Loyal publication society. Tracts. No. 22, [n.d.]' YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY LOYAL PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 863 BROADWAY. jto. sa. EMANCIPATION IS PEACE. BY ROBERT DALE QWEN. We want peace. We desire to see an end of this war. Its bloodshed, its crimes, the desolation that follows in its track, the evil passions it engenders — tbese are an offense against civilization, a breach of the principles which lie at the base of Christianity. Such a war, between men of the same race, lan guage, religion, is a disgrace to the nineteenth century. We are tired of war. We want peace ! But what sort of peace do we desire, and how shall we obtain it ? Do we want peace in the shape of a suspension of hostilities ? Are we satisfied if weobtain-a truce, to be followed after a few months, or a few years, during which the rehels, taking breath, shall arm and fortify themselves afresh, by a new and more bitter contest ? Do we want peace for ourselves, to result in war for our children ? Shortsighted and selfish is such a policy. Selfish, for he de serves not the name of parent who would shuffle off danger and suffering for the moment, that these may fall, with double force, on his children after him ; and shortsighted, because, if this insuiTection is to be put down with the least sacrifice of human life, it must be stricken now, confined, blockaded, ex hausted as it is, not allowed time and opportunity to renew its energies and recruit its resources. 2 We lack not manhood only, but that parental instinct which renders dumb beasts courageous, if we are satisfied with any peace but that which shall be permanent-— -if we are^satisfied with any arrangement to terminate this war, that shall not ex tend to the next generation as well as to the present. How and when are we to obtain such a peace ? Never, until we shall have eradicated the cause of the war. The secessionists themselves have told us in terms so plain that he who runs may read, what are the causes of this war. South Carolina, in her official " Declaration of Causes," con curred in afterwards by each seceding State, spoke thus : " All hope of remedy is rendered vain by the fact, that the public opinion of the North has invested a great political error with the sanctions of a more erroneous religious belief." She tells us, in the same document, what is this " great political error." The Northern States, she says, " have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery." Her corner-stone doctrine, in opposi tion, was honestly given, March 21, 1863, by the Vice-Presi dent of Secessiondom, (Alexander H. Stephens,) as follows : "Slavery is the natural and moral condition of the negro. This, our new Government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." South Carolina, sustained by every seceding State, tells us, that peace is hopeless until we discard our " great political error," and adopt their "great philosophical and moral truth." And these are no idle words. They have been backed by brave deeds ; they have been maintained on the part of the rebels, by the sacrifice of millions of treasure and tens of thou sands of lives. It is plain as the sun at noonday, that with such a people there are but two roads to peace of any kind — the one to re cognize as the basis of Government the " philosophical truth " that slavery is the natural and moral condition of the negro • the other, to extirpate the institution, the parent and source of the stupendous falsehood, which, for eighty years past has lurked and\rantled in our political system, to culminate, at last, in the most gigantic rebellion the world ever saw. The first of these roads— to what sort of peace will it lead ns? Let the North, belying the courage she has shown on the battle-field, casting behind her the last remnant of self-respect, "deaf alike to the warnings of Revolutionary wisdom, and to the voice of civilization speaking to-day in her ears, consent to Se- cessiondom's new basis of government, now for the first time in the history of the world shamelessly put forth ; and, whether as one nation, or as two, what are the inevitable results ? We shall not avoid them by shutting our eyes. Let us look them boldly in the face. Conceive reunion, with slavery still in existence. Imagine Southern sympathizers in power among us, offering compro mises. Suppose the South, exhausted with military reverses, and desiring a few years' armistice to recruit, decides to accept it under the guise of peace and reconstruction ? What next ? Thousands of slaves, their excited hopes of emancipation crushed, fleeing across the border. A fugitive slave law, re vived by peace, demanding their rendition. Popular opinion in the North opposed to the law, and refusing the demand. Renewed war the certain consequence. Or take even the alternative of recognition — recognition of an independent confederacy, still slave-holding. Are we, then — becoming the sole exception