“‘Who’s Massa Sam, Aunty?’
“‘Mr. Lincum!’ she said, and resumed wringing her hands and moaning in utter hopelessness of sorrow. The poor creature was too ignorant to comprehend any difference between the very unreal Uncle Sam and the actual President; but her heart told her that he whom Heaven had sent in answer to her prayers was lying in a bloody grave, and she and her race were left—fatherless.”
In 1863, Colonel McKaye, of New York, with Robert Dale Owen and one or two other gentlemen, were associated as a committee to investigate the condition of the freedmen on the coast of North Carolina. Upon their return from Hilton Head they reported to the President; and in the course of the interview Colonel McKaye related the following incident.
He had been speaking of the ideas of power entertained by these people. He said they had an idea of God, as the Almighty, and they had realized in their former condition the power of their masters. Up to the time of the arrival among them of the Union forces, they had no knowledge of any other power. Their masters fled upon the approach of our soldiers, and this gave the slaves a conception of a power greater than that exercised by them. This power they called “Massa Linkum.”
Colonel McKaye said that their place of worship was a large building which they called “the praise house;” and the leader of the meeting, a venerable black man, was known as “the praise man.” On a certain day, when there was quite a large gathering of the people, considerable confusion was created by different persons attempting to tell who and what “Massa Linkum” was. In the midst of the excitement the white-headed leader commanded silence. “Brederin,” said he, “you don’t know nosen’ what you’se talkin’ ’bout. Now, you just listen to me. Massa Linkum, he eberywhar. He know eberyting.” Then, solemnly looking up, he added,—“He walk de earf like de Lord!”
Colonel McKaye told me that Mr. Lincoln seemed much affected by this account. He did not smile, as another man might have done, but got up from his chair, and walked in silence two or three times across the floor. As he resumed his seat, he said, very impressively: “It is a momentous thing to be the instrument, under Providence, of the liberation of a race.”
LX.
The famous “peace” conference, on board the River Queen, in Hampton Roads, between President Lincoln and Secretary Seward, and the Rebel commissioners Stephens, Hunter, and Campbell, took place the 3d of February, 1865. A few days afterward[9] I asked the President if it was true, as reported by the New York “Herald,” that he told a “little story” on that occasion?—“Why,” said he, “has it leaked out? I was in hopes nothing would be said about that, lest some over-sensitive people should imagine there was a degree of levity in the intercourse between us.” He then went on to relate the circumstances which called it out. “You see,” said he, “we had reached and were discussing the slavery question. Mr. Hunter said, substantially, that the slaves, always accustomed to an overseer, and to work upon compulsion, suddenly freed, as they would be if the South should consent to peace on the basis of the ‘Emancipation Proclamation,’ would precipitate not only themselves but the entire Southern society into irremediable ruin. No work would be done, nothing would be cultivated, and both blacks and whites would starve!” Said the President, “I waited for Seward to answer that argument, but as he was silent, I at length said: ‘Mr. Hunter, you ought to know a great deal better about this matter than I, for you have always lived under the slave system. I can only say, in reply to your statement of the case, that it reminds me of a man out in Illinois, by the name of Case, who undertook, a few years ago, to raise a very large herd of hogs. It was a great trouble to feed them, and how to get around this was a puzzle to him. At length he hit on the plan of planting an immense field of potatoes, and, when they were sufficiently grown, he turned the whole herd into the field, and let them have full swing, thus saving not only the labor of feeding the hogs, but also that of digging the potatoes. Charmed with his sagacity, he stood one day leaning against the fence, counting his hogs, when a neighbor came along. ‘Well, well,’ said he, ‘Mr. Case, this is all very fine. Your hogs are doing very well just now, but you know out here in Illinois the frost comes early, and the ground freezes a foot deep. Then what are they going to do.?’ This was a view of the matter Mr. Case had not taken into account. Butchering-time for hogs was ’way on in December or January. He scratched his head, and at length stammered, ‘Well, it may come pretty hard on their snouts, but I don’t see but that it will be “root, hog, or die!”’
“Shortly afterward,” he continued, “a reference was casually made to Colonel Hardin, who was killed in the Mexican War,—who at one time was a representative in Congress from Illinois; and this drew out a story from Stephens. ‘On a certain occasion,’ he said, ‘when the House was in session, a dispute arose between Hardin and others of the Illinois delegation as to the proper pronunciation of the name of their State. Some insisted it was “Illinoy,” others as stoutly that it was “Illinois.” Hardin at length appealed to the venerable John Quincy Adams. “If one were to judge from the character of the representatives in this Congress from that State,” said the old man, with a malicious smile, “I should decide unhesitatingly that the proper pronunciation was ‘All noise!’”’”
In the Augusta (Ga.) “Chronicle,” of the 17th of June, 1865, there appeared a report of this conference, purporting to have been written out from the lips of Mr. Stephens, so characteristic of Mr. Lincoln, that I subjoin the following extracts:—