Chapter XVI: The CIVIL War, 1860-1865

THE OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR.--MRS. STOWE'S SON
ENLISTS.--THANKSGIVING DAY IN WASHINGTON.--THE
PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION.--REJOICINGS IN
BOSTON.--FRED STOWE AT GETTYSBURG.--LEAVING ANDOVER
AND SETTLING IN HARTFORD.--A REPLY TO THE WOMEN OF
ENGLAND.--LETTERS FROM JOHN BRIGHT, ARCHBISHOP WHATELY,
AND NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

IMMEDIATELY after Mrs. Stowe's return from Europe, it became only too evident that the nation was rapidly and inevitably drifting into all the horrors of civil war. To use her own words: "It was God's will that this nation--the North as well as the South--should deeply and terribly suffer for the sin of consenting to and encouraging the great oppressions of the South; that the ill-gotten wealth, which had arisen from striking hands with oppression and robbery, should be paid back in the taxes of war; that the blood of the poor slave, that had cried so many years from the ground in vain, should be answered by the blood of the sons from the best hearthstones through all the free States; that the slave mothers, whose tears nobody regarded, should have with them a great company of weepers, North and South,--Rachels weeping for their children and refusing to be comforted; that the free States, who refused to listen when they were told of lingering starvation, cold, privation, and barbarous cruelty, as perpetrated on the slave, should have lingering starvation, cold, hunger, and cruelty doing its work among their own sons, at the hands of these slave-masters, with whose sins our nation had connived."

Mrs. Stowe spoke from personal experience, having seen her own son go forth in the ranks of those who first responded to the President's call for volunteers. He was one of the first to place his name on the muster-roll of Company A of the First Massachusetts Volunteers. While his regiment was still at the camp in Cambridge, Mrs. Stowe was called to Brooklyn on important business, from which place she writes to her husband under the date June 11, 1861:--

"Yesterday noon Henry (Ward Beecher) came in, saying that the Commonwealth, with the First (Massachusetts) Regiment on board, had just sailed by. Immediately I was of course eager to get to Jersey City to see Fred. Sister Eunice said she would go with me, and in a few minutes she, Hatty, Sam Scoville, and I were in a carriage, driving towards the Fulton Ferry. Upon reaching Jersey City we found that the boys were dining in the depot, an immense building with many tracks and platforms. It has a great cast-iron gallery just under the roof, apparently placed there with prophetic instinct of these times. There was a crowd of people pressing against the grated doors, which were locked, but through which we could see the soldiers. It was with great difficulty that we were at last permitted to go inside, and that object seemed to be greatly aided by a bit of printed satin that some man gave Mr. Scoville.

"When we were in, a vast area of gray caps and blue overcoats was presented. The boys were eating, drinking, smoking, talking, singing, and laughing. Company A was reported to be here, there, and everywhere. At last S. spied Fred in the distance, and went leaping across the tracks towards him. Immediately afterwards a blue-overcoated figure bristling with knapsack and haversack, and looking like an assortment of packages, came rushing towards us.

"Fred was overjoyed, you may be sure, and my first impulse was to wipe his face with my handkerchief before I kissed him. He was in high spirits, in spite of the weight of blue overcoat, knapsack, etc., etc., that he would formerly have declared intolerable for half an hour. I gave him my handkerchief and Eunice gave him hers, with a sheer motherly instinct that is so strong within her, and then we filled his haversack with oranges.

"We stayed with Fred about two hours, during which time the gallery was filled with people, cheering and waving their handkerchiefs. Every now and then the band played inspiriting airs, in which the soldiers joined with hearty voices. While some of the companies sang, others were drilled, and all seemed to be having a general jollification. The meal that had been provided was plentiful, and consisted of coffee, lemonade, sandwiches, etc.

"On our way out we were introduced to the Rev. Mr. Cudworth, chaplain of the regiment. He is a fine-looking man, with black eyes and hair, set off by a white havelock. He wore a sword, and Fred, touching it, asked, 'Is this for use or ornament, sir?'

"'Let me see you in danger,' answered the chaplain, 'and you'll find out.'

"I said to him I supposed he had had many an one confided to his kind offices, but I could not forbear adding one more to the number. He answered, 'You may rest assured, Mrs. Stowe, I will do all in my power.'

"We parted from Fred at the door. He said he felt lonesome enough Saturday evening on the Common in Boston, where everybody was taking leave of somebody, and he seemed to be the only one without a friend, but that this interview made up for it all.

"I also saw young Henry. Like Fred he is mysteriously changed, and wears an expression of gravity and care. So our boys come to manhood in a day. Now I am watching anxiously for the evening paper to tell me that the regiment has reached Washington in safety."

In November, 1862, Mrs. Stowe was invited to visit Washington, to be present at a great thanksgiving dinner provided for the thousands of fugitive slaves who had flocked to the city. She accepted the invitation the more gladly because her son's regiment was encamped near the city, and she should once more see him. He was now Lieutenant Stowe, having honestly won his promotion by bravery on more than one hard-fought field. She writes of this visit:--

Imagine a quiet little parlor with a bright coal fire,
and the gaslight burning above a centre-table, about
which Hatty, Fred, and I are seated. Fred is as happy
as happy can be to be with mother and sister once more.
All day yesterday we spent in getting him. First we had
to procure a permit to go to camp, then we went to the
fort where the colonel is, and then to another where
the brigadier-general is stationed. I was so afraid
they would not let him come with us, and was never
happier than when at last he sprang into the carriage
free to go with us for forty-eight hours. "Oh!" he
exclaimed in a sort of rapture, "this pays for a year
and a half of fighting and hard work!"

