The truth is, that, in these changing days, none of these specific "systems" are very important. "Separation" is interesting chiefly because it is the last project reported; "preparation," because it was the last but one. What is needed is not so much a "system" as the settled resolution to do daily justice. Let any military commander merely determine to treat the emancipated black population precisely as he would treat a white population under the same circumstances,—to encourage industry, schools, savings-banks, and all the rest, but not interfere with any of them too much,—and he will have General Saxton's method and his success. The question what to do with the soil is far more embarrassing than what to do with the freedmen; and happily the soil also can be let alone, and the freedmen will take care of that and of themselves too. We must say to the cotton lords, as Horne Tooke said to Lord Somebody in England,—"If, as you claim, power should follow property, then we will take from you the property, and the power shall follow." And fortunately for us, the same logic of events points to the political enfranchisement of the black loyalists, as the only way to prevent Congress from being replenished with plotting and disloyal men. Fair play to them is thus fair play to all of us; and, like Tony Lumpkin, in Goldsmith's comedy, if we are indifferent as to disappointing those who depend upon us, we may at least be trusted not to disappoint ourselves.
The lingering caste-institutions in the Free States,—as the exclusive street-cars of Philadelphia, the separate schools of New York, the special gallery reserved for colored people in Boston theatres,—must inevitably pass away with the institution which they merely reflect. The perfect acquiescence with which abolition of these things is regarded, so soon as it takes effect, shows how little they are really sustained by public opinion. These are local matters, mere corollaries, and will settle themselves. They are not upheld by any conviction, and scarcely even by prejudice, but by an impression in each citizen's mind that there is some other citizen who is not prepared for the change. When it comes to the point, it is found that everybody is perfectly prepared, and that the objections were merely traditional. Who has ever heard of so much as a petition to restore any of the unjust distinctions which have thus been successively outgrown?
But in our vast national dealings with the freedmen, we still drift from experiment to experiment, and adopt no settled purpose. Did this proceed from the difficulty of wise solution, in so vast a problem, one could blame it the less. But thus far the greatest want has been, not of wisdom, but of fidelity,—not of constructive statesmanship, but rather of pains to discern and of honesty to observe the humbler path of daily justice. When we consider that the order which laid the basis for the whole colored army—the "Instructions" of the Secretary of War to Brigadier-General Saxton, dated August 25, 1862—was so carelessly regarded by the War Department that it was not even placed on file, but a copy had to be supplied, the year following, by the officer to whom it was issued, it is obvious in what a hap-hazard way we have stumbled, into the most momentous acts. A government that still repudiates a duty so simple as the payment of arrears due under its own written pledges to the South Carolina soldiers can hardly shelter itself behind the plea of any complicated difficulties in its problem. Let us hope that the freedmen, on their part, will be led by some guidance better than our example: that they will not neglect their duties as their rights have been neglected, and not wrong others as they have been wronged.
REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
Autobiography, Correspondence, etc., of Lyman Beecher, D. D. Edited by Charles Beecher. With Illustrations. In Two Volumes. New York. Harper & Brothers.
Reading this life of Dr. Beecher is like walking over an ancient battle-field, silent and grass-grown, but ridged with graves, and showing still by its conformation the disposition of the troops which once struggled there in deadly contest,—and while we linger, lo! the graves are graves no more. The dry bones come together,—sinew and flesh form upon them,—the skin covers them about,—the breath enters into them,—they live and stand upon their feet, an exceeding great and mighty army. Drums beat, swords flash, and the war of the Titans rages again around us.
The life of Dr. Beecher is closely inwoven with the ecclesiastical history of New England. Ecclesiastical, like civil history, is chiefly a military record; and through both these volumes a sound of battle is in the land, and of great destruction. We who have fallen on comparatively quiet days can hardly conceive the intensity and violence of the excitement that glowed at our theological centres, and flamed out even to their circumferences, when the great Unitarian controversy was at its height,—when Park-Street Church alone of the Boston churches stood firm in the ancient faith, and her site was popularly christened "Hell-Fire Corner,"—when, later, the Hanover-Street Church was known as "Beecher's Stone Jug" and the firemen refused to play upon the flames that were destroying it. There were giants on the earth in those days, and they wrestled in giant fashion.
All this conflict Dr. Beecher saw, and a large part of it he was. In Connecticut he had drawn his sword against intemperance, "Toleration," and other forms of what he considered evil, and had been recognized as a mighty man of valor in his generation; but it was in this Unitarian controversy that he leaped to the battlements of Zion, sounded the alarm through the land, and took his place henceforth as leader of the hosts of the elect. "I had watched the whole progress," he says, "and read with eagerness everything that came out on the subject. My mind had been heating, heating, heating. Now I had a chance to strike." And strike he did, blows rapid and vigorous, whose echoes ring even through these silent pages. It was to him a real warfare. His speech ran naturally to military phrase. He saw the foe coming in like a flood. "The enemy, driven from the field by the immortal Edwards, have returned to the charge, and now the battle is to be fought over again." "The time has at length fully come to take hold of the Unitarian controversy by the horns." "The enemies ... are collecting their energies and meditating a comprehensive system of attack, which demands on our part a corresponding concert of action." "Let the stand taken be had in universal and everlasting remembrance, and we shall soon get the enemy out of the camp." "Wake up, ministers, form conspiracies against error, and scatter firebrands in the enemy's camp." "A schism in our ranks, with the enemy before and behind us, would indeed be confusion in the camp." "It is the moment to charge as Wellington did at Waterloo." "Will Walker and his friends feel as if my gun was loaded deep enough for the first shot, and will the Orthodox think I have done so far sufficient execution?... As the game is out of sight, I must depend on those who are near to tell me what are the effects of the first fire." "My sermons on Depravity ... are point-blank shot."
Nor was the fight between Unitarian and Orthodox alone. Even within the ranks of the faithful dissensions arose, and many a time and oft had Dr. Beecher to defend himself against the charges, the insinuations, and the suspicions of his brethren. To the eyes of the more cautious or the more inert his adventurous feet seemed ever approaching the verge of heresy. Just where original sin ceases to be original and becomes acquired,—just where innate ill-desert meets voluntary transgression,—just where moral government raises the standard of rebellion against Absolutism,—just where New Haven theology branches off from ultra Orthodoxy on the debatable ground, the border-land of metaphysics and religion, Dr. Beecher and his brethren were engaged in perpetual skirmishing.