He stooped and kissed her on the soft, withered cheek.
They said the war was inevitable. Madmen cannot hear words of reason. On only one thing was Lincoln unswerving—to preserve the Union. As concession after concession was made, it became more and more evident that this was what the slaveholders did not want. They were sick to death of the Union! In Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia white men struggled against the octopus of slavery. They did all they could to prevent the break. But the slavers had control—they had the power, they had the money, and they had the slaves.
So there was war, and slaves were set to digging ditches and building barricades.
From the beginning Frederick Douglass saw in the war the end of slavery. Much happened the first two years to shake his faith. Secretary of State William Seward instructed United States ministers to say to the governments where they were stationed that “terminate however it might, the status of no class of the people of the United States would be changed by the rebellion; slaves will be slaves still, and masters will be masters still.” General McClellan and General Butler warned the slaves in advance that “if any attempt was made by them to gain their freedom it would be suppressed with an iron hand.” Douglass grew sick with despair when President Lincoln quickly withdrew the emancipation proclamation made by General John C. Frémont in Missouri. Union soldiers were even stationed about the farmhouses of Virginia to guard the masters and help them hold their slaves.
The war was not going well. In the North Star and from the platform, Douglass reminded the North that it was fighting with one hand only, when it might strike effectually with two. The Northern states fought with their soft white hand, while they kept their black iron hand chained and helpless behind them. They fought the effect while they protected the cause. The Union would never prosper in the war until the Negro was enlisted, Douglass said.
On every side they howled him down.
“Give the blacks arms, and loyal men of the North will throw down their guns and go home!”
“This is the white man’s country and the white man’s war!”
“It would inflict an intolerable wound upon the pride and spirit of white soldiers to see niggers in the United States uniform.”