Mr. Trollope should have thought twice before he wrote thus of the American negro. Were he a competent authority on this subject, his opinion might be worth something; but as he never traveled in the South, and as his knowledge of the negro is limited to a surface acquaintance with the West-Indies, we maintain that Mr. Trollope has not only been unjust, but ungenerous. Four millions of slaves, none of whom have any capacity for self-maintenance or self-control! Whom are we to believe? Mr. Trollope, who has never been on a Southern plantation, or Frederick Law Olmsted? Mr. Pierce, who has been superintendent of the contrabands at Fortress Monroe and at Hilton Head, officers attached to Burnside's Division, and last and best, General David Hunter, an officer of the regular army, who went to South-Carolina with anti-abolition antecedents? All honor to General Hunter, who, unlike many others, has not shut his eyes upon facts, and, like a rational being, has yielded to the logic of events. It is strange that these authorities, all of whom possess the confidence of the Government, should disagree with Mr. Trollope. None self-maintaining? Robert Small is a pure negro. Is he not more than self-maintaining? Has he not done more for the Federal Government than any white man of the Gulf States? Tillman is a negro; the best pilots of the South are negroes: are they not self-maintaining? Kansas has welcomed thousands of fugitive slaves to her hospitable doors, not as paupers, but as laborers, who have taken the place of those white men who have gone to fight the battles which they also should be allowed to take part in. The women have been gladly accepted as house-servants. Does not this look like self-maintenance? Would negroes be employed in the army if they were as Mr. Trollope pictures them? He confesses that without these four millions of slaves the South would be a wilderness, therefore they do work as slaves to the music of the slave-drivers' whip. How very odd, that the moment men and women (for Mr. Trollope does acknowledge them to be such) own themselves, and are paid for the sweat of their brow, they should forget the trades by which they have enriched the South, and become incapable of maintaining themselves—they who have maintained three hundred and fifty thousand insolent slave-owners! Given whip-lashes and the incubus of a white family, the slave will work; given freedom and wages, the negro won't work. Was there ever stated a more palpable fallacy? Is it necessary to declare further that the Hilton Head experiment is a success, although the negroes, wanting in slave-drivers and in their musical instruments, began their planting very late in the season? Is it necessary to give Mr. Trollope one of many figures, and prove that in the British West-India colonies free labor has exported two hundred and sixty-five millions pounds of sugar annually, whereas slave labor only exported one hundred and eighty-seven millions three hundred thousand? And this in a climate where, unlike even the Southern States of North-America, there is every inducement to indolence.
Four millions of slaves, none of whom are capable of self-control, who possess the necessities of children, the passions of men, and the ignorance of savages! We really have thought that the many thousands of these four millions who have come under the Federal jurisdiction, exercised considerable self-control, when it is remembered that in some localities they have been left entire masters of themselves, have in other instances labored months for the Government under promise of pay, and have had that pay prove a delusion. Certainly it is fair to judge of a whole by a part. Given a bone, Professor Agassiz can draw the animal of which the bone forms a part. Given many thousands of negroes, we should be able to judge somewhat of four millions. Had Mr. Trollope seen the thousands of octoroons and quadroons enslaved in the South by their own fathers, it would have been more just in him to have attributed a want of self-control to the masters of these four millions. We do not know what Mr. Trollope means by 'the necessities of children. Children need to be sheltered, fed, and clothed, and so do the negroes, but here the resemblance ends; for whereas children can not take care of themselves, the negro can, provided there is any opportunity to work. It is scarcely to be doubted that temporary distress must arise among fugitives in localities where labor is not plenty; but does this establish the black man's incapacity? Revolutions, especially those which are internal, generally bring in their train distress to laborers. Then we are told that the slaves are endowed with the passions of men; and very glad are we to know this, for, as a love of liberty and a willingness to sacrifice all things for freedom, is one of the loftiest passions in men, were he devoid of this passion, we should look with much less confidence to assistance from the negro in this war of freedom versus slavery, than we do at present. In stating that the slaves are as ignorant as savages, Mr. Trollope pays an exceedingly poor compliment to the Southern whites, as it would naturally be supposed that constant contact with a superior race would have civilized the negro to a certain extent, especially as he is known to be wonderfully imitative. And such is the case; at least the writer of these lines, who has been born and bred in a slave State, thinks so. As a whole, they compare very favorably with the 'poor white trash,' and individually they are vastly superior to this 'trash.' It is true, that they can not read or write, not from want of aptitude or desire, as the teachers among the contrabands write that their desire to read amounts to a passion, in many cases, even among the hoary-headed, but because the teaching of a slave to read or write was, in the good old times before the war, regarded and punished as a criminal offense. What a pity it is that we can not go back to the Union as it was! In this ignorance of the rudiments of learning, the negroes are not unlike a large percentage of the populations of Great Britain and Ireland.