We tried hard to get the five o'clock train out to
Laurel, where J.'s regiment is stationed, as we wanted
to spend Sunday all together; but could not catch it,
and so had to content ourselves with what we could
have. I have managed to secure a room for Fred next
ours, and feel as though I had my boy at home once
more. He is looking very well, has grown in thickness,
and is as loving and affectionate as a boy can be.

I have just been writing a pathetic appeal to the
brigadier-general to let him stay with us a week. I
have also written to General Buckingham in regard to
changing him from the infantry, in which there seems to
be no prospect of anything but garrison duty, to the
cavalry, which is full of constant activity.

General B. called on us last evening. He seemed to
think the prospect before us was, at best, of a long
war. He was the officer deputed to carry the order
to General McClellan relieving him of command of the
army. He carried it to him in his tent about twelve
o'clock at night. Burnside was there. McClellan said it
was very unexpected, but immediately turned over the
command. I said I thought he ought to have expected
it after having so disregarded the President's order.
General B. smiled and said he supposed McClellan had
done that so often before that he had no idea any
notice would be taken of it this time.

Now, as I am very tired, I must close, and remain as
always, lovingly yours,

HATTY.

During the darkest and most bitter period of the Civil War, Mrs. Stowe penned the following letter to the Duchess of Argyll:--

ANDOVER, _July 31, 1863._

MY DEAR FRIEND,--Your lovely, generous letter was a
real comfort to me, and reminded me that a year--and,
alas! a whole year--had passed since I wrote to your
dear mother, of whom I think so often as one of God's
noblest creatures, and one whom it comforts me to think
is still in our world.

_So many_, good and noble, have passed away whose
friendship was such a pride, such a comfort to me!
Your noble father, Lady Byron, Mrs. Browning,--their
spirits are as perfect as ever passed to the world of
light. I grieve about your dear mother's eyes. I have
thought about you all, many a sad, long, quiet hour,
as I have lain on my bed and looked at the pictures
on my wall; one, in particular, of the moment before
the Crucifixion, which is the first thing I look at
when I wake in the morning. I think how suffering is,
and must be, the portion of noble spirits, and no lot
so brilliant that must not first or last dip into the
shadow of that eclipse. Prince Albert, too, the ideal
knight, the _Prince Arthur_ of our times, the good,
wise, steady head and heart we--that is, our world, we
Anglo-Saxons--need so much. And the Queen! yes, I have
thought of and prayed for her, too. But could a woman
hope to have _always_ such a heart, and yet ever be
weaned from earth "all this and heaven, too"?

Under my picture I have inscribed, "Forasmuch as Christ
also hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves
with the same mind."

This year has been one long sigh, one smothering sob,
to me. And I thank God that we have as yet one or two
generous friends in England who understand and feel for
our cause.

The utter failure of Christian, anti-slavery England,
in those _instincts_ of a right heart which always can
see where the cause of liberty lies, has been as bitter
a grief to me as was the similar prostration of all our
American religious people in the day of the Fugitive
Slave Law. Exeter Hall is a humbug, a pious humbug,
like the rest. Lord Shaftesbury. Well, let him go; he
is a Tory, and has, after all, the instincts of his
class. But I saw _your_ duke's speech to his tenants!
That was grand! If _he_ can see these things, they are
to be seen, and why cannot Exeter Hall see them? It is
simply the want of the honest heart.

Why do the horrible barbarities of _Southern_ soldiers
cause no comment? Why is the sympathy of the British
Parliament reserved for the poor women of New Orleans,
deprived of their elegant amusement of throwing vitriol
into soldiers' faces, and practicing indecencies
inconceivable in any other state of society? Why is
_all_ expression of sympathy on the _Southern_ side?
There is a class of women in New Orleans whom Butler
protects from horrible barbarities, that up to his day
have been practiced on them by these so-called New
Orleans ladies, but British sympathy has ceased to
notice _them_. You see I am bitter. I am. You wonder
at my brother. He is a man, and feels a thousand
times more than I can, and deeper than all he ever
has expressed, the spirit of these things. You must
not wonder, therefore. Remember it is the moment when
every nerve is vital; it is our agony; we tread the
winepress alone, and they whose cheap rhetoric has been
for years pushing us into it now desert _en masse_. I
thank my God I always loved and trusted most those who
now _do_ stand true,--your family, your duke, yourself,
your noble mother. I have lost Lady Byron. Her great
heart, her eloquent letters, would have been such a joy
to me! And Mrs. Browning, oh such a heroic woman! None
of her poems can express what _she_ was,--so grand, so
comprehending, so strong, with such inspired insight!
She stood by Italy through its crisis. Her heart was
with all good through the world. Your prophecy that
we shall come out better, truer, stronger, will, I am
confident, be true, and it was worthy of yourself and
your good lineage.

