Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 54, April, 1862», страница 16

But one weapon we hold which is sure. Congress can, by edict, as a part of the military defence which it is the duty of Congress to provide, abolish slavery, and pay for such slaves as we ought to pay for. Then the slaves near our armies will come to us: those in the interior will know in a week what their rights are, and will, where opportunity offers, prepare to take them. Instantly, the armies that now confront you must run home to protect their estates, and must stay there, and your enemies will disappear.

There can be no safety until this step is taken. We fancy that the endless debate, emphasized by the crime and by the cannons of this war, has brought the Free States to some conviction that it can never go well with us whilst this mischief of Slavery remains in our politics, and that by concert or by might we must put an end to it. But we have too much experience of the futility of an easy reliance on the momentary good dispositions of the public. There does exist, perhaps, a popular will that the Union shall not be broken,—that our trade, and therefore our laws, must have the whole breadth of the continent, and from Canada to the Gulf. But, since this is the rooted belief and will of the people, so much the more are they in danger, when impatient of defeats, or impatient of taxes, to go with a rush for some peace, and what kind of peace shall at that moment be easiest attained: they will make concessions for it,—will give up the slaves; and the whole torment of the past half-century will come back to be endured anew.

Neither do I doubt, if such a composition should take place, that the Southerners will come back quietly and politely, leaving their haughty dictation. It will be an era of good feelings. There will be a lull after so loud a storm; and, no doubt, there will be discreet men from that section who will earnestly strive to inaugurate more moderate and fair administration of the Government, and the North will for a time have its full share and more, in place and counsel. But this will not last,—not for want of sincere good-will in sensible Southerners, but because Slavery will again speak through them its harsh necessity. It cannot live but by injustice, and it will be unjust and violent to the end of the world.

The power of Emancipation is this, that it alters the atomic social constitution of the Southern people. Now their interest is in keeping out white labor; then, when they must pay wages, their interest will be to let it in, to get the best labor, and, if they fear their blacks, to invite Irish, German, and American laborers. Thus, whilst Slavery makes and keeps disunion, Emancipation removes the whole objection to union. Emancipation at one stroke elevates the poor white of the South, and identifies his interest with that of the Northern laborer.

Now, in the name of all that is simple and generous, why should not this great right be done? Why should not America be capable of a second stroke for the well-being of the human race, as eighty or ninety years ago she was for the first? an affirmative step in the interests of human civility, urged on her, too, not by any romance of sentiment, but by her own extreme perils? It is very certain that the statesman who shall break through the cobwebs of doubt, fear, and petty cavil that lie in the way, will be greeted by the unanimous thanks of mankind. Men reconcile themselves very fast to a bold and good measure, when once it is taken, though they condemned it in advance. A week before the two captive commissioners were surrendered to England, every one thought it could not be done: it would divide the North. It was done, and in two days all agreed it was the right action. And this action which costs so little (the parties injured by it being such a handful that they can very easily be indemnified) rids the world, at one stroke, of this degrading nuisance, the cause of war and ruin to nations. This measure at once puts all parties right. This is borrowing, as I said, the omnipotence of a principle. What is so foolish as the terror lest the blacks should be made furious by freedom and wages? It is denying these that is the outrage, and makes the danger from the blacks. But justice satisfies everybody,—white man, red man, yellow man, and black man. All like wages, and the appetite grows by feeding.

But this measure, to be effectual, must come speedily. The weapon is slipping out of our hands. "Time," say the Indian Scriptures, "drinketh up the essence of every great and noble action which ought to be performed, and which is delayed in the execution."

I hope it is not a fatal objection to this policy that it is simple and beneficent thoroughly, which is the attribute of a moral action. An unprecedented material prosperity has not tended to make us Stoics or Christians. But the laws by which the universe is organized reappear at every point, and will rule it. The end of all political struggle is to establish morality as the basis of all legislation. It is not free institutions, 't is not a republic, 't is not a democracy, that is the end,—no, but only the means. Morality is the object of government. We want a state of things in which crime shall not pay. This is the consolation on which we rest in the darkness of the future and the afflictions of to-day, that the government of the world is moral, and does forever destroy what is not.

It is the maxim of natural philosophers, that the natural forces wear out in time all obstacles, and take place: and 't is the maxim of history, that victory always falls at last where it ought to fall; or, there is perpetual march and progress to ideas. But, in either case, no link of the chain can drop out. Nature works through her appointed elements; and ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men, or they are no better than dreams.

