Life and times of Frederick Douglass

by Frederick Douglass

The reaction from the glorious assertion of freedom and independence on the part of the North in the triumphant election of Abraham Lincoln, was a painful and humiliating development of its weakness. It seemed as if all that had been gained in the canvass was about to be surrendered to the vanquished: that the South, though beaten at the polls, were to be victorious and have every thing its own way in the final result. During all the intervening months, from November to the ensuing March, the drift of northern sentiment was towards compromise. To smooth the way for this, most of the northern legislatures repealed their personal liberty bills, as they were supposed to embarrass the surrender of fugitive slaves to their claimants. The feeling everywhere seemed to be that something must be done to convince the South that the election of Mr. Lincoln meant no harm to slavery or the slave power, and that the North was sound on the question of the right of the master to hold and hunt his slave as long as he pleased, and that even the right to hold slaves in the Territories should be submitted to the supreme court, which would probably decide in favor of the most extravagant demands of the slave States. The northern press took on a more conservative tone towards the slavery propagandists, and a corresponding tone of bitterness towards anti-slavery men and measures. It came to be a no uncommon thing to hear men denouncing South Carolina and Massachusetts in the same breath, and in the same measure of disapproval. The old pro-slavery spirit which, in 1835, mobbed anti-slavery prayer-meetings, and dragged William Lloyd Garrison through the streets of Boston with a halter about his neck, was revived. From Massachusetts to Missouri, anti-slavery meetings were ruthlessly assailed and broken up. With others, I was roughly handled by a mob in Tremont Temple, Boston, headed by one of the wealthiest men of that city. The talk was that the blood of some abolitionist must be shed to appease the wrath of the offended South, and to restore peaceful relations between the two sections of the country. A howling mob followed Wendell Phillips for three days whenever he appeared on the pavements of his native city, because of his ability and prominence in the propagation of anti-slavery opinions.

Portrait of William Lloyd Garrison.

While this humiliating reaction was going on at the North, various devices were suggested and pressed at Washington, to bring about peace and reconciliation. Committees were appointed to listen to southern grievances, and, if possible, devise means of redress for such as might be alleged. Some of these peace propositions would have been shocking to the last degree to the moral sense of the North, had not fear for the safety of the Union overwhelmed all moral conviction. Such men as William H. Seward, Charles Francis Adams, Henry B. Anthony, Joshua R. Giddings, and others—men whose courage had been equal to all other emergencies—bent before this southern storm, and were ready to purchase peace at any price. Those who had stimulated the courage of the North before the election, and had shouted “Who’s afraid?” were now shaking in their shoes with apprehension and dread. One was for passing laws in the northern States for the better protection of slave hunters, and for the greater efficiency of the fugitive slave bill. Another was for enacting laws to punish the invasion of the slave States, and others were for so altering the constitution of the United States that the federal government should never abolish slavery while any one State should object to such a measure.[B] Everything that could be demanded by insatiable pride and selfishness on the part of the slaveholding South, or could be surrendered by abject fear and servility on the part of the North, had able and eloquent advocates.

[B] See History of American Conflict, Vol. II, by Horace Greeley.

Happily for the cause of human freedom, and for the final unity of the American nation, the South was mad, and would listen to no concessions. They would neither accept the terms offered, nor offer others to be accepted. They had made up their minds that under a given contingency they would secede from the Union and thus dismember the Republic. That contingency had happened, and they should execute their threat. Mr. Ireson of Georgia, expressed the ruling sentiment of his section when he told the northern peacemakers that if the people of the South were given a blank sheet of paper upon which to write their own terms on which they would remain in the Union, they would not stay. They had come to hate everything which had the prefix “Free”—free soil, free states, free territories, free schools, free speech, and freedom generally, and they would have no more such prefixes. This haughty and unreasonable and unreasoning attitude of the imperious South saved the slave and saved the nation. Had the South accepted our concessions and remained in the Union the slave power would in all probability have continued to rule; the north would have become utterly demoralized; the hands on the dial-plate of American civilization would have been reversed, and the slave would have been dragging his hateful chains to-day wherever the American flag floats to the breeze. Those who may wish to see to what depths of humility and self-abasement a noble people can be brought under the sentiment of fear, will find no chapter of history more instructive than that which treats of the events in official circles in Washington during the space between the months of November, 1859, and March, 1860.

CHAPTER XI.
SECESSION AND WAR

Recruiting of the 54th and 55th Colored Regiments—Visit to President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton—Promised a Commission as Adjutant General to General Thomas—Disappointment.

The cowardly and disgraceful reaction, from a courageous and manly assertion of right principles, as described in the foregoing pages, continued surprisingly long after secession and war were commenced. The patience and forbearance of the loyal people of the North were amazing. Speaking of this feature of the situation in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, at the time, I said:

“We (the people of the North) are a charitable people, and in the excess of this feeling we were disposed to put the very best construction upon the strange behavior of our southern brethren. We hoped that all would yet go well. We thought that South Carolina might secede; it was entirely like her to do so. She had talked extravagantly about going out of the Union, and it was natural that she should do something extravagant and startling if for nothing else, to save a show of consistency. Georgia too, we thought might possibly secede. But strangely enough we thought and felt quite sure that these twin rebellious States would stand alone and unsupported in their infamy and their impotency; that they would soon tire of their isolation, repent of their folly and come back to their places in the Union. Traitors withdrew from the Cabinet, from the House of Representatives, and from the Senate, and hastened to their several States to ‘fire the southern heart,’ and to fan the hot flames of treason at home. Still we doubted if anything serious would come of it. We treated it as a bubble on the wave—a nine days’ wonder. Calm and thoughtful men ourselves, we relied upon the sober second thought of the southern people. Even the capture of a fort, a shot at one of our ships—an insult to the national flag—caused only a momentary feeling of indignation and resentment. We could not but believe that there existed at the South a latent and powerful Union sentiment which would assert itself at last. Though loyal soldiers had been fired upon in the streets of Baltimore; though loyal blood had stained the pavements of that beautiful city, and the national government was warned to send no troops through Baltimore to the defense of the National Capital, we could not be made to believe that the border States would plunge madly into the bloody vortex of rebellion.