Chapter IX: Part 9

It was in June of last year, I think, that a German bookseller named Keller was sent by General Butler to Ship Island for two years for exhibiting in his shop-window a human skeleton labelled "Chickahominy," claiming it to be the bones of some gallant soldier of the Union, army who had fallen in one of the disastrous battles in Virginia.

At his examination, Keller protested that he was a Union man, and had been imposed upon by some designing person who had taken advantage of his ignorance to make his shop the medium of displaying contempt and hatred of our cause by the revolting spectacle I have mentioned. It was proved, however, that Keller had said these were the bones of a Yankee. His defence may or may not have been true; but, at all events, he was apparently not an evil-disposed person, and I always believed the General punished the offence rather than the man.

After Keller had been on Ship Island some two or three months, his wife, a very modest, respectable little woman, came to me frequently with a piteous story of the suffering occasioned herself and her children by the prolonged absence of her husband, and begged me to intercede with the General for his pardon. Satisfied that the cause could suffer no injury by the return of the unfortunate man to his home, I promised to do my best to obtain his release. Accordingly, I took advantage of every favorable opportunity to drop a word in the hearing of the General for the benefit of poor Keller, who was pining away in his confinement at a rate that bade fair soon to render him as valuable a subject for anatomical research as the article he had exhibited in his shop-window.

At first my efforts met with very doubtful encouragement; but I was satisfied that the General's obduracy was caused by a conflict between his sense of public duty and his natural tendency toward forgiveness; so, fully assured that a few weeks would produce the desired result, I contented myself with merely recalling the ease to his memory whenever an opportunity offered.

Toward the last of October, being somewhat impatient at my tardy progress, I had just resolved to abandon my previous policy of waiting for time to do its work, and to make a vigorous onslaught upon the General's sympathies, when I learned that he had issued an order for Keller's release; and thus I was confirmed in my opinion that the General's heart was not proof against the claims of the unfortunate erring.

In the case of Mrs. Phillips, who was banished to Ship Island for her ghastly levity over the dead body of the gallant and lamented young De Kay, the General ordered a release after three months of exile, because he learned that her health was suffering in consequence of separation from her friends; and I doubt very much if she would have remained in duress three weeks, if the Rebel newspapers had not taunted the General so much, and threatened an expedition against the island for the purpose of rescuing the fair prisoner.

Mrs. Larue and Mrs. Cowen, the only other women who were imprisoned,--the former for openly distributing treasonable pamphlets in the street, thereby causing a riot, and the latter for publishing in a newspaper a card of defiance against the national authority,--after two weeks of punishment, were pardoned on the first intimation that they were suffering in health or comfort. Indeed, the General never desired the imprisonment of any person a single day beyond the time necessary for his correction, or longer than the requirements of justice demanded. I presume very few persons are aware that one of his last acts in New Orleans was to recommend to General Banks the pardon of all prisoners confined on mere political charges.

* * * * *

On account of the great and increasing pressure on the General's time by the immense and miscellaneous crowd of visitors, it was found necessary to establish an office outside of his, where every unknown caller should state his business to the officer in charge, who would decide whether or not it was essential for the person to see the General.

For a few weeks I had charge of this office, and nearly all my time was occupied in refusing passes outside of our lines. In a majority of instances, the applicants for the privilege of going into the Confederacy--many of them women--told the most sorrowful tales of destitution that could be relieved only by reaching their friends in the enemy's country; others urged, that a husband, a father, or a brother was enjoined by the physician to seek the country as the sole means of securing a return of health; in short, I was plied with every conceivable story of heart-rending woe and misery, related to induce the granting of passes, which the General, in consequence of the fact that _in almost every instance_ where he had yielded to such importunities his confidence had been abused by the carrying of supplies and information to the Rebel army, had ordered me invariably to refuse. Ordinarily I succeeded in steeling my heart against these urgent entreaties; but occasionally some story, peculiarly harrowing in its details, seemed to demand a special effort in behalf of the applicant, and I would go to the General, and, in the desperation of my cause, exclaim,--

"General, you must see some of these people. I know, if you would only hear their stories, you would give them passes."

"You are entirely correct, Captain," he would reply. "I am sure I should; and that is precisely why I want you to see them for me."

And with this very doubtful satisfaction I would return to my desk, convinced that sensibility in a man who was allowed no discretion in its exercise was an entirely useless attribute, and that in future I would set my face as a flint against every appeal to my feelings.

* * * * *

Since my return to the North, I have heard a number of gentlemen--former political associates of General Butler--compare his "marvellous conversion" (here they always look, and apparently mean to be, severely sarcastic) on the slavery-question with that of Saul of Tarsus to Christianity.

If the last two years of our history have failed to educate them up to the meaning of this war, I confess that I think them almost incorrigible; yet I cannot believe that even they, if they had had the experience which has placed not only General Butler, but almost every one of the twenty thousand men composing the old "Army of the Gulf," firmly on the side of freedom to all, of whatever complexion, could longer withstand the dictates of God and humanity.