* * * * *

Since the above pages were written, President Lincoln has proposed to Congress that the Government shall coöperate with any State that shall enact a gradual abolishment of Slavery. In the recent series of national successes, this Message is the best. It marks the happiest day in the political year. The American Executive ranges itself for the first time on the side of freedom. If Congress has been backward, the President has advanced. This state-paper is the more interesting that it appears to be the President's individual act, done under a strong sense of duty. He speaks his own thought in his own style. All thanks and honor to the Head of the State! The Message has been received throughout the country with praise, and, we doubt not, with more pleasure than has been spoken. If Congress accords with the President, it is not yet too late to begin the emancipation; but we think it will always be too late to make it gradual. All experience agrees that it should be immediate. More and better than the President has spoken shall, perhaps, the effect of this Message be,—but, we are sure, not more or better than he hoped in his heart, when, thoughtful of all the complexities of his position, he penned these cautious words.

* * * * *

COMPENSATION

 
  In the strength of the endeavor,
  In the temper of the giver,
  In the loving of the lover,
    Lies the hidden recompense.
 
 
  In the sowing of the sower,
  In the fleeting of the flower,
  In the fading of each hour,
    Lurks eternal recompense.
 

A MESSAGE OF JEFF DAVIS IN SECRET SESSION

CONJECTURALLY REPORTED BY H. BIGLOW

To the Editors of the ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

Jaalam, 10th March, 1862.

GENTLEMEN,—My leisure has been so entirely occupied with the hitherto fruitless endeavour to decypher the Runick inscription whose fortunate discovery I mentioned in my last communication, that I have not found time to discuss, as I had intended, the great problem of what we are to do with slavery, a topick on which the publick mind in this place is at present more than ever agitated. What my wishes and hopes are I need not say, but for safe conclusions I do not conceive that we are yet in possession of facts enough on which to bottom them with certainty. Acknowledging the hand of Providence, as I do, in all events, I am sometimes inclined to think that they are wiser than we, and am willing to wait till we have made this continent once more a place where freemen can live in security and honour, before assuming any further responsibility. This is the view taken by my neighbour Habakkuk Sloansure, Esq., the president of our bank, whose opinion in the practical affairs of life has great weight with me, as I have generally found it to be justified by the event, and whose counsel, had I followed it, would have saved me from an unfortunate investment of a considerable part of the painful economies of half a century in the Northwest-Passage Tunnel. After a somewhat animated discussion with this gentleman, a few days since, I expanded, on the audi alteram partem principle, something which he happened to say by way of illustration, into the following fable.

FESTINA LENTE

 
  Once on a time there was a pool
  Fringed all about with flag-leaves cool
  And spotted with cow-lilies garish,
  Of frogs and pouts the ancient parish.
  Alders the creaking redwings sink on,
  Tussocks that house blithe Bob o' Lincoln.
  Hedged round the unassailed seclusion,
  Where muskrats piled their cells Carthusian;
  And many a moss-embroidered log,
  The watering-place of summer frog,
  Slept and decayed with patient skill,
  As watering-places sometimes will.
 
 
  Now in this Abbey of Theleme,
  Which realized the fairest dream
  That ever dozing bull-frog had,
  Sunned on a half-sunk lily-pad,
  There rose a party with a mission
  To mend the polliwogs' condition,
  Who notified the selectmen
  To call a meeting there and then.
  "Some kind of steps." they said, "are needed;
  They don't come on so fast as we did:
  Let's dock their tails; if that don't make 'em
  Frogs by brevet, the Old One take 'em!
  That boy, that came the other day
  To dig some flag-root down this way,
  His jack-knife left, and 't is a sign
  That Heaven approves of our design:
  'T were wicked not to urge the step on,
  When Providence has sent the weapon."
 
 
  Old croakers, deacons of the mire,
  That led the deep batrachiain choir,
  Uk! Uk! Caronk! with bass that might
  Have left Lablache's out of sight,
  Shook knobby heads, and said, "No go!
  You'd better let 'em try to grow:
  Old Doctor Time is slow, but still
  He does know how to make a pill."
 
 
  But vain was all their hoarsest bass,
  Their old experience out of place,
  And, spite of croaking and entreating,
  The vote was carried in marsh-meeting.
 
 
  "Lord knows," protest the polliwogs,
  "We're anxious to be grown-up frogs;
  But do not undertake the work
  Of Nature till she prove a shirk;
  'T is not by jumps that she advances,
  But wins her way by circumstances:
  Pray, wait awhile, until you know
  We're so contrived as not to grow;
  Let Nature take her own direction,
  And she'll absorb our imperfection;
  You mightn't like 'em to appear with,
  But we must have the things to steer with."
 
