'Wm. Russell, Jr.,
'Assistant Adjt.-General.
'Official: Solon A. Carter,
'Captain and A. A. A.-G.'
It may be added that 'Baldy' Smith has never been known as being particularly partial to the use of negro troops. He is reported to have said, after the assault on Petersburg, that the war was virtually ended, because the negroes had now shown that they could fight, and so it was only a question of time.
The man is not to be envied who can contemptuously disregard this record. And while we give unstinted honor to the heroes whose valor has made the Army of the Potomac immortal in history, and made its campaign of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania a campaign of glory, let us not forget that negro troops in that army, and in other armies in the same campaign, have borne their part faithfully, and deserve well of the republic. Nor let us forget the damning atrocities at Fort Pillow, where black men in United States uniform were massacred in cold blood, because they were willing rather to die freemen with their white comrades of the United States army, than live slaves to rebel masters:[D] thus vindicating their claim to freedom, and reflecting upon our country's flag the especial honor which such determined bravery has ever been awarded among men—reminding us of the Three Hundred at Thermopylæ, and the Old Guard at Waterloo, disdaining to surrender.
So strange are the events of history! So mysterious is the plan of Providence, choosing now, as in the days of the apostle Paul, 'base things of the world, and things which are despised, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are!' What a stinging example of time's revenges, to be sure, that negroes should have a part in bringing to nought the rebellion of negro-holders! that they should be found fighting for the very Government whose power had aided to keep them in bondage to these negro-holders! In face of such facts, will any one impiously declare that fate, or blind chance, rules the affairs of men!
We might well pause at this point to consider the philosophy of revolutions. It would be an interesting study to investigate the efficient or radical causes of these singular phenomena of God's providence—these crises in history, when 'the fountains of the great deep are broken up,' and the experience of centuries is crowded into the limits of a single year, and we see the old landmarks all swept away before the overwhelming tides of a new era. Then it is that precedents avail us nothing, and we are driven to lay hold of those principles of justice and right which are alone eternal. For in the storm and wreck of revolution those principles are our sure beacon lights, shining on, like the stars, forever. Thus philosophizing, the question would be: Have revolutions a fixed law? Is there a recurring sequence in the mighty 'logic of events,' that will enable us to define a formula for the revolutions of systems in society? So science has demonstrated a law for the revolutions and changes of systems of worlds in infinite space. Or, are the revolutions of history, like the volcanic disturbances of our planet earth, in a sort, abnormal? They seem to come, like the deus ex machina of the Roman poet, to cut the Gordian knots that perplex statesmen and bewilder nations. The affairs of men get so tangled up sometimes, that to prevent anarchy and chaos, God sends revolutions, which sweep away the effete institutions and old, worn-out systems, to replace them with new and living systems. And thus there is a perpetual genesis, or new creation, of the world. Let any one read Carlyle's vivid description of the badness of the eighteenth century, 'bad in that bad way as never century before was, till the French Revolution came and put an end to it,' and he will understand something of this question of revolutions. It suggests the old scholastic dispute of the free agency of man, and looks as though, granting that freedom, it were, after all, too great a gift for us. For history seems to teach, as its one grand lesson, confirming, as always, the revelation in Christ, that men cannot take care of themselves; and that God leaves them to their own ways long enough to satisfy them that human agency is inadequate to solve the question of reform, and then, when the times are ripe, He takes the reins into His own hand, and starts society anew. It is the patient process of education by centuries, or by ages—only to be made perfect in the millennial age. So it is that the world moves. It moves by the free agency of man, kept in its balance by the guiding hand of God.
I. THE VEXED QUESTION OF THE NEGRO.
Thus it is that the second American revolution is settling for us the vexed question of the negro. What should be done with him, or for him, or to him, had been the disturbing element in our political system ever since the African slave trade expired by limitation of the Constitution in 1808. The devices of human ingenuity (inspired, as we fervently believe, by the purest patriotism) to stave off the inevitable final settlement of this account, innumerable as they were, and only limited by the predestined decree of Supreme Benevolence (which is Supreme Justice), were, at last, exhausted. The statesmanship of '50 had been outgrown. The giants of those days had gone, one by one, to their reward ere yet the first breaths of the revolution that has opened the decade of '60. Nought remained to their lesser associates, who still survived, but to bow reverently before the storm, 'as seeing in it Him who is invisible.' Such recognition, indeed, is the measure of men's patriotism to-day. The man who so perverts his mind and reason as to shut out the evidence of the stars and his own consciousness (the German metaphysician's proof of Deity), and deny that God is, is simply a fool; and every reflecting mind is ready to sanction and adopt the Psalmist's word: 'The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.' Equally a fool is he who shuts his eyes to the overwhelming facts of the last two years, refusing to be taught by the Providence behind them. Such and so vast is the revolution by which God has intervened in our history. Such is the Providence that still guides and guards the nation ordained by Him to be. Such is the revolution that has swept away the slave system, and opened for us a new path, and given us a new power of progress.
Now, these views need not make one a negro-enthusiast. Because the system of slavery has been swept away, it is not necessary to assert, as some do, the negro's equality with the white man in those things wherein he is plainly not his equal. Yet there is an equality that cannot be denied. The negro is certainly a man, and not a brute animal; although so demoralized and corrupt had grown to be the tone of society that we have actually heard the opinion avowed, in all seriousness, that the negro had no soul. Shylock, in 'The Merchant of Venice,' pleads for himself and his Jewish brethren, in one of the most pathetic passages of even Shakspeare's genius, as though the Hebrew race were considered less than men. And such, indeed, was nearly the case in Shylock's time. On the other hand, the Moor of Venice disdains to plead as to his superiors. His conscious equality in presence of the 'grave and reverend signiors,' gives to his renowned address a consummate dignity, unknown elsewhere in literature. He felt, indeed, that his victories under the flag of the republic entitled him not only to equality, but especial honor. Is it not singular that in this nineteenth century there should be found men who gladly accord to the Jew, the descendant of Shem, that of which they refuse even the possibility to the dark descendant of Ham? Surely the republic of Venice was not so far behind our boasted civilization. Our civilization still clings to the idea of privilege. The privilege of caste is only exchanged for the privilege of color.
Nor need we commit ourselves to the doctrine of some, who would appear to think that the negro is to be the dominant race of the future; if not in himself, yet in virtue of his supplementing the composite Anglo-Saxon race, and thus giving to it a completeness it is assumed not to have at present. Such we understand to be the doctrine of what styles itself Miscegenation. It would be pertinent, and, perhaps, conclusive, to cite on this point the Latin maxim, De gustibus non disputandum.