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EMANCIPATION.
BY
BY REV. A. L. STONE, D. D.
EMANCIPATION.
A
DISCOURSE
DELIVERED IN
PARK STREET CHURCH,
ON
FAST DAY MORNING, APRIL 3, 1862.
BY REV. A. L. STONE, D. D.
PUBLISHED BY REQUEST.
BOSTON:
HENRY HOYT,
No. 9 Cornhill.
1862.
Isaiah lviii. 6.
“
Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
”
It is wonderful how the Scriptures of God “bide their time.” We read single passages, in careless mood, with a hundred repetitions, without suffering any arrest of thought, or any awakening of sensibility—our eye does not dwell upon them, our mind hardly gathers up their meaning—when suddenly, in changed circumstances, they flash out upon us with a marvelous illumination, as though a Divinity had just entered into them and spoke to men, as out of the burning bush on Horeb. The words of solace for afflicted ones, are passed indifferently by, until some bereaving stroke leaves us desolate—and then we turn to the lines where God is written “the widow's Judge,” and “the Father of the fatherless,” as the hunted hart to
The Old Testament, in our current notions and sympathies, has been almost outlawed from human affairs. We have turned its leaves for its curious and quaint old histories, but felt as though we were living under a new dispensation. And now the days have come upon us, for which these strong-chorded elder Scriptures have been waiting. Their representations of God, as the Rewarder of the evil doer, the Avenger of the wronged, the Asserter of his own trampled prerogatives; their denunciation of confederate schemes of fraud and villainy; their imprecation of Just retribution upon the crest of arrogant crime, suit the day and the hour of the intense present.
How strangely fresh is that challenge of God, twenty-five centuries old, which I have repeated here in his name this morning! Was it not written for this time? If a messenger of heaven, sent swiftly to our land, with a word just spoken of the Most High, for this burdened hour, rehearsed that word in the hearing of this congregation, would it
What is THE QUESTION to-day, that hangs its dark problem cloud-like above us, and flings its shadow over the land? There is but ONE question. Till now, men would not look upon it as the next question to be met in our national progress. To multitudes it never seemed practical till now. It has been rising before us, like a mountain on the far horizon's verge, as the traveller presses near. At last it bars our way. We have come to the mountain wall. There is no going round. There is no retreat. There is no standing still. Through it, or over it we must advance.
The national problem that demands solution now, is not
how to adjust the working of State and Federal Sovereignties.
The delicate relation between these separate sovereignties, bears well the great strain which has come upon it, in the vigorous assertion of national unity and federal headship with which war has been marshalled and prosecuted. The allied supremacies have wrought, each its appropriate functions, without jar or friction. Before either could assert its prerogative, the other was eager to volunteer its tribute,
1*
There is no question to-day
whether armed rebellion shall be put down.
That purpose is fixed. Cost what it may of blood and treasure, of fields laid waste and cities burned, the highways of commerce torn up, and the busy hum of human industry silenced, the sorrow of desolate homes and great burdens laid on our necks for years to come,—the front of rebellion is to be rolled back into a gulf so deep that not one symbol of its defiant power shall ever appear above the wave. The parricidal hands that lift themselves against our mother's bosom, though they were the dearest our own had ever clasped—though the same ancestral fountain made their palms and ours warm, we hesitate not to dash aside, to lop away in such sacred defense. There was a time when it was a question, will the North, will the Loyal fight for the Union? The doubt griped the heart of the nation as with a mortal spasm. But that hour and that doubt have long since passed.
Nor is it a Question
whether the Union is worth fighting for.
It did seem to here and there a heart, that if our territorial nationality could only
It is not a Question,
whether it is the right of this nation to be one nation.
We may look quite
The Question
whether we shall be able to conquer,
is not one which we in these latitudes care to argue. We suppose it has been shown that Northern manhood is at least equal to Southern. Any just comparison of means and resources, of power to endure the strain and bear its burdens,—of numbers, discipline, might and generalship in armies and fleets, reveals the vast preponderance of the Union cause;—successive victories and conquering advances tell the same story; so do the words of cheer from all our homes, that follow these advances, more heartening and fortifying to our soldiers than thousands of enforced recruits, and especially the set and grim expression on every Northern face, that speaks the fixed determination to pause nowhere, whether for reverses or for victories, so long as one traitorous hand wields a weapon of rebellion against the Union of these States. We, too, are in forward search for that “last ditch,” in which the last rebel is to lie bleeding, and we shall not halt tillovertake
our enemy, but we shall pursue him till not one entrenchment or hiding-place is left him, on all the soil of our country. The patriot States and the patriot armies feel that this is within their power, as it is their one settled purpose.