Let me describe one or two of the scenes I witnessed in New Orleans, that opened our eyes to the true nature of human bondage. The following incident is the same so well told by the General himself to the committee of the New-York Chamber of Commerce, at the Fifth-Avenue Hotel, in January last, and which was then reported in full in the New-York "Times." One of my objects in repeating this story is to illustrate my implicit confidence--inspired by my knowledge of his character--in the General's humanity and championship of the weak and down-trodden.

Just previous to the arrival of General Banks in New Orleans I was appointed Deputy-Provost-Marshal of the city, and held the office for some days after he had assumed command. One day, during the last week of our stay in the South, a young woman of about twenty years called upon me to complain that her landlord had ordered her out of her house, because she was unable longer to pay the rent, and she wished me to authorise her to take possession of one of her father's houses that had been confiscated, he being a wealthy Rebel, then in the Confederacy, and actively engaged in the Rebellion.

The girl was a perfect blonde in complexion: her hair was of a very pretty, light shade of brown, and perfectly straight; her eyes a clear, honest gray; and her skin as delicate and fair as a child's. Her manner was modest and ingenuous, and her language indicated much intelligence.

Considering these circumstances, I think I was justified in wheeling around in my chair and indulging in an unequivocal stare of incredulous amazement, when in the course of conversation she dropped a remark about having been born a slave.

"Do you mean to tell me," said I, "that you have negro blood in your veins?" And I was conscious of a feeling of embarrassment at asking a question so apparently preposterous.

"Yes," she replied, and then related the history of her life, which I shall repeat as briefly as possible.

"My father," she commenced, "is Mr. Cox, formerly a judge of one of the courts in this city. He was very rich, and owned a great many houses here. There is one of them over there," she remarked, naively, pointing to a handsome residence opposite my office in Canal Street. "My mother was one of his slaves. When I was sufficiently grown, he placed me at school at the Mechanics' Institute Seminary, on Broadway, New York. I remained there until I was about fifteen years of age, when Mr. Cox came on to New York and took me from the school to a hotel, where he obliged me to live with him as his mistress; and to-day, at the age of twenty-one, I am the mother of a boy five years old who is my father's son. After remaining some time in New York, he took me to Cincinnati and other cities at the North, in all of which I continued to live with him as before. During this sojourn in the Free States, I induced him to give me a deed of manumission; but on our return to New Orleans he obtained it from me, and destroyed it. At this time I tried to break off the unnatural connection, whereupon he caused me to be publicly whipped in the streets of the city, and then obliged me to marry a colored man; and now he has run off, leaving me without the least provision against want or actual starvation, and I ask you to give me one of his houses that I may have a home for myself and three little children."

Strange and improbable as this story appeared, I remembered, as it progressed, that I had heard it from Governor Shepley, who, as well as General Butler, had investigated it, and learned that it was not only true in every particular, but was perfectly familiar to the citizens of New Orleans, by whom Judge Cox had been elected to administer JUSTICE.

The clerks of my office, most of whom were old residents of the city, were well informed in the facts of the case, and attested the truth of the girl's story.

I was exceedingly perplexed, and knew not what to do in the matter; but after some thought I answered her thus:--

"This Department has changed rulers, and I know nothing of the policy of the new commander. If General Butler were still in authority, I should not hesitate a moment to grant your request,--for, even if I should commit an error of judgment, I am perfectly certain he would overlook it, and applaud the humane impulse that prompted the act; but General Banks might be less indulgent, and make very serious trouble with me for taking a step he would perhaps regard as unwarrantable."

I still hesitated, undecided how to act, when suddenly a happy thought struck me, and, turning to the girl, I added,--

"To-day is Thursday; next Tuesday I leave this city with General Butler for a land where, thank God! such wrongs as yours cannot exist; and, as General Banks is deeply engrossed in the immediate business at head-quarters, he will hardly hear of my action before the ship leaves,--so I am going to give you the house."

I am sure the kind-hearted reader will find no fault with me that I took particular pains to select one of the largest of her father's houses, (it contained forty rooms,) when she told me that she wanted to let the apartments as a means of support to herself and her children.

My only regret in the case was that Mr. Cox had not been considerate enough to leave a carriage and pair of bays on my hands, that I might have had the satisfaction of enabling his daughter to disport herself about the city in a style corresponding to her importance as a member of so wealthy and respectable a family.

And this story that I have just told reminds me of another, similar in many respects.

One Sunday morning, late last summer, as I came down-stairs to the breakfast-room, I was surprised to find a large number of persons assembled in the library.

When I reached the door, a member of the Staff took me by the arm, and drew me into the room toward a young and delicate mulatto girl who was standing against the opposite wall, with the meek, patient bearing of her race, so expressive of the system of repression to which they have been so long subjected.

Drawing down the border of her dress, my conductor showed me a sight more revolting than I trust ever again to behold.

