pemnalip^* pH8^ THE QUESTION BEFORE US. BOSTON: PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON, 22, School Stueet. 1862. t^4 n iUs.cnarig'e Weat. Bea. Hlat. Soc. THE QUESTION BEFORE US. " Times change, and we change with them." A few months ago, the reasonable conservative and the rea- sonable liberal agreed that the end, aim, object, and purpose of the war now desolating so many homes were the maintenance of _ the integrity of the Union. To-day, as in past days, this is the sole issue. Rebel- lion rose in arms. The pretence of secession drove rebels into armed bands, and left them to fight and to die, without a shadow of right in the cause for which they fought. The perpetuity of the Union is an object for which those denying the right of secession can and will fight long and well ; but, like the shield of old, it has two sides. Its perpetuity by its own inherent power is denied by those who look at the wrong side. They will not turn the cloth they hold in their hands ; nor will they submit to what they feel to be the degradation of even a glance at the aspect of things at which other men look. Let them turn the cloth, look at the other side, and see how falsely good things are portrayed by the reverse of a piece of tapestry. But tliis we cannot look for. Misconcep- tion, misconstruction wilfully assumed, misjudgmeut made such by slavery, and an nngronnded belief in " chivalry," haA^e torn the affection and sympathy of a portion of the nation from the attachment and devo- tion to the Union for which their fathers died enno- bled. The real issue, however, remains the same ; and it is, Shall the Union be preserved ? Slavery says, "No:" Freedom says, "Yes." The North is not waging war against the South. If a man robbed the treasury of the United States ; if a man shot an offi- cer of justice ; if men collected to commit treason with violence, — there would be no doubt that pun- ishment should and -svould meet them. Numbers do not change the issue. Government is as much bound to punish a thousand traitors as a single one. Gladly we can look at the course of the Government in the fratricidal contest into which we have been forced. It has kept, even-handed, the extinction of rebellion as its aim. When the call was sounded, the men of the Free States so responded as to prove their readiness to do and die for the Union. No thought of President- making, or any other object of ])olitical chicanery, checked the ardor of volunteers, who, in fifteen minutes, left their homes, — perhaps their wives and children, — glad to join the struggle for their coun- trv's safety. The events of the spring of 1S61, and of May, 1862, prove the full appreciation in the Free States of the nature and iiiii)ortance of the questions iiiV()lv(Ml. A word from th(^ bnvful authorities, and hands ready for blows throniicd to cariv the word into effect. Every man knows that the fighting now going on is to maintain or to destroy the Union, under which so many years of plenty have been vouchsafed to us. Every rebel has the means of knowledge, that the action of the Government has been solely to sui> .press a course of conduct in the Slave States at once absurd, treasonable, and suicidal. Floyd and Thom- son stand out conspicuously in their treason ; but there is a sadly large number of those, Avho, lesser skilled, do the lesser wrong. Conventionality can raise but a thin veil to hide swindling, piracy, and cruelty. The high tone of manners and generous hospitality in which we at the North used to have a feeling of pride, as the inheritance of our brethren of the South, has dwindled into what, excepting to rebel ears, is now a by-word, — " chivalry." From the cul- tivated, refined, and attractive Pinckneys, Middletons, Lees, and others, from the Slave States, the leading spirits of the South have degenerated, so as to be represented by a renegade Davis, a Jew Benjamin, and generals, who, like Pillow, are famous for their infamy. Oaths, flags of truce, and the restraints of humanity, are disregarded with that short-sightedness which ignores results in view of momentary advan- tages. The attitude and the action of the North arc tlie reverse of this. Calmly and judiciously has the Pre- sident met all the difliculties which have risen before him. Promptly and fully have the people responded to every call made upon them. Many were disa])- pointed when the recruiting was closed ; and, when 6 the second call came, the struggle again was, Who should be the first to be ready to start for the Capi- tol ^ Impulses and passions have had their part in the uprising of the North, as "svell as in the madness of the South. But here we stand to-day, arrayed in arms, struggling for successes, and impatient at inac- tion, both armies anxious for the fray. And why is it 1 It is because slavery, in the Heaven-guided march of human affairs, found itself forced to act aggressively. The horrors which slavery entails, the unfair repre- sentation constitutionally secured to it, the taunting scorn it has brought upon the nation, and the obvious eftbrts by the South to secure its propagation, at last awoke the Free States