among the nations of the earth — to make ourselves aiders and abettors of the slave system of a foreign nation, by agreeing to return to her negro refugees seeking liberty and an asylum among us % National self-respect imperatively forbids this. Public sentiment would cibmpel the rejection, as a base humiliation, of any proposed treaty stipula tion, providing for rendition of runaway slaves. Yet the South would regard such rejection in no other light than as a stand ing menace — a threat to deprive her of what she regards as her most valuable property. Coterminous as for hundreds — possi bly thousands — of miles our boundaries would be, must not the South, in common prudence, maintain all along that endless border line an armed slave police 1 Are we to consent to this ? And if we do, shall we escape border raids after fleeing fugi tives? No sane man will expect it. Are we to suffer these ? We are disgraced. Are we to resent them ? It is a renewal of hostilities. Whether the South returns to her allegiance, retaining her slave system, or whether we recognize her independence with her new basis of government, the ultimate result, as regards. peace, will be the same. Three years of breathing time will not elapse without bringing endless quarrels and another rebel lion. The second of these roads may seem rough and hard to travel; but we must either travel it, or abandon all hopes of enduring peace. We must fight the battle out. We can rid ourselves of a great evil in one way only — by eradicating its cause. The price of peace is emancipation. But if emancipation is to avail us as a peace measure, we must adopt it boldly, resolutely, effectually. It must be general not partial ; extending not to the slaves of rebels only, but to every slave on this continent. Even if it were practicable, which it is not, with slavery non-existent in the Northern States and abolished in those which persist in rebellion, to maintain it in the narrow border-strip, it is precisely there where negro fugitives can the most readily escape, that its maintenance would the most certainly lead to war. The President's Proclamation has nobly paved the way, but that is all it has done. And, as it is confessedly based on the war power and justified by military necessity, there is the chance that the Supreme Court, if still in the hands of the slave power, when peace supervenes, may declare it inoperative. An Act or Emancipation is needed to endorse that Proclama tion and enlarge its operation ; a sanction of that great measure by the National Legislature under the solemn form of law. The constitutional power of Congress to enact such a law admits of no reasonable doubt. The powers to lay and collect taxes, to exercise authority over forts and arsenals of the United States, to suppress insurrection, and various others equally essential, are expressly given by the Constitution to Congress. It is the right and duty of Congress to carry these powers into effect. In case of obstruction or defeat of existing laws framed to that intent, it is the right and duty of Congress to select such means and pass such additional laws as may be necessary and proper to overcome such obstruction and enforce obedience to such laws. In the selection of the means to effect this consti- tutional object, Congress is the sole judge of their propriety or necessity. These means must not be prohibited by the Consti tution ; but whether they are the most prudent or the most ef fectual means, or in what degree they are necessary, are matters over which the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction. Chief Justice Marshall, in a celebrated decision, declared : " The Gov ernment, which has a right to do an act, and has imposed upon it the duty of performing that act, must, according to the dictates of reason, be allowed to select the means." Now, the laws are obstructed in the insurrectionary States ; in those States, and only in those States, where slavery exists ; in other words, where life-long claims to the service or labor of negroes are held ; the insurrectionary acts of these States being avowedly based on the allegation that the preservation of slavery can only be ensured by secession. It will farther be admitted that Congress has the right (Amendments to Constitution, Article 5) to take private prop erty, 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 can celled, neither can the claim to the service of an apprentice. But if Congress believes that, in order to enforce law and suppress insurrection, it is necessary and proper to take and cancel all claims to life-long service or labor held in the Slave States, and if claims to service or labor, whether for years or for life, held by one inhabitant of the United States against another, be a species of property not specially exempted by the Constitution from seizure for public use, then an Act of Eman cipation is strictly constitutional. Is such an act expedient, as well as constitutional ? We