'And Mr. Phillips would let these ignorant savages loose upon the soil to tear their masters, destroy each other, and make such a hell upon earth as has never even yet come from the uncontrolled passions and unsatisfied wants of men!' If Mr. Trollope were read in the history of emancipation, he would know that there has not been an instance of 'such a hell upon earth' as he describes. The American negro is a singularly docile, affectionate, and good-natured creature, not at all given to destroying his kind or tearing his master, and the least inclined to do these things at a time when there is no necessity for them. A slave is likely to kill his master to gain his freedom, but he is not fond enough of murder to kill him when no object is to be gained except a halter. The record so far proves that the masters have shot down their slaves rather than have them fall into the hands of the Union troops. Even granting Mr. Trollope's theory of the negro disposition, no edict of emancipation could produce such an effect as he predicts, to the masters, at least. They, in revenge, might shoot down their slaves, but, unfortunately, the victims would be unable to defend themselves, from the fact that all arms are sedulously kept from them. The slaves would run away in greater numbers than they do at present, would give us valuable information of the enemy, and would swell our ranks as soldiers, if permitted, and kill their rebel masters in the legal and honorable way of war. It is likely that Mr. Trollope, holding the black man in so little estimation, would doubt his abilities in this capacity. Fortunately for us, we can quote as evidence in our favor from General Hunter's late letter to Congress, which, for sagacity and elegant sarcasm, is unrivaled among American state papers. General Hunter, after stating that the 'loyal slaves, unlike their fugitive masters, welcome him, aid him, and supply him with food, labor, and information, working with remarkable industry,' concludes by stating that 'the experiment of arming the blacks, so far as I have made it, has been a complete and even marvelous success. They are sober, docile, attentive, and enthusiastic, displaying great natural capacity for acquiring the duties of the soldier. They are eager beyond all things to take the field and be led into action, and it is the unanimous opinion of the officers who have had charge of them, that in the peculiarities of this climate and country, they will prove invaluable auxiliaries, fully equal to the similar regiments so long and successfully used by the British authorities in the West-India Islands. In conclusion, I would say that it is my hope, there appearing no possibility of other reinforcements, owing to the exigencies of the campaign on the peninsula, to have organized by the end of next fall, and to be able to present to the Government, from forty-eight to fifty thousand of these hardy and devoted soldiers.'
Mr. Trollope declares that without the slaves the South would be a wilderness; he also says that the North is justified in the present war against the South, and although he doubts our ability to attain our ends in this war, he would be very glad if we were victorious. If these are his opinions, and if further, he considers slavery to be the cause of the war, then why in the name of common-sense does he not advocate that which would bring about our lasting success? He expresses his satisfaction at the probability of emancipation in Missouri, Kentucky, and Virginia, and yet rather than that abolition should triumph universally, he would have the Gulf States go off by themselves and sink into worse than South-American insignificance, a curse to themselves from the very reason of slavery. This, to our way of thinking, is vastly more cruel to the South than even the 'hell upon earth,' which, supposing it were possible, emancipation would create. A massacre could affect but one generation: such a state of things as Mr. Trollope expects to see would poison numberless generations. The Northern brain is gradually ridding itself of mental fog, begotten by Southern influences, and Mr. Trollope will not live to see the Gulf States sink into a moral Dismal Swamp. The day is not far distant when a God-fearing and justice-loving people will give these States their choice between Emancipation and death in their 'last ditch,' which we suppose to be the Gulf of Mexico. Repulses before Richmond only hasten this end. 'But Congress can not do this,' says Mr. Trollope. Has martial law no virtue? We object to the title, 'An Apology for the War,' which Mr. Trollope has given to one of his chapters; and with the best of motives, he takes great pains to prove to the English public how we of the North could not but fight the South, however losing a game it might be. No true American need beg pardon of Europe for this war, which is the only apology we can make to civilization for slavery. Mr. Trollope states the worn-out cant that the secessionists of the South have been aided and abetted by the fanatical abolitionism of the North. Of course they have: had there been no slavery, there would have been no abolitionists, and therefore no secessionists. Wherever there is a wrong, there are always persons fanatical enough to cry out against that wrong. In time, the few fanatics become the majority, and conquer the wrong, to the infinite disgust of the easy-going present, but to the gratitude of a better future. The Abolitionists gave birth to the Republican party, and of course the triumph of the Republican party was the father to secession; but we see no reason to mourn that it was so; rather do we thank God that the struggle has come in our day. We can not sympathize with Mr. Trollope when he says of the Bell and Everett party: 'Their express theory was this: that the question of slavery should not be touched. Their purpose was to crush agitation, and restore harmony by an impartial balance between the North and South: a fine purpose—the finest of all purposes, had it been practicable.' We suppose by this, that Mr. Trollope wishes such a state of things had been practicable. The impartial balance means the Crittenden Compromise, whose impartiality the North fails to see in any other light than a fond leaning to the South, giving it all territory South of a certain latitude, a latitude that never was intended by the Constitution. It seems to us that there can be no impartial balance between freedom and slavery. Every jury must be partial to the right, or they sin before God.