Slavery will be sent out by this agony. We are only
in the throes and ravings of the exorcism. The roots
of the cancer have gone everywhere, but they must
die--will. Already the Confiscation Bill is its natural
destruction. Lincoln has been too slow. He should have
done it sooner, and with an impulse, but come it must,
come it will. Your mother will live to see slavery
abolished, _unless_ England forms an alliance to hold
it up. England is the great reliance of the slave-power
to-day, and next to England the faltering weakness of
the North, which palters and dare not fire the great
broadside for fear of hitting friends. These things
_must_ be done, and sudden, sharp remedies are _mercy_.
Just now we are in a dark hour; but whether God be with
us or not, I know He is with the slave, and with his
redemption will come the solution of our question. I
have long known _what_ and who we had to deal with
in this, for when I wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin" I had
letters addressed to me showing a state of society
perfectly _inconceivable_. That they violate graves,
make drinking-cups of skulls, that _ladies_ wear cameos
cut from bones, and treasure scalps, is no surprise
to me. If I had written what I knew of the obscenity,
brutality, and cruelty of that society down there,
society would have cast out the books; and it is for
their interest, the interest of the whole race in the
South, that we should succeed. I wish _them_ no ill,
feel no bitterness; they have had a Dahomian education
which makes them savage. We don't expect any more of
_them_, but if slavery is destroyed, one generation of
education and liberty will efface these stains. They
will come to themselves, these States, and be glad it
is over.

I am using up my paper to little purpose. Please give
my best love to your dear mother. I am going to write
to her. If I only could have written the things I have
often thought! I am going to put on her bracelet, with
the other dates, that of the abolition of slavery in
the District of Columbia. Remember me to the duke and
to your dear children. My husband desires his best
regards, my daughters also.

I am lovingly ever yours,
H. B. STOWE.

Later in the year we hear again from her son in the army, and this time the news comes in a chaplain's letter from the terrible field of Gettysburg. He writes:--

GETTYSBURG, PA., _Saturday, July 11_, 9.30 P. M.

MRS. H. B. STOWE:

_Dear Madam_,--Among the thousands of wounded and dying
men on this war-scarred field, I have just met with
your son, Captain Stowe. If you have not already heard
from him, it may cheer your heart to know that he is
in the hands of good, kind friends. He was struck by
a fragment of a shell, which entered his right ear.
He is quiet and cheerful, longs to see some member
of his family, and is, above all, anxious that they
should hear from him as soon as possible. I assured him
I would write at once, and though I am wearied by a
week's labor here among scenes of terrible suffering,
I know that, to a mother's anxious heart, even a hasty
scrawl about her boy will be more than welcome.

May God bless and sustain you in this troubled time!

Yours with sincere sympathy,
J. M. CROWELL.

The wound in the head was not fatal, and after weary months of intense suffering it imperfectly healed; but the cruel iron had too nearly touched the brain of the young officer, and never again was he what he had been. Soon after the war his mother bought a plantation in Florida, largely in the hope that the out-of-door life connected with its management might be beneficial to her afflicted son. He remained on it for several years, and then, being possessed with the idea that a long sea voyage would do him more good than anything else, sailed from New York to San Francisco around the Horn. That he reached the latter city in safety is known; but that is all. No word from him or concerning him has ever reached the loving hearts that have waited so anxiously for it, and of his ultimate fate nothing is known.

Meantime, the year 1863 was proving eventful in many other ways to Mrs. Stowe. In the first place, the long and pleasant Andover connection of Professor Stowe was about to be severed, and the family were to remove to Hartford, Conn. They were to occupy a house that Mrs. Stowe was building on the bank of Park River. It was erected in a grove of oaks that had in her girlhood been one of Mrs. Stowe's favorite resorts. Here, with her friend Georgiana May, she had passed many happy hours, and had often declared that if she were ever able to build a house, it should stand in that very place. Here, then, it was built in 1863, and as the location was at that time beyond the city limits, it formed, with its extensive, beautiful groves, a particularly charming place of residence. Beautiful as it was, however, it was occupied by the family for only a few years. The needs of the growing city caused factories to spring up in the neighborhood, and to escape their encroachments the Stowes in 1873 bought and moved into the house on Forest Street that has ever since been their Northern home. Thus the only house Mrs. Stowe ever planned and built for herself has been appropriated to the use of factory hands, and is now a tenement occupied by several families.

Another important event of 1863 was the publishing of that charming story of Italy, "Agnes of Sorrento," which had been begun nearly four years before. This story suggested itself to Mrs. Stowe while she was abroad during the winter of 1859-60. The origin of the story is as follows: One evening, at a hotel in Florence, it was proposed that the various members of the party should write short stories and read them for the amusement of the company. Mrs. Stowe took part in this literary contest, and the result was the first rough sketch of "Agnes of Sorrento." From this beginning was afterwards elaborated "Agnes of Sorrento," with a dedication to Annie Howard, who was one of the party.

