced as those of Mr. Garrison.
Maryland was kept from wheeling into the Secession line only by the
presence on her soil, and in her vicinity, of strong Federal armies. In
Tennessee, at a later period of the war, as in North Carolina, Federal
power extended as far as Federal guns could throw Federal shot, though
Tennessee had not been renowned for her extreme attachment to slavery.
But the heavy weight on the Presidential mind came from the Free States,
in which the Pro-Slavery party was so powerful, and the nature of the
war was so little understood, that it was impossible for Government to
strike an effective blow at the source of the enemy's strength. Before
that could be done, it would be necessary that the Northern mind should
be trained to justice in the school of adversity. The position of the
President in 1861 was not unlike to that which the Prince of Orange held
in 1687. Had William made his attempt on England in 1687, the end would
have been failure as complete as that of Monmouth in 1685. It was
necessary that the English mind should be educated up to the point of
throwing aside some cherished doctrines, the maintenance of which stood
in the way of England's safety, prosperity, and greatness. William
allowed the fruit he sought to ripen, and in 1688 he was able to do with
ease that which no human power could have done in 1687. So was it with
Mr. Lincoln, and here. Had the Proclamation lately put forth been issued
in 1861, either it would have fallen dead, or it would have met with
such opposition in the North as would have rendered it impossible to
prosecute the war with any hope of success. There would probably have
been _pronunciamientos_ from some of our armies, and the Union might
have been shivered to pieces without the enemy's lifting their hands
further against it. We do not say that such would have been the course
of events, had the Proclamation then appeared, but it might have taken
that turn; and the President had to allow for possibilities that perhaps
it never occurred to private individuals to think of,--men who had no
sense of responsibility either to the country, to the national cause, or
to the tribunal of history. He would not move as he was advised to move
by good men who had not taken into consideration all the circumstances
of the case, and who could not feel as he was forced to feel because he
was President of the United States. Probably, if he had been a private
citizen, he would have been the foremost man of the Emancipation party;
but the place he holds is so high that he must look over the whole land,
and necessarily he sees much that others can never behold. He saw that
one of two things would happen in a few months after the beginning of
active warfare, toward the close of last winter: either the Rebels would
be beaten in the field, in which event there would be reasonable hope
of the Union's reconstruction, and the people could then take charge
of slavery, and settle its future condition as to them should seem
best,--or our armies would be beaten, and the people would be made to
understand that slavery could no longer be allowed to exist for the
support of an enemy who had announced from the beginning of their
war-movement that their choice was fixed upon conquest, or, failing
that, annihilation.

It was written that we should fail in the field. We sought to take
Richmond, with an army of force that appeared to be adequate to the
work. We were beaten; and after some months of severe warfare, the
country had the supreme felicity of celebrating the eighty-sixth
anniversary of its Independence by thanking Heaven that its principal
army had escaped capture by falling back to the fever-laden banks of a
river on which lay a naval force so strong as to prevent the further
advance of the victorious Southrons. The exertions that were made to
remove that army from a place that threatened its total destruction
through pestilence led to another series of actions, in which we were
again beaten, and the Secession armies found themselves hard by the very
station which they had so long held after their victory at Bull Run.
Had their numbers been half as large as we estimated them by way of
accounting for our defeats, they could have marched into Washington,
and the American Union would have been at an end, while the Southern
Confederacy would have taken the place which the United States had
possessed among the nations. Fortunately, the enemy were not strong
enough to hazard everything upon one daring stroke. General Lee was
as prudent, or as timid, after his victories over General Pope, as,
according to some authorities, Hannibal was after winning "the field
of blood" at Cannae. What he did, however, was sufficient to show
how serious was the danger that threatened us. If he could not take
Washington, which stood for Rome, he might take Baltimore, which should
be Capua. He entered Maryland, and his movements struck dismay into
Pennsylvania. Harrisburg was marked for seizure, and the archives of the
second State of the Union were sent to New York; and Philadelphia was
considered so unsafe as to cause men to remove articles of value thence
to her ancient rival's protection. That the enemy meant to invade the
North cannot well be doubted; but the resistance they encountered,
leading to their defeat at South Mountain and Antietam, forced them to
retreat. Had they won at Antietam, not only would Washington have been
cut off from land-communication with the North, but Pennsylvania would
have been invaded, and the Southrons would have fattened on the produce
of her rich fields. While these things were taking place in Virginia and
Maryland, Fortune had proved equally unfavorable to us in the South and
the Southwest. We had been defeated near Charleston, and most of our
troops at Port Royal had been transferred to Virginia. Charleston and
Mobile saw ships constantly entering their harbors, bringing supplies to
the Secession forces. Wilmington and Savannah were less liable to attack
than some Northern towns. An attack on Vicksburg had ended in Federal
failure. By the aid of gunboats we had prevented the enemy from taking
Baton Rouge, and destroyed their iron-clad Arkansas; but our soldiers
had to abandon that town, and leave it to be watched by ships, while
they hastened to the defence of New Orleans, a city which they could not
have held half an hour, had the protecting naval force been withdrawn.
