The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-10-24

Abe Lincoln and the Negroes.
The New York Tribune publishes a
summary of speech delivered at
Winchester, Va, last week, by Hon.
R. NJ. 7. HUNTER. After detailing
Mr.. Lincoln's suggestion at the
Hampton Roads Conference about
compensation for slaves, and saying
the United States could even now do
something to that end, he concludes
if this is not done the South will have
to work out its own salvation, under
great difficulties, and exclai1ns: "And
shall We not do it? Energy, hope,
skill, and self-denial can accomplish
miracles, and l believe our people
possess all these qualities. His pic
ture of the South Immediately after
the war is thus given:
"The whole country was nearly
stripped of its cattle and stock, and
negroes emancipated without cent
of compensation, and the whole sys-
TEN of labor disorganized, the CAPT
tai of the country lost, and nothing
left but debts and the naked land
Scarcely dollar was to be borrowed
abroad, for there was no security to
offer but land of little value. No aid
could be obtained from the State, it
self poor and in debt. The Federal
Government which emancipated the
slaves, offered no compensation, as
other governments had done when
trying the experiment"
After showing how peculiar taxa
ton increased these difficulties, espe-
cially the tax on tobacco and cotton
Virginia being drained of $50, 900, 900
on the former article, Mr.. Hunter
gives some incidents of the Hampton
Roads Conference:
"Fellow-citizens, / well recollect
that in the interview at Old Point
Comfort between Mr.. Lincoln and
Mr.. Seward on the one hand, and
Commissioners of the Confederate
States (of whom I was one) on the
other, that this subject of compensa-
ton for the emancipated slaves was
introduced by Mr.. Lincoln himself,
He (Lincoln) said that a prominent
citizen of the North whose name if
| given, would probably surprise us
had written to him to say that if the
slaves were emancipated, the sum Of
$500, 100000 ought to be distributed
among their former owners by way OF
compensation. The money, as well
as l remember, was proposed to be
given to the States in proportion to
the number of negroes freed Within
their borders, and by them to be
distributed among the individuan
owners. That this would have been
a very inadequate compensation for
$500, 1000 slaves is evident to ALL
But who can estimate the reliefwhich
it would have afforded to the despoil-
ed and stricken South. If distribut-
ed among them just after the war, it
would have been of inestimable val
lie. Mr.. Lincoln said he had no au-
thority to speak for anybody, but
he himself was in favor of it. Upon
this, Mr.. Seward expressed some i'm
patience, saying that the Govern
ment paid enough in the expenses of
the war, which / suppose he felt to
have been waged for negro emancipa-
tion-a poor excuse to be made in
regard to the claims of any of the
States, but none, certainly, in the
cases of Kentucky, Missouri Mary
land and Delaware, which never Sc
| coded, and wese never even called re-
bellious. To this Mr.. Lincoln replied
with equal earnestness: 81 know you
all say that it was sinful to hold
slaves, and, as there was no right to
do so, there is no justice in the claims
for compensation. Now said he,
if it was a sin in the South to hold
slaves, 1t was a sin in the North to
sell them, which they did to q very
great extent, as Ae all know"
There vas no point of view in
which we could be considered as de-
prived of the claim TO compensation.
If We were still citizens, and States
within the Union, the spoliation was
unconstitutional, and we were Ger
tainly entitled to some compensation
for damage sustained. If we were
separate and independent belliger-
ents, such an act Of plumber was not
justified by the laws of war, and we
were entitled to compensation upon
the precedeuts of both wars with
Great Britain. She solemnly bound
herself by the treaty of 1888 to pay
for all our slaves whom she carried
away, and she was found liable to do
the same thing for those she took
away in the last war by an award
of the Emperor of Russia, a decision
made upon the very terms of the
Treaty Of Client. New England"
he continued, ''is mistaken, if she
hopes to escape all moral responsible
ty at the bar of public opinion, for
what she acknowledges to have been
a great wrong, by throwing the whole
loss and punishment upon those
whom she accuses of being the recip-