The poor girl's back was flayed until the quivering flesh resembled a fresh beefsteak scorched on a gridiron. With a cold chill creeping through my veins, I turned away from the sickening spectacle, and for an explanation of the affair scanned the various persons about the room.

In the centre of the group, at his writing-table, sat the General. His head rested on his hand, and he was evidently endeavoring to fix his attention upon the remarks of a tall, swarthy-looking man who stood opposite, and who, I soon discovered, was the owner of the girl, and was attempting a defence of the foul outrage he had committed upon the unresisting and helpless person of his unfortunate victim, who stood smarting, but silent, under the dreadful pain inflicted by the brutal lash.

By the side of the slaveholder stood our Adjutant-General, his face livid with almost irrepressible rage, and his fists tight-clenched, as if to violently restrain himself from visiting the guilty wretch with summary and retributive justice. Disposed about the room, in various attitudes, but all exhibiting in their countenances the same mingling of horror and indignation, were other members of the Staff,--while, near the door, stood three or four house-servants, who were witnesses in the case.

To the charge of having administered the inhuman castigation, Landry (the owner of the girl) pleaded guilty, but urged in extenuation that the girl had dared to make an effort for that freedom which her instincts, drawn from the veins of her abuser, had taught her was the God-given right of all who possess the germ of immortality, no matter what the color of the casket in which it is hidden.

I say "drawn from the veins of her abuser," because she declared she was his daughter,--and every one in the room, looking upon the man and woman confronting each other, confessed that the resemblance justified the assertion.

After the conclusion of all the evidence in the case, the General continued in the same position as before, and remained for some time apparently lost in abstraction. I shall never forget the singular expression on his face.

I had been accustomed to see him in a storm of passion at any instance of oppression or flagrant injustice; but on this occasion he was too deeply affected to obtain relief in the usual way.

His whole air was one of dejection, almost listlessness; his indignation too intense, and his anger too stern, to find expression even in his countenance.

Never have I seen that peculiar look but on three or four occasions similar to the one I am narrating, when I knew he was pondering upon the baleful curse that had cast its withering blight upon all around, until the manhood and humanity were crushed out of the people, and outrages such as the above were looked upon with complacency, and the perpetrators treated as respected and worthy citizens,--and that he was realizing the great truth, that, however man might endeavor to guide this war to the advantage of a favorite idea or sagacious policy, the Almighty was directing it surely and steadily for the purification of our country from this greatest of national sins.

But to return to my story. After sitting in the mood which I have described at such length, the General again turned to the prisoner, and said, in a quiet, subdued tone of voice,--

"Mr. Landry, I dare not trust myself to decide to-day what punishment would be meet for your offence, for I am in that state of mind that I fear I might exceed the strict demands of justice. I shall therefore place you under guard for the present, until I conclude upon your sentence."

A few days after, a number of influential citizens having represented to the General that Mr. Landry was not only a "high-toned gentleman," but a person of unusual "AMIABILITY" of character, and was consequently entitled to no small degree of leniency, he answered, that, in consideration of the prisoner's "high-toned" character, and especially of his "amiability," of which he had seen so remarkable a proof, he had determined to meet their views, and therefore ordered that Landry give a deed of manumission to the girl, and pay a fine of five hundred dollars, to be placed in the hands of a trustee for her benefit.

It is the passing through such scenes as I have described, and the contemplation of the condition to which Slavery has reduced society at the South, combined with a natural inclination to espouse the cause of the oppressed, that has placed General Butler in the front rank of the "Champions of Freedom."

I remember, so long ago as last July, his turning to me, after reading the story of our sad reverses in Virginia, and remarking that he believed God was directing the issues of the war for a great purpose, and that only in so far as we followed His guidance should we be successful. I have heard him repeat this in effect several times since, and have seen the conviction growing within his mind deeper and deeper, as events proved its correctness, down to the present time.

And yet an Episcopal clergyman of New York told me, the other evening, that General Butler was an Atheist.

* * * * *

General Butler's forbearance and kindness of heart are, I think, well illustrated in the true history of his controversy with General Phelps last summer, in regard to the employment of negroes coming within our lines. His position on that question was at that time somewhat misunderstood. Indeed, a gentleman observed to me only a short time since, referring to General Butler's allowing General Phelps to resign, "General Butler served General Phelps just right."

"So he did," I replied; "but you and I probably differ some in our ideas of right and wrong."

The case, in brief, was this.

General Phelps--as good a man, as honest and whole-souled a patriot, and as brave and thorough a soldier as there is in the service--was in command at Carrolton,--our principal line of defence. The negroes escaping from the plantations had gathered about his camp to the number of many hundreds. General Phelps almost immediately initiated steps toward making them soldiers. The residents, greatly alarmed, or affecting to be, lest they should soon be the victims of an ungovernable armed mob, addressed the most urgent remonstrances to General Butler against General Phelps's proceedings. The General was much perplexed; the Government had not yet indicated any policy on this important subject, and although I am satisfied his sympathies were with General Phelps, (the alacrity with which he soon after organized negro regiments is the best evidence of this,) he did not feel justified in officially approving his course. Determined to avoid anything like a bitter opposition to a measure that his head and heart both told him was intrinsically right, he sought for a means of compromise. Circumstances soon furnished the opportunity.