Mr. Trollope tells us that 'the South is seceding from the North because the two are not homogeneous. They have different instincts, different appetites, different morals, and a different culture. It is well for one man to say that slavery has caused the separation, and for another to say that slavery has not caused it. Each in so saying speaks the truth. Slavery has caused it, seeing that slavery is the great point on which the two have agreed to differ. But slavery has not caused it, seeing that other points of difference are to be found In every circumstance and feature of the two people. The North and the South must ever be dissimilar. In the North, labor will always be honorable, and because honorable, successful. In the South, labor has ever been servile—at least in some sense—and therefore dishonorable; and because dishonorable, has not, to itself, been successful.' Is not this arguing in a circle? The North is dissimilar to the South. Why? Because labor is honorable in the former, and dishonorable, because of its servility, in the latter. The servility removed, in what are the two dissimilar? One third of the Southern whites are related by marriage to the North; a second third are Northerners, and it is this last third that are most violent in their acts against and hatred of the North. They were born with our instincts and appetites, educated in the same morals, and received the same culture; and these men are no worse than some of their brothers who, though they have not emigrated to the South, have yet fattened upon cotton. The parents of Jefferson Davis belonged to Connecticut; Slidell is a New-Yorker; Benjamin is a Northerner; General Lovell is a disgrace to Massachusetts; so, too, is Albert Pike. It is utter nonsense to say that we are two people. Two interests have been at work—free labor and slave labor; and when the former triumphs, there will be no more straws split about two people, nor will the refrain of agriculture versus manufacture be sung. The South, especially Virginia, has untold wealth to be drained from her great water-power. New-England will not be alone in manufacturing, nor Pennsylvania in mining.
We think that Mr. Trollope fails to appreciate principle when he likens the conflict between the two sections of our country to a quarrel between Mr. and Mrs. Jones, in which a mutual friend (England) is, from the very nature of the case, obliged to maintain neutrality, leaving the matter to the tender care of Sir Creswell. There never yet existed a mutual friend who, however little he interfered with a matrimonial difference, did not, in sympathy and moral support, take violent sides with one of the combatants; and Mr. Trollope would be first in taking up the cudgels against private wrong. The North has never wished for physical aid from England; but does Mr. Trollope remember what Mrs. Browning has so nobly and humanely written? 'Non-intervention in the affairs of neighboring States is a high political virtue; but non-intervention does not mean passing by on the other side when your neighbor falls among thieves, or Phariseeism would recover it from Christianity.' England, the greatest of actual nations, had a part to act in our war, and that part a noble one. Not the part of physical intervention for the benefit of Lancashire and of a confederacy founded upon slavery, which both Earl Russell and Lord Palmerston inform the world will not take place 'at present.' Not the part of hypercriticism and misconstruction of Northern 'Orders,' and affectionate blindness to Southern atrocities. But such a part as was worthy of the nation, one of whose greatest glories is that it gave birth to a Clarkson, a Sharpe, and a Wilberforce. And England has much to answer for, in that she has been found wanting, not in the cause of the North, but in the cause of humanity. Had she not always told us that we were criminals of the deepest dye not to do what she had done in the West-Indies, had she not always held out to the world the beacon-light of emancipation, there could be little censure cast upon the British ermine; but having laid claim to so white and moral a robe, she subjects herself to the very proper indignation of the anti-slavery party which now governs the North.
Mr. Trollope confesses that British sympathy is with the South, and further writes: 'It seems to me that some of us never tire in abusing the Americans and calling them names, for having allowed themselves to be driven into this civil war. We tell them that they are fools and idiots; we speak of their doings as though there had been some plain course by which the war might have been avoided; and we throw it in their teeth that they have no capability for war,' etc., etc. Contact with the English abroad sent us home convinced of English animosity, and this was before the Trent affair. A literary woman writes to America: 'There is only one person to whom I can talk freely upon the affairs of your country. Here in England, they say I have lived so long in Italy that I have become an American.' We have had nothing but abuse from the English press always, excepting a few of the liberal journals. Mill and Bright and Cobden alone have been prominent in their expression of good-will to the North. And this is Abolition England! History will record, that at the time when America was convulsed by the inevitable struggle between Freedom and Slavery, England, actuated by selfish motives, withheld that moral support and righteous counsel which would have deprived the South of much aid and comfort, brought the war to a speedier conclusion, gained the grateful confidence of the anti-slavery North, and immeasurably aided the abolition of human slavery.