The real question, which, as a nation, we are facing to-day is, WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH FOUR MILLIONS OF SLAVES?
I will not call them
African
slaves. They have no memories of Africa; they never had homes in Africa; they never saw Africa; they have no longing for Africa. They have African blood in their veins, diluted, mingled, whitened. They are
American
slaves. They were born here in our “
sunny South.
” They love the land and the soil of their nativity. They love its scenery and its climate, and are suited to its occupations. They do not desire to flee from the scenes amid which their lives have been spent. It is only slavery they flee from. If some benevolent agency were to remove them to the land of their remote ancestry they would generally feel it to be expatriation and exile. This land gave them birth, this land has held them; it has made itself their home. This land ougth to provide for them within its borders. It is in this land these “native Americans” desire to remain.
What shall we do with them? How shall we provide for them? This is not the question what shall we fight for? There's but one answer for that question. We are fighting to put down rebellion, to master treason, and restore the shattered union. But war's successes, every one of them, bring up the question anew, “how shall we provide for these nomads, wandering to and from without a master and without a home?” It is not a question embarrassed now by the counterplea of “State rights.” Rebel States have lost prerogative on the soil they could legislate for once. They have no rights that must bar the national will. Martial law, military necessity reign supreme. A brief while ago there was but little, it was thought, the national Government could do directly on this question. To stimulate our zeal, then, and fire our hearts, looked like spurring a high blooded courser against a dead blank of wall which he could not over-leap, nor break through: now the broad fields of the slave zone lie open to our action, and God in his providence is compelling us to act.
The whole question is before us. It is not, what are we to do with fifteen hundred contrabands at Fortress Monroe, or with twelve hundred at Port Royal, or with a few scores at every stride of the patriot armies. Have we lookedThere,
then, might have paused the feet of the Union forces. The northern column might have penetrated no farther as a discoverer and chain breaker amid the dark secrets of the land of bondage. The Rebel States coming forward to treat, would have come with their institutions and laws of internal life undisturbed. And slavery by the powerful plea of making peace on gracious terms with subdued and submitting States, might have come back unsmitten to be dandled in the arms of the Union. But what is that “masterly retreat” of the rebels
What shall the paternal Government say? Shall it leave these loosened captives, these unguided wanderers to go to and fro on all the face of the land, closing its ears to their call, looking off into vacancy when they kneel before it as though it saw nothing at its feet, seem neither to see or hear the rushing and roaring past of this great tide—the gathering and breaking of these sable billows—shake off the appeal—wave aside responsibility—virtually say to the shelterless and homeless thousands, “you must take care of yourselves, you must not look to me, I have nothing to do with you, go and hide in the marshes—go and plunder where you will, go to the ‘Great Dismal Swamp’ and make much of it, for all I care.”
2
Shall it gather upon its face an air of rebuke and remonstrate with these colored travellers, “where are you from?” “Are you not runaways?” “You must return to your owners and slip your necks into the collar again.” Shall it proceed carefully and softly in search of the fugitive masters, and plead, “If you will lay down that rifle and bowie knife I will lead you back to your estate which I have scrupulously guarded for you, and restore you your slaves, and you will find that you have lost nothing by rebellion but a summer's crop.”