The Southwest was mostly abandoned by our troops, and the tide of war
had rolled back to the banks of the Ohio. Nashville was looked upon as
lost, Louisville was in great danger of being taken, and for some days
there was a perfect panic throughout the country respecting the fate of
Cincinnati, the prevailing opinion being that the enemy had as good
a chance of getting possession of that town as we had of maintaining
possession of it. There was hardly a quarter to which a Unionist could
look without encountering something that filled his mind with vexation,
disappointment, shame, and gloom. All that the most hopeful of loyal men
could say was, that the enemy had been made to evacuate Maryland, and
that they had not proceeded beyond threats against any Northern State:
and that was a fine theme for congratulations, after seventeen months
of warfare, in which the Rebels were to have been beaten and the Union
restored!

Such was the state of affairs, when, six days after the Battle of
Antietam, President Lincoln issued his Proclamation against slavery.
Some persons were pleased to be much astonished when it appeared. They
said they had been deceived. They were right. They were self-deceived.
They had deceived themselves. The President had received their pledge
of support, which they, with an egotism which is not uncommon with
politicians, had construed into a pledge from him to support slavery at
all hazards, under all circumstances, and against all comers. He had
given no pledge either to them or to their opponents. Plainly as man
could speak, he had said that his object was the nation's safety,
either with slavery or without it, the fate of slavery being with him a
secondary matter. If any construction was to be put upon his words to
Mr. Greeley beyond their plainest possible meaning, it was that he
preferred the destruction of slavery to its conservation, for it was
known that he had been an anti-slavery man for years, and he had been
made President by a party which was charged by its foes with being
so fanatically opposed to slavery that it was ready to destroy the
Constitution in order to gain a place from which it could hope to effect
its extermination. But Mr. Lincoln meant neither more nor less than what
he said, his sole object being the overthrow of the Rebels. He has done
no more than any President would have been compelled to do who should
have sought to do his duty. Mr. Douglas could have done no less, had he
been chosen President, and had rebellion followed his election, as we
believe would have been the fact. The Proclamation is not an "Abolition"
state-paper. Not one line of it is of such matter as any Abolitionist
would have penned, though all Abolitionists may be glad that it has
appeared, because its promulgation is a step in the right direction,--a
step sure to be taken, unless the first Federal efforts should also have
been the last, because leading to the defeat of the Rebels, and the
return of peace. The President nowhere says that he seeks the abolition
of slavery. The blow he has dealt is directed against slavery in the
dominions of the Confederacy. That Confederacy claims to be a nation,
and some of our acts amount to a virtual recognition of the claim which
it makes. Now, if we were at war with an old nation of which slavery was
one of the institutions, it could not be said that we had not the
right to offer freedom to its slaves. Objection might be made to
the proclamation of an offer of the kind, but it would be based on
expediency. England would not accept a plan that was formed half a
century ago for the partition of the United States, and which had for
its leading idea the proclamation of freedom to American slaves; but
her refusal was owing to the circumstance that she was herself a great
slaveholding power, and she had no thought of establishing a precedent
that might soon have been used with fatal effect against herself. She
did not close her ears to the proposition because she had any doubt
as to her right to avail herself of an offer of freedom to slaves,
or because she supposed that to make such an offer would be to act
immorally, but because it was inexpedient for her to proceed to
extremities with us, due regard being had to her own interests. Had
slavery been abolished in her dominions twenty years earlier, she would
have acted against American slavery in 1812-15, and probably with entire
success. President Lincoln does not purpose going so far as England
could have gone with perfect propriety. She could have proclaimed
freedom to American slaves without limitation. He has regard to the
character of the war that exists, and so his Proclamation is not threat,
but a warning. In substance, he tells the Rebels, that, if they shall
persist in their rebellion after a certain date, their slaves shall be
made free, if it shall be in his power to liberate them. He gives
them exactly one hundred days in which to make their election between
submission and slavery and resistance and ruin; and these hundred days
may become as noted in history as those Hundred Days which formed the
second reign of Napoleon I., as well through the consequences of the
action that shall mark their course as through the gravity of that
action itself.