 
  "No," piped the party of reform,
  "All great results are ta'en by storm;
  Fate holds her best gifts till we show
  We've strength to make her let them go:
  No more reject the Age's chrism,
  Your cues are an anachronism;
  No more the Future's promise mock,
  But lay your tails upon the block,
  Thankful that we the means have voted
  To have you thus to frogs promoted."
 
 
  The thing was done, the tails were cropped,
  And home each philotadpole hopped,
  In faith rewarded to exult,
  And wait the beautiful result.
  Too soon it came; our pool, so long
  The theme of patriot bull-frogs' song,
  Next day was reeking, fit to smother,
  With heads and tails that missed each other,—
  Here snoutless tails, there tailless snouts:
  The only gainers were the pouts.
 

MORAL

 
  From lower to the higher next,
  Not to the top, is Nature's text;
  And embryo Good, to reach full stature,
  Absorbs the Evil in its nature.
 

I think that nothing will ever give permanent peace and security to this continent but the extirpation of Slavery therefrom, and that the occasion is nigh; but I would do nothing hastily or vindictively, nor presume to jog the elbow of Providence. No desperate measures for me till we are sure that all others are hopeless,—flectere si nequeo SUPEROS, Acheronta movebo. To make Emancipation a reform instead of a revolution is worth a little patience, that we may have the Border States first, and then the non-slaveholders of the Cotton States with us in principle,—a consummation that seems to me nearer than many imagine. Fiat justitia, ruat coelum, is not to be taken in a literal sense by statesmen, whose problem is to get justice done with as little jar as possible to existing order, which has at least so much of heaven in it that it is not chaos. I rejoice in the President's late Message, which at last proclaims the Government on the side of freedom, justice, and sound policy.

As I write, comes the news of our disaster at Hampton Roads. I do not understand the supineness which, after fair warning, leaves wood to an unequal conflict with iron. It is not enough merely to have the right on our side, if we stick to the old flint-lock of tradition. I have observed in my parochial experience (haud ignarus mali) that the Devil is prompt to adopt the latest inventions of destructive warfare, and may thus take even such a three-decker as Bishop Butler at an advantage. It is curious, that, as gunpowder made armour useless on shore, so armour is having its revenge by baffling its old enemy at sea,—and that, while gunpowder robbed land-warfare of nearly all its picturesqueness to give even greater stateliness and sublimity to a sea-fight, armour bids fair to degrade the latter into a squabble between two iron-shelled turtles.

Yours, with esteem and respect,

HOMER WILBUR, A.M.

P.S. I had wellnigh forgotten to say that the object of this letter is to inclose a communication from the gifted pen of Mr. Biglow.

 
  I sent you a messige, my friens, t' other day,
  To tell you I'd nothin' pertickler to say:
  'T wuz the day our new nation gut kin' o' stillborn,
  So't wuz my pleasant dooty t' acknowledge the corn,
  An' I see clearly then, ef I didn't before,
  Thet the augur in inauguration means bore.
  I needn't tell you thet my messige wuz written
  To diffuse correc' notions in France an' Gret Britten,
  An' agin to impress on the poppylar mind
  The comfort an' wisdom o' goin' it blind,—
  To say thet I didn't abate not a hooter
  O' my faith in a happy an' glorious futur',
  Ez rich in each soshle an' p'litickle blessin'
  Ez them thet we now hed the joy o' possessin',
  With a people united, an' longin' to die
  For wut we call their country, without askin' why,
  An' all the gret things we concluded to slope for
  Ez much within reach now ez ever—to hope for.
  We've all o' the ellermunts, this very hour,
  Thet make up a fus'-class, self-governin' power:
  We've a war, an' a debt, an' a flag; an' ef this
  Ain't to be inderpendunt, why, wut on airth is?
  An' nothin' now henders our takin' our station
  Ez the freest, enlightenedest, civerlized nation,
  Built up on our bran'-new politickle thesis
  Thet a Guv'ment's fust right is to tumble to pieces,—
  I say nothin' henders our takin' our place
  Ez the very fus'-best o' the whole human race,
  A-spittin' tobacker ez proud ez you please
  On Victory's bes' carpets, or loafin' at ease
  In the Tool'ries front-parlor, discussin' affairs
  With our heels on the backs o' Napoleon's new chairs,
  An' princes a-mixin' our cocktails an' slings,—
  Excep', wal, excep' jest a very few things,
  Sech ez navies an' armies an' wherewith to pay,
  An' gittin' our sogers to run t' other way,
  An' not be too over-pertickler in tryin'
  To hunt up the very las' ditches to die in.
 