The enemy was threatening the city with speedy attack, and it was deemed of the highest importance to cut away the thick growth of trees in front of Carrolton for nearly a mile. The General at once ordered General Phelps to set his negro brigade at this work, and in the order was particular to quote General Phelps's own opinion, previously delivered, on the necessity of the project. General Phelps, who was determined that the negroes should be soldiers or nothing, evasively declined obeying the order. General Butler then wrote him a letter presenting fresh arguments, showing how essential it was that the soldiers, who would soon be obliged to defend the city, should be spared as far as possible from unusual fatigue-duty, and inclosed a peremptory order for the performance of the work by the negroes. By the same messenger he also sent a confidential letter, which I wrote at his dictation, in which, in terms of the warmest friendship and honest appreciation of General Phelps's exalted courage, sincere patriotism, and other noble qualities, he begged him not to place himself in an attitude of hostility to his commanding officer. A more delicate, generous, or considerate letter I never read; but it was of no avail. General Phelps persisted in his refusal to obey, and tendered his resignation. What did General Butler do?

He would have been justified in the arrest and court-martial of General Phelps, and few men could resist so good an opportunity to assert their authority; but he knew that General Phelps had been for years the victim of the Slave Power, until his mind had become so absorbed in detestation of the institution that he was conscientiously and inexorably opposed to the slightest step that could even remotely be construed as assisting in its support. Moreover, General Butler's esteem for General Phelps was deep and sincere; and those who know the General well will readily understand how repugnant to his nature is the abrupt change from warm friendship to open hostility.

But to recur to my question,--What did General Butler do? He simply forwarded General Phelps's resignation to Washington, with the earnest request that the Government would proclaim some policy in regard to the contrabands, and shortly after, learning that the story of an intended attack on the city at that time was a canard, allowed the matter to drop. When, a little later, the enrolment of negroes in the United States' service was in order, where were they so promptly enlisted and equipped as in the grand old "Department of the Gulf"?

Reading the other day the retaliatory resolutions of the Rebel Congress recalled to my mind the terrible earnestness with which the General declared in New Orleans, "For every one of my black soldiers who may be murdered by their captors, two Rebel soldiers shall hang." And I know he meant it.

* * * * *

The London "Times" has said that General Butler is a "monster of cruelty," devoid of every sentiment of benevolence or tenderness, and the cry has been taken up and echoed by the press of Continental Europe. Perhaps he is; but the thirty-four thousand poor people of New Orleans whom he fed every day refuse to believe it. I could wish that some of these libellers of his humanity had been in New Orleans to see the character of the crowd that thronged his office from morning till night. There were persons of almost every condition and color,--the great majority being poor and wretched men and women, who brought their every grief and trouble to lay at the feet of the man whom they believed possessed of the power and the will to redress every wrong and heal every sorrow. Was it surprising? Did it look as though they feared his fierce anger and his cruel wrath? Was it not rather the humble testimony of their instinct that he whose first and every act in their city was for the amelioration of suffering was the one to whom they should apply for relief in every woe? And what patience he exhibited under this great and increasing addition to his official cares! Unless the complaint or request were frivolous or disloyal, he always listened respectfully, and then applied the remedy to the wrong, or carefully explained the means suited to the relief of the distress, and the proper course for obtaining it.

Shortly after our arrival in New Orleans, the Sisters in charge of the Orphan Asylum of St. Elizabeth called upon the General and represented that institution as in a state of literal destitution from lack of provisions and the money with which to procure them. This unfortunate condition of suffering was one of the legitimate consequences of active Secession, and no one could be held responsible for it but the leaders of the Rebellion. But the General did not stop to discuss the question of responsibility; he knew that here were several hundred children who were crying for bread, and with characteristic promptitude gave them an order on the Chief Commissary for a very large amount of stores,--to be charged to his personal account,--adding a sum of five hundred dollars in money from his pocket.

The Convent of the Sacred Heart, near New Orleans, owed its continued existence almost entirely to his individual charities; and the same may be said of all the benevolent institutions in and about the city.

I have rarely seen him more angry than when he discovered that a committee of the City Council, who held, as trustees, the Touro Fund, left by its generous donor for the support of orphans, had outraged their trust by applying a large amount of the legacy to the purchase of munitions of war for the Rebellion. He had them brought under guard to the office, and, unable to restrain his contempt for the dishonor of the act, expressed his opinion in terms that must have scathed them fearfully, unless their sensibilities were utterly callous. He then sent them to Fort Pickens, there to remain until every cent of the money they had so wantonly diverted from its legitimate purpose should be repaid.

* * * * *

One of the most striking of the General's traits is the quick comprehension which enables him to meet almost any question with a ready and commonly a witty reply.

