Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1873-08-01
Our Warrington Letter.
An ANNIVERSARY, AND A RETROSPECT -
ExANcPATIoN-WHY IT WAS GIVEN TO
TIE NEGRO, AND HOW IT HAS RESULTED.
WASHINGTON July 2Ist. 1871

| no great effort at the amelloratI0n and ex-
tinguishment of wrong and oppression has
ever been crowned by success, until the
lowest deep of human nature, the sense of
gross, immediate self-interest was sharply
and universally touched. Men of sanity
lives, of lofty and moving eloquence, of
great practical sense and sagacity had, for
more than half century, constantly
striven to lift TIE conscience of the Amer
Ican people up to the point of active,
universal hostility to human slavery
For fifty years the air had been full of
sweet, pleading voices like those of Chan
ming and Whittier. of clarion notes of lofty,
eloquent and pathetic appeal to the popular
sense of right and justice like those of
Parker, Phillips, Beecher. Chaplin and their
fellows, Of practical arguments welded with
the strong logic of Chase and Greeley, and
the people only answered by giving the
South new and shameful security for slavery
1t requires an exceedingly high order of
average human intelligence to comprehend
and sincerely believe that it neverpays to do
wrong and so, after all these years Of in
cessant, skilful, employment Of the finest
weapons Of the spirit, the indomitable
anti-slavery reformers, while they could
count among their converts or sympathiz-
ors many splendid men and women, had
made no apparent impression upon either
the hearts or heads Of the American people.
The average American read - Uncle Toms
Cabin" greedily ''for the sake of the story. -
and then stoutly uphold the fugitive slave
law ''for the sake of his interest The
singing lash of theslaye-driver' 5 whip never
slashed deep enough into his moral sympa-
thies to make him forget that there was no
money in anti-slayery votes and agitation. 50
that up to the secession Of 1860. after long
years Of able, versatile assault, slavery was
more firmly fixed than ever upon the neck Of
the nation. The year 1850 found the Northar-
rayed against the further extension Of
slavery, not because the talk Of ten years
had lifted them up to a higher moral plane.
but because the facts and figures Of Helper.
and the cool, desentimentalized narrative of
Olmstead had been 50 widely spread abroad
that the people saw the worthlessness Of
slavery without feeling or caring much
about its wickedness Mr. Clay and Mr..
Webster are both credited with having
saved the Union by eloquent appeals to IA
tional patriotism, while the truth Is that
the popular ignorance.of its commercial IN
jury, the Indifference 10 its immortality put
of the rupture Of 1860. The reused sense
Of material SCI f-infcresf Of 1850 would have
laughed the appeals Of Webster and CLAY to
scorn in 1850 the argument Of seeming
selfinterest was Webster strongest card,
and popular blindness made it a winning
one.
That the conscience ofthe country had be-
come perfectly callous to moral appeal is
indicated by the fact that when war had al
solutely broken out. the Republican party
dared not even then offer freedom TO the
negro, as welcoming glad opportunity to
atone for the se.fshness Of seventy years.
At the sound Of the cannon shot at Fort
Sumter all the shackles on Northern thought
ought TO have fallen to the gr1und;thc white.
emancipated from Southern rule. ought to
have extended emancipation to the black
but all we dared do was TO utter hesitat-
ing d" Amen" when General Butler cried
80 c0ntraband.f In practical results the
ten years from 1861 to ISL are years Of
glory. A Union triumphautly preserved,
secession forever crushed, the negro eman-
cipated, armed 10 fight for his new-found
freedom, and lastly given the ballot to pro-
tect and enforce his political and civil
equality before the law. And yet these
years, 50 big in practical results, are full Of
moral shame. The miser in the trackless
desert that athirst and starving freely F.
gives his gold for food and drink has
experienced no change Of heart. s. with |
u everything was wrung out OF our per /
sonal necessities, nothing nobly yielded to /
a fine sense Of right and eternal justice no I
rising wave Of moral Indignation, but the
rude hand Of wal, reluctantly struck off the
negro : fetters. 4 sense Of material danger,
not of moral injustice, elected Lincoln, As
sented to " cOntraband, next TO emanclpa-
ton. then TO black s0ldierv, then % civil
rights. then TO suffrage. Ignorant self-in-
terest planted slavery, ignorant self-inter-
est sustained It, intelligent selfinterest ex-
tinguished it. Had victory first gone for u
at the charging step and won US a Seward
peace in TO days, the South to-day would be
still waving the slave-driver's whip a. the
potent sceptre Of her authority over u all
but the defeat that wrapped Us in m0men-
tary darkness clothed the negro in light. for
in the spirit Of material self-preservation
we then consented that the slave should
stand up, under the stars and stripes.
no longer in the mean status of a captured !
cannon. but as q man restored 70 all rights
which immortal souls have 10 life and liber-
-Y. The great defeats and doubtful Veto
ries Of the year 1852 stirred not the moral |
'ympathies Of the people but their common
place sense Of immediate selfinterest. The
proof Of this Is the fact that after enamel !
patton the people angrily resisted the logical ,
equence of this act, the arming of lthe =
negro asa soldier. and Gov. Andrew showed
lis sense of our national selhshness by
lending himself, not TO the hopeless task Of 7
appealing to the popular sense Of justice ,
nd reason, but TO the practical one OF
making a negro regiment that would stand
ID CALAMITY. mid the wrack Of battle be /
id this, and our utilitarian public changed Q
ront at once, saying, . now that the negro
as shown a capacity to march and fight
easonably well, set him to work and save I
ly brother, my son, my uncles and I
ephews and stout male cousins from serving Il
5 food for powder" Just so appeals
D mere sense of right and justice never
ave the negro the next logical concession C
fter soldiership, that Is the sufrage-a p
ght that even the cynical Sherman con- :,
,ssed he could not consistently deny. 1t
as the opportunity to enrol in the ranks u
the Republican party mass Of voters tt
nat should help perpetuate its political d
over that again touched the low self-in- :;
rest. To right, TO Justice, we never :
ranted anything, but in the name Of d
lfshness gave 10 the negro more than the fl
ost fanatical abolitionist had ever asked h
T him in the name Of justice and humanity, /
lly to be denied in the name Of self-lnter- -
{. Now there are those who, full OF ma IL
Jnal vanity, may dislike to hear and wish ST
dispute this, and my preliminary remarks III
I've been to show that the gift OF freedom,
vii rights and the ballot was prompted by =
STRINGS Of sentiment. but by purely sell \
h interest, by exactly the same feeling that he
long prompted the retention of slavery and N
Is fact must be carefully borne in mind IN r
ing the point out of progress 10 when ~
e negro has risen since the war. Whatever th
iyate sympathy few great and enlight- di
ed men may have felt for him, II Is GER ..
IN, as self-interest. and not humanity,
Oke his chains, that the negro since the
IT has had to struggle his own way up Its
lrd with no sympathy or encourag ement an
IN the mass Of the very people who per- -
zee of selfshness consented to his enfran- La
lsement. In this view the negro owes US We
thing rather we owe him what should tn
We accompanied the act of enfranchlse- H.
Mt, system of compulsory education; ies
ashington, with its very large colored nu
pulation, is the best place for observing 3Ot
result of this experiment Of conierrlng dir
edom, civil rights and the ballot on the