The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement

George Spring Merriam

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• Publié par: chewyor
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 29
• Langue: English

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Title: The Negro and the Nation
A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement
Author: George S. Merriam
Release Date: February 14, 2008 [EBook #24613]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE NEGRO AND THE NATION
A History of American Slavery
and Enfranchisement
BY
GEORGE S. MERRIAM
HASKELL HOUSE PUBLISHERS Ltd.
Publishers of Scarce Scholarly Books
NEW YORK. N. Y. 10012
1970
First Published 1906
HASKELL HOUSE PUBLISHERS Ltd.
Publishers of Scarce Scholarly Books
280 LAFAYETTE STREET
NEW YORK, N. Y. 10012Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 75-95441
Standard Book Number 8383-0994-1
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. How Slavery Grew in America 1
II. The Acts of the Fathers 8
III. Conflict and Compromise 21
IV. The Widening Rift 28
V. Calhoun and Garrison 46
VI. Birney, Channing and Webster 58
VII. The Underlying Forces 67
VIII. The Mexican War 71
IX. How to Deal with the Territories 79
X. The Compromise of 1850 84
XI. A Lull and a Retrospect 92
XII. Slavery as It Was 97
XIII. The Struggle for Kansas 112
XIV. "Fremont and Freedom" 122
XV. Three Typical Southerners 132
XVI. Some Northern Leaders 140
XVII. Dred Scott and Lecompton 147
XVIII. John Brown 158
XIX. Abraham Lincoln 172
XX. The Election of 1860 185
XXI. Face to Face 197
XXII. How They Differed 205
XXIII. Why They Fought 211
XXIV. On Niagara's Brink—and Over 221
XXV. The Civil War 237
XXVI. Emancipation Begun 248
XXVII. Emancipation Achieved 258
Reconstruction: Experiments and
XXVIII. 267
Ideals
XXIX. Reconstruction: The First Plan 274
XXX. Congress and the "Black Codes" 281
XXXI. Reconstruction: The Second Plan 294XXXII. Reconstruction: The Final Plan 306
XXXIII. Reconstruction: The Working Out 316
XXXIV. Three Troubled States 331
XXXV. Reconstruction: The Last Act 344
XXXVI. Regeneration 354
XXXVII. Armstrong 362
XXXVIII. Evolution 371
XXXIX. Ebb and Flow 382
XL. Looking Forward 391
Index 413
[Pg 1]
THE NEGRO AND THE NATION
CHAPTER I
HOW SLAVERY GREW IN AMERICA
An English traveler, riding along the banks of the Potomac in mid-July, 1798,
saw ahead of him on the road an old-fashioned chaise, its driver urging forward
his slow horse with the whip, until a sharp cut made the beast swerve, and the
chaise toppled over the bank, throwing out the driver and the young lady who
was with him. The traveler—it was John Bernard, an actor and a man of culture
and accomplishments, spurred forward to the rescue. As he did so he saw
another horseman put his horse from a trot to a gallop, and together they
reached the scene of action, extricated the woman and revived her from her
swoon with water from a brook; then righted the horse and chaise, helped to
restore the half-ton of baggage to its place; learned the story of the couple—a
New Englander returning home with his Southern bride—and saw them safely
started again. Then the two rescuers, after their half-hour of perspiring toil in a
broiling sun, addressed themselves courteously to each other; the Virginian
dusted the coat of the Englishman, and as Mr. Bernard returned the favor he
noticed him well,—"a tall, erect, well-made man, evidently advanced in years,
but who appeared to have retained all the vigor and elasticity resulting from a
life of temperance and exercise. His dress was a blue coat, buttoned to the
chin, and buckskin breeches." The two men eyed each other, half recognizing,
[Pg 2]half perplexed, till with a smile the Virginian exclaimed, "Mr. Bernard, I
believe?" and, claiming acquaintance from having seen him on the stage and
heard of him from friends, invited him to come and rest at his house near by, to
which he pointed. That familiar front, the now wholly familiar face and form,
—"Mount Vernon! Have I the honor of addressing General Washington?" With
a charming smile Washington offered his hand, replying, "An odd sort ofintroduction, Mr. Bernard; but I am pleased to find you can play so active a part
in private and without a prompter." There followed a long and leisurely call at
Mount Vernon, and Bernard, in his volume of travels which did not see the light
