Kitabı oku: «The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862», sayfa 16
AURORA
'For Waterloo,' says Victor Hugo, 'was not a battle: it was a change of front of the universe.'
Great events are developed by nearness. "To-day," says Emerson, "is a king in disguise." Probably half the soldiers of Constantine's army regarded their leader's adoption of the Cross as his sign of hope and triumph as of small account. Their pay and rations, their weapons, their officers, were the same as before; the enemy before them, their duty to beat him, were unchanged. What availed a symbol more or less on the imperial banner? Even admit that it indicated the emperor's personal rejection of the old and adoption of the newer faith, what of that? Would not everybody else abide by the religion of his own choice, whatever that might be? Away, then, with all theological babble, which plain people can never half understand! Rome and the emperor for ever! Yet in that despised symbol, announcing that the Empire had become the protector instead of the persecutor of the Christian faith, was the germ of a greater transformation than was wrought by the Deluge.
The Proclamation of Freedom by President Lincoln is doubtless open to criticism. Why did he not declare all slaves emancipated? Why not make such legal manumission operative at once? Why intimate that certain States should (or might) be excepted from its operation? Why not declare the slaves liberated because of the essential, inevitable wrong of holding them in bondage? Why not appeal to God for His blessing on the cause henceforward inseparably identified with that of Right and Liberty? Such questions may be multiplied indefinitely; but to what end? What matters that the Proclamation might or should be different, since we have practical concern only with the Proclamation as it is?
For more than a lifetime, slavery has been accepted and regarded as a national institution. The American in Europe was "perplexed in the extreme" by the questionings and criticisms of humane, intelligent observers, who could not comprehend how a country should contain Four Millions of slaves by the official census, yet not be a slaveholding country. With our capital a slaveholding city; with our fortresses in good part constructed by the labor of slaves; with our flag the chief shelter of the African Slave Trade, and our statute book disgraced by the most arbitrary and inhuman Fugitive Slave Law ever devised, it was a nice operation to prove this no slaveholding country, but only one wherein certain citizens, by virtue of local laws, over which we had no control, were permitted to hold Blacks in slavery. And, when it is notorious that the active partisans of slavery filled every Federal office, even in the nominally free States, and excluded rigorously from office every opponent of the baleful system, it is certain that the shrug of the polite Frenchman who listened to our demonstration that ours, after all, was not a slaveholding country, was an indication of complaisance rather than of conviction. To prove this nothing of the sort, while Brazil was placed at the head of modern slaveholding countries, was to overtax the resources of human sophistry.
The Proclamation is an immense fact. If it were no more than a recognition from the highest quarter of the deadly antagonism between slavery and the Union, it would have inexhaustible significance. The American republic, bleeding at every pore while fighting desperately for life, arraigns slavery as her chief enemy and peril. The truth was long since clear to every candid mind; but truth gains force by recognition. Thousands realize a fact thus proclaimed, who have hitherto ignored and resisted it.
For thirty years, the charge of disloyalty has borne heavily on the American champion of Universal Liberty. True, as to a very few, who could not obtain the assent of their consciences to compacts which bound them to aid the oppressor against his victim, they were made a weapon of offense against all. Abolitionists were execrated and hooted by the mob as champions at once of Negro Equality and of National dissolution.
The times are bravely altered. The partnership between Slavery and Unionism is absolutely dissolved. Like most divorces, this involves a deadly quarrel. Not even the soaring platitudes of George Francis Train can longer evoke cheers for the Union blent with curses on Abolition. In a strictly, sternly real sense, "Liberty and Union" are henceforth "one and inseparable!"
For thirty years, our great seaboard merchants, our shippers, our factors, have given their patronage to pro-slavery journals and their votes to pro-slavery politicians, with intent to preserve the Union and lay the red spectre of civil war. Their recompense is found in the repudiation of the immense debts for merchandise due them from the South, and a gigantic war waged by the Slave Power for the overthrow of the Union. The profits of a lifetime of obsequious pandering to the master crime of our era are swept away at a blow, and the arm that strikes it is that of the monster they have made such sacrifices of conscience and manhood to conciliate. Was ever retribution more signal?