 
  Ther' are critters so base thet they want it explained
  Jes' wut is the totle amount thet we've gained,
  Ez ef we could maysure stupenjious events
  By the low Yankee stan'ard o' dollars an' cents:
  They seem to forgit, thet, sence last year revolved,
  We've succeeded in gittin' seceshed an' dissolved,
  An' thet no one can't hope to git thru dissolootion
  'Thout sonic kin' o' strain on the best Constitootion.
  Who asks for a prospec' more flettrin' an' bright,
  When from here clean to Texas it's all one free fight?
  Hain't we rescued from Seward the gret leadin' featurs
  Thet makes it wuth while to be reasonin' creaturs?
  Hain't we saved Habus Coppers, improved it in fact,
  By suspending the Unionists 'stid o' the Act?
  Ain't the laws free to all? Where on airth else d' ye see
  Every freeman improvin' his own rope an' tree?
 
 
  It's ne'ssary to take a good confident tone
  With the public; but here, jest amongst us, I own
  Things looks blacker 'n thunder. Ther' 's no use denyin'
  We're clean out o' money, an' 'most out o' lyin',—
  Two things a young nation can't mennage without,
  Ef she wants to look wal at her fust comin' out;
  For the fust supplies physickle strength, while the second
  Gives a morril edvantage thet's hard to be reckoned:
  For this latter I'm willin' to du wut I can;
  For the former you'll hev to consult on a plan,—
  Though our fust want (an' this pint I want your best views on)
  Is plausible paper to print I.O.U.s on.
  Some gennlemen think it would cure all our cankers
  In the way o' finance, ef we jes' hanged the bankers;
  An' I own the proposle 'ud square with my views,
  Ef their lives wuzn't all thet we'd left 'em to lose.
  Some say thet more confidence might be inspired,
  Ef we voted our cities an' towns to be fired,—
  A plan thet 'ud suttenly tax our endurance,
  Coz 't would be our own bills we should git for th' insurance;
  But cinders, no metter how sacred we think 'em,
  Mightn't strike furrin minds ez good sources of income,
  Nor the people, perhaps, wouldn't like the eclaw
  O' bein' all turned into paytriots by law.
  Some want we should buy all the cotton an' burn it,
  On a pledge, when we've gut thru the war, to return it,—
  Then to take the proceeds an' hold them ez security
  For an issue o' bonds to be met at maturity
  With an issue o' notes to be paid in hard cash
  On the fus' Monday follerin' the 'tarnal Allsmash:
  This hez a safe air, an', once hold o' the gold,
  'Ud leave our vile plunderers out in the cold,
  An' might temp' John Bull, ef it warn't for the dip he
  Once gut from the banks o' my own Massissippi.
  Some think we could make, by arrangin' the figgers,
  A hendy home-currency out of our niggers;
  But it wun't du to lean much on ary sech staff,
  For they're gittin' tu current a'ready, by half.
  One gennleman says, ef we lef' our loan out
  Where Floyd could git hold on 't, he'd take it, no doubt;
  But 't ain't jes' the takin', though 't hez a good look,
  We mus' git sunthin' out on it arter it's took,
  An' we need now more 'n ever, with sorrer I own,
  Thet some one another should let us a loan,
  Sence a soger wun't fight, on'y jes' while he draws his
  Pay down on the nail, for the best of all causes,
  'Thout askin' to know wut the quarrel's about,—
  An' once come to thet, why, our game is played out.
  It's ez true ez though I shouldn't never hev said it
  Thet a hitch hez took place in our system o' credit;
  I swear it's all right in my speeches an' messiges,
  But ther' 's idees afloat, ez ther' is about sessiges:
  Folks wun't take a bond ez a basis to trade on,
  Without nosin' round to find out wut it's made on,
  An' the thought more an' more thru the public min' crosses
  Thet our Treshry hez gut 'mos' too many dead hosses.
  Wut's called credit, you see, is some like a balloon,
  Thet looks while it's up 'most ez harnsome 'z a moon,
  But once git a leak in 't an' wut looked so grand
  Caves righ' down in a jiffy ez flat ez your hand.
  Now the world is a dreffle mean place, for our sins,
  Where ther' ollus is critters about with long pins
  A-prickin' the globes we've blowcd up with sech care,
  An' provin' ther' 's nothin' inside but bad air:
  They're all Stuart Millses, poor-white trash, an' sneaks,
  Without no more chivverlry 'n Choctaws or Creeks,
  Who think a real gennleman's promise to pay
  Is meant to be took in trade's ornery way:
  Them fellers an' I couldn' never agree;
  They're the nateral foes o' the Southun Idee;
  I'd gladly take all of our other resks on me
  To be red o' this low-lived politikle 'con'my!
 