to a sense of what might arise, if the hydra-headed monster, caressed by the Slave States, could not be kept within the limits prescribed by the Constitution. The Free States never forgot their allegiance, or their obligations to their sister States; but, with "Non-extension" on their banners, they went into the bloodless battle of the ballot. But, even before that battle, the supporters of slavery, foreseeing the result, covertly and treasonably scat- tered our navy over the face of the globe ; sent into the land of slavery our troops, ammunition, and coin ; and then aggressively struck the first blow, avowedly for States' rights, but in fact for slavery. Treason thus reared its head ; rebellion and resistance dis- played themselves; and the Free States found, that while they had been acting in good faith, and with the expectation that the Slave States would keep their allegiance, they were suddenly and utterly, with- out preparation, obliged to take up arms to quell an armed revolt, — an already organized attempt to break up the Union, and from some of its shreds to form a separate nation. Maine and Ohio were not invited to join in this confederation : they were not Slave States. The perpetuity and the extension of slavery were the bonds which were to bind together the new nation. Secession, in its present use, is an empty word. It has no legal sense, and was adopted by the slaveholders as a convenient word to mislead the North and foreign nations as to their true designs and aims. The quick sequence of events has torn aside this flimsy veil, and left its mere rags to show that it ever existed. Already armed, and on a van- tage-ground gained by treason, the rebels dared to attack the nation. Hundreds of thousands sprang to its rescue; and the history of the world cannot show so pregnant a fact as the assembling of some seventy thousand armed volunteers from the North in Washington in about seventy days from the date of the first call for troops. The North had not attacked slavery : it had simply insisted on its non-extension ; and this object it sought only by the ballot-box. But when rebellion broke out in arms, and the National Government called for soldiers to maintain its existence, then the North rose in its strength. Male and female, young and old, took their shares of the burden, and have car- ried them bravely. Hospital supplies have flowed from the Old Bay State as freely for the sick and wounded of the West as for those of her own regi- 8 mcnts. The interest is in the cause, and not in individuals ; and it is intense. Call after call of the Government for volunteers would be responded to as they have been, in utter disregard of all party lines and all conditions suggested by partisans. The safety of the nation, the crushing of rebellion, and the cer- tainty that the power of the Government shall be sufficient to protect the Government itself and to enforce the laws, are the motives which stir the blood of the North, and send men direct from the plough to the battle-field. These are the simple facts. The South is straining every nerve in a contest which it believes to affect its peculiar institution. The North* is sending forth such men and material as shall be necessary to sustain the Government, and to strengthen its hands in the most direct and practical way. And this work is being well done. A rope, a ring of fire, a " moving wood," are being drawn around the rebel- lious States. From the Chesapeake, by Port Koyal, Pensacola, and New Orleans, the rope stretches up the Mississippi, and by the Ohio, in a circle, round to Washington. This space contains the rebels ; and the imaginary rope around it is drawn tighter and tighter day by day. No rope runs quite clear from kinks ; and we have suffered losses of officers and men, and have met "repulses," and gone through "panics;" but our reverses have taught us the value of steady, patient • The words " North " and " South " have been used as conveniently descrip- tive, and as ahnost true in fact. But the North is not at war with the Soutli. It is more like a parent correcting a rebellious child, thau like a nation waging war. perseverance. High before us, high enough to be seen by all, shines the beacon-light which guides the North, enshrined in smoke, glimmering by day and nisht in the lurid liorht of battles ; and that beacon- light is our flag, the stars and stripes, which are the emblem of our Union, one and indivisible, now and for ever. That is the light which nerves the arm of the North. Our battle-cry is, " The Union ! " and so it should and must be. Hatred of si'- ery, soreness from the taunts which that curse ^ gs upon the nation, ay, the very hope to see fl -om stretch all over our fair land, must not mislea\ us. The exist- ence and integrity of the nation are what we are fighting for. No one at the North doubts that the backbone of slavery is breaking, or that any other than an armed peace can be had, until some relief, present or future, from this curse, shall have been secured ; but the question presses grievously upon us of the Nortli, how this relief is to be obtained. The startling