Not the least important event of the year to Mrs. Stowe, and the world at large through her instrumentality, was the publication in the "Atlantic Monthly" of her reply to the address of the women of England. The "reply" is substantially as follows:--

_January, 1863._

A REPLY

To "The affectionate and Christian Address of many
thousands of Women of Great Britain and Ireland to
their Sisters, the Women of the United States of
America," (signed by)

ANNA MARIA BEDFORD (Duchess of Bedford).
OLIVIA CECILIA COWLEY (Countess Cowley).
CONSTANCE GROSVENOR (Countess Grosvenor).
HARRIET SUTHERLAND (Duchess of Sutherland).
ELIZABETH ARGYLL (Duchess of Argyll).
ELIZABETH FORTESCUE (Countess Fortescue).
EMILY SHAFTESBURY (Countess of Shaftesbury).
MARY RUTHVEN (Baroness Ruthven).
M. A. MILMAN (wife of Dean of St. Paul).
R. BUXTON (daughter of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton).
CAROLINE AMELIA OWEN (wife of Professor Owen).
MRS. CHARLES WINDHAM.
C. A. HATHERTON (Baroness Hatherton).
ELIZABETH DUCIE (Countess Dowager of Ducie).
CECILIA PARKE (wife of Baron Parke).
MARY ANN CHALLIS (wife of the Lord Mayor of London).
E. GORDON (Duchess Dowager of Gordon).
ANNA M. L. MELVILLE (daughter of Earl of Leven and Melville).
GEORGIANA EBRINGTON (Lady Ebrington).
A. HILL (Viscountess Hill).
MRS. GOBAT (wife of Bishop Gobat of Jerusalem).
E. PALMERSTON (Viscountess Palmerston).
(And others).

SISTERS,--More than eight years ago you sent to us in
America a document with the above heading. It is as
follows:--

"A common origin, a common faith, and, we sincerely
believe, a common cause, urge us, at the present
moment, to address you on the subject of that system of
negro slavery which still prevails so extensively, and,
even under kindly disposed masters, with such frightful
results, in many of the vast regions of the Western
world.

"We will not dwell on the ordinary topics,--on the
progress of civilization, on the advance of freedom
everywhere, on the rights and requirements of the
nineteenth century; but we appeal to you very seriously
to reflect, and to ask counsel of God, how far such a
state of things is in accordance with his Holy Word,
the inalienable rights of immortal souls, and the
pure and merciful spirit of the Christian religion.
We do not shut our eyes to the difficulties, nay, the
dangers, that might beset the immediate abolition of
that long-established system. We see and admit the
necessity of preparation for so great an event; but,
in speaking of indispensable preliminaries, we cannot
be silent on those laws of your country which, in
direct contravention of God's own law, 'instituted in
the time of man's innocency,' deny in effect to the
slave the sanctity of marriage, with all its joys,
rights, and obligations; which separate, at the will
of the master, the wife from the husband, and the
children from the parents. Nor can we be silent on that
awful system which, either by statute or by custom,
interdicts to any race of men, or any portion of the
human family, education in the truths of the gospel and
the ordinances of Christianity. A remedy applied to
these two evils alone would commence the amelioration
of their sad condition. We appeal to you then, as
sisters, as wives, and as mothers, to raise your voices
to your fellow-citizens, and your prayers to God, for
the removal of this affliction and disgrace from the
Christian world.

"We do not say these things in a spirit of
self-complacency, as though our nation were free from
the guilt it perceives in others.

"We acknowledge with grief and shame our heavy share
in this great sin. We acknowledge that our forefathers
introduced, nay compelled the adoption, of slavery in
those mighty colonies. We humbly confess it before
Almighty God; and it is because we so deeply feel
and unfeignedly avow our own complicity, that we now
venture to implore your aid to wipe away our common
crime and our common dishonor."

* * * * *

This address, splendidly illuminated on vellum, was
sent to our shores at the head of twenty-six folio
volumes, containing considerably more than half
a million of signatures of British women. It was
forwarded to me with a letter from a British nobleman,
now occupying one of the highest official positions
in England, with a request on behalf of these ladies
that it should be in any possible way presented to the
attention of my countrywomen.

This memorial, as it now stands in its solid oaken
case, with its heavy folios, each bearing on its back
the imprint of the American eagle, forms a most unique
library, a singular monument of an international
expression of a moral idea. No right-thinking person
can find aught to be objected against the substance
or form of this memorial. It is temperate, just, and
kindly; and on the high ground of Christian equality,
where it places itself, may be regarded as a perfectly
proper expression of sentiment, as between blood
relations and equals in two different nations. The
signatures to this appeal are not the least remarkable
part of it; for, beginning at the very steps of the
throne, they go down to the names of women in the
very humblest conditions in life, and represent all
that Great Britain possesses, not only of highest and
wisest, but of plain, homely common sense and good
feeling. Names of wives of cabinet ministers appear
on the same page with the names of wives of humble
labourers,--names of duchesses and countesses, of wives
of generals, ambassadors, savants, and men of letters,
mingled with names traced in trembling characters by
hands evidently unused to hold the pen, and stiffened
by lowly toil. Nay, so deep and expansive was the
feeling, that British subjects in foreign lands had
their representation. Among the signatures are those of
foreign residents, from Paris to Jerusalem. Autographs
so diverse, and collected from sources so various,
have seldom been found in juxtaposition. They remain
at this day a silent witness of a most singular tide
of feeling which at that time swept over the British
community and _made_ for itself an expression, even at
the risk of offending the sensibilities of an equal and
powerful nation.