It may be said that we of the North have no intention of touching the 'institution,' and therefore England can not sympathize with us. Whatever the theory of the administration at Washington may have been, he is insane as well as blind who does not see what is its practical tendency. In the same length of time, this tendency would have been much farther on the road to right had the strong arm of England wielded the moral power which should belong to it. Mr. Trollope says: 'The complaint of Americans is, that they have received no sympathy from England; but it seems to me that a great nation should not require an expression of sympathy during its struggle. Sympathy is for the weak, not for the strong. When I hear two powerful men contending together in argument, I do not sympathize with him who has the best of it; but I watch the precision of his logic, and acknowledge the effects of his rhetoric. There has been a whining weakness in the complaints made by Americans against England, which has done more to lower them, as a people, in my judgment, than any other part of their conduct during the present crisis.' It is true that at the beginning of this war the North did show a whining weakness for English approbation, of which it is sincerely to be hoped we have been thoroughly cured. We paid our mother-land too high a compliment—we gave her credit for virtues which she does not possess—and the disappointment incurred thereby has been bitter in the extreme. We were not aware, however, that a sincere desire for sympathy was an American peculiarity. We have long labored under the delusion that the English, even, were very indignant with Brother Jonathan during the Crimean war, when he failed to furnish the quota of sympathy which our cousins considered was their due, but which we could not give to a debauched 'sick man' whom, for the good of civilization, we wished out of the world as quickly as possible. But England was 'strong;' why should she have desired sympathy? For, according to Mr. Trollope's creed, the weak alone ought to receive sympathy. It seems to be a matter entirely independent of right and wrong with Mr. Trollope. It is sufficient for a man to prove his case to be 'strong,' for Mr. Trollope to side with his opponent. Demonstrate your weakness, whether it be physical, moral, or mental, and Mr. Trollope will fight your battles for you. On this principle—which, we are told, is English—the exiled princes of Italy, especially the Neapolitan-Bourbon, the Pope, Austria, and of course the Southern confederacy, should find their warmest sympathizers among true Britons, and perhaps they do; but Mr. Trollope, in spite of his theory, is not one of them.
The emancipationist should not look to England for aid or comfort, but it will be none the worse for England that she has been false to her traditions. 'I confess,' wrote Mrs. Browning—dead now a year—'that I dream of the day when an English statesman shall arise with a heart too large for England, having courage, in the face of his countrymen, to assert of some suggested policy: 'This is good for your trade, this is necessary for your domination; but it will vex a people hard by, it will hurt a people farther off, it will profit nothing to the general humanity; therefore, away with it! it is not for you or for me.'' The justice of the poet yet reigns in heaven only; and dare we dream—we who, sick at heart, are weighed down by the craft and dishonesty of our public men—of the possibility of such a golden age?
On the subject of religion as well, we are much at variance with Mr. Trollope. Of course, it is to be expected that one who says, 'I love the name of State and Church, and believe that much of our English well-being has depended on it; I have made up my mind to think that union good, and am not to be turned away from that conviction;' it is to be expected, we repeat, that such an one should consider religion in the States 'rowdy.' Surely, we will not quarrel with Mr. Trollope for this opinion, however much we may regret it; as we consider it the glory of this country, that while we claim for our moral foundation a fervent belief in God and an abiding faith in the necessity of religion, our government pays no premium to hypocrisy by having fastened to its shirts one creed above all other creeds, made thereby more respectable and more fashionable. 'It is a part of their system,' Mr. Trollope continues, 'that religion shall be perfectly free, and that no man shall be in any way constrained in that matter,' (and he sees nothing to thank God for in this system of ours!) 'consequently, the question of a man's religion is regarded in a free-and-easy manner.' That which we have gladly dignified by the name of religious toleration, (not yet half as broad as it should and will be,) Mr. Trollope degrades by the epithet of 'free-and-easy.' This would better apply were ours the toleration of indifference, instead of being a toleration founded upon the unshaken belief that God has endowed every human being with a conscience whose sufficiency unto itself, in matters of religious faith, we have no right to question. And we are convinced that this experiment, with which we started, has been good for our growth of mind and soul, as well as for our growth as a nation. Even Mr. Trollope qualifies our 'rowdyism,' by saying that 'the nation is religious in its tendencies, and prone to acknowledge the goodness of God in all things.'