To-day, the American Union, through the official action of its President and Congress, stands distinctly on the side of Liberty for All. Its success in the fearful struggle forced upon it involves the overthrow and extinction of American slavery. The sentiment of nationality, the instinct which impels every people to deprecate and resist the dismemberment and degradation of their country, the impulse of loyalty, are all arrayed against the traitorous "institution" which, after having so long bent the Union to its ends, now seeks its destruction. It once seemed to the majority patriotic to champion slavery; it is now a sacred duty to resist the bloody Moloch unto death.
The very hesitation of the President to take the decisive step gives weight to his ultimate decision. The compromisers have never tired of eulogizing his firmness, his candor, his patience, his clearness of vision, his independence, and his unsectional patriotism. His associations were largely with the Border State school of conservatives. His favorite counsellor was the most eminent and sturdy Republican opponent of an emancipation policy. His decision in favor of that policy, like the Proclamation which announces it, is entirely his own. The "pressure" to which he deferred was that of an urgent public necessity and the emphatic conviction of the great mass of our loyal citizens.
And, though few days have elapsed since the Proclamation was uttered, the evils predicted by its opponents are already banished to the limbo of chimera. Those officers who threatened to resign in case an emancipation policy were adopted make no haste to justify their menaces. As yet, not one of them has done so; in time, a few may screw their courage to the sticking-point. There are enough who can be spared; and they are generally those who deprecate and denounce an "Abolition war." May they yet prove men of their word!
Outside of the army, the general feeling is one of wonder that this act of direst portent to the rebellion has been so long delayed. Even the rebels share in this amazement. When secession was first openly mooted at the South, every Unionist argued that secession was practical abolition. It has puzzled them to comprehend the weary months through which their prophecies were left unfulfilled. They will be perplexed no longer.
The Opposition in the loyal States is manifestly weakened by the Proclamation. Their dream is of wearing out the Unionists by disappointments and delays, restoring a Democratic ascendency in the government, and then buying back the rebels to an outward loyalty by new concessions and guaranties to slavery. Hence torpid campaigns, languid strategy, advances without purpose, and surrenders without necessity. But the policy of emancipation brings the quarrel to a speedy decision. The rebel States must promptly triumph or brave a social dissolution. Every Union advance into a rebel region henceforth clears a broad district of slaves. The few are hurried off by their masters; the many escape to a land of freedom. How signally this process will be accellerated after the first of January, few will yet believe. Let the war simply go on, with fluctuating fortunes, for a year or two longer, and the new slave empire will be nearly denuded of slaves. The process is at once inevitable and irresistible. Whether the able-bodied slaves thus escaping to the loyal States shall or shall not be used in whatever way they may be found most serviceable against the cruel despotism which so long robbed them of their earnings while crushing out their manhood, is purely a question of time. There are thousands who would last year have revolted against the employment of Blacks in any way in our struggle, who are now ripe for it: every week, as it transpires, adds to their number. Loyal men hesitated at first, believing that the rebellion would easily and speedily be put down. These have now discovered their mistake and amended it. An aristocracy of three hundred thousand generally capable, energetic persons, accustomed to rule, and recognizing a deadly foe in every opponent of their wishes, surrounded by twice so many shrewd and skilful parasites, and wielding the entire resources of ten millions of people, are not easily conquered. The poor Whites fill the ranks of their armies; the Blacks grow the food and perform the labor essential to the subsistence of those armies and of their families. Slavery unassailed is the strongest natural base of a gigantic rebellion: it easily adapts all the resources of a people to the stern exigencies of war. Slavery resisted and undermined is a very different affair, as the annals of this struggle are destined to prove.