During the earlier period of our occupation of New Orleans, persons were constantly applying to him to give them an order to search within our lines for runaway negroes; and it is a good illustration of the assurance of our enemies, that in a majority of cases the persons so applying were avowed traitors. The following is a fair sample of the conversation that would follow such an application.

"General, I wish you would give me an order to search for my negro," the visitor would commence.

"Have you lost your horse?" the General would ask, in reply.

"No, Sir."

"Have you lost your mule?" the General would add.

"No, Sir," the applicant for the order would answer, looking exceedingly puzzled at such unusual questions.

"Well, Sir, if you had lost your horse or your mule, would you come and ask me to neglect my duty to the Government for the purpose of assisting you to catch them?"

"Of course not," the visitor would reply, with increasing astonishment.

"Then why should you expect me to employ myself in hunting after any other article of your property?"

And with this comforting and practical application of the Dred-Scott decision, the ex-owner of the fugitive slave would take his departure, a wiser, and, I doubt not, a sadder man.

During an interview between the General and the Reverend Doctor Leacock, (Rector of Grace Church in New Orleans, and one of the three Episcopal clergymen who refused to read the prayer for the President, and were therefore sent North as prisoners, under my charge,) in which the General urged upon the Doctor his views on the injurious influence of disloyalty in the pulpit, sustaining his argument by prolific quotations from Scripture, recited with an accuracy and appositeness that few theologians could exceed, the Doctor replied,--

"But, General, your insisting upon the taking of the oath of allegiance is causing half of my church-members to perjure themselves."

"If that is the case, I am glad I have not had the spiritual charge of your church for the last nine years," (just the term of Dr. Leacock's pastorate,) the General answered, promptly.

After a lengthy conversation, the Doctor finally asked,--

"Well, General, are you going to shut up the churches?"

"No, Sir, I am more likely to shut up the ministers," he replied.

To the casual observer this would appear but a brilliant repartee, while, in fact, it was significant as indicative of a sagacious policy. Closing the churches would have given warrant to the charge of interference with the observances of religion. So careful was the General to avoid anything of this nature, that, in every instance where a clergyman was removed from his church, the very next Sunday found his pulpit occupied by a loyal minister.

As a great many excellent Churchmen have misunderstood the cause of the arrest of clergymen in New Orleans, I think I must add a word of explanation. The ministers so arrested were of the Episcopal denomination, in which the rector is required to read a liturgy prescribed by the General Convention. In this liturgy occurs "a prayer for the President of the United States," and its omission in their reading of the service was clearly an overt act of disloyalty, in that it was by unmistakable implication a declaration that they did not recognize the authority of the President of the United States; and it is a fact not generally known, that this omission in the service was supplied by the minister's regularly announcing, "A few moments will now be spent in silent prayer." Who can doubt the character and burden of this voiceless petition, when it is understood that it was the successor to an audible appeal--which General Butler suppressed--to Heaven for Jefferson Davis and the success of his cause?

* * * * *

Another of the General's strongest characteristics is his firm faith, his ardent hopefulness. Never have I known him despondent as to the final result of this war. He believes it to be a struggle for principle and right, and therefore his confidence in the ultimate success of our arms never falters. Frequently disheartened myself at our apparent ill-fortune, I have listened to his cheerful predictions and expressions of unflagging trust, and have come away strengthened and confident.

After our return to the North, an ex-mayor of Chicago was introduced to the General at the St. Nicholas Hotel in New York. It was just at a time when our cause looked very gloomy. The Mayor was evidently much depressed by the indications of national misfortune, and in a tone of great despondency asked the General,--

"Do you believe we shall ever get through this war successfully?"

"Yes, Sir," the General answered, very decidedly.

"Well, but how?" asked the Mayor.

"God knows, I don't; but I know He does, so I am satisfied," the General replied.

And in this reply was contained an admirable expression of that earnest faith in the inevitable triumph of good over evil which forms so prominent a part of his nature.

* * * * *

In this short sketch I have either entirely avoided or merely hinted at the traits which have given General Butler a world-wide distinction. His wonderful energy, his sagacity, his courage, his great executive and administrative ability, and, more than all, the marvellous comprehension, which, at the firing of the first gun at Fort Sumter, enabled him to grasp the subject of this Rebellion in all its magnitude and bearings, and in the means and measures for its suppression, are attributes made familiar to the world as "household words" by his unprecedented administration in New Orleans.

The story of the years of experience crowded into those eight short months of our sojourn in that city is worthy the pen of our country's ablest historian, and would fill volumes.

To relate all the instances of General Butler's kindness and generosity, his forbearance and magnanimity, while in New Orleans, would require more than all the space between the covers of the "Atlantic."

