The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 2, February, 1862. Various
who hate slavery, and pity the black, and these men will not be silent or inactive. Did the election of Abraham Lincoln involve nothing of this? We know that it did. Will this 'extreme left,' this radical party, keep quiet and do nothing? Why they are the most fiercely active men on our continent. Let him who would prevent this battle degenerating into a furious strife between radical abolition and its opponents weigh this matter well. There are fearful elements at work, which may be neutralized, if we who fight for the Union will be wise betimes, and remove the bone of contention.
Above all, let every man bear in mind that, even as the war stands, something must be done to regulate and settle the Negro question. After what has been already effected in the border States and South Carolina, it would be impossible to leave the Negro and his owner in such an undefined relation as now exists. And yet this very fact—one of the strongest which can be alleged to prove the necessity of legislation and order—is cited to prove that the matter will settle itself. Take, for instance, the following from the correspondence of a daily cotemporary:—
THE ARMY SPOILING THE SLAVES.—Whatever may be the policy of the government in regard to the status of the slaves, one thing is certain, that wherever our army goes, it will most effectually spoil all the slaves and render them worthless to their masters. This will be the necessary result, and we think it perfectly useless to disturb the administration and distract the minds of the people with the everlasting discussion of this topic. Soon our army will be in Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana, and the soldiers will carry with their successful arms an element of liberty that will infuse itself into every slave in those States. The only hope for the South, if, indeed, it has not passed away, is to throw down their arms and submit unconditionally to the government.
That is to say, we are to free the slave, only we must not say so! Rather than take a bold, manly stand, avow what we are actually doing, and adopt a measure which would at once conciliate and harmonize the whole North, we are to suffer a tremendous disorder to spring up and make mischief without end! Can we never get over this silly dread of worn-out political abuse and grapple fairly with the truth? Are we really so much afraid of being falsely called abolitionists and negro-lovers that we can not act and think like men! Here we are frightened at names, dilly-dallying and quarreling over idle words, when a tremendous crisis calls for acts. But this can not last forever. Something must be done right speedily for the myriad of blacks whom we shall soon have on our hands. Barracooning contrabands by thousands may do for the present, but how as to the morrow? Let it be repeated again and again, that they who argue against touching the Negro question at present are putting off from day to day an evil which becomes terrible as it is delayed. It can not be let alone. Already those in power at Washington are terrified at its extent, but fear to act, owing to 'abolition,' while all the time the foul old political ties and intrigues are gathering closely about. Let us cut the knot betimes, act bravely and manfully, and settle the difficulty ere it settles us. Something must be done, and that right early.
But what is to become of the freed blacks? Again and again does this preposterous bugbear rise up to prove, by the terror which it excites, the vast ignorance of the subject which prevails in this country, and the small amount of deliberate reasoning generally bestowed on matters of the most vital importance. Reader, if you would answer it, go to facts. You have probably all your life accepted as true the statement that the black when free promptly becomes an idle, worthless vagabond. You have believed that a majority of the free blacks in the North are good for nothing. Now I tell you calmly and deliberately, and challenging inquiry, that this is not true. Admitting that about one-fifth of them are so, you have but a weak argument. As for the forlorn, unacclimated exiles in Canada, where there is no demand for the labor which they are peculiarly fit to render, they are not a case in point. The black servants, cooks, barbers, white-washers, carpet-beaters and grooms of Baltimore and Philadelphia, which form the four-fifths majority of free blacks in those cities, are not idle vagabonds. Above all, reader, I beg of you to read the dispassionate and calmly written Cotton Kingdom of Frederick Law Olmstead, recently published by Mason Brothers, of New York. You will there find the fact set forth by closest observation that the negroes in part are indeed lazy vagabonds, but that the majority, when allowed to work for themselves, and when free, do work, and that right steadily. In the Virginia tobacco factories slaves can earn on an average as much money for themselves, in the 'over hours' allowed them, as the manufacturer pays their owner for their services during the day. There are cases in which slaves, hired for one hundred dollars a year, have made for themselves three hundred.1
But the vagabond surplus,—the minority? Is it possible that with Union or disunion before us we can hesitate as to taking on this incumbrance? In a hard-working land vagabonds must die off,—'tis a hard case, but the emergency for the white men of this and a coming age is much harder. After all, there are only some fifteen hundred or two thousand lazy free negroes in New York city,—the climate, we are told, is too severe for them,—and this among well-nigh a million of inhabitants. We think it would be possible to find one single alderman in that city who has wasted as much capital, and injured the commonwealth quite as much, in one year, as all the negroes there put together, during the same time. It would be absurd to imagine that the emancipation of every negro in America to-morrow would add one million idlers and vagabonds to our population. But what if it did? Would their destiny or injury to us be of such tremendous importance that we need for it peril our welfare as a nation? The standing armies of Germany absorb about one-fifth of the entire capital of the land. Better one million of negative negroes than a million of positive soldiers!
There was never yet in history a time when such a glorious future offered itself to a nation as that which is now within our grasp. In its greatness and splendor it is beyond all description. The great problem of Republicanism—the question of human progress—has reached its last trial. If we keep this mighty nation one and inseparable, we shall have answered it forever; if not, why then those who revile man as vile and irreclaimably degraded may raise their pæans of triumph; the black spectres of antique tyrants may clap their hands gleefully in the land of accursed shadows, and hell hold high carnival, for, verily, it would seem as if they had triumphed, and that hope were a lie.
But who are they who dare accuse us of wishing to weaken the administration and impede its course? Bring the question to light! If there be one thing more than another which those who demand emancipation desire, it is that the central government should be strengthened—aye, strengthened as it has never been before; so that, in future, there can be no return of secession. We have never been a republic—only an aggregate of smaller republics. If we had been one, the first movement toward disunion would have hurled the traitors urging it to the dust. Aye, strengthen the government; and let its first manifestation of strength and will be the settling of the negro question. Give the administration as full power as you please—the more the better; it is only conferring strength on the people. There is no danger that the men of the North will ever lose a shadow of individual rights. They are too powerful.
And now let the freemen of America speak, and the work will be done. A great day is at hand; hasten it. The hour which sees this Union re-united will witness the most glorious triumph of humanity,—the greatest step towards realizing the social aim of Christianity, and of Him who died for all,—the recognition of the rights of every one. Onward!
BROWN'S LECTURE TOUR
I.—HOW HE CAME TO DO IT
My last speculation had proved a failure. I was left with a stock of fifty impracticable washing-machines on my hands, and a cash capital of forty-four cents. With the furniture of my room, these constituted my total assets. I had an unsettled account of forty dollars with Messrs. Roller & Ems, printers, for washing-machine circulars, cards, etc.; and—
Rap, rap, rap!
[Enter boy.]
'Mr. Peck says as how you'll please call around to his office and settle up this afternoon, sure.'
[Exit boy.]
Mr. GREEN D. BROWN,
TO JOHN PECK, Dr.
To
'If the slaves be emancipated, what with their own natural ability and such aids and appliances as the government and 20,000,000 of people in the North can furnish, I do not believe but that they will get employment, and pay, and, of course, subsistence.'—HON. GEORGE S. BOUTWELL.