The Conflict with Slavery / Part 1 from The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume VII

by John Greenleaf Whittier

Let me, through thee, extend a warm greeting to the friends, whether of our own or the new generation, who may assemble on the occasion of commemoration. There is work yet to be done which will task the best efforts of us all. For thyself, I need not say that the love and esteem of early boyhood have lost nothing by the test of time; and

I am, very cordially, thy friend,

JOHN G. WHITTIER

THE LESSON AND OUR DUTY.

From the Amesbury Villager.

[1865.]

IN the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the unspeakably brutal assault upon Secretary Seward slavery has made another revelation of itself. Perhaps it was needed. In the magnanimity of assured victory we were perhaps disposed to overlook, not so much the guilty leaders and misguided masses of the great rebellion as the unutterable horror and sin of slavery which prompted it.

How slowly we of the North have learned the true character of this mighty mischief! How our politicians bowed their strong shoulders under its burthens! How our churches reverenced it! How our clergy contrasted the heresy-tolerating North with the purely orthodox and Scriptural type of slave-holding Christianity! How all classes hunted down, not merely the fugitive slave, but the few who ventured to give him food and shelter and a Godspeed in his flight from bondage! How utterly ignored was the negro's claim of common humanity! How readily was the decision of the slave-holding chief justice acquiesced in, that "the black man had no rights which the white man is bound to respect"!

We saw a senator of the United States, world-known and honored for his learning, talents, and stainless integrity, beaten down and all but murdered at his official desk by a South Carolina slave-holder, for the crime of speaking against the extension of slavery; and we heard the dastardly deed applauded throughout the South, while its brutal perpetrator was rewarded with orations and gifts and smiles of beauty as a chivalrous gentleman. We saw slavery enter Kansas, with bowieknife in hand and curses on its lips; we saw the life of the Union struck at by secession and rebellion; we heard of the bones of sons and brothers, fallen in defence of freedom and law, dug up and wrought into ornaments for the wrists and bosoms of slave-holding women; we looked into the open hell of Andersonville, upon the deliberate, systematic starvation of helpless prisoners; we heard of Libby Prison underlaid with gunpowder, for the purpose of destroying thousands of Union prisoners in case of the occupation of Richmond by our army; we saw hundreds of prisoners massacred in cold blood at Fort Pillow, and the midnight sack of Lawrence and the murder of its principal citizens. The flames of our merchant vessels, seized by pirates, lighted every sea; we heard of officers of the rebel army and navy stealing into our cities, firing hotels filled with sleeping occupants, and laying obstructions on the track of rail cars, for the purpose of killing and mangling their passengers. Yet in spite of these revelations of the utterly barbarous character of slavery and its direful effect upon all connected with it, we were on the very point of trusting to its most criminal defenders the task of reestablishing the state governments of the South, leaving the real Union men, white as well as black, at the mercy of those who have made hatred a religion and murder a sacrament. The nation needed one more terrible lesson. It has it in the murder of its beloved chief magistrate and the attempted assassination of its honored prime minister, the two men of all others prepared to go farthest to smooth the way of defeated rebellion back to allegiance.

Even now the lesson of these terrible events seems but half learned. In the public utterances I hear much of punishing and hanging leading traitors, fierce demands for vengeance, and threats of the summary chastisement of domestic sympathizers with treason, but comparatively little is said of the accursed cause, the prolific mother of abominations, slavery. The government is exhorted to remember that it does not bear the sword in vain, the Old Testament is ransacked for texts of Oriental hatred and examples of the revenges of a semi-barbarous nation; but, as respects the four millions of unmistakably loyal people of the South, the patient, the long-suffering, kind-hearted victims of oppressions, only here and there a voice pleads for their endowment with the same rights of citizenship which are to be accorded to the rank and file of disbanded rebels. The golden rule of the Sermon on the Mount is not applied to them. Much is said of executing justice upon rebels; little of justice to loyal black men. Hanging a few ringleaders of treason, it seems to be supposed, is all that is needed to restore and reestablish the revolted states. The negro is to be left powerless in the hands of the "white trash," who hate him with a bitter hatred, exceeding that of the large slave-holders. In short, four years of terrible chastisement, of God's unmistakable judgments, have not taught us, as a people, their lesson, which could scarcely be plainer if it had been written in letters of fire on the sky. Why is it that we are so slow to learn, so unwilling to confess that slavery is the accursed thing which whets the knife of murder, and transforms men, with the exterior of gentlemen and Christians, into fiends? How pitiful is our exultation over the capture of the wretched Booth and his associates! The great criminal, of whom he and they were but paltry instruments, still stalks abroad in the pine woods of Jersey, where the state has thrown around him her legislative sanction and protection. He is in Pennsylvania, thrusting the black man from public conveyances. Wherever God's children are despised, insulted, and abused on account of their color, there is the real assassin of the President still at large. I do not wonder at the indignation which has been awakened by the late outrage, for I have painfully shared it. But let us see to it that it is rightly directed. The hanging of a score of Southern traitors will not restore Abraham Lincoln nor atone for the mighty loss. In wreaking revenge upon these miserable men, we must see to it that we do not degrade ourselves and do dishonor to the sacred memory of the dead. We do well to be angry; and, if need be, let our wrath wax seven times hotter, until that which "was a murderer from the beginning" is consumed from the face of the earth. As the people stand by the grave of Lincoln, let them lift their right hands to heaven and take a solemn vow upon their souls to give no sleep to their eyes nor slumber to their eyelids until slavery is hunted from its last shelter, and every man, black and white, stands equal before the law.