No reply to that address, in any such tangible and
monumental form, has ever been possible. It was
impossible to canvass our vast territories with the
zealous and indefatigable industry with which England
was canvassed for signatures. In America, those
possessed of the spirit which led to this efficient
action had no leisure for it. All their time and
energies were already absorbed in direct efforts to
remove the great evil, concerning which the minds of
their English sisters had been newly aroused, and their
only answer was the silent continuance of these efforts.

From the slaveholding States, however, as was to be
expected, came a flood of indignant recrimination and
rebuke. No one act, perhaps, ever produced more frantic
irritation, or called out more unsparing abuse. It came
with the whole united weight of the British aristocracy
and commonalty on the most diseased and sensitive part
of our national life; and it stimulated that fierce
excitement which was working before, and has worked
since, till it has broken out into open war.

The time has come, however, when such an astonishing
page has been turned, in the anti-slavery history of
America, that the women of our country, feeling that
the great anti-slavery work to which their English
sisters exhorted them is almost done, may properly and
naturally feel moved to reply to their appeal, and lay
before them the history of what has occurred since the
receipt of their affectionate and Christian address.

Your address reached us just as a great moral conflict
was coming to its intensest point. The agitation kept
up by the anti-slavery portion of America, by England,
and by the general sentiment of humanity in Europe,
had made the situation of the slaveholding aristocracy
intolerable. As one of them at the time expressed it,
they felt themselves under the ban of the civilized
world. Two courses only were open to them: to abandon
slave institutions, the sources of their wealth and
political power, or to assert them with such an
overwhelming national force as to compel the respect
and assent of mankind. They chose the latter.

To this end they determined to seize on and control all
the resources of the Federal Government, and to spread
their institutions through new States and Territories
until the balance of power should fall into their hands
and they should be able to force slavery into all the
free States.

A leading Southern senator boasted that he would yet
call the roll of his slaves on Bunker Hill; and for a
while the political successes of the slave-power were
such as to suggest to New England that this was no
impossible event.

They repealed the Missouri Compromise, which had
hitherto stood like the Chinese wall, between our
Northwestern Territories and the irruptions of
slaveholding barbarians.

Then came the struggle between freedom and slavery in
the new territory; the battle for Kansas and Nebraska,
fought with fire and sword and blood, where a race of
men, of whom John Brown was the immortal type, acted
over again the courage, the perseverance, and the
military-religious ardor of the old Covenanters of
Scotland, and like them redeemed the ark of liberty at
the price of their own blood, and blood dearer than
their own.

The time of the Presidential canvass which elected
Mr. Lincoln was the crisis of this great battle. The
conflict had become narrowed down to the one point of
the extension of slave territory. If the slaveholders
could get States enough, they could control and
rule; if they were outnumbered by free States, their
institutions, by the very law of their nature, would
die of suffocation. Therefore Fugitive Slave Law,
District of Columbia, Inter-State Slave-trade, and what
not, were all thrown out of sight for a grand rally
on this vital point. A President was elected pledged
to opposition to this one thing alone,--a man known
to be in favor of the Fugitive Slave Law and other
so-called compromises of the Constitution, but honest
and faithful in his determination on this one subject.
That this was indeed the vital point was shown by the
result. The moment Lincoln's election was ascertained,
the slaveholders resolved to destroy the Union they
could no longer control.

They met and organized a Confederacy which they openly
declared to be the first republic founded on the right
and determination of the white man to enslave the black
man, and, spreading their banners, declared themselves
to the Christian world of the nineteenth century as a
nation organized with the full purpose and intent of
perpetuating slavery.

But in the course of the struggle that followed, it
became important for the new confederation to secure
the assistance of foreign powers, and infinite pains
were then taken to blind and bewilder the mind of
England as to the real issues of the conflict in
America.

It has been often and earnestly asserted that slavery
had nothing to do with this conflict; that it was a
mere struggle for power; that the only object was to
restore the Union as it was, with all its abuses. It is
to be admitted that expressions have proceeded from the
national administration which naturally gave rise to
misapprehension, and therefore we beg to speak to you
on this subject more fully.

And first the declaration of the Confederate States
themselves is proof enough, that, whatever may be
declared on the other side, the maintenance of slavery
is regarded by them as the vital object of their
movement.

We ask your attention under this head to the
declaration of their Vice-President, Stephens, in that
remarkable speech delivered on the 21st of March,
1861, at Savannah, Georgia, wherein he declares the
object and purposes of the new Confederacy. It is one
of the most extraordinary papers which our century
has produced. I quote from the _verbatim_ report in
the "Savannah Republican" of the address as it was
delivered in the Athenæum of that city, on which
occasion, says the newspaper from which I copy, "Mr.
Stephens took his seat amid a burst of enthusiasm and
applause such as the Athenæum has never had displayed
within its walls within the recollection 'of the oldest
inhabitant.'"

Last, not least, the new Constitution has put at rest
_forever_ all the agitating questions relating to our
peculiar institution,--African slavery as it exists
among us, the proper _status_ of the negro in our form
of civilization. _This was the immediate cause of the
late rupture and present revolution._ Jefferson, in his
forecast, had anticipated this as the "rock upon which
the old Union would split." He was right. What was a
conjecture with him is now a realized fact. But whether
he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that
rock _stood_ and _stands_ may be doubted.