 
  Now a dastardly notion is gittin' about
  Thet our bladder is bust an' the gas oozin' out,
  An' onless we can mennage in some way to stop it,
  Why, the thing's a gone coon, an' we might ez wal drop it.
  Brag works wal at fust, but it ain't jes' the thing
  For a stiddy inves'ment the shiners to bring,
  An' votin' we're prosp'rous a hundred times over
  Wun't change bein' starved into livin' on clover.
  Manassas done sunthin' tow'rds drawin' the wool
  O'er the green, anti-slavery eyes o' John Bull:
  Oh, warn't it a godsend, jes' when sech tight fixes
  Wuz crowdin' us mourners, to throw double-sixes!
  I wuz tempted to think, an' it wuzn't no wonder,
  Ther' wuz reelly a Providence,—over or under,—
  When, all packed for Nashville, I fust ascertained
  From the papers up North wut a victory we'd gained,
  'T wuz the time for diffusin' correc' views abroad
  Of our union an' strength an' relyin' on God;
  An', fact, when I'd gut thru my fust big surprise,
  I much ez half b'lieved in my own tallest lies,
  An' conveyed the idee thet the whole Southun popperlace
  Wuz Spartans all on the keen jump for Thermopperlies,
  Thet set on the Lincolnites' bombs till they bust,
  An' fight for the priv'lege o' dyin' the fust;
  But Roanoke, Bufort, Millspring, an' the rest
  Of our recent starn-foremost successes out West,
  Hain't left us a foot for our swellin' to stand on,—
 
 
  We've showed too much o' wut Buregard calls abandon,
  For all our Thermopperlies (an' it's a marcy
  We hain't hed no more) hev ben clean vicy-varsy,
  An' wut Spartans wuz lef' when the battle wuz done
  Wuz them thet wuz too unambitious to run.
 
 
  Oh, ef we hed on'y jes' gut Reecognition,
  Things now would ha' ben in a different position!
  You'd ha' hed all you wanted: the paper blockade
  Smashed up into toothpicks,—unlimited trade
  In the one thing thet's needfle, till niggers, I swow,
  Hed ben thicker 'n provisional shinplasters now,—
  Quinine by the ton 'ginst the shakes when they seize ye,—
  Nice paper to coin into C.S.A. specie;
  The voice of the driver'd be heerd in our land,
  An' the univarse scringe, ef we lifted our hand:
  Wouldn't thet be some like a fulfillin' the prophecies,
  With all the fus' fem'lies in all the best offices?
  'T wuz a beautiful dream, an' all sorrer is idle,—
  But ef Lincoln would ha' hanged Mason an' Slidell!
  They ain't o' no good in European pellices,
  But think wut a help they'd ha' ben on their gallowses!
  They'd ha' felt they wuz truly fulfillin' their mission,
  An', oh, how dog-cheap we'd ha' gut Reecognition!
 
 
  But somehow another, wutever we've tried,
  Though the the'ry's fust-rate, the facs wun't coincide:
  Facs are contrary 'z mules, an' ez hard in the mouth,
  An' they allus hev showed a mean spite to the South.
  Sech bein' the case, we hed best look about
  For some kin' o' way to slip our necks out:
  Le''s vote our las' dollar, ef one can be found,
  (An', at any rate, votin' it hez a good sound,)—
  Le''s swear thet to arms all our people is flyin',
  (The critters can't read, an' wun't know how we're lyin',)—
  Thet Toombs is advancin' to sack Cincinnater,
  With a rovin' commission to pillage an' slarter,—
  Thet we've throwed to the winds all regard for wut's lawfle,
  An' gone in for sunthin' promiscu'sly awfle.
  Ye see, hitherto, it's our own knaves an' fools
  Thet we've used,—those for whetstones, an't' others ez tools,—
  An' now our las' chance is in puttin' to test
  The same kin' o' cattle up North an' out West.
  I–But, Gennlemen, here's a despatch jes' come in
  Which shows thet the tide's begun turnin' agin,—
  Gret Cornfedrit success! C'lumbus eevacooated!
  I mus' run down an' hev the thing properly stated,
  An' show wut a triumph it is, an' how lucky
  To fin'lly git red o' thet cussed Kentucky,—
  An' how, sence Fort Donelson, winnin' the day
  Consists in triumphantly gittin' away.