for nearly a century, has given a most graphic and winning picture of
Washington in his every-day aspect and familiar conversation. To the actor's
keen eye, acquainted with the best society of his time, the near approach
showed no derogation from the greatness which the story of his deeds
conveyed. "Whether you surveyed his face, open yet well defined, dignified but
not arrogant, thoughtful but benign; his frame, towering and muscular, but alert
from its good proportions—every feature suggested a resemblance to the spirit
it encased, and showed simplicity in alliance with the sublime. The impression,
therefore, was that of a most perfect whole."
The talk ran a various course. Washington incidentally praised the New
Englanders, "the stamina of the Union and its greatest benefactors." The
Englishman acknowledged a tribute to his own country, but Washington with
great good humor responded, "Yes, yes, Mr. Bernard, but I consider your
country the cradle of free principles, not their arm-chair." He had proceeded a
little way in a eulogy of American liberty, when a black servant entered the
room with a jug of spring water. Bernard smiled, and Washington quickly
[Pg 3]caught his look and answered it: "This may seem a contradiction, but I think you
must perceive that it is neither a crime nor an absurdity. When we profess, as
our fundamental principle, that liberty is the inalienable right of every man, we
do not include madmen or idiots; liberty in their hands would become a
scourge. Till the mind of the slave has been educated to perceive what are the
obligations of a state of freedom, and not confound a man's with a brute's, the
gift would insure its abuse. We might as well be asked to pull down our old
warehouses before trade has increased to demand enlarged new ones. Both
houses and slaves were bequeathed to us by Europeans, and time alone can
change them; an event which, you may believe me, no man desires more
heartily than I do. Not only do I pray for it on the score of human dignity, but I
can clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the
existence of our Union, by consolidating it in a common bond of principle."
These words of Washington, with the incident that supplies their background,
are an epitome of the view and attitude of that great man toward slavery. Before
measuring their full significance, and the general situation in which this was an
element, we may glance at the preliminary questions; how came slaves in
Virginia and America; whence came slavery; what was it?
Primitive man killed his enemy and ate him. Later, the sequel of battle was the
slaying of all the vanquished and the appropriation of their goods, including
women and other live stock. Then it was found more profitable to spare the
conquered warrior's life and set him to do the victor's disagreeable work; more
profitable, and incidentally more merciful. Civilization advanced; wars became
less general; but in the established social order that grew up there was a
[Pg 4]definite place for a great class of slaves. It was part of Nature's early law, the
strong raising themselves upon the weak. Morality and religion by degrees
established certain limited rights for the slave. But the general state of slavery
was defended by philosophers like Aristotle; was recognized by the legislation
of Judea, Greece, and Rome; was accepted as part of the established order by
Jesus and the early church. It is beyond our limits here to measure either its
service, as the foundation on which rested ancient society; or the mischief that
came from the supplanting of a free peasantry, as in Italy. We can but glance at
the influence of Christianity, first in ameliorating its rigor, by teaching the master
that the slave was his brother in Christ, and then by working together with
economic forces for its abolition. By complex and partly obscure causes,personal slavery—the outright ownership of man—was abolished throughout
Christendom. Less inhuman in theory, less heartless in practice, though
inhuman and harsh enough, was the serfdom which succeeded slavery and
rested on Europe for a thousand years; till by slow evolution, by occasional
bloody revolt, by steady advance in the intelligence and power of the laborer,
compelling for him a higher status, the serf became a hired laborer and thence
a citizen throughout Europe.
The recrudescence of slavery came when the expan