XXIX.

The Proclamation of Emancipation.

It was among the grandest acts in history. It will have more influence over the fortunes of the human race than any act of any other ruler of nations. Scarcely had a short month gone by before it was known to every sitter in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and it shook the policy of every Government in Europe.

Those who sneered at it as a pompous brutem fulminæ forgot that slavery never was restored where it had by supreme authority once been proclaimed abolished! Liberty takes no such steps backward. Slavery had been abolished by proclamation in St. Domingo. It was the attempt to reinstate it that whelmed that island in blood. Anywhere else it will have the same effect.

Lord Russell ridiculed it because it was levelled only at "slavery over territory beyond Mr. Lincoln's control, while all the States and districts held by Federal arms were exempt." This would be a very flimsy objection even if it were true; but it is not true. His lordship forgets that "the Proclamation" was purely a war measure. Humane and sublime as the results may and will be, it was not done as an act of humanity. Its sole immediate object was like that of any other war measure,—to weaken the enemies of the country and strengthen its friends. In this light, of course, the measure was adopted for and intended to apply only to districts in rebellion. It was to take effect there at the cannon's mouth. Slave-labor there was a strong prop of the revolt. It either raised bread and meat on the plantations, or it did the heavy

work of the camp. An able-bodied slave had, from the hour the rebellion began, been as necessary, and often as efficient, as a white soldier in the field. This gave the South half a million extra soldiers.

It would have been no "war measure" to proclaim slavery abolished in the districts which were loyal; for our friends there would thus not only have been punished for their loyalty, but deprived of the very slave-labor aid to strengthen them in fighting our enemies which the Proclamation was intended to rob the rebels of. And, besides, everybody of any sense knew that this Proclamation was not a mere isolated act. It was part and parcel of the imperatively necessary policy of an administration which was charged with the tremendous responsibility of rescuing the republic from an imminent and appalling danger. Universal emancipation of the African race in the United States was embraced in the plan; for the rebellion had made it inevitable.

Several preparatory measures had already passed. The Fugitive-Slave Act had been abolished, slavery itself abolished in the District of Columbia, compensation for slaves voluntarily emancipated proposed, and other measures propitious to the final result.

It was, moreover, entirely unnecessary to touch slavery in the hands of loyal men, for it was perfectly well known that all loyal States and districts would accept the offer of compensation for emancipation, rather than run the terrible risk of losing their slaves, their money, and perhaps, above all, the Federal protection for themselves, their homes and families.

In all such districts immediate or gradual emancipation was

sure to come.

Having thus disposed of this captious and pointless objection, let us briefly inquire what were the immediate and what will be the ultimate results of Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation.

As a war measure, it was the first effectual blow levelled at the heart of the rebellion. It shook the structure to the centre.

It was the last thing the slave-oligarchy had thought of; it came upon them like the trump of doom.

It annihilated all hope of intervention by the Powers of Europe in behalf of the slaveholding rebellion. This they acknowledged themselves. They saw what was clear enough even to the blind,—that the first throne in Europe which took sides with slavery in America against freedom and free government would crumble to ashes in the earthquake of a revolution. This banished all idea of the recognition of Jeff Davis's oligarchy from the brain of every Minister in Europe.

The Proclamation was hailed with enthusiasm by all the uncompromising friends of the Union; and all intelligent men saw that, hastily as the verdict had been rendered sanctioning the act, the approval was the solemn voice of the nation, and the ratification of the deed sounded the death-knell of African slavery. It was the sudden beginning of a swift end.

Students of history! let memory go gleaning over all the fields of the past: you find not an instance recurring in which freedom once proclaimed by the sovereign power as the law of a State ever saw slavery live again. Some systems of wrong once sent to their graves have no resurrection.

But these results were only the first steps in the tread of the earthquake. That earthquake had shaken the world. It startled Cuba; its undulations heaved under Brazil.

Some events are understood just about as well before as after they happen. On the subject of African slavery the voice and example of no nation could be so potential as America's. When slavery was declared abolished in the United States, it meant that it had received its death-wound at the same hour in every other land. If negro slavery fell dead before our altars where liberty was born, it would carry all like systems with it to a common sepulchre.

This Proclamation cut a dead weight from our body politic. Sound and sensible men felt in every nerve of sensation a new, electric shock. East, West, North, South,-everywhere the

vital stream of regenerating fire flowed through the nation. To the East it was a tribute to the dignity of free labor. To the North it promised to roll a new burden of commerce along all her lakes, rivers, and canals, created by the augmentation of well-directed industry. To the South it offered to save her from herself. The foul corpse of Slavery was unlashed from the fair form of Liberty and abandoned to sink forever.

This Proclamation gave us what we had in the beginning, and what we had lost, the commanding post of honor and progress, the van of the nations.

Finally, it cut the Gordian knot of the abolition of slavery in America, and secured the establishment of civilization in Africa.

For the first time we can speak intelligently and rationally of this great work which has been reserved for our emancipated republic to do.

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XXX.

Contempt for Labor the Characteristic only of Slaveholders.

AN oligarchy lives upon forced labor; and therefore labor is by an oligarchy always despised. Where labor can be wrung from unwilling muscles, either by the lash or any other appliance of despotic power, the laborer is held in contempt.

All this holds true of any one of the countless systems of oppression which have disgraced human society. It is true in India, where the work is all done by the slave caste. It was true in Greece, where the Helots were lashed to their toil. It is true in England, where a cessation from hard labor instantly pays the penalty, starvation.

Such a system brutalizes its subjects. It shuts out light and the possibility of knowledge. It is stationary, and precludes progress. It is degrading; for it nurtures nothing but the lower passions. It therefore makes the slave the personifier of those qualities only which excite contempt. Labor is their sole business; and therefore labor is despised. In our country slaves are black: hence the prejudice against color. In the Orient the Cashmere is supremely fair and beautiful. But Cashmere slaves, being used only as instruments of barbaric taste or lust, are admired for their color, while their occupation and condition are the objects of tyrannical disgust. Where higher sentiments spring up, the slave is made free; when the last vestige of degradation is supposed to be blotted out, the emancipated mistress becomes the admired and respected sultana.

Association does it all. An indelicately-dressed bawd is at