The title of the chapter demands that I now tell you of the blessing of African slavery in the United States to the negro. Of course there are many who have been born into the unequalified condemnation of every form of slavery, which was resolutely preached for years all over the north by conscientious men and women of great ability and influence. Such will exclaim against me, and perhaps some of them will not even read the rest of the chapter. But it is my note, which becomes surer and more confident every year, that the great body of men and women shrink from every over-positively urged dogma. I have already mentioned those who are trying to curb the evils of drink. All the while an increasing majority of them recognize that to assert that any use of liquor, wine, or beer is a moral wrong, as do a noisy few in season and out of season, is too extreme to be true or even politic. The ultra democrat will zealously justify the assassination of Julius Cæsar, while the wisest friends of the people become more firmly convinced every century that the empire which Cæsar founded was, by reason of the circumstances, the best possible government for the Romans of that and the succeeding times;—the surest guaranty that the main benefits of ancient civilization should be preserved for the human race. And as there has now and then been something of substantial good in even absolute government, there has also been good to the slave in his slavery. Surely it was an improvement of the captor and a bettering of the condition of the prisoner of war, not to barbecue the latter, as was the custom for ages, but to have him work for a master. Perhaps the fabulist Æsop had been a slave. Terence, a great Roman dramatist, surely had been. Horace’s father had been one. It may well be true that it was slavery that gave each one of these three immortals his opportunity. The more familiar you become with ancient history the larger you estimate the number of those to have been who as slaves got many of the benefits of Greek and Roman civilization, which benefits they afterwards transmitted to free descendants. I need not repeat what I have already told—how the negroes in the mass were advantaged by transfer from slavery in Africa to slavery in America. But do let me inquire, would Professor DuBois have ever outstripped all the white children in a New England school, graduated creditably from two American universities, studied at the university of Berlin, acquired the degree of Master of Arts and then that of Doctor of Philosophy, been made in sociology fellow of Harvard and assistant of the university of Pennsylvania, become president of the American Negro Academy, got the professorship of economics and history in Atlanta University, and pushed forward as an author into prominent and most respectable place; all before he was thirty-six years old—would Professor DuBois have surpassed this brilliant career, if an “evil, Dutch trader” had not seized his “grandfather’s grandmother—two centuries ago”?[143] If the transfer just mentioned had not been made what would now be Fred Douglass, Booker Washington, Richard R. Wright, Professor DuBois, Bishop Turner, and other great negroes, their good works and glory? Would Hayti have arranged for some of its young men to be trained in farming at Tuskegee? more especially do I ask, would negroes educated at Tuskegee be now teaching the missionaries how to christianize the Africans of Togoland? Who would now be arousing people north and south in behalf of the race? and where could nine millions of blacks be found—or even half a million—as far above the African level of to-day as ours?
My conclusion is that the whites and the negroes of the south ought to learn wisdom and interchange their holidays and great annual rejoicings. The former ought to keep the anniversary of the emancipation proclamation as the southern 4th of July, and the blacks ought to observe that day by wearing mourning and eating bitter herbs. Further, the negroes of America ought to celebrate the day when the Dutch ship landed the first Africans at Jamestown as the dawn of their hopes as a people.
CHAPTER XV
THE BROTHERS ON EACH SIDE WERE TRUE PATRIOTS AND MORALLY RIGHT—BOTH THOSE WHO FOUGHT FOR THE UNION, AND THOSE WHO FOUGHT FOR THE CONFEDERACY
The proposition of the heading has really been demonstrated in the foregoing chapters. I feel that the demonstration should have impressive enforcement. It will surely be for the great good of our country if the brothers of each section be truly convinced that those of the other were morally right in the slavery struggle from beginning to end.
Let us begin by noting the ambiguity of the word “right.” Something may be right in expediency, policy, or reason, and yet wrong ethically. Likewise something may be a mistake and wrong in policy while it is right in morals. General Sherman was a conspicuous example of the almost universal proneness to confound right in the sense first mentioned above with it in the other. The two are widely different—not merely in degree, but in kind. That which is right or wrong in expediency is decided by the understanding—by the head; that which is right or wrong ethically is decided for every human being by his own conscience—by his heart. To try with all my might to do a particular thing may be my highest moral duty; to try with all your might to keep me from doing it may be yours. The brothers who set up the southern confederacy and defended it, the brothers who warred upon it and overturned it—they were on each side sublimely conscientious; for every one—to use the high word of Lincoln—was doing the right as God gave him to see it. No people ever waged a war with deeper and more solemn conviction of duty than did our northern brothers. Rome, rising unvanquished from every great victory of Hannibal, much as she has been most justly lauded by foremost historians, fell behind them in supreme effort—in undaunted perseverance in spite of disaster after disaster until the difficulty insuperable was overcome. We of the south should be proud of this unparalleled achievement of our brothers. Most of all should we be proud of the complete self-abnegation and unwavering obedience to conscience with which they waded a sea of blood, for the welfare of future generations rather than their own. I am glad to observe that many who most affectionately remember the lost cause have come at last to concede without qualification that the restoration of the union by force of arms was morally right. But I note that as yet only a few at the north—men like Dr. Lyman Abbott, Mr. Charles F. Adams, and Professor Wendell—have learned that the south, in all that she did in “The Great War,”[144] was likewise morally right. To show that the confederates were exemplary champions of a legitimate government, I need not repeat what I have said above when I told how southern nationalization had given them a country of their own as dear to them and as much mistress of their consciences as the union was to the northern people. If there are those who cannot bring themselves to allow the all-potent coercion of the nationalization mentioned as justification, and who still think of us as traitors and rebels, I beg them to give due consideration to the feelings with which the southerner now looks back upon his life in the confederate army. I call a most convincing witness to testify. I do not know a man who ever followed what his conscience pronounced right more faithfully, who was truer to the better traditions of the old south, and who was a more devoted soldier in the brothers’ war, nor do I know another who now draws from every class in his community more respect for real manhood and honesty. All who know him will believe his word against an oracle or an angel. Here is what he said thirty-seven years after the close of the war:
“That period of my life is the one with which I am the most nearly satisfied. A persistent, steady effort to do my duty—an effort persevered in in the midst of privation, hardship, and danger. If ever I was unselfish, it was then. If ever I was capable of self-denial, it was then. If ever I was able to trample on self-indulgence, it was then. If ever I was strong to make sacrifices, even unto death, it was in those days; and if I were called upon to say on the peril of my soul, when it lived its highest life, when it was least faithless to true manhood, when it was most loyal to the best part of man’s nature, I would answer, ‘It was when I followed a battle-torn flag through its shifting fortune of victory and defeat.’
My comrades, how easy it is to name the word that characterizes and strikes the keynote of that time and should explain our pride to all the world—self sacrifice—that spirit and that conduct which raise poor mortals nearest to divinity. Oh, God in heaven, what sacrifices did we not make! How our very heart strings were torn as we turned from our home, our parents, our children!... How poor we were! How ragged! How hungry! When I recall the light-heartedness, the courage, the cheerfulness, the fidelity to duty which lived and flourished under such circumstances, from the bottom of my heart I thank God that for four long years I wore, if not brilliantly, at least faithfully and steadfastly, in camp and bivouac, in advance and retreat, on the march and on the battlefield, the uniform of a confederate soldier.”[145]