Objections have been made to the time of issuing the Proclamation. Why,
it has been asked, spring it so suddenly upon the country? Why publish
it just as the tide of war was turning in our favor? Why not wait, and
see what the effect would be on the Southern mind of the victories won
in Maryland?--We have no knowledge of the immediate reasons that moved
the President to select the twenty-second of September for the date of
his Proclamation; but we can see three reasons why that day was a good
one for the deed which thereon was done. The President may have argued,
(1,) that the American mind had been brought up to the point of
emancipation under certain well-defined conditions, and that, if he
should not avail himself of the state of opinion, the opportunity
afforded him might pass away, never to return with equal force; (2,)
that foreign nations might base acknowledgment of the Confederacy on the
defeats experienced by our armies in the last days of August, on the
danger of Washington, and on the advance of Rebel armies to the Ohio,
and he was determined that they should, if admitting the Confederacy
to national rank, place themselves in the position of supporters of
slavery; and, (3,) that the successes won by our army in Maryland,
considering the disgraceful business at Harper's Ferry, were not of that
pronounced character which entitles us to assert any supremacy over the
enemy as soldiers. Something like this would seem to be the process
through which President Lincoln arrived at the sound conclusion that the
hour had come to strike a heavy blow at the enemy, and that he was the
man for the hour.

Thus much for the Proclamation itself, the appearance of which indicates
the beginning of a new period in the Secession contest, and shows that
the American people are capable of conquering their prejudices, provided
their schooling shall be sufficiently severe and costly. But the
Proclamation itself, and without any change in our military policy,
cannot be expected to accomplish anything for the Federal cause. Its
doctrines must be enforced, if there is to be any practical effect from
the change of position taken by the country and the President. If the
same want of capacity that has hitherto characterized the war on our
part is to be exhibited hereafter, the Proclamation might as well have
been levelled against the evils of intemperance as against the evils
of slavery. Never, since war began, has there been such imbecility
displayed in waging it as we have contrived to display in our attacks on
the enemies of the Union. It used to be supposed that Austria was the
slowest and the most stupid of military countries; but America has
got ahead of Austria in the art of doing nothing--or worse than
nothing--with myriads of men and millions of money. We stand before the
world a people to whom military success seems seldom possible, and,
when possible, rarely useful. If we win a victory, we spend weeks in
contemplating its beauties, and never think of improving it. Had one of
our generals won the Battle of Jena, he would have rested for six weeks,
and permitted the Prussian army to reorganize, instead of following it
with that swiftness which alone can prevent brave men from speedily
rallying after a lost battle. Had one of them won Waterloo, he would
not have dreamed of entering France, but would have liberally given to
Napoleon all the time that should have been necessary for his recovery
from so terrible a defeat. They have nothing in them of the qualities
even of old Bluecher, who never was counted a first-class commander.
