Out of the fourteen that I examined, male and female, I found four that showed that they were tolerably well-prepared for their duties as primary teachers and they acquitted themselves very well in the schoolroom.
Our schools flourished. Most of the pupils learned rapidly. The number of them multiplied. Soon our room was insufficient. From time to time we added other schools, and succeeded with small means in doing a great, beneficent work.
We finally carried our case to the School Board of the city. We went with faint hearts. In a community accustomed to slave laws, which public opinion had heartily sustained, we were to ask the great boon of public schools for those who by legislative enactment had been long kept in ignorance. Moreover, the character of the men before whom we were to plead the cause of the negro made us hesitate. Most of them were what were then called Bourbon Democrats, who, it was declared, never learned anything nor forgot anything, and a majority of the Board were Roman Catholics. What could we expect men of that kind to do for the servile and despised race among us? We were ushered into their presence. With warm hearts we began to state our case. We criminated nobody. We spoke earnestly and tenderly for the wronged and neglected. We were wonderfully cheered when we saw that those whom we addressed were all eye and all ear. They intently looked us in the face, they seemed unwilling to lose a single word that fell from our lips. The injustice that we pointed out was so rank that all their hearts were touched. Without a dissenting voice they declared that the great wrong must be righted; that the children of the men who paid a school tax must share in its benefits.
But, just as we expected, they affirmed that they could do nothing for the colored children under the existing law; but unsolicited they pledged themselves to petition the next legislature for a law that would enable them to provide school buildings, books, apparatus, and teachers for the black children, and to support these schools, just as the schools for white children are maintained, by the public school funds. They were as good as their word. The legislature to which they appealed was mainly made up of men of radical, progressive views, and what was asked was enthusiastically granted. The school buildings for colored children were put up and all that could make these schools most highly efficient was liberally provided. The negro question for Missouri was solved in this high-minded, philanthropic way, and the solution was unstained by partisanship or demagogism; and in it we saw the grand fruition of our toil on behalf of a few private negro schools.
CHAPTER XXV
AFTER DARKNESS LIGHT
In the beginning of the autumn of 1864 the Unionists of St. Louis were sadly disheartened. They had not been so hopeless since the war began. Men were unable to give any rational explanation of their discouragement. It probably arose from a combination of untoward events. Grant and Sherman had begun their great campaigns in Virginia and Georgia. Some hard battles had been fought but no very decisive victories had yet been gained. Mr. Lincoln had been renominated for the Presidency, but without the triumph of our arms his election seemed to us somewhat doubtful. For the opposing candidate the Democrats had nominated General McClellan, who had many enthusiastic followers. In their platform they had declared the war a failure. The existence of “The Knights of the Golden Circle,” their great numbers in several States of the Middle West and their ardent support of the Democratic candidate had become quite generally known. Such an array of antagonistic forces seemed to many of the loyal in our city, wearied with the long and costly conflict for the Union, to betoken possible defeat.
In this too general gloom I could not share. With other optimistic souls I felt sure of ultimate victory. It was my duty, therefore, to impart so far as possible my confidence to others; so I preached to a full house from the text: “Think not that I came to send peace on the earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword.” The press asked for my sermon and gave it to a far greater number than those who heard it. Its closing passage enshrines the spirit and stress of that day.
“There are those, however, who cry out for peace. Who does not desire it? Have we not had enough of fratricidal strife? Yes, verily. Has not enough blood been shed? Yes, a thousand fold more than ought to have flowed. Have we not had enough of lamentation and tears? Let the Rachels who weep for their children, and refuse to be comforted, answer. He has a stone for a heart who, looking on the desolations of war, does not sigh for peace. But peace at what price? At the price of truth? Shall we for the sake of peace give up the principle that good government must be obeyed? Shall we tamely abandon the truth that all men are equal in God’s sight, and have a right to the product of their own labor? Shall we timidly assent to the tyrannical doctrine that the normal condition of a portion of our race is slavery? We cannot purchase peace at so great cost. God giving us strength, we never will. Let our wives be widows and our children orphans; let them beg their bread from door to door; let them die without care in almshouses, and be buried uncoffined in the potter’s field; yea, ‘let a general conflagration sweep over the land, and let an earthquake sink it,’ before we yield one rood of our territory to those who, without cause, lifted up the red hand of rebellion against the government of our fathers in the interest of slavery. And why all this? Because the truth for which we contend is worth more than your life or mine—or more than the lives of a generation of men. When peace shall be obtained which is based in righteousness, which flows forth from justice established and exalted in the midst of the nation, which grants to all classes of men their inalienable rights, we will sing pæans of joy over it; but if we are to have a peace based on a compromise with iniquity, which will be as deceptive as the apples of Sodom, involving our children in disasters more dire than those which have befallen us, every lover of truth, and justice, and good government will hang his head in shame. O, God, save us in mercy, from such a peace! Give us anything rather than it. Grant us an eighty years’ war like that waged by the Netherlands, rather than pour into our cup such an insidious curse.
“Brethren, be of good cheer. God now goes before us to battle, and grants us victories. This is no time for fear and faltering. We must quit ourselves like men, like Christian freemen. This conflict is not anomalous. There have been many such. Christ, the Prince of Peace, anticipated it, and His words coming across the centuries shall cheer us till the last blow is struck, truth vindicated and righteousness immovably established.”
As we approached November the tide of public opinion turned in favor of the election of Mr. Lincoln for a second term. The invasion of Missouri had failed of its object. St. Louis was no longer threatened by her foes; she was now secure and serene. The great secret political organization, which aspired to destroy the Union and defeat the second election of the President, had become innocuous; the fangs of the copperhead had been drawn; Grant with the hammer of Thor, over grass-covered fortifications, was steadily pounding his way towards Richmond. Sherman had achieved brilliant success in Georgia. All things for the cause of the Union were propitious. Lincoln’s election was triumphant. Great patient soul, he now knew that he was enthroned in the hearts of the people to whom he was so ardently devoted.