hear it often 3aid, even by the enemies of slavery, that its days are numbered ; that the Southern Institution is tottering to its downfall, and will die out of itself, if we but let it alone. There is not an evil that curses the earth of which the same thing cannot be said : all abuses have but a limited life; the truth, only, is eternal. But is that a reason why we should sit with our hands across, idly looking on ? God does his work, but he does it through the agency of good, active men and women. He helps those who help themselves. Why are the days of slavery num bered? Because of the brave blows that have been struck against it. How shall it be eradicated? By the same process by which it was doomed. By continuing to strike such blows. By continuing to work against it, until it ceases to exist. Up to this hour, the measures taken to subdue it have been partial only. Let us complete the work. Those who demur to the passage of an act which meets the great difficulty before us broadly, effectually, honestly, and in accordance with the dictates of Christianity and civilization, would do well to consider whether, in the progress of this in surrectionary upheaval, we have not reached a point at which there is no prudent alternative left. By the President's Pro clamation, some three millions of slaves have been already declared free. Sundry laws of Congress have emancipated several hundred thousands more. There remain legally en slaved probably less than three- quarters of a million — chiefly scattered along a narrow border-strip that is coterminous, North and South, with Freedom or Emancipation — partly dotted in isolated parishes or counties, surrounded by enfranchised slaves. Can we maintain in perpetuity so anomalous a condition of things? Clearly not. At every step embarrassments innumer able obstruct our progress. No industry, no human sagacity, would suffice to determine the ten thousand conflicting questions that must arise out of such a chaos. Must the history of each negro be followed back, so as to determine his status, whether slave or free ? If negroes emancipated in insurrectionary States are sold as slaves into Border States, or into excepted parishes or counties, can we expect to trace the transaction ? If slaves owned in Border States, or in excepted parishes or counties, are sold to loyal men in insurrectionary States, are they still slaves? or do they become free ? Are we to admit, or to deny, the constitutionality of Border-State laws, which arrest and imprison as vagrants, and sell into slavery to pay expenses of arrest and imprisonment, free negro emigrants from insurrectionary States? But why multiply instances? The longer this twilight of groping transition lasts, it will be only confusion the worse confounded. God's work is yet incomplete. The least you can do in aid of it is to give to it your personal influence and your name. And then, when you shall have lent a helping hand, it will be time enough to sit down and to hope that the evil which threatens the very existence of this nation will be, not doomed only, but destroyed at last. Loyal Leagues, Clubs, or individuals may obtain any of our Publications at the cost price, by application to the Executive Committee, or by calling at the Rooms of the Society, No. 863 Broadway, where all information may be obtained relating to the Society. Cost of Pamphlets for Paper and Printing. No. 1. Future of the North West, by Robert Dale Owen, 2. Echo from the Army, 3. Union Mass Meeting, Speeches of Brady, Van Buren, &c. 4. Three Voices : the Soldier, Farmer and Poet, 5. Voices from the Army, 6. Northern True Men, 7. Speech of Major-General Butler, 8. Separation ; War without End. Ed. Laboulaye, - 9. The Venom and the Antidote, 10. A few words in behalf of the Loyal Women of the United States, by One of Themselves, 11. No Failure for the North. Atlantic Monthly, 12. Address to King Cotton. Eugene Pelletan, 13. How a Free People conduct a long War. Stille, 14. The Preservation of the Union, a National Economic Necessity, - 15. Elements of Discords in Secessia, &c, &c, 16. No Party now, but all for our Country. Francis Lieber, - 17. The Cause of the War. Col. Charles Anderson, 18. Opinions of the early Presidents and of the Fathers of the Republic on Slavery, - 3 00 19. (Einheit it no' iFreiljeil, con Her mann ftafter, - - 2 10 20. Military Despotism, &c, 2 50 $2 50 per 100. 1 80 tt 2 50 u 1 80 tt 1 80 a 1 80 u 2 50 tt 3 00 u 1 50 tt 3 30 u 3 30 tt 4 00 (' 2 50 tt 1 80 tt 2 50 " 2 10 tt 3 00 tt Loyal Leagues or Clubs ordering one thousand or more of any one of the above publications of the Society, may have the name and address of their particular Association printed at the head of the first page, thus : Issue of the Loyal Publication Society, 863 Broadway, New York. Printed for The Loyal National League of , city, county, State of Also, the covers of the pamphlets may be omitted, which will reduce the price about one dollar per hundred. ¦ 1 I