_The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of
the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of
the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of
the African was in violation of the laws of nature;
that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and
politically._

In the mean while, during the past year, the Republican
administration, with all the unwonted care of
organizing an army and navy, and conducting military
operations on an immense scale, have proceeded to
demonstrate the feasibility of overthrowing slavery
by purely constitutional measures. To this end they
have instituted a series of movements which have made
this year more fruitful in anti-slavery triumphs than
any other since the emancipation of the British West
Indies. The District of Columbia, as belonging strictly
to the national government and to no separate State,
has furnished a fruitful subject of remonstrance from
British Christians with America. We have abolished
slavery there, and thus wiped out the only blot of
territorial responsibility on our escutcheon.

By another act, equally grand in principle, and far
more important in its results, slavery is forever
excluded from the Territories of the United States.

By another act, America has consummated the
long-delayed treaty with Great Britain for the
suppression of the slave-trade. In ports whence slave
vessels formerly sailed with the connivance of the
port officers, the administration has placed men who
stand up to their duty, and for the first time in our
history the slave-trader is convicted and hung as a
pirate. This abominable secret traffic has been wholly
demolished by the energy of the Federal Government.

Lastly, and more significant still, the United States
government has in its highest official capacity taken
distinct anti-slavery ground, and presented to the
country a plan of peaceable emancipation with suitable
compensation. This noble-spirited and generous offer
has been urged on the slaveholding States by the chief
executive with earnestness and sincerity. But this is
but half the story of the anti-slavery triumphs of this
year. We have shown you what has been done for freedom
by the simple use of the ordinary constitutional forces
of the Union. We are now to show you what has been done
to the same end by the constitutional war-power of the
nation.

By this power it has been this year decreed that every
slave of a rebel who reaches the lines of our army
becomes a free man; that all slaves found deserted
by their masters become free men; that every slave
employed in any service for the United States thereby
obtains his liberty; and that every slave employed
against the United States in any capacity obtains his
liberty; and lest the army should contain officers
disposed to remand slaves to their masters, the power
of judging and delivering up slaves is denied to army
officers, and all such acts are made penal.

By this act the Fugitive Slave Law is for all present
purposes practically repealed. With this understanding
and provision, wherever our armies march they carry
liberty with them. For be it remembered that our army
is almost entirely a volunteer one, and that the most
zealous and ardent volunteers are those who have been
for years fighting, with tongue and pen, the abolition
battle. So marked is the character of our soldiers in
this respect, that they are now familiarly designated
in the official military dispatches of the Confederate
States as "the Abolitionists." Conceive the results
when an army so empowered by national law marches
through a slave territory. One regiment alone has to
our certain knowledge liberated two thousand slaves
during the past year, and this regiment is but one out
of hundreds.

Lastly, the great decisive measure of the war
has appeared,--_the President's Proclamation of
Emancipation_.

This also has been much misunderstood and
misrepresented in England. It has been said to mean
virtually this: Be loyal and you shall keep your
slaves; rebel and they shall be free. But let us
remember what we have just seen of the purpose and
meaning of the Union to which the rebellious States
are invited back. It is to a Union which has abolished
slavery in the District of Columbia, and interdicted
slavery in the Territories; which vigorously represses
the slave-trade, and hangs the convicted slaver as a
pirate; which necessitates emancipation by denying
expansion to slavery, and facilitates it by the offer
of compensation. Any slaveholding States which should
return to such a Union might fairly be supposed to
return with the purpose of peaceable emancipation.
The President's Proclamation simply means this: Come
in and emancipate peaceably with compensation; stay
out and I emancipate, nor will I protect you from the
consequences.

Will our sisters in England feel no heartbeat at
that event? Is it not one of the predicted voices of
the latter day, saying under the whole heavens, "It
is done; the kingdoms of this world are become the
kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ"?

And now, sisters of England, in this solemn, expectant
hour, let us speak to you of one thing which fills our
hearts with pain and solicitude. It is an unaccountable
fact, and one which we entreat you seriously to ponder,
that the party which has brought the cause of freedom
thus far on its way, during the past eventful year,
has found little or no support in England. Sadder
than this, the party which makes slavery the chief
corner-stone of its edifice finds in England its
strongest defenders.

The voices that have spoken for us who contend for
liberty have been few and scattering. God forbid that
we should forget those few noble voices, so sadly
exceptional in the general outcry against us! They
are, alas! too few to be easily forgotten. False
statements have blinded the minds of your community,
and turned the most generous sentiments of the British
heart against us. The North are fighting for supremacy
and the South for independence, has been the voice.
Independence? for what? to do what? To prove the
doctrine that all men are _not_ equal; to establish the
doctrine that the white may enslave the negro!

In the beginning of our struggle, the voices that
reached us across the water said: "If we were only
sure you were fighting for the abolition of slavery,
we should not dare to say whither our sympathies for
your cause might not carry us." Such, as we heard, were
the words of the honored and religious nobleman who
draughted this very letter which you signed and sent
us, and to which we are now replying.