I have undertaken the grateful task of recording some of the more prominent scenes, where he displayed the kindly, genial traits so utterly inconsistent with the indiscriminate charges of cruelty, injustice, and wrong, preferred by his enemies,--traits that have inexpressibly endeared their possessor to every officer and soldier in his late army. Said an officer, but just returned from New Orleans, to me a few days since,--"I have heard of the infatuation of the Army of the Potomac to its earlier leader, but I do not believe their devotion is near so deep and earnest as that of the faithful men who followed General Butler from New England and the Northwest, through the campaign of New Orleans."

Not one of us who have been closely associated with him but watches with intense interest for the opportunity to arrive when he shall prove himself to be (as every one of us believes him to be) among the foremost of those predestined to lead our country through its baptism of blood and fire to a higher and grander destiny and glory than the most ardent dared even to hope for before the war.

Happy then shall I be, if in these few pages I have conveyed to the indulgent readers of this article some idea of the inner life and character of OUR GENERAL.

* * * * *

THE CLAIMS TO SERVICE OR LABOR.

Some persons look upon the veneration with which the people of these United States regard the Constitution as savoring of superstition. It is at least a wholesome superstition, which cannot be disturbed without risk.

When a man, in calm moments of deliberate reflection, has settled and adopted the principles of ethics and morality which ought to govern his life, and when, under the pressure of urgent exigency, or in moments of eager excitement, his view of their truth or value undergoes a sudden change, it is not safe to give way to such influence. He would evince wisdom in calling to mind, that, in hours of tranquil judgment, with no passion to blind and no impulse of the moment to urge beyond reason, he _had_ adopted certain principles of action, for guidance and safety.

Doubtless age may correct, and ought to correct, the errors of youth. But when we change a life-rule, it should be from a matured conviction, that, on general principles, the correction is just and proper; not because it would afford relief or satisfaction for the time being, or prove convenient for some special purpose.

So of the Constitution of the United States. Of fallible because human origin, it is imperfect. A rule of political action in a progressive world, it was by its founders properly made subject to amendment. At the first session of the first Congress ten amendments were adopted; two have been added since; and experience has approved this action.

That other amendments may hereafter be necessary and proper it would be presumptuous to deny. But we ought to touch the ark of our political testimony with careful and reverent hand.

All legislative bodies are liable to sudden and wayward impulses. To these the Congress of our young country is more exposed than the Parliaments or Chambers of older nations. It would have been very unsafe to trust a Congressional majority with the power of amending the Constitution.

Difficulties and delays were properly put in the way of exercising such a prerogative. To two-thirds of both houses, or to a convention called by the legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, was granted the power of proposing amendments; while the power to ratify these was not confided to less than to the legislatures, or to the conventions, of three-fourths of the States composing the Union.

To alter the Constitution in any other way--as by the consent of a majority only of the several States--would be a revolutionary act. Doubtless revolutionary acts become a justifiable remedy on rare and great occasions, as in 1776; but they are usually replete with danger. They are never more dangerous than when employed by one section of a confederacy against another, weaker section of the same. To the stability of government, it is necessary that the rights of minorities should be strictly respected. The end does not necessarily justify the means. "No example," says an eminent and philosophical writer, "is more dangerous than that of violence employed for a good purpose by well-meaning men."[6]

[Footnote 6: "Il n'y a pas de plus dangereux exemple que celui de
la violence exercee pour le bien et par les gens de
bien."--"_L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution_," par Alexis de
Tocqueville, Paris, 1856, p. 310.]

To such considerations has it been, in a measure, due that the people of the United States, with as much unanimity as usually characterizes any national decision, have held back, until now, from following the example of the civilized nations of Europe in emancipating their slaves. Until the Secessionists levied war against the Union, not the Democratic party alone, but the mass of the Republican party also, assented to the declaration in Abraham Lincoln's Inaugural, that they had "no purpose to interfere, directly or indirectly, with the institution of Slavery in the States where it exists." It had never been possible to obtain the votes of three-fourths of the States in favor of emancipation; and a large majority of those who held human servitude to be a moral wrong had looked upon its toleration among our neighbors of the South as an evil of less magnitude than the violation of the Constitution.

Though the wisdom of the ablest statesmen of the Revolution, without distinction of sections, recognized negro slavery as an iniquity and as a political element fraught with inevitable danger in the future, yet the evils and the dangers which are inseparably connected with that element have never been so clearly seen, have never made themselves so terribly apparent, as in the course of this war.

The conviction that Slavery is a standing menace to the integrity of the Union and the one great obstacle to peace gathers strength so rapidly from day to day, that many men are adopting the opinion, that it must needs be extirpated, if even at the cost of a revolutionary act.

It would be a misfortune, if this were the alternative. It is easy to pass the limit of regulated authority, but impossible to estimate the dangers we may encounter when that guardian limit is once transgressed. We may resolve that we will go thus far and no farther. So thought the honest and earnest Girondists of revolutionary France; but the current to which they had first opened a passage swept them away. Though the experiment succeed at last, a long Reign of Terror may overwhelm us ere success is reached.