Let no doubts, then, vex the mind of a single hearty Unionist as to the issue of our great contest. The Proclamation has not added a thousand to the number of our enemies, while it has supplied four millions with the most cogent reasons for being henceforth our friends. These millions are humble, ignorant, timid, distrustful, and now grinding in the prison-house of the traitors. They are not, let us frankly admit, the equals in prowess, capacity, or opportunity, of four millions of Whites; but they are, nevertheless, human beings; they have human affections and aspirations, and they feel the stirrings of the universal and indestructible human longing for liberty. "Breaking in a nigger" is a rough and pretty effectual process: it crushes down the manhood of its subject, but does not crush it out. Should the republic say to-morrow to its Black step-children, "We want one hundred thousand of you to aid in this struggle against the slaveholding rebels, and will treat you in every respect as human beings should be treated," it would not have to wait long for the full number. Hitherto a low prejudice, studiously fostered by Democratic politicians for the vilest party ends, has repelled and expelled this abused race from the militia service of the Union. The exclusion is absurd where its impulse is not treasonable, and must share the fate of all absurdities. "Would you," asked a Unionist of a Democrat, "refuse the aid of a negro, if you were assailed and your life threatened by an assassin?" "Yes," replied the Democrat; "I would rather be killed by a White man than saved by a nigger." Who does not know that this man at heart sympathizes with the rebellion, and deprecates the War for the Union as unnecessary and ruinous?
That war will go on. Our new and vast levies, our new iron-clads, our new policy, will add immensely to the strength already put forth in vindication of the rightful authority of the Federal government and the integrity of the Union. Yet a little while, and the immense superiority in every respect of the moral and material forces of the loyal States will make themselves felt and respected. Yet a little while, and the authority of the Nation will be acknowledged by its now revolted citizens, and the rebellion will subside as suddenly as it broke upon us. Yet a little while, and ours will again be a land of peace, returning joyfully to the pursuits of productive industry and radiant with the sunlight of Universal Liberty.
HOW THEY DID IT
The magnates of Richmond all swore out of hand,
That the war must go in the enemies' land;
And it did: when they crossed to the Maryland shore
They turned all into foes who were friendly before!
FROM MOUNT LAFAYETTE, WHITE MOUNTAINS
Silence and light and scenes stupendous greet
My wondering sense and sight! Here midway meet
Those rocky splendors where th' embracing clouds
Above, below, wrap them in misty shrouds.
Our mules with cautious feet the sharp ascent
Accomplish; and, the steep o'ertopped, all spent
Our strength, we look wild nature in the face,
Some features of the human soul to trace.
A phantom drap'ry betwixt sky and earth,
Of blending tints, spans in impulsive birth
Th' entranced view! A heav'nly arch it forms—
It seems suspended by some seraph's arms!
Ethereal Rainbow! Daughter of the Shower!
Thy beauty lends enchantment to the hour.
The seraph arm grows weary—now is furled
The gleam in dreamy vapor from the world!
And now in purple shadows stand the hills:
The night winds beat their stony sides, and trills
From hidden rivulets, and stealthy creep
Of some lone reptile down the grooved steep,
Divert the eye and ear—th' restricted breath
Of each rapt soul is heard—and still as death
Stand the dumb mules. Homeward we turn our eyes,
And leave the region of the naked skies.
INDEPENDENCE
[1776.]
Freeman! if you pant for glory,
If you sigh to live in story,
If you burn with patriot zeal;
Seize this bright, auspicious hour,
Chase those venal tools of power,
Who subvert the public weal.
THE HOMESTEAD BILL
After a severe struggle of more than a quarter of a century, from March, 1836, to May, 1862, the Homestead bill has become a law. We quote its main provisions, as follows:
'That any person who is the head of a family or arrived at the age of twenty-one years, and is a citizen of the United States, or shall have filed his declaration of intention to become such, as required by the naturalization laws of the United States, and has never borne arms against the United States government, or given aid and comfort to its enemies, from and after the 1st January, 1863, shall be entitled to enter one quarter section or a less quantity of unappropriated public land, upon which said person may have filed a preëmption claim, or which may at the time the application is made be subject to preëmption at $1.25 or less per acre, or eighty acres or less of such unappropriated land at $2.50 per acre, to be located in a body in conformity to the legal subdivisions of the public lands, and after the same shall have been surveyed, &c.