I repeat, we are not
fighting
for the release of the slaves and the destruction of the institution. But the child that knows least about the great rebellion knows that it was slavery's desperate stroke for supremacy in this land, or failing that for a dismemberment that should give slavery a great empire all its own. Slavery constituted that great privileged class at the South, that order of nobility that cannot brook a superior. Slavery filled this lordly class with a contempt for free laborers which would make ruin itself more welcome than submission to such plebeian masters! Slavery made it necessary that those who guarded its life and perpetuity should have the control of the Government. Slavery debauched the conscience and perverted the moral views of those who lived
Shall this evil thing be the only thing of which we shall be tender and careful, now that the national will can go forth unfettered? Shall every thing else the land has rich and dear be sacrificed in this extremity, and slavery alone be saved? Shall we who love the country, give up the earnings of frugal and toiling years, give up our family hopes and comforts, give up our Sabbaths and Sabbath ordinances, give up our sons and brothers, and hold life itself ready to the call, that slavery, which has struck at the country's heart, may come out of the strife with every plume unshorn? Are we sacrificing so much that we may gather again the scattered flock of States with this wolf in the midst? Do we build again the temple of the national
A few years will pass, and among our cities and villages will be seen half built houses, half tilled fields, enterprises of improvement and enlargement arrested in mid-career, men moving about scarred and maimed—with crutches instead of implements of labor in their hands—monuments and relics of fierce battles and wasting campaigns, and our children will ask us, “what was gained by the great war?” Shall we have nothing to show for it all, no answer to give but this, “a new lease of life for slavery?”
It will not do for us to forget that this war, however set down to the score of rebel guilt, is God's judgment upon the whole nation. The cry of the oppressed had come up before him. The “hire of the laborer” had been long kept back in our fields. Measures of limitation and of abatement for the great pestilence might have been inaugurated years ago. Compensative emancipation could have been resolved upon at any point in our history; but we were frightened at the cost, (are we doing things cheaply now?) and
2*moral question,
that we could not ask,
what is just, what is right, what is philanthropic,
because we must first ask,
what does the political compact require?
But slavery now is in the field under a traitorous flag. The privileged order is converted into a standing army of rebels. They who claimed under State law and the compromises of the constitution, are found in arms against the nation's life, and whatever is needed in the judgment of the Executive and his advisers to ensureis lawful now. The great Constitution of National Deliverance and national safety is our charter now.
With what weapon can we conquer, and conquering seal the public tranquility, so far as this cause of dissension is involved, for all time to come, is the legitimate question now.
Now we can take moral views without restriction. Now, if never before, we can ask ‘what is just and righteous before God.’ We can show to the world, what we have all along been protesting, how our consciences have been oppressed and straitened. Nothing hinders our doing the moral right.
At one and the same time, by one and the same effective stroke, we can end the war, right the wronged, please God, ensure future peace and redeem our dishonored name before the tribunal of a listening world.
This one great act to which I believe our country is now solemnly summoned and led, is
the emancipation of 4,000,000 of Slaves.
There have been favorable and critical times in our country's history for driving the entering wedge into this vital compact system, which have found us unequal to the high duty. They havesome
scheme of emancipation, though slow, must be entered upon, that shall pronounce it in the hearing of all the people, “Thus far shalt thou come, but no farther. And here shall thy proud waves be stayed.” If we can not have immediate emancipation, if Slavery and the war cannot end together, we must have the certain vision of it before us. Nothing will satisfy us but to be assured that the great exodus is moving.
If I know the temper of the people and of the times, we are not going forward from this crisis upon uncertainties. We must not. For one I dare not. To patch up a peace with Slavery vital as ever, nursed from its well nigh mortal sickness into health once more, reinstated in all its power to work mischief and to poison the fountains of
For myself, I believe the sooner this decisive step is taken, and the sooner it is made operative, the better. Our armies are covering the South—Emancipation goes naturally with their progress, and ought to march in the van where the flag of freedom waves. The presence of the armies secures for emancipated slaves protection, government, good order and temporary occupation. With the armies can go educational commissions, agricultural commissions, colonizing commissions, agents and directors of every name for supervising the various interests of the new freemen and inaugurating for them an independentimmediately upon their enlargement,
as witnessed at the points where any systematic attempts have been made to guide and control the “contrabands”.that have sought our forces, must have surprised any of us who had felt that they must be slowly and patiently trained, under the yoke, for safe and prosperous freedom.
Emancipation is the slaves preparation to enjoy it and use is well.
The precious endowment of self-ownership carries in its own gift, a thoughtful and provident spirit, the responsibility and the power of self-control. Make a chattel a man, and you bestow upon him
A correspondent of
The World
writing from the army of the West has recently said:
“The fugitives are generally shrewd and industrious; and the farmers of Kansas gladly avail themselves of this supply of laborers. This is an assertion utterly at variance with the general impression. It is nevertheless literally true. In slavery, one can hardly imagine a more shiftless, indolent being than a Missouri negro. But the change from slavery to freedom effects an instantaneous and complete revolution in his character. With the consciousness of liberty comes the necessity for exertion: and effort is born of necessity. The slave who worked carelessly felt that he had no interestIn every case we have found the slave fit for freedom.