And thus it is a matter of surpassing interest to determine whether the present stupendous insurrectionary convulsion has brought about a state of things under which, in strict accordance with the Constitution as it is, we may emancipate all negroes throughout the Union who are now held in involuntary servitude. This question I propose to discuss.

* * * * *

Every one is familiar with the words in which the Constitution, while not naming Slavery, recognizes, under a certain phase, its existence, and aids it, under certain circumstances, to maintain the rights to involuntary labor which, under State laws, it claims; thus:--

"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law
or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor,
but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such
service or labor may be due."

The claims to service or labor here referred to may be for years or for life: both are included in the above provision. In point of fact, there were existing, at the time that provision was adopted, (as there still exist,) both classes: the first class, for a term of years, then consisting, in part, of claims against foreign adults who had bound themselves to service for a limited time to repay the expenses of their emigration,--but chiefly, as now, of claims to the service or labor of what were called apprentices, usually white minors; the second, for life, were claims to the service or labor of men, women, and children of all ages, exclusively of African descent, who were called slaves.

The first class of claims were found chiefly in Northern States; the second chiefly in Southern. There was a great disparity between the numbers of the two classes. While the claims to service or labor for years numbered but a few thousands, there were then held to service or labor for life upwards of six hundred thousand persons: and the number has since increased to about four millions.

The constitutional provision is, that persons from whom under State laws service or labor is due shall not be exonerated from the performance of the same by escaping to another State. The apprentice, or the slave, shall, in that case, on demand of the proper claimant, be delivered up.

Such a provision clearly involves the recognition of certain rights of property; but of what kind?

Is the ownership of one human being by another here involved? Is the apprentice, or the slave, recognized in this clause as an article of merchandise?

State laws regulating apprenticeship and slavery may give to the master of the apprentice, or of the slave, the custody of the person and the right of corporal punishment, in order the better to insure the performance of the labor due. These laws may declare that an apprentice, or a slave, who strikes his master, shall suffer death. They may provide that the testimony of an apprentice, or of a slave, shall not be received in any court of justice as evidence against his master. They may make the claims to service or labor, whether for years or for life, transferable by ordinary sale. They may declare such claims to be, under certain circumstances, of the nature of real estate. They may enact that these claims shall be hereditary, both as regards the claimant and the person held to service, so that heirs shall inherit them,--and also so that the children of apprentices, or of slaves, shall, in virtue of their birth, be apprentices or slaves. But State laws or State constitutions, whatever their provisions, cannot modify the Constitution of the United States. The Supreme Court has decided that "the Government of the Union, though limited in its power, is supreme within its sphere of action"; and again, that "the laws of the United States, when made in pursuance of the Constitution, form the supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."[7]

[Footnote 7: "_McCulloch against the State of Maryland._" 4
Wheaton, _Rep._, p. 316.]

Therefore State laws or constitutions can neither determine the interpretation of the Federal Constitution nor explain its intent. It is to be interpreted by the words, fairly and candidly construed, of its framers.

In the provision under consideration the phraseology is remarkable. The word _slave_, though then in common use, to designate a negro held to service or labor for life, is not employed. It is impossible to believe that this peculiarity was accidental, or to overlook the inevitable inference from it. This provision does not recognize slavery except as it recognizes apprenticeship. African slavery, according to the expressly selected words, and therefore according to the manifest intent, of the framers of the Constitution, is here recognized as a claim to the service or labor of a negro: nothing more, nothing else.

It avails nothing to allege, even if it were true, that in 1787, when these words were written, a negro was commonly considered property. Chief-Justice Taney, delivering the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case, asserts that in the thirteen colonies which formed the Constitution "a negro of the African race was regarded as an article of property." This may or it may not have been true of a majority in those days. True or not, it refers only to the opinions of individual colonists; and these cannot be received as a basis of construction for the words, nor can they rebut the plain intent, of a constitutional provision. It is not what individual colonists believed, but what the framers of the Constitution incorporated in that instrument, that we have to deal with.

They avoided the use of the word slave. They incorporated the words "person held to service or labor." They admitted the claim to service or labor: none other: a claim (regarded in its constitutional aspect) in the nature of what the law calls a _chose in action_,--or, in other words, a thing to which, though it cannot be strictly said to be in actual possession, one has a right.

In common parlance we employ words, in connection with Slavery, which imply much more than such a claim. We say slave-holder and slave-owner; we speak of the institution of Slavery: but we do not say apprentice-holder or apprentice-owner; nor do we speak of the institution of Apprenticeship. The reason, whether valid or invalid, for such variance of phraseology in speaking of the two classes of claims, is not to be found in any admission, express or implied, in the provision of the Constitution now under consideration. In it the framers of that instrument employed one and the same phrase to designate the master of the apprentice and the master of the slave. Both are termed "the party to whom service or labor may be due."