'Sec. 2. That the person applying for the benefit of this act shall, upon application to the register of the land office in which he or she is about to make such entry, make affidavit before the said register or receiver that he or she is the head of a family, or is twenty-one years of age or more, or shall have performed service in the army or navy of the United States, and that he has never borne arms against the government of the United Stales, or given aid and comfort to its enemies, and that such application is made for his or her exclusive use and benefit, and that said entry is made for the purpose of actual settlement and cultivation, and not either directly or indirectly for the use or benefit of any other person or persons whomsoever: and upon filing the said affidavit with the register or receiver, and on the payment of ten dollars, he or she shall thereupon be permitted to enter the quantity of land specified,' &c.
Settlement and cultivation for five years required, when the patent issues—the land secured in case of the settler's death, to the widow, children, or heirs—the settler must be a citizen of the United States before the patent is given—the land is subject to no debt incurred before the emanation of the patent. As the title remains for five years in the government, and until the patent issues, the land, in the meantime, could scarcely be subject to taxation. The land is substantially a gift, the $10 (£2. 0. 16.) being only sufficient to pay for the survey and incidental expenses.
Whilst natives are included in this act, Europeans already here, or who may come hereafter, participate alike in its benefits. The emigrant can make the entry and settle upon the land merely on filing the declaration of intention to become a citizen, and it is only after the lapse of five years therefrom, that he must be naturalized.
This law should be widely circulated, at home and abroad, and especially in Ireland and Germany. It should be published in all leading presses, and distributed in printed circulars. By law, two sections (1,280 acres) are reserved in each township of six miles square, from the sale of which to establish free schools, where all children can be instructed, so that our material progress may be accompanied by universal education and intellectual development.
This great domain reserved, as farms and homesteads for the industrious masses of Europe and America, is thus described by the Hon. Joseph S. Wilson, in his great historical and statistical report, as commissioner of the General Land Office of Nov. 29, 1860:
'Of the 3,250,000 of square miles which constitute the territorial extent of the Union, the public lands embrace an area of 2,265,625 square miles, or 1,450,000,000 of acres, being more than two thirds of our geographical extent, and nearly three times as large as the United States at the ratification of the definitive treaty of peace in 1783 with Great Britain. This empire domain extends from the northern line of Texas, the gulf of Mexico, reaching to the Atlantic ocean, northwesterly to the Canada line bordering upon the great lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior, extending westward to the Pacific ocean, with Puget's sound on the north, the Mediterranean sea of our extreme northwestern possessions.'
'It includes fifteen sovereignties known as the 'Land States,' and an extent of territory sufficient for thirty-two additional, each equal to the great central land State of Ohio.
'It embraces soils capable of abundant yield of the rich productions of the tropics, of sugar, cotton, rice, tobacco, corn, and the grape, the vintage, now a staple, particularly so of California; of the great cereals, wheat and corn, in the western, northwestern, and Pacific States, and in that vast interior region from the valley of the Mississippi river to the Rocky mountains; and thence to the chain formed by the Sierra Nevada and Cascades, the eastern wall of the Pacific slope, every variety of soil is found revealing its wealth.
'Instead of dreary inarable wastes, as supposed in earlier times, the millions of buffalo, elk, deer, mountain sheep, the primitive inhabitants of the soil, fed by the hand of nature, attest its capacity for the abundant support of a dense population through the skilful toil of the agriculturist, dealing with the earth under the guidance of the science of the present age.
'Not only is the yield of food for man in this region abundant, but it holds in its bosom the precious metals of gold, silver, with cinnabar, the useful metals of iron, lead, copper, interspersed with immense belts or strata of that propulsive element coal, the source of riches and power, and now the indispensable agent not only for domestic purposes of life, but in the machine shop, the steam car, and steam vessel, quickening the advance of civilization and the permanent settlement of the country, and being the agent of active and constant intercommunication with every part of the republic.'
Kansas having been admitted since the date of this report, our public domain, thus described officially, now includes the sixteen land States, and all the Territories.
