In 1856, when the Republican army was first started to put an end to the extension of slavery, Lincoln, who was the most prominent man against the pro-slavery party, took the lead as the most active servant of the cause. But there was another, working perhaps more quietly, but quite as resolutely against slavery, whose name should never be forgotten. William Lloyd Garrison—a man of the same age as Newman—started in 1831 a paper called The Liberator, with no capital or subscriptions. This paper he carried on for thirty-five years until slavery was abolished in the United States, although he received constantly letters threatening his assassination. He came to England in 1833, and on his return he started the American Anti-Slavery Society. Before that was accomplished, however, in every way possible he had spread over the whole of the States pamphlets etc., urging on his people the pressing need of the abolition of the slave trade. Then in 1863 (July) General Grant's success in capturing Vicksburg gave back to the Union the full control of the Mississippi river. By 1864 Grant was in full command of the Union Army. But the aim of the Abolitionists had been triumphantly attained before then, for on 1st Jan., 1863, President Lincoln declared that all slaves in the States then in a state of rebellion should be free. Only two years later this man, who had done so much to rid his country of a degrading trade, was assassinated.
The following letter is dated 4th Aug., 1863:—
"… I hope that you now, with me, believe that the era of Southern 'successes' (i.e. hard and HOPEFUL resistance) is finally past. I believe nothing now remains but the resistance of despair, which cannot long animate the masses. Hatred of the free negro may awhile move them. But, the Mississippi once open, the N.W. has no longer a party favourable to the South; and the exhaustion of the South is so marked and undeniable that the real end may be much earlier than the people think…. General Neal Dow (now a prisoner at Richmond) in his last letter to England observed that the moral end served by the prolongation of the war had notoriously been the immediate legal emancipation of the negroes in the Gulf States; but the further prolongation of it is to determine the future internal government and possession of landed property in these States as the guarantee for the future. But it is a hard wrench on the politicians of the North to consent to this. Lincoln and Blair evidently would still much rather export the negroes if they could. Lincoln will not do anything against the will of the blacks; but it is evidently his weak point to deprecate them as equal citizens."
In September, 1863, Newman and his wife were spending their holiday at
Windermere. From there he writes:—
"I fear that the projects of Louis Napoleon in Mexico, and the consequent sympathies of the United States with Russia against Poland and France, make an imbroglio fatal to Poland. Now that, if the Russian Empire were organized into States possessed of substantive interior nationality (as the French plan is), this would seem to be a very lamentable result. The two Western Cabinets have so acted as to ensure that Russia and the United States shall each desire the aggrandizement of the other; and if Russia take a lesson of imperial liberality from America, her empire may terrify our grandchildren with excellent reason. But I believe that the interest of the nations, of the true people everywhere, will prevail over Cabinet ambitions as soon as slavery is effectually uprooted in America."
Never do the words "a" and "the" light up so vividly the significant gulf which lies between the absence and the presence of Fame than when the first qualifies in the first instance the name of some man at a time when he is not specially distinguished; and then, much later on, the second prefaces it as the mouthpiece of Fame. In 1863 Newman's mention of "a Mr. Grace, the recent celebrated victorious cricketer," proved that his world-wide fame had but then been in its initial stage.
Newman's counsel to Dr. Nicholson in re cigars as injurious to appetite and inflaming to the eyes, reminds one that though, as I have shown by his speech to Mr. Butler's family, he was "anti-everything," including smoke, yet he mentions constantly in his Personal Narrative that in Syria during his missionary journey there in 1830-3, the fact was that he himself smoked in the fashion of the country, and by no means disliked it in his own young manhood. He begins on the Temperance and Teetotal question thus:—
"Llandudno, "17th Sept., 1863.
* * * * *
"I am reminded of it, by seeing to-day a statement made concerning cricketers, that no first-rate cricketer takes beer, ale, or spirits, which (it is said by the enthusiastic narrator) inevitably 'jaundice the eye,' nor tobacco in any form, (!) which induces a kind of stupefaction or negligence. The recent celebrated victorious cricketer, a Mr. Grace, it is said, will not take even tea; but prefers water. (I hope the water is better than that of Windermere!) Two months ago I was reading from a sporting newspaper about a rowing match on the Thames, and there learnt that if a rower is known to take beer or ale, it lowers the bets in his favour. In fact, no habitual drinker, though he drink only for health and strength (as he thinks), is regarded to have a chance of the highest prize.