Is there any other clause in the Constitution in which a distinction is made between the apprentice and the slave? There is one, and only one. In determining the number of inhabitants in each State as a basis of representation and taxation, it is provided that the whole number of apprentices shall be included, while three-fifths only of the slaves are to be taken into account. But the wording of this clause is especially noteworthy. It reads thus:--

"Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the
several States which may be included within this Union according
to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding
to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to
service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed,
three-fifths of all other persons."

To avoid mistakes, it was deemed necessary to include apprentices by express specification. Why this? Every one would have felt it to be absurd, if the words had been, "the whole number of free persons, including farm-laborers." But why absurd? Because persons engaged in free labor are, beyond question, free persons. Not so those "bound to service." While so bound, apprentices may be considered not free; when the "term of years," and with it the bondage to service, expires, they become free, or, as the common phrase is, "their own masters." It was necessary and proper, therefore, to specify whether, in the enumeration of inhabitants, they were to be estimated as free persons or as persons not free.

But would there be any fairness in construing this clause into an admission, by inference or otherwise, that an apprentice, while "bound to service," is a slave? Clearly not. He is a person not free for the time, because another has a legal claim to his service or labor. The Constitution admits this: nothing more.

And so of slaves. "Other persons" they are called, in contradistinction to "free persons"; therefore persons not free: and properly so called, seeing that, like the apprentice before his term expires, they are "bound to service," and that, unlike him, they remain thus bound for life.

But unless we admit that the apprentice, bound to service for a season, is a slave during that season, we cannot justly allege, that, by this provision of the Constitution, the negro, held to service or labor for life, is recognized as a slave.

A mere technical view of a great political question is usually a contracted one, of little practical value, and unbecoming a statesman. "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." Yet we must not mistake for technicality a careful interpretation, distinctly warranted by the terms employed, of a public instrument. Every public instrument, by which the governed delegate powers to those who govern, should be strictly construed.

I am not arguing, that the men who framed the Constitution did not regard negroes held to service or labor as slaves. I am not arguing that temporary claims, to the number (let us suppose) of forty or fifty thousand, may, for a moment, compare in importance with life-long claims, to the number of four millions; or that it is safe or proper to legislate in regard to the latter, involving as they do vast industrial interests, with as light consideration as might suffice in enacting regulations for the former. I am not arguing that a political element, which has gradually assumed proportions so gigantic as has American Slavery, can, with any safety or propriety, be dealt with, except after the gravest deliberation and the most sedulous examination, in advance, of every step we propose to take. I allege nothing of all this.

What I assert is, that neither the number of slaves nor the magnitude of the interests involved can properly influence the judgment in determining the just construction of a clause in the Constitution, or properly set aside a fair deduction from the wording of that clause as to its true spirit and intent. What I assert is, that the framers of the Constitution, in studiously avoiding the employment of the word slave, undeniably abstained from admitting into that instrument anything which the use of that word might have implied. Therefore the Constitution does not recognize the ownership of one human being by another. In it we seek in vain any foundation for the doctrine declared by Chief-Justice Taney, that persons held to service or labor for life are articles of property or merchandise.

In one restricted sense, and only in one, is slavery recognized by the Constitution of the United States: as a system under which one man may have a legal claim to the involuntary labor of another.

Therefore the question, whether Congress has the constitutional right to emancipate slaves, resolves itself into this:--Can Congress constitutionally take private property for public use and destroy it, making just compensation therefor? And is there anything in the nature of the claim which a master has to the service or labor of an apprentice, or of a slave, which legally exempts that species of property from the general rule, if important considerations of public utility demand that such claims should be appropriated and cancelled by the Government?

This is the sole issue. Let us not complicate it by mixing it up with others. When we are discussing the expediency of emancipation and of measures proposed to effect it, it is proper to take into account not only State constitutions and State legislation, but also the popular conception of slavery under the loose phraseology of the day, and public sentiment, South as well as North, in connection with it. But when we are examining the purely legal question, whether, under the Constitution as it is and under the state of public affairs now existing, Congress has the power to enact emancipation, we must dismiss popular fallacies and prejudices, and confine ourselves to one task: namely, to decide, without reference to subordinate constitutions or legislative action, what the supreme law of the land--the Constitution of the United States--permits or forbids in the premises.

It will be admitted that Congress has the right (Amendments to Constitution, Article 5) to take private property, with just compensation made, for public use. And it will not be argued that a claim of one inhabitant of the United States to the service of another, whether for a term of years or for life, is property which has been constitutionally exempted from such appropriation. It is evident, that, if a claim to the service of a slave cannot constitutionally be so taken and cancelled, neither can the claim to the service of an apprentice.

On the other hand, it is to be conceded, as a feature of the utmost importance in this case, that, when property of any kind to a vast amount is thus appropriated, the considerations which influence its appropriation should correspond in magnitude to the extent of the interests at stake. When the taking and cancelling of certain claims practically involves the social condition of four millions of the inhabitants of the United States and the industrial and financial interests of six millions more, it is desirable that the considerations to justify so radical and far-reaching a change should be in the nature of imperative official duty rather than of speculative opinion or philosophical choice.