When these words reached us we said: "We can wait; our
friends in England will soon see whither this conflict
is tending." A year and a half have passed; step after
step has been taken for liberty; chain after chain has
fallen, till the march of our armies is choked and
clogged by the glad flocking of emancipated slaves;
the day of final emancipation is set; the border
States begin to move in voluntary consent; universal
freedom for all dawns like the sun in the distant
horizon, and still no voice from England. No voice?
Yes, we have heard on the high seas the voice of a
war-steamer, built for a man-stealing Confederacy,
with English gold, in an English dockyard, going out
of an English harbor, manned by English sailors, with
the full knowledge of English government officers, in
defiance of the Queen's proclamation of neutrality!
So far has English sympathy overflowed. We have heard
of other steamers, iron-clad, designed to furnish to
a slavery-defending Confederacy their only lack,--a
navy for the high seas. We have heard that the British
Evangelical Alliance refuses to express sympathy with
the liberating party, when requested to do so by
the French Evangelical Alliance. We find in English
religious newspapers all those sad degrees in the
downward-sliding scale of defending and apologizing
for slaveholders and slaveholding, with which we have
so many years contended in our own country. We find
the President's Proclamation of Emancipation spoken
of in those papers only as an incitement to servile
insurrection. Nay, more,--we find in your papers, from
thoughtful men, the admission of the rapid decline of
anti-slavery sentiments in England.

This very day the writer of this has been present at
a solemn religious festival in the national capital,
given at the home of a portion of those fugitive slaves
who have fled to our lines for protection,--who, under
the shadow of our flag, find sympathy and succor. The
national day of thanksgiving was there kept by over
a thousand redeemed slaves, and for whom Christian
charity had spread an ample repast. Our sisters,
we wish _you_ could have witnessed the scene. We
wish you could have heard the prayer of a blind old
negro, called among his fellows John the Baptist,
when in touching broken English he poured forth his
thanksgivings. We wish you could have heard the sound
of that strange rhythmical chant which is now forbidden
to be sung on Southern plantations,--the psalm of this
modern exodus,--which combines the barbaric fire of
the Marseillaise with the religious fervor of the old
Hebrew prophet:--

"Oh, go down, Moses,
Way down into Egypt's land!
Tell King Pharaoh
To let my people go!
Stand away dere,
Stand away dere,
And let my people go!"

As we were leaving, an aged woman came and lifted up
her hands in blessing. "Bressed be de Lord dat brought
me to see dis first happy day of my life! Bressed be de
Lord!" In all England is there no Amen?

We have been shocked and saddened by the question
asked in an association of Congregational ministers in
England, the very blood relations of the liberty-loving
Puritans,--"Why does not the North let the South go?"

What! give up the point of emancipation for these four
million slaves? Turn our backs on them, and leave them
to their fate? What! leave our white brothers to run
a career of oppression and robbery, that, as sure as
there is a God that ruleth in the armies of heaven,
will bring down a day of wrath and doom? Remember that
wishing success to this slavery-establishing effort is
only wishing to the sons and daughters of the South all
the curses that God has written against oppression.
_Mark our words!_ If we succeed, the children of
these very men who are now fighting us will rise up
to call us blessed. Just as surely as there is a God
who governs in the world, so surely all the laws of
national prosperity follow in the train of equity; and
if we succeed, we shall have delivered the children's
children of our misguided brethren from the wages of
sin, which is always and everywhere death.

And now, sisters of England, think it not strange if we
bring back the words of your letter, not in bitterness,
but in deepest sadness, and lay them down at your door.
We say to you, Sisters, you have spoken well; we have
heard you; we have heeded; we have striven in the
cause, even unto death. We have sealed our devotion
by desolate hearth and darkened homestead,--by the
blood of sons, husbands, and brothers. In many of
our dwellings the very light of our lives has gone
out; and yet we accept the life-long darkness as our
own part in this great and awful expiation, by which
the bonds of wickedness shall be loosed, and abiding
peace established on the foundation of righteousness.
Sisters, what have _you_ done, and what do you mean to
do?

We appeal to you as sisters, as wives, and as mothers,
to raise your voices to your fellow-citizens, and your
prayers to God for the removal of this affliction and
disgrace from the Christian world.

In behalf of many thousands of American women.

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

WASHINGTON, _November 27, 1862._

The publication of this reply elicited the following interesting letter from John Bright:--

ROCHDALE, _March 9, 1863._

DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I received your kind note with
real pleasure, and felt it very good of you to send
me a copy of the "Atlantic Monthly" with your noble
letter to the women of England. I read every word
of it with an intense interest, and I am quite sure
that its effect upon opinion here has been marked and
beneficial. It has covered some with shame, and it has
compelled many to think, and it has stimulated not a
few to act. Before this reaches you, you will have
seen what large and earnest meetings have been held in
all our towns in favor of abolition and the North. No
town has a building large enough to contain those who
come to listen, to applaud, and to vote in favor of
freedom and the Union. The effect of this is evident
on our newspapers and on the tone of Parliament, where
now nobody says a word in favor of recognition, or
mediation, or any such thing.

The need and duty of England is admitted to be a strict
neutrality, but the feeling of the millions of her
people is one of friendliness to the United States and
its government. It would cause universal rejoicing,
among all but a limited circle of aristocracy and
commercially rich and corrupt, to hear that the
Northern forces had taken Vicksburg on the great river,
and Charleston on the Atlantic, and that the neck of
the conspiracy was utterly broken.