pro- gress of events has so occupied the thinking minds among us, that this matter has not yet had the grave consideration which its importance demands ; but the time for it is close at hand. No question at issue, in words or in arms, on the face of the globe, to-day, is so momentous as this ; and yet it has not been grap- pled with and disposed of by competent minds. Their love for their country is absorbed in watching the fate of our armies, instead of foreseeing and providing for the result of tlieir success. Let tlic intellectual en- ergy of the North display itself in thougbt as vigor- 10 ously as its i)liysical force has displayed itself in readiness to fight. Let those who can and who onght, — give their best efforts to devising the answer to the question, " What is then to be done 1 " It is already before ns, and it must be answered. I'hc course of events, under an all-wise Providence, has thrown upon our willing hands the care of a few thousand " contrabands : " but, when the number is in millions instead of thousands, private benevolence is inadequate ; and the Government has taken no ac- tion to meet the case, further than to provide for the payment of the thousands of negroes it can use as laborers. Some plan must be adopted, and, by the signs of the times, it must be speedily, by which an immense number of freed slaves shall be protected, and provided for. Mr. Blair gave expression, a short time since, to an idea which contains the pith of the matter, lie said, " The Southern difficulty is not with the slaves, but with the negroes." The law protects and pro- vides for the slaves. Their position is definite, and Avell understood ; and their future safety, as slaves, is well assured. But when these very individuals now slaves, or a i)ortion of them, shall, by one cause or another, become free negroes, their position will be indefinite and difficult. Freedom may come to the slaves by the flight of their masters, by force of a " military necessity," or by the action of the Government; but all signs will fail, if, when the rebellion shall have been suppressed by force, milhous of negroes shall not stand looking to 11 the North as their hope and stay. What is the North to do ] This question, so clearly and so quickly aris- ing-, must not be left to a hasty answer. Those who can foresee its coming must prepare to meet it. Those who are sincere wishers for the welfare of the slave must now ponder over, grapple with, and master it. They must not await its coming. It is definite enough now in all its elements for consideration ; and the North will not be true to itself, unless it soon pro- poses an answer to a question, which is the most important and the most difiicult which has ever ari- sen since political economy became a science. It is certainly unnecessary, at this day, to attempt to excite farther the desire of the Free States to se- cure the freedom of the slaves. Money and men have been freely expended in the indirect issue, which this " war," so called, has raised as to slavery ; but it is well not to lose sight of actual facts. In the States which are now in rebcUion against the Government, there is a population, black and white, of about twelve millions ; of whom, in round numbers, four millions are slaves. Among the remaining eight mil- lions, there are about three hundred and sixty thou- sand slaveholders, among whom many are women and minors. The remainder of the eight millions are the so-called "poor white trash." It is such u simple statement as this which has the greatest efi'ect in a crisis like the present. Can the world be- lieve that a mere handful of slaveholders — less than a handful, compared with our whole population — has been so long able to control the politics of the na- 12 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS mill mil Hill iiiii mil mil mil mil mil Mill mil nil III 011 899 206 4 tion^ And yet how much more difficult it is to beheve, that not over four hundred thousand men . have been able to plunge this country into what, per- haps, the law of nations would style a civil war! Thirty millions of men embroiled by about four hun- dred thousand ! The resources of the nation have been, and must continue to be, expended, without stint or delay, to contravene the machinations of a ])ortion of the nation numerically insignificant. The whole weight and bearing of this cloud over our future has never been calculated. We are too apt to rely on the workings of an all-wise Providence ; but our shoulders are wanted at the wheel. Let us prepare for the impending difficulty as we have pre- pared for the horrors of the battle-field. Some consideration may be given hereafter to the various plans and suggestions as to what can be done for the negroes, which, so far as they are as yet before the public, are too chaotic to be more than indicative of hopes and fears. These pages are intended solely to call the attention of the thinking men of the North to the importance of a question which begins to urge for an answer, and which is graver than has ever of- fered itself to the decision of statesmen and phibni- tliropists. JrxE ir,, 1S(,2.