”
We forget that emancipation is not a new experiment. For about a quarter of a century that experiment has been going forward in the British West Indies. Its results are historic and indisputable. The predicted swift lapse of the freed-men into idleness and degradation has not been witnessed. In the Island of Barbadoes where the average price of land is five hundred dollars an acre there are from the emancipated slaves over 3500 proprietors of small landed estates. “The colored mechanics and artisans in this island are declared to be equal in general intelligence to the artisans and mechanics of any part of the world equally remote from the great centres of civilization.” (
Sewell
“
in Atlantic Monthly of March,
1862.) In the Island of Jamica there are not less than 60,000 households of this race—proprietors of the houses and homesteads which they occupy, living in comfort and some of them in affluence and luxury. There are more than Ten Millions of Dollars in the
A Christian missionary writing from Jamaica bears this testimony, as a truth of his own observation.
“I do not know where a more quiet and influential people can be found, than the emancipated slaves of this island. I am ashamed (as an American) to say it, but we enjoy far greater security of both person and property than is any where enjoyed in the States. There is not half the necessity for bars and bolts; locks and keys. The people are law-abiding and loyal, easily controlled and governed. With the exception that the people are ignorant and unenlightened, (the result of the bondage to which they have been doomed,) there is no better state of society anywhere.”
In the Island of St. Vincent, in a population of 30,000 there are no paupers, with an average church attendance of 8000, and the criminal records showing a remarkable obedience to law.
In Guiana, though the laboring class is estimated at only 70,000 souls, so lately released from slavery they enjoy already properties in land and houses, for which they have paid nearly half a million of dollars.—
Atlantic Monthly, March
1862.
And so the record runs with variations, through the whole group.
3
In all, unless Trinidad with its peculiar conditions of sparse population, cheap lands, and injudicious and selfish policy of the planters should be considered an exception, the people are more happy and contented; in all, they are more civilized * * there are more provisions grown for home consumption, than ever were raised in the most flourishing days of slavery; trade has largely increased, imports and exports multiplied, and a great number of minor articles produced and cultivated, which, twenty years ago, did not exist in the Islands—the fruit of the industry of the free system.—
Atlantic Monthly, March,
1862.
If such results have attended the experiment in the West India Islands, what might not be rationally hoped for here, under the stimulating and conserving missionary labors of our ever active Christianity—the calls to hope, energy and ambition, with which all the air is vocal—the rich prizes held out to industry and success?
If the demand for labor, and the reward of labor on our own soil, were less promising for freed slaves than they would seem to us to be, there is to-day such a demand from these same West India Islands, which the emigration of tens of thousands from these shores could not supply.
And it is an impressive and a significant fact, in the experience from which we have quoted, that
It is safe to do right. There is no policy like the policy of Justice. We may venture boldly where the Law of God leads the way. All the Divine attributes are on the side of such an experiment. To men we may appear to go rashly forward, but the path of rectitude will never betray our feet. We may descend thus to seeming weakness, but it will be only to take hold of everlasting strength.
Let us then, this day, lift up a call for
Emancipation.
Let us repeat the call till the echoes gather back upon us thick and loud— till the Government that has already broken silence with an utterance worth a hundred victories, and only waits the fitting hour to speak the word as an edict of sovereignty, shall hear the swelling chorus and feel that the hour has come. Speak that word, and it is the death knell of rebel hope I Speak it, and along our line of advance, all confused and wavering policies in respect to the colored refugees, end in clear and humane certainties. Speak it, and our noble constitution needs not one syllable of change to welcome it; speak
Speak it, that every prayer for victory may baptize and consecrate it, that our national penitence, in view of such an issue, may kiss the rod that has chastened us, with such dread cost and suffering; and that pitying hearts, that have waited so long for the year of Jubilee to come to their colored brethren, may rise up, each in such rejoicing thankfulness and full satisfaction as Simeon felt—“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”