I hope your people may have strength and virtue to win
the great cause intrusted to them, but it is fearful to
contemplate the amount of the depravity in the North
engendered by the long power of slavery. New England is
far ahead of the States as a whole,--too instructed and
too moral; but still I will hope that she will bear the
nation through this appalling danger.

I well remember the evening at Rome and our
conversation. You lamented the election of Buchanan.
You judged him with a more unfriendly but a more
correct eye than mine. He turned out more incapable and
less honest than I hoped for. And I think I was right
in saying that your party was not then sufficiently
consolidated to enable it to maintain its policy in the
execution, even had Frémont been elected. As it is now,
six years later, the North but falteringly supports the
policy of the government, though impelled by the force
of events which then you did not dream of. President
Lincoln has lived half his troubled reign. In the
coming half I hope he may see land; surely slavery will
be so broken up that nothing can restore and renew it;
and, slavery once fairly gone, I know not how all your
States can long be kept asunder.

Believe me very sincerely yours,
JOHN BRIGHT.

It also called forth from Archbishop Whately the following letter:--

PALACE, DUBLIN, _January, 1863._

DEAR MADAM,--In acknowledging your letter and
pamphlet, I take the opportunity of laying before
you what I collect to be the prevailing sentiments
here on American affairs. Of course there is a great
variety of opinion, as may be expected in a country
like ours. Some few sympathize with the Northerns,
and some few with the Southerns, but far the greater
portion sympathize with neither completely, but lament
that each party should be making so much greater
an expenditure of life and property than can be
compensated for by any advantage they can dream of
obtaining.

Those who are the least favorable to the Northerns are
not so from any approbation of slavery, but from not
understanding that the war is waged in the cause of
abolition. "It was waged," they say, "ostensibly for
the restoration of the Union," and in attestation of
this, they refer to the proclamation which announced
the confiscation of slaves that were the property of
secessionists, while those who adhered to the Federal
cause should be exempt from such confiscation, which,
they say, did not savor much of zeal for abolition.
And if the other object--the restoration of the
Union--could be accomplished, which they all regard
as hopeless, they do not understand how it will tend
to the abolition of slavery. On the contrary, "if,"
say they, "the separation had been allowed to take
place peaceably, the Northerns might, as we do, have
proclaimed freedom to every slave who set foot on
their territory; which would have been a great check
to slavery, and especially to any cruel treatment of
slaves." Many who have a great dislike to slavery yet
hold that the Southerns had at least as much right
to secede as the Americans had originally to revolt
from Great Britain. And there are many who think that,
considering the dreadful distress we have suffered from
the cotton famine, we have shown great forbearance in
withstanding the temptation of recognizing the Southern
States and to break the blockade.

Then, again, there are some who are provoked at the
incessant railing at England, and threats of an
invasion of Canada, which are poured forth in some of
the American papers.

There are many, also, who consider that the present
state of things cannot continue much longer if the
Confederates continue to hold their own, as they
have done hitherto; and that a people who shall have
maintained their independence for two or three years
will be recognized by the principal European powers.
Such appears to have been the procedure of the European
powers in all similar cases, such as the revolt of the
Anglo-American and Spanish-American colonies, of the
Haytians and the Belgians. In these and other like
cases, the rule practically adopted seems to have been
to recognize the revolters, not at once, but after a
reasonable time had been allowed to see whether they
could maintain their independence; and this without
being understood to have pronounced any decision either
way as to the justice of the cause.

Moreover, there are many who say that the negroes and
people of color are far from being kindly or justly
treated in the Northern States. An emancipated slave,
at any rate, has not received good training for earning
his bread by the wages of labor; and if, in addition
to this and his being treated as an outcast, he is
excluded, as it is said, from many employments, by
the refusal of white laborers to work along with him,
he will have gained little by taking refuge in the
Northern States.

I have now laid before you the views which I conceive
to be most prevalent among us, and for which I am not
myself responsible.

For the safe and effectual emancipation of slaves,
I myself consider there is no plan so good as the
gradual one which was long ago suggested by Bishop
Hinds. What he recommended was an _ad valorem tax_ upon
slaves,--the value to be fixed by the owner, with an
option to government to purchase at that price. Thus
the slaves would be a burden to the master, and those
the most so who should be the most valuable, as being
the most intelligent and steady, and therefore the best
qualified for freedom; and it would be his interest to
train his slaves to be free laborers, and to emancipate
them, one by one, as speedily as he could with safety.
I fear, however, that the time is gone by for trying
this experiment in America.

With best wishes for the new year, believe me

Yours faithfully,
RD. WHATELY.

Among the many letters written from this side of the Atlantic regarding the reply, was one from Nathaniel Hawthorne, in which he says:--

I read with great pleasure your article in the last
"Atlantic." If anything could make John Bull blush, I
should think it might be that; but he is a hardened
and villainous hypocrite. I always felt that he cared
nothing for or against slavery, except as it gave him
a vantage-ground on which to parade his own virtue and
sneer at our iniquity.

With best regards from Mrs. Hawthorne and myself to
yourself and family, sincerely yours,

NATH'L HAWTHORNE.