Of this vast region (originally 1,450,000,000 acres), there was surveyed up to September, 1860, 441,067,915 acres, and 394,088,712 acres disposed of by sales, grants, &c., leaving, as the commissioner states,'the total area of unsold and unappropriated, of offered and unoffered lands of the public domain on the 30th September, 1860, 1,055,911,288 acres.' This is 'land surface,' exclusive of lakes, bays, rivers, &c., 1,055,911,288 acres, or 1,649,861 square miles, and exceeds one half the area of the whole Union. The area of New York being 47,000 square miles, is less than a thirty-fifth part of our public domain. England (proper) has 50,922 square miles, France 203,736, Prussia 107,921, and Germany 80,620 square miles: The area then of our public domain is more than eight times as large as France, more than fifteen times as large as Prussia, more than twenty times as large as Germany, more than thirty-two times as large as England, and larger (excluding Russia) than all Europe, containing more than 200 millions of people.
As England (proper) contained in 1861, 18,949,916 inhabitants, if our public domain were as densely settled, its population would exceed 606 millions, and it would be 260,497,561, if numbering as many to the square mile as Massachusetts. But if, contrary to the opinion before quoted of the commissioner, one fourth of this domain was unfit for agriculture, grazing, mining, commerce, or manufactures, the remainder would still contain 195,373,171 inhabitants (if as densely settled as Massachusetts), and with every variety of soil, climate, mineral and agricultural products. Its average fertility far exceeds that of Europe, as does also the extent of its mines, especially gold, silver, coal, and iron.
These lands are surveyed at the expense of the government into town-ships of six miles square, subdivided into sections, and these into quarter sections (160 acres), set apart for homesteads. Our system of public surveys into squares, by lines running due north and south, east and west, is so simple as to have precluded all disputes as to boundary or title. This domain reaches from the 24th to the 49th parallel, from the lakes to the gulf, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Its isothermes (the lines of equal mean annual temperature) strike on the north the coast of Norway midway, touch St. Petersburg in Russia, and pass through Manchooria to the coast of Asia, about three degrees south of the mouth of the Amour river. On the south, these isothermes run through northern Africa, and nearly the centre of Egypt near Thebes, cross northern Arabia, Persia, northern Hindostan, and southern China near Canton. No empire in the world of contiguous territory possesses such a variety of climate, soil, forests, and prairies, fruits, and fisheries, animal, vegetable, mineral, and agricultural products. It has all those of Europe, and many in addition, with a climate, as shown by the international census, far more salubrious, with a more genial sun, and millions in other countries are already fed and clothed by our surplus products.
Of this vast domain, less than two per cent. is cursed by slavery, which is prohibited by law in ten of these land States, and in all the Territories. Indeed, when the present rebellion shall be crushed, and this vast territorial region (accelerated by the Homestead bill) shall be settled and admitted as States, three fourths of the States will then be free States, and thus authorized by the Constitution to amend that instrument. Thus we can by just and lawful measures make emancipation universal. From the progress of events, we shall probably celebrate the 4th of July, 1876, our first centennial, now less than fourteen years distant, as a nation, of freemen, with slavery abolished or rapidly disappearing. State will then have succeeded State in unbroken column, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, united by imperial railroads traversing the continent. Adjacent regions, geographically connected with us, will then consummate the political union designed by Providence, The Homestead bill, having accomplished its great work within our present limits, will then commence a new career, and carry our banner in peaceful triumph, over the continent. Our Review, then, is called Continental, as prefiguring the destiny of our country.
Now, however, within our present vast domain, not only the poor, but our own industrious classes and those of Europe may not only find a home, but a farm for each settler, substantially as a free gift by the government. Here all who would rather be owners than tenants, and wish to improve and cultivate their own soil, are invited. Here, too, all who would become equals among equals, citizens (not subjects) of a great and free country, enjoying the right of suffrage, and eligible to every office except the presidency, can come and occupy with us this great inheritance. Here liberty, equality, and fraternity reign supreme, not in theory or in name only, but in truth and reality. This is the brotherhood of man, secured and protected by our organic law. Here the Constitution and the people are the only sovereigns, and the government is administered by their elected agents, and for the benefit of the people. Those toiling elsewhere for wages that will scarcely support existence, for the education of whose children no provision is made by law, who are excluded from the right of suffrage, may come here and be voters and citizens, find a farm given as a homestead, free schools provided for their children at the public expense, and hold any office but the presidency, to which their children, born here, are eligible. What does England for any one of its toiling millions who rejects this munificent offer? He is worked and taxed there to his utmost endurance, or pressed into military service. He has the right to work, to fight, and pay taxes, but not to vote. Unschooled ignorance is his lot and that of his descendants. If a farmer, he works and improves the land of others, in constant terror of rent day, the landlord, and eviction. Indeed, the annual rent of a single acre in England exceeds the price—$10 (£2. 0. 16)—payable for the ownership in fee simple of the entire homestead of 160 acres, granted him here by the government. For centuries that are past, and for all time to come, there, severe toil, poverty, ignorance, the workhouse, or low wages, impressment, and disfranchisement, would seem to be his lot. Here, freedom, competence, the right of suffrage, the homestead farm, and free schools for his children.