Forbearance has never ceased to be a virtue with them. Whether their
slackness is of native growth, or is the consequence of instructions
from Government, it is plain that adherence to it can never lead to
the conquest of the Southrons. There is now a particular reason why
it should give way to something of a very different character. The
Proclamation has changed the conditions of the contest, and to be
defeated now, driven out of the field for good and all, would be a far
more mortifying termination of the war than it could have been, if we
had already failed utterly. We have committed the unpardonable sin
against slavery, and to fail now would be to place ourselves in the same
position that is held by the commander of a ship of war who nails his
colors to the mast, and yet has to get them down in order to prevent his
conqueror from annihilating him. The action of the Confederate Congress
with reference to the Proclamation, so far as we have accounts of it,
shows that the President's action has intensified the character of the
conflict, and that the enemy are preparing to fight under the banner of
the pirate, declaring that they will show no quarter, because they
look upon the Proclamation as declaring that there shall be no quarter
extended to them. The President of the United States, they say, has
avowed it to be his purpose to inaugurate a servile war in their
country, and they call fiercely for retaliation. They mean, by using
the words "servile war," to convey the impression that there is to be
a general slaying and ravishing throughout the South, on and after the
first of next January, under the special patronage of the American
President, who has ordered his soldiers and his sailors, his ships and
his corps, to be employed in protecting black ravishers of white women
and black murderers of white children. All they say is mere cant, and
is intended for the European market, which they now supply as liberally
with lies as once they did with cotton. Our foolish foes in England
accept every falsehood that is sent them from Richmond, and hence the
torrent of misrepresentation that flows from that city to London. Let
it continue to flow. It can do us no harm, if our action shall be in
correspondence with our cause and our means. If we succeed, falsehood
cannot injure us; if we fail, we shall have something of more importance
than libels to think of. We should bear in mind that our armies are not
to succeed because the slaves shall rise, but that the slaves are to be
freed as a consequence of the success of our armies. That our armies may
succeed, there must be more energy displayed both by their commanders
and by Government. The Proclamation must be enforced, or it will come to
nought. There is nothing self-enforcing about it. Its mere publication
will no more put an end to the Rebellion than President Lincoln's first
proclamation, calling upon the Rebels to cease their evil-doings and
disperse, could put an end to it. Its future value, like that of all
papers that deal with the leading interests of mankind, must depend
altogether upon the future action of the men from whom it emanates, and
that of their constituents. It stands to-day where the Declaration of
Independence stood for the five years that followed its promulgation,
waiting for its place in human annals to be prepared for it by its
supporters. Of what worth would the Declaration of Independence be now,
had it not been for Trenton and Princeton, Saratoga and Yorktown? Of
no worth at all; and its authors would be looked upon as a band of
sentimental political babblers, who could enunciate truths which neither
they nor their countrymen had the capacity to uphold and practically
to demonstrate. But the Declaration of Independence is one of the
most immortal of papers because it proved a grand success; and it was
successful because the men who put it forth were fully competent to the
grand work with the performance of which they were charged. It is for
Mr. Lincoln himself to say whether the Proclamation of September 22,
1861, shall take rank with the Declaration of July 4, 1776, or with
those evidences of flagrant failure that have become so common since
1789,--with the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, and Mexican
Constitutions. That it is the people's duty to support the President is
said by almost all men; but is it not equally the duty of the President
to support the people? And have they not supported him,--supported him
with men, with money, with the surrender of the enjoyment of some of
their dearest rights, with their full confidence, with good wishes and
better deeds, and with all the rest of the numerous moral and material
means of waging war vigorously and triumphantly? And if they have
done and are doing all this, who will be to blame, if the enemy shall
accomplish their purpose?

The President and his immediate associates are placed so high by their
talents and their positions that they must be supposed open to the love
of fame, and to desire honorable mention in their country's annals,
especially as they have to do with matters of such transcendent
importance, greater even than those that absorbed the attention of
Washington and Hamilton, of Jefferson and Madison, of Jackson and
Livingston. It is for themselves to decide what shall be said of them
hereafter, and through all future time,--whether they shall be blessed
or banned, cursed or canonized. The judgment that shall be passed upon
them and their work will be given according to the result, and from it
there can be no appeal. The Portuguese have a well-known proverb, that
"the way to hell is paved with good intentions;" but it is not
the laborers on that broad and crowded highway who gain honorable
immortality. The decisions of posterity are not made with reference to
men's motives and intentions, but upon their deeds. With posterity,
success is the proper proof of merit, when nothing necessary to its
winning is denied to the players in the world's great games. Richmond is
worshipped, and Richard detested, not because the former was good and
great, and the latter wicked and weak, for Richard was the better and
the abler man, but for the reason that the decision was in Richmond's
favor on Bosworth Field. The only difference between Catiline and
Caesar, according to an eminent statesman and scholar, is this: Catiline
was crushed by his foes, and Caesar's foes were crushed by him. This
may seem harsh, but we fear that it is only too true,--that it is in
accordance with that irreversible law of the world which makes success
the test of worth in the management of human affairs. If Mr. Lincoln
and his confidential officers would have the highest American places in
after-days as well as to-day, let them win those places by winning the
nation's battle. They can have them on no other terms. That is one of
the conditions of the part they accepted when they took upon themselves
their present posts at the beginning of a period of civil convulsion. If
they fail, they will be doomed to profound contempt. In the words of the
foremost man of all this modern world, uttered at the very crisis of his
own fortunes,--Napoleon I., in the summer of 1813,--"To be judged by the
event is the inexorable law of history."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21