In selecting these homestead farms, the emigrant can have any temperature, from St. Petersburg to Canton. He can have a cold, a temperate, or a warm climate, and farming or gardening, grazing or vintage, varied by fishing or hunting. He can raise wheat, rye, Indian corn, oats, rice, indigo, cotton, tobacco, cane or maple sugar and molasses, sorghum, wool, peas and beans, Irish or sweet potatoes, barley, buckwheat, wine, butter, cheese, hay, clover, and all the grasses, hemp, hops, flax and flaxseed, silk, beeswax and honey, and poultry, in uncounted abundance. If he prefers a stock farm, he can raise horses, asses, and mules, camels, milch cows, working oxen and other cattle, goats, sheep, and swine. In many locations, these will require neither housing nor feeding throughout the year. He can have orchards, and all the fruits and vegetables of Europe, and many in addition. He can have an Irish or German, Scotch, English, or Welsh, French, Swiss, Norwegian, or American neighborhood. He can select the shores of oceans, lakes, or rivers; live on tide water or higher lands, valleys or mountains. He can be near a church of his own denomination; the freedom of conscience is complete; he pays no tithes, nor church tax, except voluntarily. His sons and daughters, on reaching twenty-one years of age, or sooner, if the head of a family, or having served in the army, are each entitled to a homestead of 160 acres; and if he dies, the title is secured to his widow, children, or heirs. Our flag is his, and covers him everywhere with its protection. He is our brother, and he and his children will enjoy with us the same heritage of competence and freedom. He comes where labor is king, and toil is respected and rewarded. If before, or instead of receiving his homestead, he chooses to pursue his profession, or business, to work at his trade, or for daily wages, he will find them double the European rate, and subsistence cheaper. From whatever part of Europe he may come, he will meet his countrymen here, and from them and us receive a cordial welcome. A government which gives him a farm, the right to vote, and free schools for his children, must desire his welfare. And well has this been merited by our immigrants, for, side by side with our native sons, have they ever upheld our banner with devoted courage.
Of all the epidemic insanities which occasionally afflict nations, none exceeded in folly the recent frenzy, which, by diminishing immigration, would have retarded our progress in wealth, power, and population, Nearly all our railroads and canals have been constructed mainly by immigrants, thus rapidly improving our whole country, and furnishing profitable business, employment, and augmented wages in all the pursuits of industry. Simultaneously with the homestead, Congress has provided the means for constructing the imperial railway which will soon unite the Atlantic with the Pacific. Passing, as it will, for several thousand miles, through our public domain, it will add much to the value of the homestead lands. It should be remembered, especially by the Irish and Germans, who are asked in the South to fight the rebel battles, that, but for the opposition of Mr. Calhoun and the secession leaders, this bill would long since have been a law.
It was first proposed by Robert J. Walker, in October, 1830, and again, in a speech made by him against nullification and secession, at Natchez, Mississippi, on the first Monday of January, 1833, and then published in the Mississippi Journal. From that speech we make the following extract: 'The public lands are now unincumbered by the public debt: no more sales are necessary, unless (to settlers) at a price required to pay the expenses of survey and sale. This is the period for the new States to produce this beneficial change in the policy of the Government, (instead of) the present onerous system, which arrests the cultivation of our soil, and growth of our country.' Here the Homestead bill was recommended by a Union man, in a speech against secession; and as the opponent of that heresy, he was elected to the United States Senate by Mississippi, on the 8th of January, 1836.
